With Ravi Shankar on the stereo, the sun is hot and I’m squinting up the road imagining a different place. It’s not the B430 for Junction 10 (of the M40) anymore it’s the road to Chennai, or some other dusty place far, far away. For a moment I am transported and my heart quickens. Christ, there are animals all over the road - I swing the wheel of the car this way and that - and thin people loping along the verges. The only people you occasionally see along here are litter pickers and the unlucky.
I once hitchhiked out of the West Country and stood all day on the slip to the M5. I’d walked most of the way to Exeter, slept on the moors and in a field, and I was dog tired. There were a lot of solo drivers whizzing past that day, so much for no journey wasted. Perhaps it was the large backpack that put them off, or the crumpled friend, or the slug in my matted hair.
It used to be okay to hitch (from the right spot) and pick folk up but everybody's got the fear now. As a student, taking the train would mean blowing the ents budget for the week, so it was necessary at times to do a bit of hitching, or fare dodging. Problem with fare dodging is when you get away with it, it’s a party, when you pay and no one checks your ticket, it’s a party you missed out on. Also the adrenal buzz, the thud of your heart until your hearing starts to go numb, is addictive. Definitely preferable to the ‘walking dead’ of jaded commuters - that’s when you’re 18.
The cash has all dried up this month so the spares I need for my trip to Le Mans on the Black Bullet will have to part of June’s budget. Hitchcocks are pretty reliable so I’ve no concerns about getting them in time. It's just a shame the self-invested part of my portfolio is so long in the doldrums. I've decided to draw back from shares and shore up my cash position, via an ISA, the outlook is not rosy and I'm beginning to feel a bit 'exposed'.
Europa Oil’s MD has stepped down, giving me cause to suspect he pulled some levers to inflate the settlement value of his retirement package about the time I bought my shares [LON:EOG]. I don’t know what mechanisms are available to a man in his position but what a coincidence otherwise. The share price peaked when I read this interview with him that convinced me and probably lots of others to buy in. And all the while he must have known he was going to step down a few weeks later. I’m learning the hard way, but I’m not disheartened, just frustrated.
But, heck, to hell with all that. Congratulations to Nick and Catherine on the new arrival. Well done everybody.
