Bosses -- be careful what you wish for
There are some jobs that require a person to display the kind of hard-headed ruthlessness and complete disregard for the feelings of others which just wouldn't be acceptable in polite society -- think professional footballers, traffic wardens and Irish models. And then there is the murky world of financial trading.
Renowned for being home to testosterone-fuelled, braces-wearing gobshites who earn millions every day before inevitably losing it all and chucking themselves out of their office window, New York traders are a strange bunch. And they don't come much stranger than trader Andrew Tong, who is currently suing his employers SAC Capital Advisers.
Renowned for his aggressive trading style, he was persuaded by his boss, Ping Jiang, to take black market hormone tablets to curb his aggression and become a little bit more feminine.
Well, they worked. Tong claims that he soon began to feel physical and emotional distress and took to wearing women's clothing. Oh, he also ended up sleeping with the boss.
This is all very odd but what is frankly freaky is that iSpy's boss handed us this story with a comment about the column being a bit overly macho lately. And I think he may have winked when he said it. (Actually, it's just a nervous twitch -- Ed).
WHEN CHOCOLATIERS ATTACK
Forget about trading -- it seems that the luscious world of chocolate-making has its fair share of nutters as well.
Barry Colenso is master chocolatier at the Thornton's chain of shops -- but he seems to have a rather destructive side to him.
In what must rank as one of the most brilliantly bizarre acts of vandalism in recent eons, Colenso was caught by staff at a rival shop wrecking their best chocolate truffles.
After watching Colenso repeatedly pressing his thumb down into the sweeties, staff commented that: "He was handling a number of truffles in a way that made us suspicious. When we checked the truffles, they had been squashed and damaged."
And another staff member said: "This was an extraordinary act of truffle squishing."
Staff at Thornton's have braced themselves for the inevitable retaliation, and are currently ensconced in a gingerbread safe house until the dust settles.
BEWARE THE SATANIC SEDUCERS
Looked at objectively, the Vatican is a gayer place than Bingo night at the George -- all those single men, all wearing their lovely colourful frocks, surrounded by good food and wine in one of the most romantic cities in the world?
And the latest scandal is suitably flamboyant.
Monsignor Tommaso Stenico has been suspended after he was caught propositioning a young man in his office. And, officially, the Church is against filthy poovery. Nudge nudge, wink wink.
Say no more etc.
Monsignor Stenico, who complained to the man who entrapped him that "you don't fancy me" actually says he has been working a careful double bluff and has been trying to expose a Satanic cult which has been targeting priests for homosexual humiliation.
In fairness, it's a bloody daft excuse but look at this way, it'd be bad enough trying to explain away those actions to your missus -- imagine having to explain yourself to the Pope.
Now that's a pressure situation.
I HAVE SECRET INFORMATION
Book publishers everywhere -- set your faces to stunned and point your cheque books in my direction. Newspaper editors -- get ready to start a bidding war for the serialisation rights because iSpy has the most dramatic book ever written about Ireland.
In it, we reveal that several Government ministers are actually space aliens from beyond the moon who are preparing for an invasion.
They are being aided in this by a furtive conspiracy involving chimpanzees dressed as nuns and a police force which is now largely comprised of human beings made out of jam.
Of course, I can't provide any evidence because I have to protect my sources.
But hey, if it works for Justine Delaney Wilson and her daft book High Society, it'll work for me as well, right?
