It was very different in the 1980s. Every chap in London finance had a double-barrelled name, and half the City had gone to school with each other. One such chap was a fellow I'll identify here only as Hugo. Hugo possessed three qualities considered invaluable in 1980s finance. An excellent tailor, tremendous self-confidence and a father who shot grouse with one of our directors. What he did not possess, however, was any discernible aptitude for finance. Calamity after calamity befell him, but each time he was simply shifted to another department. By the time I left London, he had failed upwards through trading, corporate finance and institutional sales. I ran into him years later at a dinner. He was running something in private banking. "Found my niche eventually," he told me. I remember thinking that he had. His niche was the British establishment.