I am businessman

As I mentioned, Katy and I spent last week with my parents in Provence. We spent six days on a barge eating and drinking our way down the Rhone from Provence to Aigues-Mortes, an experience that was as good as it sounds.

Le Phonecien had eight other guests; a Frenchwoman, two American couples and three Ukrainian men (I know this sounds like a bizarre retake on the Gilligans Island premise). Our three Ukrainian shipmates were friendly, interested and interesting but they had almost no English between them. Not to be bowed by this they were quick to point out that no one else spoke any Ukrainian or Russian whatsoever.

Roman and Andrei declared that they businessmen, meaning that they were self-employed. Naturally I braved the exhausting labyrinth of half-grasped meaning to see what sort of connection could be established between my world and theirs.

I learned that there is still plenty money to be made in post-Soviet Ukraine if you're smart enough (read: brutal enough) to win the battle for ex-government assets like hotels, factories, farms and mines.

Conversely, the idea that I made my living helping companies solve problems was so incomprehensible to them that I came across as basically effeminate. Far more interesting was my father, a farmer in Australia who also had a resort property in Far North Queensland. Here were proper assets. Tangible things. Things worthy of the conversations of men.

I'm just glad I didn't lead with 'theatre producer'.