Last week I was over in France again delivering tents to our Dutch agent Jean Peirre. Now we do this about once a month and then I usually go to Normandy once a month to delivery to Dead Man’s Corner. They are long days but constructive days as you have to think, clear your mind and get some ‘planning’ done.
But without fail, every time I go through customs I get pulled. It doesn’t matter who else is around – it is just me. You could have a T 54 main battle tank roll through customs and they would just way it through…The see me in a higher van and that’s it! The SAS abseil down from helicopters, armed police pop out of dustbin and the whole of the docks get locked down.
Last week on my way back and clearing through Dover I got pulled and the conversation went like this:
Customs guy (CG) – morning Sir, where have you come from?
Me (Me) – erm Dorset
CG – Sir the ferry has just come from Dunkerque NOT Dorset
Me – oh yes sorry (couldn’t speak at this point as my mouth had dried up) I have just come from Dunkerque..
CG – yes clearly, how long have you been there?
Me – 52 minutes.
CG – 52 minutes – WHAT were you doing there?
Me – meeting a guy in a car park and delivering some stuff…
CG – stuff?
Me – yes stuff
CG – what sort of stuff SIR…
Me – Tents!
CG – tents?
Me – yes tents! In fact we are the worlds leading supplier of authentic WWII tents. We send them all of the world and supply film and TV companies. In fact our Dutch dealer makes major sales, in deed since the beginning of the recession he has seen his sale grow month on month.
Furthermore GBP performance was the positive surprise yesterday, supported by a 'Don't panic' article in The Times and some other pound-friendly writings. The pound gained a cent versus the euro as some economists warned the Bank of Eng¬land not to be fooled into pumping too much money into the economy on the back of Friday’s unexpectedly weak GDP figures. Many analysts said that the economy was stronger than the official figures suggested. Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, which produces the monthly purchasing managers’ indexes, said he was bemused by data suggesting Britain was still in recession while other European countries were pulling out.
Part of the criticism of the figures was because economists got their predic¬tions wrong, but it also reflected deeper concern about the data’s reliability.
Economists at Goldman Sachs published a detailed research note saying that the GDP figures were not only inconsistent with the purchasing managers’ surveys but that they were hard to square with other official data. Goldman Sachs also said that sterling is heavily undervalued according to purchasing power parity theory.
CG – thank you Sir, please move on now…………..
