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When entering a restaurant charged with the onerous responsibility of reviewing its offer for the discerning readers of EuroWeek while interviewing the best minds in the investment world, it is rare that one feels almost childlike glee.
Restaurants of a certain type, certainly ones that manage to chalk up bills of a Pounds 100 a head, must exude an aura of seriousness. The front of house staff and the waiters speak in reverential tones and this rubs off on the diners who whisper to each other as if plotting some nefarious conspiracy.
Rarely do the crashing chords of Pete Townshend and the deft brutalism of Keith Moon's drumming come to mind. But as I was shepherded to a table by a window at Oblix, that was the soundtrack playing in my mind. "I can see for miles and miles/ I can see for miles and miles/ I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles/ Oh yeah."
Next, I found myself reaching for my iPhone and incontinently snapping photos like a Japanese salary man on his first trip to London. Fortunately, my guest, Ted Hood, CEO of exchange traded products provider, Source, did not have to witness this undignified display. By the time he arrived a stabilizing glass of kir had restored my settings to default London insouciance. It was just as well, because Hood clearly has ice running through his veins.
Almost exactly a year earlier, Hood had abseiled down the Shard, starting at the top, some 55 storeys higher than my Oblix perch. As he took his seat and admired the view there were no obvious signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. Says Hood: "The worst moment was before I got on the rope. You climb up the last nine floors...