MONDAY
Thank God the silly season is at last drawing to a close, and I can look forward to a couple of weeks respite before starting again at Christmas. Having said that, I must admit that this year's round of parties has been the best for a long time, and on behalf of my liver, I would like to thank all those who had the sense of style and perspicacity to invite me to their functions. There are still a couple to go; the MUR lunch on 10th Dec, closely followed by dinner at Nigel Sim's house that evening. I've warned Nigel the odds are pretty good that I'll arrive in an extremely tired and emotional state, but he seems not to mind, telling me that, as he'll also be at the MUR thrash, the chances are he'll be legless as well. I hope his long-suffering wife, Maggie, has been forewarned...
TUESDAY
No doubt some of the more miserable amongst you are fed up hearing about these various events, if only due to jealousy; you must however remember that one of the functions of this column is to provide feedback on who's where and doing what in our industry, and lunches and cocktail parties are so much part of the shipping culture that to ignore reporting on them would be pointless. For example, Penmarine's dinner at the JCC last week was particularly notable, not because of the guests (who in the main were the same old slags plus the welcome addition of Inge Pilskog, Viveka Mansukhani and Pat Hutchins from Oldendorff) but more, in my opinion, for the excellent roast lamb. This, combined with a few litres of the house Cabernet and the good company around the table, made the evening one of the best this season. Squeezing a bottle of Cockburn's out of Shaun Maynard was also fun....
WEDNESDAY
It's not all beer and sex, however; last week there were two very important meetings to attend - firstly, the Shippers' Council met at Transcargo and secondly there was a gathering at FTW to explore ideas for the mooted Shippers' Forum. To begin at the beginning; I must explain that I'm not a member of the SC but was invited along to view the proceedings and to see for myself how they handle matters. The membership is quite blue chip, and all the heavies such as Sasol, Iscor, Sappi, Samancor, PPC etc are represented by senior members of the respective companies, and I was most impressed. A whole host of matters is being handled by the SC and its various sub-committees, including the proposed Portnet privatisation, liaison with Customs over its EDI project, the wharfage issue and many others. All these are areas of concern to all of us, and more shippers should join....
THURSDAY
The FTW conflab involved Rod Eaton (ASABOSA) Des Mooney (SA Freight forwarders Assn) and Rose Blatch (Exporters Club) plus the FTW staff and was the first planning session for a proposed Shippers Forum, an interactive discussion seminar to be held in the New Year. Alan Jones at Safmarine has kindly allowed the use of his auditorium and the idea is to invite members of the industry to ask questions and raise issues with a panel which shall be chosen for its experience in specialised fields such as forwarding, liner agencies, port operations etc. It's all very embryonic at this stage and more meetings are planned, as is a questionnaire in a future FTW to establish which subjects you guys would like to talk about. The forum (or whatever name we eventually call it) is not designed in any way to replace existing training modules, rather to supplement them with verbal interaction. Anyway, that's the idea; maybe it'll fall on its face.......
FRIDAY
This is the 28th consecutive issue of Wharf Rat and believe me when I say that it's not always easy to produce approx 150 words per day, 5 days a week for 28 weeks, and I have now decided to give it a rest for a while. Next week you will be treated to a special event; the Wharf Rat's Christmas Quiz. After that, silence, at least until I find out if I'm YK2 compliant. I have enjoyed writing the column and many of you have been kind enough to compliment me on my efforts over the months; for that I thank you. If the Wharf Rat has achieved anything, it has given me an opportunity to vent my spleen on issues about which I feel deeply and at the same time have a humorous dig at some of the industry's sacred cows. Have a very happy and holy Christmas, and remember; if the Wharf Rat is boring, you have nobody to blame but the people I write about....
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