Deja View

I have lived a charmed life:

• A fairly tale upbringing on a country estate with loving parents
• Owner of the world’s coolest record label cum airline
• Extreme adventurer
• Champion of the people – enemy of big business
• My own island in the Caribbean....

... how fortunate I am.

As I slide further into an opiate like haze at 30,000 feet, murky clouds of uncertainty billow into my Neverland. This is not my life. It is the life of that Branson fellow. I make a note to ask the doctor to change my medication.

It is not the first time this has happened.

My airplane makes ready to land at yet another provincial Norwegian airport. I take in the surrounds. The nature is stunning. I could be in Canada... except the people are more beautiful... it’s twice as expensive, and they speak Norwegian. Not really much in it though.

A colleague, of the junior minion variety, is waiting outside in his car. He will transport me to my meetings. He is young, arrogant and unbearable, but functional. I pick up a large black coffee to try to whip up some enthusiasm for the day ahead.

I open the back door to the car. Before he can utter a word, I pull a chauffer’s cap from my leather satchel and toss it onto the front seat.

“Good morning Bjorn, I hope you don’t mind, but I would like you to wear this cap, and please, I am not in the mood for discussion, I have much preparation at hand”, says me.

I open the business papers and check on the overnight markets. They are a mess. There is great uncertainty in the global markets. This feeds my contrarian hunger. I sneer thinking about the great opportunities that will come my way.

The car pulls into a lot with an inauspicious 3 storey building on it. The coffee I have consumed in order to assemble a modicum of energy for my morning meeting has conspired to push my bladder to the tipping point. A mild tremor of pain shoots down my leg.

I patiently ask Bjorn to come around and open the car door for me. I exit the vehicle in a dignified manner, unzip my trousers, and relieve myself on the back wheel of the car. I expel a blood curdling yelp in relief and take cold fresh air into my lungs.

By gods it’s great to be alive.

The receptionist is a Goddess, of the Botticelli variety. I am temporarily stunned by her beauty. She is sheer visual Viagra.

I announce myself. She is smiling devilishly, her eyes wandering between mine, and my lower midriff.

Mild panic sets in. I drop my head.

I have left the drawbridge down... the cavalry appears as if it is mounted... and evidence of the moat has splashed down my trouser leg.

I compose myself.

‘He has a mind of his own’, I smugly offer, shaking my head.

It is not the first time this has happened.

Beaverboosh