Product Description
Boys, let's hear it for the Good Guys! Their turn has come! Here is healthy distrust in the machinations of corporate politicians and associated hacks who flew-in on them for lunch, flew-off-the-handle in the afternoon and flew-out again before sunset. Here is the neon-spangled night of head office generated euphoria followed by the grey dawn of reality over a field of disillusion. Here are the Bad Guys folding tents, hunting down sacrificial lambs and claiming the bounty. Here also is wry humour, sharp insight, and not a little cynicism to spice up the menu. Here are tales of journeys made to some of the world's more remote and exotic corners. Here are adventures shared with a spectrum of peoples both wild and wonderful in their cultural diversity. Here are the highs and lows of endeavour at the sharp end of the business of mineral exploration. Here is that ultimate objective of (ugh!) estimating a sound ore reserve capable of supporting a mining project. Here are feet in the dirt, backs to the wind and faces to the elements, where extremes of heat, cold, depth and altitude all too often ruled the roost. Open the book boys! Let's all give the Good Guys a great big hand!
From the Author
I have kept a daily diary through most of my working life. Dates and times for appointments, flight itineraries, and an occasional reminder note formed the bulk of my entries. Although thinly sown, such information was generally enough for me to be going on with. That at least was the situation until a day arrived (in mid 1986) when thoughts of continuing to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous corporate politics were no longer ennobling to my peace of mind.
From then on I formed an unfailing habit of writing up a daily account of my experiences. With the exception of parts of Chapter 2 of this book, the events, adventures, descriptions, conversations, attributions, perceptions and assessments on offer in the book are directly drawn from diary entries that I wrote as and when the said events and adventures etc. were actually taking place.
My heartfelt and grateful thanks are due to each and every colleague that I associated with, at all levels, during the years in which I worked for the Company under two consecutive masters. Many of my colleagues are mentioned in the pages of this book. I appreciated them then and I continue to value them now. My working life was the better for knowing them.
Of the very many hundreds of people that I associated with around the world in the course of my work, whether in work-related relationships or chance encounters or in friendship, I can list no more than half a dozen that I would rather not have known. That’s not bad!
Mr John Maher of the Institute of Latin American Studies was my expert guide along the rocky path leading me into the world of authorship and self-publishing. John laid out a road map, and gave me inspiration and a direction along which the only publishing pitfalls I fell into were those of my own making.
This book, as was also my first book, was designed and prepared in every detail by Corinne Orde and Romilly Hambling who together form Special-Edition Pre Press Services. Their kindness, style and expertise and the patience they showed me were all exemplary. Corinne’s skill in editing and improving the text and the finished work as a whole added so much to the final book, and could not have been of greater benefit to me.
The book was digitally set and registered for print-on-demand orders with key trade and Internet booksellers and distributors by Lightning Source UK Limited of Milton Keynes. LSUK’s total commitment to its clients demonstrated consistent professional excellence and personal consideration that could not be bettered.
My publisher’s mark, Creighton Books, was named for my grandparents, Jim and Eleanor Creighton, who hailed respectively from Toxteth in Liverpool and from Port Isaac in Cornwall. May they ever rest in peace.
The lines of verse that open each chapter of this book, apart than those for Chapter 1, were inspired by timeless masterpieces of English Literature. I didn’t so much have to adapt the originals, as to let them adapt themselves to the subject matter of the chapters they head. It would be impossibly pretentious of me to hope that the authors of the original gems of universal quality might look kindly on my use (or misuse) of their masterpieces – I can only trust that if they do turn in their graves it will be so that they may sleep more comfortably. I am grateful to them all, from the deep hearts core. The adaptations (chapter and verse) were made as follows: Chapter 2 – "If" by Rudyard Kipling; Chapter 3 – "Home-Thoughts, from the Sea" by Robert Browning; Chapter 4 - "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth; Chapter 5 – "Jerusalem (from ‘Milton’)" by William Blake; Chapter 6 – "Spring and Winter (ii)" by William Shakespeare; Chapter 7 – "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley; Chapter 8 – "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats; Chapter 9 – "On first looking into Chapman’s Homer" by John Keats (again!); Chapter 10 – "The Green Eye of the Yellow God" by J. Milton Hayes; Chapter 11 – "Morte d’Arthur" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. "Genesis", with which the book commences, took its motivation from the first chapter of the Bible - the Old Testament book of the same name. "Revelation", with which both this and the Good Book concludes, sprang from the sixth chapter of St John the Divine’s New Testament musings.
Any qualities that my book has are to the credit of everyone mentioned above. Its shortcomings are entirely to the detriment of me.
From then on I formed an unfailing habit of writing up a daily account of my experiences. With the exception of parts of Chapter 2 of this book, the events, adventures, descriptions, conversations, attributions, perceptions and assessments on offer in the book are directly drawn from diary entries that I wrote as and when the said events and adventures etc. were actually taking place.
My heartfelt and grateful thanks are due to each and every colleague that I associated with, at all levels, during the years in which I worked for the Company under two consecutive masters. Many of my colleagues are mentioned in the pages of this book. I appreciated them then and I continue to value them now. My working life was the better for knowing them.
Of the very many hundreds of people that I associated with around the world in the course of my work, whether in work-related relationships or chance encounters or in friendship, I can list no more than half a dozen that I would rather not have known. That’s not bad!
Mr John Maher of the Institute of Latin American Studies was my expert guide along the rocky path leading me into the world of authorship and self-publishing. John laid out a road map, and gave me inspiration and a direction along which the only publishing pitfalls I fell into were those of my own making.
This book, as was also my first book, was designed and prepared in every detail by Corinne Orde and Romilly Hambling who together form Special-Edition Pre Press Services. Their kindness, style and expertise and the patience they showed me were all exemplary. Corinne’s skill in editing and improving the text and the finished work as a whole added so much to the final book, and could not have been of greater benefit to me.
The book was digitally set and registered for print-on-demand orders with key trade and Internet booksellers and distributors by Lightning Source UK Limited of Milton Keynes. LSUK’s total commitment to its clients demonstrated consistent professional excellence and personal consideration that could not be bettered.
My publisher’s mark, Creighton Books, was named for my grandparents, Jim and Eleanor Creighton, who hailed respectively from Toxteth in Liverpool and from Port Isaac in Cornwall. May they ever rest in peace.
The lines of verse that open each chapter of this book, apart than those for Chapter 1, were inspired by timeless masterpieces of English Literature. I didn’t so much have to adapt the originals, as to let them adapt themselves to the subject matter of the chapters they head. It would be impossibly pretentious of me to hope that the authors of the original gems of universal quality might look kindly on my use (or misuse) of their masterpieces – I can only trust that if they do turn in their graves it will be so that they may sleep more comfortably. I am grateful to them all, from the deep hearts core. The adaptations (chapter and verse) were made as follows: Chapter 2 – "If" by Rudyard Kipling; Chapter 3 – "Home-Thoughts, from the Sea" by Robert Browning; Chapter 4 - "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth; Chapter 5 – "Jerusalem (from ‘Milton’)" by William Blake; Chapter 6 – "Spring and Winter (ii)" by William Shakespeare; Chapter 7 – "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley; Chapter 8 – "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats; Chapter 9 – "On first looking into Chapman’s Homer" by John Keats (again!); Chapter 10 – "The Green Eye of the Yellow God" by J. Milton Hayes; Chapter 11 – "Morte d’Arthur" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. "Genesis", with which the book commences, took its motivation from the first chapter of the Bible - the Old Testament book of the same name. "Revelation", with which both this and the Good Book concludes, sprang from the sixth chapter of St John the Divine’s New Testament musings.
Any qualities that my book has are to the credit of everyone mentioned above. Its shortcomings are entirely to the detriment of me.
Excerpted from Your Reserves or Mine? by James Platt. Copyright © 0. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Genesis
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and pierced through with voids. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the earth and through the bowels of the earth to consider the voids, and make the form of the earth whole.
3 And God said, let the voids be filled up with deposits of minerals, yea and let oil be not among the least of their host.
4 And God saw that it was good.
5 And God said, let Me not hide My deposits of minerals (not least among the host of which is oil) under a bushel, let there be a mighty horde of mining companies to exploit their substance.
6 And there was a mighty horde of mining companies.
7 And God beheld among the mighty horde of mining companies that some of them were good, but that others did not walk the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. And God divided the wheat from the chaff, and He cast the chaff into outer chaos.
8 And the evening and the morning were the first day.
9 And God decreed that all among the mighty horde of mining companies yet abiding in His firmament should be created equal, and it was so for them all, apart from those holding that their measure of equality was greater than that of the others by many cubits.
10 And God was not happy. And He said, let there be a great organisation set in the midst of the mighty horde of mining companies to divide the one from the other and to seek to rule them all.
11 And God created that great organisation, and He gave it in charge to His peerless Uncle Joe who hitherto had toiled mightily (and in God’s opinion to little effect) in endeavouring to solve the far formative riddles of God’s mysterious universe.
12 And it was so.
13 And that was about it for the second day.
14 And God said unto His Uncle Joe, make the earth bring forth its bounty, make all the rocks bring forth gold, gems and baser metals, make the depths yield rich oils to move nations.
15 And this time it was not quite so.
16 For the great organisation of God’s Uncle Joe went forth and produced oil, and more oil, and even more oil. And God’s other minerals languished in neglect, and God saw that it was not good.
17 And that made not quite so nice an end to the third day.
18 And God said unto His Uncle Joe, it is not in thy best interests to neglect My other minerals, unless thou wilt return apace to thy hitherto ineffectual solving of the far formative riddles of My mysterious universe, therefore go forth and diversify.
19 And God’s Uncle Joe pondered overlong on it, as was his wont.
20 And the highly charged atmosphere of the morning of the fourth day had not improved by a single jot or tittle by the evening of the fourth day.
21 And it came to pass that on the morning of the fifth day God took His Uncle Joe up unto a high place and showed him all the mighty horde of mining companies of the earth in a moment of time. And God said unto His Uncle Joe, all these I offer thee, choose but one, and with thy great organisation take it over so that My mineral deposits about which thou knowest little, other than My oil about which verily thou knowest far too much, shall languish no longer in darkness.
22 And God’s Uncle Joe did choose but one from among the mighty horde of mining companies, and his great organisation did take it over. And God’s Uncle Joe, being less imaginative than his Nephew, named this acquisition the Company.
23 And the fifth day ended a lot more promisingly than the first as far as God was concerned, even though at the end of the day God still had a few doubts that it really was as promising an end to the day as all that.
24 And God said unto His Uncle Joe, make thee the Company in the image of thy great organisation and shape those who administer it after thy likeness, and make the Company have dominion over all the minerals of the earth, saving oil, which is for thy great organisation alone.
25 And God’s Uncle Joe installed into the Company a legion, for they were many, of executives in his own image. In the image of Uncle Joe installed he them.
26 And the Company executives installed in Uncle Joe’s image comprehended the exploitation of oil, but of the techniques of mining of all other minerals comprehended they not a lot.
27 And God called them each one to a meeting, saying unto them, let thy profit be as fruit on the trees, subdue and replenish the earth, for wherein there are mineral deposits, these I have given unto thee to use wisely.
28 And God saw everything that He had done, and behold, He thought, perhaps, it was very good.
29 And for God, that made not such a bad evening of the sixth day.
30 Thus should God’s works have been finished, yea the very multitude of them.
31 And it was on this personal understanding that on the seventh day God rested from all the work that He had done.
32 And while God rested the legion of executives installed in the Company by God’s Uncle Joe in his own image were left to their own devices.
33 And that was not good.
34 Oh no, that was not good at all.
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and pierced through with voids. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the earth and through the bowels of the earth to consider the voids, and make the form of the earth whole.
3 And God said, let the voids be filled up with deposits of minerals, yea and let oil be not among the least of their host.
4 And God saw that it was good.
5 And God said, let Me not hide My deposits of minerals (not least among the host of which is oil) under a bushel, let there be a mighty horde of mining companies to exploit their substance.
6 And there was a mighty horde of mining companies.
7 And God beheld among the mighty horde of mining companies that some of them were good, but that others did not walk the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. And God divided the wheat from the chaff, and He cast the chaff into outer chaos.
8 And the evening and the morning were the first day.
9 And God decreed that all among the mighty horde of mining companies yet abiding in His firmament should be created equal, and it was so for them all, apart from those holding that their measure of equality was greater than that of the others by many cubits.
10 And God was not happy. And He said, let there be a great organisation set in the midst of the mighty horde of mining companies to divide the one from the other and to seek to rule them all.
11 And God created that great organisation, and He gave it in charge to His peerless Uncle Joe who hitherto had toiled mightily (and in God’s opinion to little effect) in endeavouring to solve the far formative riddles of God’s mysterious universe.
12 And it was so.
13 And that was about it for the second day.
14 And God said unto His Uncle Joe, make the earth bring forth its bounty, make all the rocks bring forth gold, gems and baser metals, make the depths yield rich oils to move nations.
15 And this time it was not quite so.
16 For the great organisation of God’s Uncle Joe went forth and produced oil, and more oil, and even more oil. And God’s other minerals languished in neglect, and God saw that it was not good.
17 And that made not quite so nice an end to the third day.
18 And God said unto His Uncle Joe, it is not in thy best interests to neglect My other minerals, unless thou wilt return apace to thy hitherto ineffectual solving of the far formative riddles of My mysterious universe, therefore go forth and diversify.
19 And God’s Uncle Joe pondered overlong on it, as was his wont.
20 And the highly charged atmosphere of the morning of the fourth day had not improved by a single jot or tittle by the evening of the fourth day.
21 And it came to pass that on the morning of the fifth day God took His Uncle Joe up unto a high place and showed him all the mighty horde of mining companies of the earth in a moment of time. And God said unto His Uncle Joe, all these I offer thee, choose but one, and with thy great organisation take it over so that My mineral deposits about which thou knowest little, other than My oil about which verily thou knowest far too much, shall languish no longer in darkness.
22 And God’s Uncle Joe did choose but one from among the mighty horde of mining companies, and his great organisation did take it over. And God’s Uncle Joe, being less imaginative than his Nephew, named this acquisition the Company.
23 And the fifth day ended a lot more promisingly than the first as far as God was concerned, even though at the end of the day God still had a few doubts that it really was as promising an end to the day as all that.
24 And God said unto His Uncle Joe, make thee the Company in the image of thy great organisation and shape those who administer it after thy likeness, and make the Company have dominion over all the minerals of the earth, saving oil, which is for thy great organisation alone.
25 And God’s Uncle Joe installed into the Company a legion, for they were many, of executives in his own image. In the image of Uncle Joe installed he them.
26 And the Company executives installed in Uncle Joe’s image comprehended the exploitation of oil, but of the techniques of mining of all other minerals comprehended they not a lot.
27 And God called them each one to a meeting, saying unto them, let thy profit be as fruit on the trees, subdue and replenish the earth, for wherein there are mineral deposits, these I have given unto thee to use wisely.
28 And God saw everything that He had done, and behold, He thought, perhaps, it was very good.
29 And for God, that made not such a bad evening of the sixth day.
30 Thus should God’s works have been finished, yea the very multitude of them.
31 And it was on this personal understanding that on the seventh day God rested from all the work that He had done.
32 And while God rested the legion of executives installed in the Company by God’s Uncle Joe in his own image were left to their own devices.
33 And that was not good.
34 Oh no, that was not good at all.
With apologies to His Majesty King James I and his diligent translators of A.D. 1611
(Not appointed to be read in Churches)
