New Hobby

I’m going to start collecting old books.

Of course it sounds very cool to say – you imagine a large air-conditioned room filled with glass cases bearing a first-edition Gutenberg Bible, the very same copy of Romeo and Juliet that Shakespeare used to learn his lines, and possibly the lost plays of Sophocles.

Right. What I’m likely to end up with, if I am extremely lucky, is a couple of worm-eaten first editions from the nineteen twenties and a scrap of paper that looks aged enough for me to claim that it once belonged to Keats.

But how, when you get right down to it, do you start? Going to Crossword and asking the salesperson for an original copy of the First Folio is clearly a bad idea (especially if, as is no doubt the case, some enterprising person in this latter day has written a novel entitled First Folio about how reading the twenty-third line of each play in reverse chronological order will prove that the Dark Lady of the Sonnets was really Cleopatra in disguise).

The ideal – and Calvin-esque – way to begin, naturally, would be to print TIME MACHINE on the side of a large cardboard box, sit inside it, mutter strangely, and emerge an hour later with Cardenio under your arm.

Unfortunately that only works in comic strips.

I could go to Christie’s or Sotheby’s and buy whatever was coming up for auction. I could also have myself declared Empress of the Universe, and appropriate all old books everywhere on earth in the name of intergalactic peace or defending ourselves against the Bonga-Bongas planning to attack from Dimension X or something.

Yup. I think that would be best.

You Are Young, Foolish Trader

With apologies, once more, to Mr. Dodgson:

“You are young, foolish Trader,” the shrewd sage said,

“And you clearly have mountains to learn;

You speak about Ratios, Values and Spread –

Do you plan by this money to earn?”

“I was told,” then the Trader replied to the sage,

“By a teacher both clever and wise

That when you’ve no knowledge the Markets to gauge,

These numbers can bolster your lies!”

“You are young,” said the sage, “and have not yet been trained,

So that first folly I will forgive –

Yet you think all this chaos in books is explained!

Will your job your psychosis outlive?”

“In my college they taught us,” the Trader replied,

“That the answers in books are but few,

But you cannot go wrong with a book as your guide –

For this secret is known just to you.”

“You are young,” said the sage, “and in ignorance speak,

And your brain little learning does hold;

Yet you forecast the state of the Markets each week –

Don’t you think that is fearfully bold?”

“You can learn in each B-School that merits the name

There’s a price for refusing to guess,

And as long as you’ve thought of a scapegoat to blame,

The price of an error is less.”

“You are young,” said the sage, “and I venture to say

There are things even you do not know;

Yet you rival a scholar whose temples are grey

In conceit; tell me, how is this so?”

“I have answered three questions; I’ll answer no more,”

Said the Trader, “I will not partake

Of this half-witted dialogue. There is the door –

Be off! I’ve Excel sheets to make.”