There was a classic photo of the first meeting with the EU negotiator, where the EU side had files of papers in front of them, the UK nothing but the ...are table. It symbolised the ‘flying by the seat of our pants’ mentality and utter lack of professionalism of the UK side.The September release of government technical papers was even scarier. I had a couple of conference calls with my counterparts, and they weren’t any more confident than I was. A couple of my most senior staff were Europeans,. “How about a nice big bowl of a very nice fruit salad? Maybe with some mimosas?”“Now that sounds decadent!”Pierre began pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. “Doesn’t it, though? Still, it kind of goes along with my overall plan for the weekend.”“Oh?”He leered at her. “Yes. I intend to ravish you over and over and use you for every decadent pleasure I can imagine before sending you home, ruined for the touch of any other man!”Georgia laughed at this. “Oh my God! That is so corny! Besides,. I told her l was hungry and we all sat down to sandwiches and cold drinks. There was a sudden cold breeze, Dad looked up.“That doesn’t look good,” he said.We all followed his gaze to see a huge black cloud just about to blot out the sun. At that same moment the heavens opened, there was a flash of lightning and a loud clap of thunder. We quickly gathered everything together and decided to make a run for the car. The beach was rapidly emptying, Dad and l carried most of the things, as we ran. In business, anyway ... With respect to my marriage, I had no idea that I was not only NOT on top of things. I was not even in the middle; and I was actually pretty near the bottom of the heap--enough stacking metaphors; you get the imagery here by now, I'm sureFrancine was still working for Daddy here at the company, supposedly in Marketing, but I never was able to get a good handle on what she did exactly. She would shut me down and evade every time I tried to show an interest, by taking.