I have just returned from a non-too-successful marketing tour in Amsterdam, in which I struggled through a dinner with ABN-Clogbank's chief chap Dirk Van Hoegaarden. It was going nowhere until his charming wife turned up looking stunning, dripping with diamonds from head to toe, and sporting a Persian tiara that she'd happened upon in a quaint little junk shop near the Herengracht.
Conversation sparkled as Dirk regaled his wife with various companies about to merge, directors about to resign, and how a small biplane had missed the runway at Schiphol and hit 18 prize cows known as the Queens of Rotterdam. Dirk says the cheese industry is in mourning.
Sadly Rosana Van Hoegaarden has to leave after the fish course to phone her "hairdresser," leaving Dirk and me to drink brandy late into the night, me assured that some sort of mandate is in the bag.
I wake up the next morning in the crazy world of Dutch affairs to find Dirk's gone, and Hank Van Amstel's now in charge. I ask if I can take him and his lovely wife out to dinner maybe we can gossip about stocks? only to have the phone slammed down on me.