Almost Pirate Gold

I think you could count winning the lottery as luck. There are other times that might appear to be simple luck, but I think there’s more to it than that—I think it’s the brain doing a computer-like calculation and telling you to take a certain course of action.

One of those times occurred to me in the 1980’s when I was between sea voyages and living in Toronto. My friend Jan Creba bought me a book written by Morton Shulman—How to Invest your Money and Profit from Inflation. Why she bought me the book, I have no idea. I had no knowledge of—or interest in—investing at the time.

But I’d always been fascinated by gold (the pirate treasure kind), so it was Mort’s section on the magical yellow metal that caught my attention. He made three basic suggestions as I recall, ranging from the conservative to the rather bold. I opted for the latter which, if memory serves, went something like this: If you have $10,000 that you can afford to lose, buy gold futures.

What possessed me to follow the advice of this writer I’d never heard of before? Who knows…that little computer brain thing perhaps. Anyway, I began my investment career with two futures contracts. Whenever gold went up a dollar, I made $200. I bought the contracts when it was just over $400 an ounce and it began shooting up.

The whole thing worked out rather well for me—over the course of around three months I made about $140,000. At one time I held six contracts. I remember the time as a wild, roller-coaster ride.

Another benefit of my little foray into the investment world was the free food and grog. Friends and acquaintances were desperate to discover the secret of my success so there was rarely a day went by that I didn’t have an invitation to lunch or dinner. I started off by telling the truth—that I’d been given a book and I was simply following its advice—but no one wanted to believe it was that simple and after forking out for the food and booze, they’d leave disappointed.

So I began to make stuff up. I’d draw meaningless graphs on napkins and fire off a bunch of statistics—the kind of stuff stock brokers waffle on about to convince you to buy. Stuff that kind of validates what’s already happened but has no bearing whatsoever on the future.

But the bulls--t appeared to be more palatable to my hosts. At the end of the meal, they’d tuck their napkin graphs carefully into pockets and smilingly pay the bill, as if they’d absorbed some great wisdom.

Toward the end of the ride, when gold was up over $800 per ounce, it began to waver. But good old Mort had left instructions for such a circumstance. Buy short, he advised, at the first signs of weakness. And so I did. I was now making money as it began to go down.

Funny though—people don’t always appreciate success when it’s you who’s enjoying it rather than them. I was walking into my local bar one night when someone I vaguely knew was leaving. “How’s your gold doing now?” he pipes up with a gleeful smirk on his face.

“Fine thanks,” I replied politely. “I bought short.” The grin dropped from his face like a rock.

How come I wasn’t invited to help spend the loot? Davina

Amsterdam

Amsterdam. My favourite city of all those I’ve visited.

When you mention Amsterdam, most people think in terms of puffing pot in cafés and window shopping in the Red Light District. But these unique aspects of the place are simply the result of what I like about the city—its tolerance and quirkiness.

A couple of examples:

I was staying with Derek, an old friend from my Gibraltar days. His apartment was above a bar called Babbles in an area known as ‘The Pipe’—right near the Heineken brewery (a rather unfortunate location for a sober lad like myself).

A couple of 'Babbles' regulars

Around two o’clock one morning, after the bar closed, Cappy the manager decided it would be a good time to have a barbecue on the patio. There were about five of us as I recall. Obviously, after a night at the trough, all of us had consumed quite a few ales—and we weren’t about to slow down while we waited for the charcoal to get the right glow.

So I guess our voices were a little loud. They had to be in order for us to converse above the music. Needless to say it wasn’t too long before a police car arrived.

The two officers—a man and a woman—did not act at all aggressively. But Cappy took exception to their mere presence. “Fook off you Gestapo bastards,” he yelled, before either of them had even said a word. (Cappy was Dutch but spoke English for our benefit I guess). He then proceeded to throw a couple of raw steaks at them, which they managed to dodge.

In parts of North America you could be shot for something like this. In Amsterdam, one of the cops yelled out for us to keep the noise down then the two of them got back in their car and drove off – taking their steaks with them!

Another time, shortly after I arrived there, a few of us were sitting out on the patio on a sunny spring day having a late morning beer as we watched the goings-on in the street.

Derek suddenly sat up in his chair, focussed his gaze on a far corner and said, “This should be interesting lads. The Colombians are setting up a deal.” He nodded toward the corner. “There’s the point man. In a couple of minutes one of them will walk by here to the other corner…”

Spider, Cappy, Derek

Derek had seen it all before and rattled off the moves as if he’d choreographed the whole thing himself. There was quite a bustle of activity involving the comings and goings of swarthy gentlemen and cars driving past. We had a ringside seat.

When the whole business was over and we’re settling back in our seats, an old lady pipes up from the street, “Did any of you boys drop this?” She’s holding up a Beretta 9mm by the trigger guard. We were all obviously a little taken aback. Not so much that the Colombians might be carrying pistols and one of them dropped the thing, but that this sweet-looking lady wasn’t shrieking in alarm.

Spider was the first to recover. “Oh, thank you,” he says, getting to his feet. “Yes, that’s mine.”

Sounds like I’m making this stuff up but I’m not. Amsterdam is truly a one-off. I spent six months there and there was always something interesting going on.

Oh yes, right—tolerance and quirkiness. Try hookers and pot!

Davina