As Ernie Harrison tried to deliver the good words from the Racal twins at yesterday’s announcement of interims at the Royal Lancaster Hotel yesterday, the cellphones were silenced by a loud burst of applause from the next room which seemed to come in response to his revelation that Racal had only missed the West German cellular franchise by a whisker and his expression of good wishes to the Mannesmann consortium – but who was it giving such a good impression of a party of lager louts in those salubrious surroundings? None other than one of the regular gathering of IBM retirees – but despite any impression that may have been given, these ones really were on the wrong side of 50 – IBM isn’t yet making offers of early retirement to its graduate yuppies.
