Madrid sunny & 20 degrees - MNS also Warming Up!, page-4

Hola, 1973, chica mio bonito y chica...like many of us, I have missed your dulcet tones, your passionate midnight soliloquys. Recognising your need for solitude and recuperation I've respected your retreat - and how very like you to seek your spiritual regeneration 'mongst the hot-blooded young gods of the Iberian Peninsula. I trust you found time to wend your restless way to Sitges...

Many of us brethren have, like you, politely sidestepped this place over recent months, driven from our rightful court of genial, hopeful fraternity by a cascading progression of grumps, frumps, frighteners, fakes, doom and gloomers, turncoats and tyre-kickers, rival G pickers and rival G tricksters...an ear-splitting screech of tyre-kicking tedium. '73 - my dear boy/girl - withdrawal was the wisest course (first time ever you've heard a suitor utter that phrase, I'll wager): those of us who gamely plucked it out can now boast ignore chambers more bursting at the seams than even the snuggest of your splendid collection of sequined strap-down thongs, so relentless has been the pointless noise.

Thank HC for their electronic earmuff function, is all I can say. First rate moderation, indeed.

But enough of the quieted brigade. Like you, I sense up-lit sunlands just over yon gentle grassed slope. Forgive me if I coyly decline to place such trust merely in your mystic and her vision: as you know I am a staid and conservative investor, more suited to the plod, plod, plod of careful strategic analysis and resolute adherence to the FA long view. I am also a great believer in leadership, and of relinquished hard dollars from directors as a particularly powerful and blessedly silent (non-holding bleaters take note!) manifestation of it.

There is nothing like skin, skin, lots of lovely flashed skin in the game. As you often say. Nod to our superb Board, management and office teams, and our Director especially, as ever.

But it's of little import how each of us reach our investment destinations, '73. As you also often say: it matters not how you each get there, gentlemen, so long as we all come together. It's a spec, of course, and all I have ever really learned about the specs over the years is that...they are speculations. Nothing is assured. Not ever. The world might change tomorrow. Always. So all we can each do is continue to follow our own game, mind our own manners, keep our yearning hearts hopeful and pure. They go low, we go high. (Or 'get', as you also also say, '73...)

Still. It's good to hold what you hold, my dear boy/girl. So deftly, so lightly, yet so firmly, so unwaveringly, be it thick or thin, rough or smooth, frightening or fair or foul. You are a steadfast beacon and a soaring muse, a shining, shimmering light upon our hill - may we all mount you as one, at the finish. No: there is no place I would rather be speculating right now, than with thee.

The usual good luck to all G holders, everywhere. And smile, everyone! This is supposed to be fun, too. It's only money, and we are all of us in the G game for the same decent, thrilling, scary reasons: to make a buck, while making the world a bit better, wealthier, fairer and cleaner place for our kids, and especially for the kids of those in the faraway places where we are risking our hard-earned money. Even the snarkiest MNS non-holder is a genuine believer in the worth and power of capitalism, done right. So good luck to us all.

And welcome home, 1973. Huzzah! on the morrow, and for the weeks and months to come, brethren one and all.

PS: One final, shy welcome note, '73. You spoke in glowing terms earlier of - indeed, the site seems awash with news and free advertising of - a most excellent chandler of first class household goods to the south of Australia's finest and only truly global city. I have heard tell of this place, and, my interest piqued by the enthusiastic endorsements that have bombarded this chat room recently, I had my people make some enquiries. Well, 1973: so dazzled was I by the professionalism of this merchant and the quality of his wares - he is not simply an artisan, as you rightly say, but a true artist! - that me and the boys and girls here in the sauna have passed the hat about and commissioned a bespoke seven poster canopy bed for your boudoir, as a combination welcome home and (we hope) celebration gift. It was a challenging commission. I wanted it in a classic style (after the Qing Dynasty) but with ruthlessly modern appointments and some sly personalised nods, too. Not to give too much away, but it's to be mirrored, of course, and fully waterproofed (I know you like saunas, too), with embedded screens (for the stock feeds that get your blood fizzing) and the usual buzzing, bumping and grinding mechanics. But there will also be gilded portraits of The Franks in the headboards, and polished finials of the finest, purest, richest graphite ore known to Mankind, sourced, of course, from...oh, but hush, lest I breathlessly give too much away.