The week started off with a press party hosted by a major US bank, which hired out a Hawaiian tiki bar for no reason I could surmise. Perhaps this bank was trying to underscore its leading position in the market for cocktail umbrella manufacturers, a clear growth industry. Or maybe they simply wanted to tempt journalists to don silly Hawaiian shirts, an effort that evidently failed.
It was the sort of the night that starts too officially, with confident pronouncements of market growth and talk of synergies, but that ends less so, with that natural carefree attitude that journalists and bankers adopt after one too many.
It continued with a dear old friend who has appeared too many times in these pages. We started at Solas, reopened under the old name, and continued down into the depths of the Lebanese libertines: where beer maketh man and man maketh the kebab order.
Next week promises more of the same, including a trip to Singapore to imbibe with the bond market’s finest. Since debt bankers are not world-renowned for their unwillingness to live the Bacchanalian lifestyle, there is a good chance this will only continue the long run of drinking that masquerades as networking.
Perhaps I’ll shift to water. Or perhaps I’ll simply give myself some fodder for the next column. Keep your eyes peeled.