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Oh! to be in England . . .
Nephew Wilde
The beautiful thing about going abroad is that it always makes one appreciate home so much more. The verse of Wordworth, "I travelled among unknown men In lands beyond the sea; Nor, England did I know till then What love I bore to thee" truly, expresses my feelings on this matter. But never before have I felt more relieved to return from a holiday than I did last week after a few days spent in Norway. Admittedly the scenery was fine but I have come across more interesting views in the back streets of Soho. And oh! what a cost one pays, too. The exorbitantly high prices in Oslo, for instance, have forced the locals to do all their entertaining at home with the result that several restaurants have closed down and the few that are left open charge almost prohibitive tariffs.
On my last night with the choice of seeing either Cinderella at Oslo's one theatre, or Fiddler on the Roof (in Norwegian), I stayed in my hotel. As an example of the costs I can only say that a bottle of Beaujolais which tasted like sour grapes sent me reaching for £3.50 out of already depleted funds.
As for the people themselves they have at least attained a reasonably proficient command of the English language but they have lost most of their Viking glamour and certainly show none of the pluck displayed by our own workers in demanding more of their fair share of the higher standard of living. I always hold in admiration our miners for the way they stuck up for their rights. Whatever else foreigners call us I do not think that ` spineless ' would be the right adjective to describe the English.
So back I came and mightily cheerful at that. And when I telephoned Wotherspool I firmly expected him to be able to report something encouraging about the state of the Stock Market. On the contrary, however, he was rather glum. "Things are tedious, old chap," he sighed, "and we haven't even got the Olympics to watch. At least a few weeks ago when things were flat and no one was dealing we could pop up to the TV room in the Exchange and bet on the 1,500 metres or whether the British competitor in the javelin would come last or not."
He really had nothing to offer in the way of an investment recommendation and frankly said he thought I should be in no hurry to buy unless I wanted to make an outright punt on P&O's bid for Bovis succeeding. So in despair I rang Uncle George but he had just left for the Bahamas, lucky fellow. So rather than do anything rash I have decided to stay out of the market this week and, in order to have some funds up my sleeve have sold Kinross. Unfortunately I missed taking a profit just ahead of the news of the drop in the gold price. I find some consolation that Sabina has recovered partly, which does say something for trying to "average out."
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