On Wednesday, another good reason to turn them down materialised: they can be jolly, but not necessarily smooth. One of my more senior colleagues was invited to go and see a Euro 2008 championship football match in Switzerland by one of the leading banks in FX – one that didn’t even bother asking me.
I rang him early in the morning, and he told me he was waiting for his delayed flight from London City Airport to take off. He asked me to ring him in the afternoon. “I’m having an absolute mare,” he told me. “We’re now stuck on the tarmac at Heathrow and if we get off soon, we should just about get to the game on time.” Jollies, they’re not really worth it, are they?