MISSED THE BOAT...

In January I was given a gift. It came in the form of two words = Baillie Gifford

Their share price was touted around in early 2013 as one to watch or, if you had the balls/foresight, to invest in. At the time it was 150p per share.

Baillie Gifford Japan Trust plc are a securities house that invest funds across a range of Japanese companies, property and other investments to make other people money and themselves a good cut of the profit. Despite my interest in Japan and things Japanese (and I don't just mean the japanese girls comments I've made in the past!) I didn't do anything about it.

Lately though, the news has been full of the turnaround in the Japanese economy that has been made in the last 5 months, mainly being attributed to the new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - last weeks' Economist magazine even hailed him a Superman!

The Nikkei Index, Tokyo's main stock tracker index has gone up in value by 55% in the last 5 months.

So, I checked the stock price for Baillie Gifford again today. Rightly enough it has gone up. But I wasn't quite ready for the magnitude of the gain.

Currently priced at 312p per share, a gain had I had the balls (?) of 108%, dwarfing the 55% general index increase...

Sat here in May those two words have turned into one.

Balls...
 

ねこ (neko)..

This page caught my eye this morning while random browsing was taking place..

click here

It contains some of the best photo shots of cats I've ever seen (neko is Japanese for cat by the way). Crystal clear, sharp images. Just beautiful.

Not my usual subject but there it is. Posted. Done.

THINGS JAPANESE..

A random and meandering blog (sorry) that is inspired by an in-joke between my and my partner -
that will necessarily be less 'in-' and more 'out' after this blog..

So, here it is world.. dah, dah da da (cue drum roll and all that).. I have a thing for Japanese girls. Not a dark secret, not sinister. In fact, something I'm quite proud of really!

It all started in 1986. I hot-footed my ass down to London in search of golden pavements. In a way, I found mine for a while - working in the City in a new trading department dealing in Government Bond Futures contracts.. Japanese ones to be exact. New instruments. New world. Loadsa dosh etc etc and all those other 80s emotions!

I worked for Diawa Europe, a Japanese Securities House. As their current website states, your insight to asian financial markets..

During my time there I had ample chance to learn a bit about Japanese culture, food (as we regularly worked late nights to settle trading positions with Japan overnight we had fresh Japanese food in the office each evening for free - heaven!). And the best bit was yet to come.

All of the Directors were Japanese imports. Unsurprisingly. But their daughters (never did see any sons - but maybe I wasn't looking?) often dropped by the office to grab Daddy's gold card (when gold cards were only for people who were earning the really big money not just anyone who wanted one). As an 18 year old kid from a 99.9% 80s white town my eyes were truly opened! For me Daiwa Europe was more like my insight into asian females. Don't get me wrong, I don't like other Asian looks at all but Japanese girls hold a special place for me.

In the Wag Club with a friend one Saturday I fell over myself and fell in love with one Japanese girl in particular. Truly beautiful. My only problem was that she had only just hit London, her dad was an investment banker or some such and she had moved over to attend the esteemed Japanese College in London. I managed to be able to buy her a drink - which turned out in relative terms to be as expensive as the drinks are nowadays in Tokyo! Well, the Wag Club was THE place to be at that time. Derek B and Yazz on the turntables. Gilles Peterson with his new Talkin' Loud sound. House music exploding all over the place etc.


One problem. My Japanese language skills in those days didn't extend much further than a few numbers, yes, no and ham and egg sandwich (honestly - hamu eggu sandoicchi.. see it's not that difficult!). Ishiko or Michiko (whatever!) knew less English than I did Japanese. Not surprising the conversation didn't go very far. But hey! I have the memory!

After that, Japanese life was a barren desert for many a year. I moved back up North, to a city with very few Japanese faces in it (in those days, less so now after a few successful inward investment projects). I quickly forgot about my Japanese fetish (apart from sporadic Yohji Yamamoto clothes purchases) and got on with my life. Probably for the best!

Then, recently I re-visited early 90s band Sultans of Ping on my mp3 player (and went to see them too - which I can't recommend highly enough). Their song I Like Japanese Girls reminded me of the old days and my partner has wound me up about it from time to time in our healthy rivalrous way. It is funny. It is a fetish. It is, let's face it, part of what makes Polko Polko.


So, there it is. It's out. Polko likes Japanese Girls... Cool cool cool cool Japanese Girls...

vid link here if you're interested!

and this is just funny!