My name is Leon and I am going to London". It may have surprised Leon but all 357 people on board the Heathrow-bound plane from Johannesburg were going to London. Right plane, wrong seat. Leon was going to sit next to me. He filled the chair comfortably. So much so that the occupants on either side of him braced themselves for the battle of the bulge.
Leon is an insolvency lawyer, a partner in a practice
based in Pretoria and - a sad comment on the South African economy - he's having a bumper year. "In good or bad times the buggers will always need us." He boasts about the 10% and 12% fees he picks up, depending on whether he's dealing with a "movable" or an "immovable" - asset, presumably. South Africa is still in a phase of transition, and the few assured winners are lawyers like Leon.
Is Leon the kind of man the leaders of South Africa's banking industry refer to when they agonize about the damaging exodus of talent from South African Inc? Let's hope not. But it's a problem that has many people worried.