Another morning spent in the library and an otherwise uneventful day so it seems like a good opportunity for the second part of my occasional series on the characters I encounter there:

No. 2: The Laughing Stockbroker

The Laughing Stockbroker is an old American guy who comes in for about 20 minutes every morning to laugh raucously at the Financial Times.

Now I can understand that if you are very familiar with the world of finance that a particularly witty editorial might raise a smile, or perhaps the sudden change in fortune of a once-owned stock might have a delicate irony, but The Laughing Stockbroker seems to find everything absolutely hilarious. Sometimes he's laughing loudly even before he's sat back down in his chair with today's copy.

In my mind, he's either just about to pull of the biggest fraud in history and takes daily pleasure in the knowledge that the financial world remains blissfully ignorant, or he's a complete nutter who just finds the colour pink irresistibly hilarious.