Evil Diaries: Self-Regarding Visitors To Davos

I may be missing something but it seems to me that the promoters of the World Economic Forum at Davos have pulled off a great con trick. For it is a fact that many “leaders” of industry think that they are important above and beyond their ability to manage a business – for which latter skill they were recruited. Therefore a couple of years ago these “leaders” reckoned it was a proper expenditure for their companies to shell out USD70,000 so to attend Davos. It is now USD250,000. This suggests that one should steer well clear of the shares of these leaders’ companies. For we are here looking at the nature of false religions.

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I understand that the withdrawal of the VAT rebate scheme for visitors from offshore territories has had a deleterious effect upon trade. Obviously there must be a temptation for a domestic shopper to recruit an offshore shopper to front for him or her. But leaving aside that, once proven, this is a criminal offence, the visitor from offshore spends a lot of dough in UK hotels, restaurants and, no doubt, other areas of expenditure where the VAT rebate does not apply. No rebate often means no visit.

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For some years I have been banging on about the scandalous cheating that goes on in the world of forex dealing by British banks. However, within a few months, it should be possible for those wishing to deal in forex to switch funds to companies dedicated to providing a fair deal since they are to be regulated by the BoE. And about time too.

Of course, Britain’s high street banks will then seek to compete but only on their terms which will be ludicrously unattractive.

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Forty years ago I looked after the affairs of a tiny company in Dublin renting out televisions. I attended to matters in two days maximum a year. But since I have always been an early riser I found myself in an aged bookshop one morning at about 8.00 a.m. and listening to two old ladies who ran and presumably owned the business. Their language was enchanting.

On returning to London, it was pointed out to me that the best English is spoken in Dublin. This observation is surely correct.

Just recently BBC Radio 4 has featured a late night programme Now You’re Asking where a Marian Keyes and a Tara Flynn offer their witty and philosophical views. I strongly recommend it. Thus, in search of their views in general, I Googled away and thereby alighted upon a 1993 Irish TV programme, The Late Late Show, and so stumbled upon an hour of one Annie Murphy who had had an affair with Bishop Eamon Casey, a Roman Catholic, and thus bore a son, Peter who would now be about fifty years old. Annie enthralled me with her manner and responses. I suggest that if you have the hour deploy it here on YouTube “1993: The most talked-about woman in Ireland today”.