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Need to tart up your office?

I have just the thing - a used desk, currently failing to meet its ebay reserve of $25,000:

According to the blurb, "The one-of-a kind desks were designed by Gensler Architects and fabricated by Brochstein’s, one of the nation’s premiere manufacturers of custom architectural furniture. According to Brochstein’s, the desks, with an elegant Makore Pommelle veneer, would cost well into five-figures to replicate today".

No, it isn't my desk. It belonged to Ken Lay of Enron.

Rather unfortunately perhaps the most notorious desk of all time, that of Michael Milken, is not showing up in image searches beyond this graphic:



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Blogger The Hitch said... 2:20 pm

hardly likely to be lucky is it?  



Anonymous Anonymous said... 3:08 pm

It's gonna be pretty unlucky for some Texan pooch - from the ebay entry it seems that proceeds go to the 'Saving Animals' fund for spaying & neutering strays!

You get a lot of pairs of scissors for $25 k

Have some *coughs* small connection with Enron myself, I am led to wonder what other surreal goings-on are trailing in its wake  



Blogger Croydonian said... 3:30 pm

Hitch - I guess not. Maybe we should club together and buy it for Gordon. Tell him it was JFK's maybe....

Nick - They are selling Jeff Skilling's desk too, also at $25,000, so Texan domestic animals should head for the border I think.  



Anonymous Anonymous said... 2:32 am

A propos de rien, I have Jacques Brel playing and it's just so awful that he died. I hope he left his money to his lady from Martinique. Whatever became of her?

(I may have been out for a little drinkie, but it is so sad. When we get to Merik, I may burst into tears.)  



Blogger Newmania said... 2:32 am

Reading over all you recent stuff I have a slightly sniffy feeling that I have missed out a bit . The smoking fisk was superb and its all good really.

I could do with a desk with some sort of protective device to obscure my computer screen , and a bleeper to warn me of the aproach of my employer.

Right then back to banging on about the work ethic  



Blogger Newmania said... 2:36 am

I may burst into tears

This is a new side of Verity! Who is Jacques Brel , or was , I should say ?  



Anonymous Anonymous said... 2:55 am

Oh dear, Merik is on. That piano intro is such a killer. And he was so handsome and talented.

And Me Flaterland, me Flanderland!That's why the Belgians have taken over. They love their country.

This calls for another glass of wine. Although I shouldn't. I'm going to to be so embarrassed tomorrow.

Le ciel flamant. Oh dear!  



Anonymous Anonymous said... 3:16 am

I hope Croydonian will be the gentleman he always is and explain away my sadness about Jacques Brel - because tomorrow morning, I may not be feeling well enough to fight my own corner ...  



Blogger Newmania said... 9:46 am

Its so sad he died in 1978.Oh well now I know how to defuse madame Veirty La Triste our lady of Sorrows...a little poignant quote and she`ll be crying like a baby  



Blogger CityUnslicker said... 10:49 am

I went to an auction at Liberace's house in LA once. The whole lot was going up for sale.

There was a particularly nice white leather love seat that took my fancy -alas I did not have the $25,000.

It would not doubt make a great present for The Hitch.  



Blogger Newmania said... 11:49 am

I should imagine that Liberace had a very soft seat indeed given his lifestyle.

Where is Verity ? I am looking forward to taking advantage of her new vulnerability. Mind you I blubbed when I visited Blenheim , they play Churchill`s wartime speeches with sirens and footage and ..its all to much.


We stood alone .....  



Blogger Newmania said... 11:56 am

Brel Trivia

In the comic strip Asterix, the original French version of the adventure Asterix in Belgium quotes Brel. When Asterix, Obelix and Chief Vitalstatistix walk through the flat Belgian landscape, the Belgian chieftain says that "Dans ce plat pays qui est le mien, nous avons des oppidums pour uniques montagnes." ("In my flat country the only mountains we have are 'oppidums'". This is a reference to Brel's song "Le Plat Pays" (The Flat Country) in which he sings that in his flat country, churches are the only mountains.


Hmmm I `m not feeling the love so far . Explain Verity, I `m sorry for being facetious . What is it about this chap that turns you into a blancmange of wobble lipped emotion ? Croydonian is not a gentleman..and I can prove that with exmaples , so there is no point in relying on him.

Out with it !  



Blogger Croydonian said... 12:04 pm

Now this gives me a wonderful opportunity to side from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Jacques Brel is to my mind one of the greatest song writers of the 20th century, and as I have noted before, beginners might like to start on the methadone of the English language cover versions by Scott Walker 'Sings Jacques Brel'. This has, inter alia, 'Amsterdam', 'My Death', the blood chilling 'Next' and 'If you go away'. All highly impressive.

However, as an indicator of how things get lost in translation, 'Ne me quitte pas
Il faut oublier
Tout peut s'oublier
Qui s'enfuit déjà
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus'

is rendered in English as 'If you go away on this summer day, Then you might as well take the sun away;
All the birds that flew in the summer sky, When our love was new and our hearts were high'.
Not quite the same.

Some wag once suggested that the German magazine 'Tempo' was a better reason for learning German than Goethe, and perhaps I might argue that Brel is a more compelling reason to master French than Proust.

And so to the ridiculous: the Liberace museum is to be found in a Vegas mall, and the Rhinestoned one had a piano in *every* room of his house. Oh dear.  



Blogger Croydonian said... 12:05 pm

Damn your black heart Newmania. I am the very model of a preux chevalier.  



Anonymous Anonymous said... 12:10 pm

Food-fight!  



Blogger Newmania said... 2:29 pm

Yes it reminds me a bit of the Eurovision song contest entrants

England: Boom Bang Bang
Sweden : Bang Clap Boom
Greece : Oo ooo bang boom
France :"The Little bird who flies to the Sun is like our love in its soaring but also in its delicacy and and fragility . So farewell my love for I can be your morning bird no longer and must cry alone this Spring morning like the first morning of our love "


Nil Points.  



Anonymous Anonymous said... 4:38 pm

Jacques Brel _ if I remember rightly, he was one of the few man who could carry off a moustache properly...  



Blogger Croydonian said... 4:45 pm

Hmm, I picture him clean shaven, and a google image search has not thrown out any 'tache pics.  



Anonymous Anonymous said... 8:08 pm

David Allen: don't forget Tom Selleck.  



Anonymous Anonymous said... 12:44 am

Croydonian, well, I recovered my equilibrium during the day and I agree about the English version of Ne me quitte pas. It is absolute Bert Bacharat. It ought to have been sung by wossname, Dionne Warwicke, and probably was.

I agree Brel was one of the greatest song writers of the last century (although, whoaahh, maybe not, given Cole Porter and Rogers and Hammerstein,Jules Steyne et tous les autres. But he was good!) And he sang his own songs, and he had a powerful voice and a powerful presence, and the singing in Flemish didn't hurt. (How many times can you say that in life?)

Newmania wrote: France :"The Little bird who flies to the Sun is like our love in its soaring but also in its delicacy and and fragility . So farewell my love for I can be your morning bird no longer and must cry alone this Spring morning like the first morning of our love " That was funny!

But there is just something about Jacques Brel. He was unique.

Aaaaiiiii! It's getting chilly here! Can you believe I live so close to the equator and have had to put on a cardigan? It must be all this global warming! Paging Al Gore. Paging Al Gore. Mr Darwin and his committee would like a word with you.  



Blogger Newmania said... 3:28 am

Praise!!! Oh sweet nectar come let me clutch thee..  



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