6 DECEMBER 1997, Page 32

Robin's song

NATWEST Markets has vanished in a clearance sale and the new owners talk of bringing back the fine old name of Wood Mackenzie. I would expect this to inspire Robin Angus, the firm's aphorist Can insur- ance company is an investment trust with an expensive hobby') and poet. Some time ago he was at work on his own version of the Duke of Plaza Toro's song:

In enterprise of business kind, when clients ask him questions, The answers he can seldom find, he'll make some vague suggestions, He'll waffle on with phone in hand while searching files in frenzy - The celebrated, cultivated, underrated analyst who works for Wood Mackenzie! Whene'er a client calls, ha, ha, you'll hear him talk such . . .

He was looking for a suitable internal rhyme when Big Bang intervened and he left the verse unfinished. May his muse return.