Trading Futures by Jim Powell

Trading Futures by Jim Powell

1

What I have decided to do is simple. It is cowardly. It is pathetic. But it is
simple. I shall pull off the road and call home. If my wife has returned, and
if she answers, I will say that my journey has been delayed, that I will be
home at about eight p.m. If she has not returned, if she does not answer, I
will turn the car round, go back to Somerset and stay there. Then I’ll
commence the divorce proceedings.
God, the A303 is a boring road. Is there any more boring road in
England?
If the fifth car that passes me is white, I will stop and make the call. No,
I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Because if it isn’t white, I’ll have to start all
over again and there’s a limit to how many times I can count five cars
without forgetting what number I’ve reached, and then I might find myself
making the call when the fourth car is white, which wouldn’t do at all. Let’s
just say I’ll make the call quite soon.
Perhaps there are some more pills in the glove compartment. I could do
with a few right now. There don’t seem to be. Why do they still call it the
glove compartment? Nobody wears gloves any more. Perhaps the people
who design cars do. If it were up to me, I would call it the gunk
compartment. Everybody has gunk.
I’m pretty pleased with the decision to make this call. Several things
about it appeal to me, most of all its clarity. It is a binary decision. Either
this will happen or that will happen. No third dish appears on the menu. The
vegetarian option is off. Each alternative comes with its own assembly
instructions, and helpful diagrams showing A, B and Z, and something that
may be an Allen key. Or a screwdriver perhaps.
Each alternative will later come with its own consequences. I’m not
interested in the consequences at this point. I couldn’t care less about the
consequences. I want a decision. I want to know what will happen now.
Since I haven’t the faintest idea what I ought to do, it was a brilliant idea to
delegate the decision to an inanimate object. A telephone, in this case. Got
to have confidence in the staff, and inanimate objects are a lot more reliable
than human beings, in my opinion. If you want to get anywhere in life, the
A303 for example, you have to know how to delegate.
If I asked you which was prettier, a cobweb or the Taj Mahal, how would
you answer? Exactly. You couldn’t. You’d say it was a ridiculous question. I
could delegate the question to God, and let God get on with it, but I don’t
really believe in God. In fact, I’m not sure I should be giving him a capital
letter. I’ll withdraw it at once. Words don’t have capital letters when they’re
just thoughts, you may object: thoughts are all in lower case, like websites.
That may be true of other people’s thoughts. Mine do have capital letters,
where appropriate, along with various other formatting.
Where was I? No, I don’t believe in god, at least not today, but I do
believe in Fate. I probably believe in some combination of the two. Let’s
call it Gate for convenience. And I like where Gate seems to be leading me.
Not that I have the first idea where it is leading me. It could be anywhere.
That’s all right. Anywhere will do.
I think the car behind may be following me.
There may be another reason why my decision appeals to me. It’s a
gamble. That’s fashionable these days. You can’t turn on the TV without
seeing adverts for gambling. I think it must be compulsory now. It’s the
next stage in the ascent of capitalism. First phase, the manufacturing
economy. Second phase, the service economy. Third phase, the gambling
economy. I expect we could all earn a decent living by cashing in each
other’s chips.
I have always gambled.
I’ve earned my living by gambling, by betting on whether the price of a
commodity will rise or fall. I have traded futures. We don’t call it gambling,
of course, especially not now. At least, I don’t imagine we do. I wouldn’t
know since I’m not employed in futures any more. I expect we call it, oh I
don’t know, predictive commodity analytics, or something. Only with
capital letters. It would have to have capital letters. And initials. ‘We use
our own PCA model here,’ I expect Rupert Loxley says to his clients, not
that he probably has many clients these days. Serve him fucking right.
It’s not a large step from betting on whether coffee will rise or fall to
betting on whether Matthew Oxenhay will rise or fall, so I’m pretty cool

Trading Futures by Jim Powell