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"Cityboy": Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile
 
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"Cityboy": Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile (Paperback)

by Geraint Anderson (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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"Cityboy": Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile + How I Caused the Credit Crunch + Binge Trading: The Real Inside Story of Cash, Cocaine and Corruption in the City
Price For All Three: £15.34

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Product details

  • Paperback: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Headline (2 Feb 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0755346181
  • ISBN-13: 978-0755346189
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 2,417 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #5 in  Books > Business, Finance & Law > Professional Finance > Banking

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Product Description

Review

'As a primer to back-stabbing, bullying, drug-taking, gambling, boozing, lap-dancing, this takes some beating ... a necessary and valuable book' (Evening Standard )

'Engaging, timely and important' (Times )

'His timing couldn't be better ... London's pernicious financial world reveals itself in all its ugliness' (Daily Mail )

'Excruciatingly candid'

(Sunday Times )


Product Description

In this no-holds-barred, warts-and-all account of life in London’s financial heartland, Cityboy breaks the Square Mile’s code of silence, revealing tricks of the trade and the corrupt, murky underbelly at the heart of life in the City. Drawing on his experience as a young analyst in a major investment bank, the six-figure bonuses, monstrous egos, and the everyday culture of verbal and substance abuse that fuels the world’s money markets is brutally exposed as Cityboy describes his ascent up the hierarchy of this intensely competitive and morally dubious industry, and how it almost cost him his sanity.

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Customer Reviews

49 Reviews
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 (16)
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 (11)
3 star:
 (7)
2 star:
 (10)
1 star:
 (5)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (49 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
51 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Cityboy Belatedly Finds His Conscience. Yawn., 2 Jan 2009
This review is from: Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile (Hardcover)
As a commuter in London I was one of thousands who, on Mondays, caught up with the exploits of anonymous columnist "Cityboy" in the free hand-out "The London Paper". Purporting to lift the lid on the sordid existence of the average city banker, Cityboy's column continued for about two years until his unfortunate motrocycle accident, which led his premature retirement. In June 2008 Cityboy "came out" to the world as Geraint Anderson, an MP's son, and announced his intention to break into the world of novel-writing.

On the whole, "Cityboy"'s columns weren't bad and his work tended to be amusing, in a blokey and obnoxious kind of way. It was more or less what we expected from a financial analyst: "My life is utterly amoral but since I earn shiploads of money (my last bonus was five times - no, make that twenty-five times - your annual salary), I REALLY DON'T CARE." Of course the column appealed to the worst side of human nature - that was the whole point of the exercise - but it was often quite funny in small doses.

Now, however, Mr Anderson has revealed himself to the world as a person with - gasp! - a conscience. He feels VERY BAD about his previous incarnation as a banker, and so his novel (a thinly-disguised autobiography which also draws heavily on his columns) is intended as a kind of morality tale, warning us that we, too, might well have behaved in a similar manner had we too been faced with the kind of atmsophere and temptations brought to bear upon a newcomer to this gaudy world.

Problem Number One: what was amusing in small doses is irritating in a sustained extract. Anderson's principal method of humour is the unlikely comparison (example: "it was about as likely as Ann Widdecombe winning Rear Of The Year") and boy, does he milk these contrived and lengthy comparisons long past the point of unfunniness. Two or three on virtually every single page?! By the end of Chapter Three I was about as amused as Queen Victoria at a wet T-shirt contest.

Problem Number Two: Anderson's claim of being "a good boy now" isn't all that convincing. It's pretty clear that he'd love to carry on his openly-rude devil-may-care "Cityboy" persona, but both his concern for his reputation and events in the international financial sector have necessitated a display of public contrition. Anderson's narrative thus asks us to buy into the inconsiderate blokiness whilst simultaneously asking us to believe that the narrator doesn't REALLY believe in all that any more. It just doesn't work.

Case in point: our narrator "Steve Jones" tells us that, at one point, he and his gambling-minded friends were so desperate to have something to bet on that they even took a flutter on "the bra-size of some poor salad-dodger standing at the bar." Ah, how perfectly Cityboy! How staggeringly rude! And yet, notice the word that doesn't belong there: the word "poor". Doubtless we're supposed to believe that the narrator now is sorry for having caused distress to the woman in question... Yet, if he were that sorry, why use the term "salad-dodger" to describe her in the first place? Here, as elsewhere, you get the sense of Cityboy hastily covering his rudery with a tiny fig-leaf of consideration, and all it does is make the reader feel thoroughly uneasy. Are we supposed to be laughing heartlessly at this or not?

Ultimately, I'm giving it a couple of stars for exposing the macho "boy's culture" of the City. If it does its part to bring the culture of obscene bonuses to an end, good for it. But as a piece of humour I wasn't impressed.
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33 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Should be called 'City ego' - Geraint Anderson's autobiography, 15 Jul 2008
By Mr. Timothy D. James (Herts, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile (Hardcover)
The inlay to this book tells us the author 'breaks the Square Mile's code of silence to reveal explosive secrets about what life is really like' but all I really discovered here was how big an ego one cityboy (like hundreds of others) can have.

The essence of the book is basically :
1. His brother got him a job in the city
2. He snorted cocaine
3. He lied his way from job to job, in the process gaining ludicrous bonuses and pay increases
4. How his main aim for 6 years was to outdo a fellow analyst, betting a £100k on it
5. Then at the end stick in some paragraphs about world peace and how the city is a place of greed and backstabbing (as if we did not know !)

I found nothing really new in the book having worked in the city for 13 years. Many people could have written this story. (if you keep a diary and are a city analyst/trader you may as well submit it to the publisher !).

The author gives us his life story of his time in the city over 300 pages but tends to give us history lessons (events in Corporate America and Black Monday) which have no correlation to the flow of the book.

Geraint Anderson is a classic story of working the system to his benefit, having fun on the way, sacrificing those around him and then leaving the city as he 'felt uncomfortable' with it, despite having earnt a fortune from it. Smells of double standards to me.

This is more for the airport folks who want to sit on a beach and not have to read anything in depth. A simple read which as mentioned has not really revealed any secrets at all.

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31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but not really that clever, 22 Jul 2008
By David Sealey "Hobbyist Day Trader" (Doncaster, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile (Hardcover)
Upon opening the book I was disappointed to read the disclaimer that it was purely a work of fiction based on his city experience. I was expecting a whistle blower's account but instead got a jaded hippy's story of what life might have been like.

Throughout the book I find myself taking a dislike to the greedy, selfish, drug addicted, hypocrite that is Steve the would-be anti-hero. The book isn't well written either with frequent bad language and crude saying taking the place of good sentences.

Disappointment and dislike aside I made it through the whole book and found the author's discussion on stock market crashes and bubbles over the last decade particularly interesting and insightful. For this reason the book is worth a read and I give it an honest 3/5.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars I quite liked it actually
For those looking for further ammunition, and to confirm all they thought ill about decadent bankers, in "City Boy" Geraint Anderson is so kind as to provide an entire arsenal of... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Hardeep

3.0 out of 5 stars Read Liar's Poker first
I liked this book. Geraint Anderson's free-flowing style, peppered with funny anecdotes and self-critical remarks is a refreshing read. Read more
Published 13 days ago by K. Shivji

5.0 out of 5 stars Spot On!!
If you work hard and play hard you'll love this book!.....if your up for a bit of the city life then this is a must read...... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. Guy Stansell

2.0 out of 5 stars Overrated
I worked in the city for seven years, and recognised characters from many of the stories and anecdotes which concur with my own experiences, for example, I certainly never... Read more
Published 1 month ago by vikingraider

2.0 out of 5 stars disarming
Realistic and disarming. People need to know how many times unexperienced "bankers" are led to take too high responsibilities and how all financials data can be manipulated... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Chiara Bevilacqua

1.0 out of 5 stars Drivel
Poorly written and edited.

The auditors that collapsed were Arthur Andersen, not Anderson. Couldn't even get that right.
Published 2 months ago by Kentish Townie

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious
This book was hilarious. I wish I had read it earlier. I worked with several stockbrokers myself but I can't say I came across any characters like Geraint. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Vazza

1.0 out of 5 stars pointless read
Unfortunately the more you read of this book, the more you start to question the good natured claims by the author throughout. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mr. M. Oconnor

4.0 out of 5 stars Go on - read it and have some fun.
There are so many negative reviews of this book I felt the need to offer a different perspective. This book is very entertaining to read. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Gary B

2.0 out of 5 stars For the easily impressed.More like "Cheeky Boy"
There are so many giveaways in the text that I feel very foolish indeed for reading this book to the bitter end. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Truth Seeker

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