Credit Management March 2020

VIEW FROM THE SEA FRONT
Spanish Fly
Despite some EU gloating, it appears that we are
perhaps not going to hell in a handcart.
PLAYING tennis against an
Argentinian guy the other
day, I was on the receiving
end of a particularly
vicious forehand drive.
HA! shouted my glowering
opponent. ‘Put that in your out-of-the-EU
pipe and smoke it!!’.
Commendable English I thought, even
as my shoulders began to droop in the
face of my impending defeat. Masterly
command of the colloquial idiom. Dix
points, whatever that it is in Spanish.
Beaming across the net as we shook
hands following the inevitable stuffing,
my opponent, George, a 40-something
property developer, followed through
with the chop to the back of the knee:
‘So, that was for the Falklands…and now
once again your little island is fighting
on its own – how does it feel,’ he added,
breaking into the well-known Dylan tune,
‘to be don your owwww-nnnnnnnnn, no
direction hoo-oooomeee.’
George, who you by now will have
gathered is not just fiercely accomplished
in tennis combat, but a multi linguist
with a facility for crafty humour that we
Brits appear to have left behind around
three years ago. I like George. He’s a very
successful business guy, pragmatic and
with the kind of international perspective
that comes easy to the highly educated
progeny of ‘good’ south American
families. I can forgive him for being an
annoyingly good tennis player. He is also
good looking. The swine.
Whenever I travel abroad – fairly
frequently – I’m aware of the UK being
something of a cause for mirth. It’s a
now familiar refrain. Why are you so
fragmented? Why do you lot loathe each
other so much? What happened to your
legendary sense of national unity, the
bulldog spirit? You know the kind of thing.
Deep societal fissures are not unique
to the UK of course. Ideologies have
fractured societies for centuries. Think of
East and West Germany, only reconciled
in 1989, of north and south Korea, of Hong
Kong and the Chinese mainland, of Greek
and Turkish Cypriots…the list is long
and all carry stories of dreadful anguish
and familial horrors. But let’s look at the
positives.
A few months into 2020, as the first
shoots of spring begin to appear, there
now appear to be several indicators that
we are not after all going to go to Hell in a
handcart. Our economy is strengthening,
the UK property market is showing real
signs of a much-needed resurgence,
and we have nigh on full employment.
It just needs our train system to work,
and things could be genuinely rosy once
again, perhaps not pre-crash levels this
year, but by 2021, I for one would not bet
against it.
New long-term infrastructural projects
are being planned, with the promise of
enormous investment, both domestically
and overseas. We may have been
something of a voyeuristic basket case
to our European neighbours in recent
years, but you know what – things are
looking pretty good.
LITTLE BRITAIN
On a recent trip to the Costa del Sol –
or Costa Del Boy Crime as the local ex
pat wags call it – there is a distinctly
upbeat mood following several years of
wondering whether to get the heck out of
Dodge.
Enjoying his morning pint (yes, it
was just 9:00 local time, but ‘the rules
don’t apply out here, Dave, know wot I
Advancing the credit profession / www.cicm.com / March 2020 / PAGE 28