Waves, Patterns & Projections (2003)

You should be thankful for small mercies. You can have my life if you like - in March my wife ran off with a 'TV chef', who promptly dumped her; I now live in a rented apartment by myself paying rent of £950 per month. The wife returned to the family home, which is on the market but not yet sold. So I'm stumping up for the £280,000 mortgage and the school fees for my two sons. Also in March I lost £20,000 on the ICI profits warning and spent the next three months trying to get the money back. My wife wants 'half of everything' including the pension fund, so at 47 I'm living alone and having to plan to rebuild my pension fund.

The only saving grace is that I now realise, after nine months of living by myself, that my wife has done me an enormous favour and I had lived the last twenty years with her in a life of misery.

So I'll swap my year for yours if you like, except you can keep my wife.

One good thing did happen - I was a guest speaker on a cruise in the summer (talking about world financial markets) and a young lady knocked on my cabin door at midnight one night. She stood there holding a Campari with a knowing look on her face. Well, what could I do? Being a gentleman I invited her inside, and then got seven hours of total rampant sex. I'd never been raped before, and I walked with a limp for three days.

I've seen her several times since, and have a date with her for new year's eve. Nice girl (ahem).

So why do you think I'm spending so much time and energy searching for the market top? Yes - life has been a fuck and when I sense that the time is right I intend to go for a make or break short. I'll have that fucking villa in France come hell or high water. And I'll have the fucking yacht as well.

Yep.