“Everyone has a book
in them”, is the old adage. The rejoinder is “And for most people that is
exactly where it should stay.
I knew mine would be
different. I had spent 25 years working in the City of London having trained in
one of the most boring professions on earth. Accountancy. Through all that time
I had been burning with envy. The legal profession is arguably even duller than
my own but they have TV series’ and movies coming out of their ears. LA Law,
Allie McBeal and all those John Grisham books/films. The accountancy
profession, as depicted on TV, has Norm from Cheers, the 1980’s US comedy and
Heather from a UK soap called Brookside. She got written out in 1986 and went
on to star in a show about pathologists, but she would never have made it big
portraying an accountant. Lawyers, on the other hand, are sexy and cool. Even
pathologists have more pull than a number cruncher. How did that happen?
I was determined to redress
the balance and write a blockbuster. An expose of the City of London, the
financials scandals laid bare, with a compelling commentary on the social ills
of the UK set in the context of the scandalous excesses of Tony Blair’s Labour
government. After 25 years in the
financial district of the City, I certainly had the material. I wouldn’t even
have to make most of it up. The only problem I envisaged was that if I wrote
about some of the greed and ruthlessness I had witnessed, most people would not
believe me. The book was definitely in
me and I was planning to make a start on it. Tomorrow.
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