X'mas again

Tis the time for X'mas celebrations again! Lunches, dinners, drinks, get togethers of all sorts...

Friends got together today for a X'mas luncheon starting with champagne at 11. It must have been a 5 or 6 hour lunch which ended up at one of our favourite watering holes thereafter. All seems to have been forgotten during this time abyss today -- by the time everyone crawled onto the comfort of their beds.

It's a culture of sorts to have long X'mas luncheons; and the Westerners have lived it up even though they're in Asia. Before we get into November, plannings and bookings would already have been underway for the early birds will get the best choices of restaurants and the best deals. It's a kind of reward for the year's hard work which everyone is deemed to have put in, especially in a tough year like this has been. I wonder what the bankers are doing in New York and how they're going about their traditional long and expensive luncheons.

My guess is that the bulk of their discussions would have been on how to pay themselves fat bonuses without raising the ire of taxpayers and government officials who are using taxpayers' money to bail their banks out of the mess created by their mismanagement. And I wonder how many of those taxpayers can afford to savour the Dom Perignons that this bankers down in their celebratory X'mas dos. In George Orwell's Animal Farm, there're words to the effect that all men are equals but some are more equal than others. Perhaps Orwell saw something which we are only beginning to realize.