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Apparently the rumours that Bill Gates is looking for a pied terre in Holland Park are not true. Verity Stob can't contain her disappointment.
August 12, 2001
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/windows/stob-park-gates/184410504
Hi Marcie,
Well we did make it to England – or rather me and Jennifer Katharine did – Bill had to stay over to speak to the lawyers; apparently Borland is kicking up a row saying Bill is stealing all their programmers. I don’t know why they make all the fuss – it’s easy to see why anybody would rather work for Bill than that Mr Potato Head Borland guy – is it Philip something? I’m sure Bill agrees with me on this.
Anyway, England is a real awful place, Marcie honey; there are gales and rainstorms and typhoons in trailer parks – it’s just like that week we spent in Birmingham Alabama launching Windows for Rednecks. All English cows are poisonous (even the Brits admit this – can you believe it? A whole island, and all they can do is grow poisonous cows!) so I have had the local ethnic grocer, Al Fayed, air-freight over best Florida milk for JK every morning. As I said to Al, where kids are concerned you can’t be too careful.
We are renting a condo in this little backwater called Holland Park, which is quite near London, although not on the main island. You can get CNN on cable, so I guess it’s not too bad. Yesterday three guys turned up on our doorstep – a fat guy, a little smiley guy, and a guy who looks like that guy who played the Devil in, I forget, was it Exorcist III? Anyway, the little smiley guy asked ‘Was Bill in?’ and I said ‘Maybe’ although of course he wasn’t and moved my finger to the alarm button, because you cannot be too careful in a place like Holland Park. Then the little smiley guy said his name was Blare and he’d come about the Y2K software problem and the dome. I said I was real sorry about the software problem, but Bill didn’t do personal stuff any more and they would have to call the tech support line just like everybody else, and be sure to have their license number, their zip code, and a brief description of their problem ready when the Microsoft operative answered. Then I shut the door in their faces.
Thinking about it later, I figured Blare & Co were probably real estate agents – ‘The Dome’ is the name of a chain of little restaurants they have around here instead of proper MacDonalds. Perhaps they have a condo near one of these Domes or something. Still, I’m so glad they’ve gone – Marcie I can’t tell you how creepy they were!
There’s JK wanting new diapers – must go!
Love you,
Mel
Marcie,
I apologise, honey! I was wrong and you were right! Nobody here speaks like that woman in Frasier – so I guess she must be Scotch, just like you said. I can’t think why she doesn’t wear more tartan though – if I were Scotch I’d absolutely, definitely flaunt it!
Talking of Scotland, we went to that training college that Bill bought at Cambridge. It’s quite an impressive place, Marse; we must go there together when you come over to visit – it’s got its own gym and everything. No room for a proper campus like we have at Redmond though – the Brits went and built it in the middle of this old town, well duh!, so I guess they’ll never get a proper ‘studenty’ atmosphere going.
Still no sign of Bill – he got tied up with Sun over how he was making their Java stuff better by putting Windows code into it, and the lousy ingrates are suing! Can you believe that? I said to Bill, if they don’t want their product to work with the World’s Number One Operating System, he should have nothing to do with their lousy stinking Java trash, and I think he is coming around to my way of thinking.
Oops, there’s the doorbell – got to dash.
Love
Lindy
Marcie Darling,
That’s it. I’m coming home. Bill’s never going to be able to make it over here. Have you heard? Some two-bit outfit called Netcheapskate or something want Bill to stop putting Explorer into Windows, and some stinking bunch of superannuated (big word huh? I’m like that when I’m mad) lawyers, the so-called Supreme Court, are backing them up. I say: what if Netscape was allowed to go on selling its nasty little browser – just how would that make money for Microsoft? If these lawyers are as smart as they say they are, let’s here ‘em answer that one. I said this to Bill and he agreed with me absolutely.
Oh, and do you remember the doorbell in my last email? You’ll never guess Marse – it was those real estate agents again – Mr Blare and the two others. Luckily I had opened the door on the chain.
Blare – he was the extra-creepy, smiley little one – said: ‘Hello again Mrs Gates! I was hoping to have a word with Bill about the Millennium Dome.’
I said: ‘I’m sorry about the misunderstanding we had last time Mr Blare, but we are really looking for property in Holland Park, not in Millennium.’
The fat one sniggered and said to the real ornery-looking guy, the Devil, ‘Hey Mandy, hadn’t you better tell her it’s in Grennitch?’ (He had an accent a bit like that woman in Frasier, so perhaps he is Scotch too. Although he wasn’t wearing a kilt.)
Mr Blare began to say: ‘Mrs Gates, I think you have misunderstood. I wanted to ask Bill if he’d be prepared to contribute…’, but I popped out the can of mace that I keep by the door (you can’t be too careful) and pointed it at him, and said: ‘Ok guys – the party is over. Scram.’ And to my relief they did – with the Devil running the fastest.
Marse, I guess that it won’t come as a surprise that after this we have decided not to buy a place in England – it’s not the sort of atmosphere I want for JK. If they want people to live here, the English should stop growing those poison cows, for starters.
Lots of love
Melinda
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