It’s nice to be the drafter of a well constructed plan
For spending lots of money for the betterment of Man,
But audits are threat, for it is neither games nor fun
To look at plans of yesteryear and ask “what have we done?”
And learning is unpleasant when we have to do it fast,
So it’s pleasanter to contemplate the future than the past.
KE Boulding “Ballad of Ecological Awareness”, Quoted by Stephen Carr in “A brief Review of the History Of Malawian Smallholder Agriculture Over the Past Fifty years” In the Society of Malawi Journal, Volume 57 – Number 2. 2004
CHAPTER 22 CANARY WHARF
Joe Hebron raised himself on an elbow, and watched his wife gently snoring in the grey light of a new dawn.
Effie was beautiful. Not pretty like when they married thirty years before in Atlanta, but very sexy, very elegant, even when snoring.
Joe rested his head on her tummy and wondered how the day would go. How would he get on with Sir James Walter? How on Earth could someone use a knighthood in this day and age? How would a Knight of the Shires get on with the investors in St Louis and Seattle and Los Angeles? And how were things in Atlanta?
Joe woke properly.
There was a buzzing. The door? He felt round for the remote, put the lights on and said “Yes?” on the intercom.
“Sorry Sir. I’m Brunton, your personal butler. You asked for breakfast to be delivered Sir.”
“Oh. Sure.” Yes this was a luxury London hotel. “Sure come on in.”
Joe unlocked the door from the remote and reached for his dressing gown, being careful to pull the bedclothes back over Effie.
Richard Brunton pushed the trolley onto the deep pile carpet. Though really on the top floor of the Northumberland Hotel1 it was more like pushing the trolley into the carpet, the same way you would push it into long grass.
“As ordered Sir.” Brunton took the silver cover off “One Cumberland sausage, Wiltshire gammon steak, Lancaster black pudding and fried free range eggs with freshly squeezed Seville orange juice and hot buttered toast. And one grapefruit and muesli with jersey full cream milk, Sir”
“Oh great.”
“Shall I pull the curtains aside and lay the table Sir?”
“Uh, yeah sure.” Joe was already looking at the computer on the desk.
“Will that be all Sir?”
“Yeah that’s fine.”
“Very good Sir.”
“I guess that guy is after a big tip.” Effie was starting to sit up in bed.
“Yeah sounds like it.”
“Have you been at that computer all night?” Effie was standing up and stretching. Her figure was full and round and she was utterly gorgeous.
“No. Of course not, it just seems like it.”
“Well you sure have a mountain of food to eat.” Effie was standing in front of the window, looking down onto Northumberland Avenue, light glowing through her nightie, silhouetting her figure.
“Looking at you I know what I’d rather make a meal of.”
“Hmm.” She smiled and said “I thought you had an important meeting.”
“Yeah. Worse luck.”
She sat down and her nightie began to move over her breasts as her arms moved over the table, pouring coffee.
“You know you are wonderful. I was so lucky to marry you.”
“I’m the lucky one.” She smiled “Its been thirty wonderful years.”
He bent over and kissed his wife and held her till she said “Come on Joe. Don’t let it get cold.”
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