Dear Mr Cornwell I have long been a fan of your writing and Sharpes adventures have sustained me through many trips all around South East Asia during a 10 year tour of duty in the Far East. However I want to thank you for one in particular. Sharpes Waterloo. Although the reading of this book lies back in 2006, I was reminded of it whilst reading Sharpes Story which has been tucked into my computer pouch as an emergency book, since Christmas, against the eventuality of running out of reading material whilst on a trip. I finished the last of the Conn Iggulden books this week and so read Sharpes Story during the Madrid to Paris flight. Anyway, I digress. Back in the summer of 2006, I finally returned from the Far East, turning down the next step up the slippery corporate ladder and returning to hands-on Project Management work in order to get back to the UK. The only issue was, there were no jobs in the UK for PMs, however there was one Project Director position open, in Paris, for a poison chalice project which all available French and English PMs had refused including those involved in tendering and winning the deal. I took it. I needed to get home and Paris is only an hours flight from the UK. I told the French that (1), Id been out of hands-on Project Management work for about eight years, (2) that Id never managed a complex core network project, (3) that I didnt even know what R4 (the technology type) was and (4) that my French was, well, like most English peoples French ability of my age. It had been rammed into me for five years and very little had stuck. Oh la la, they said. Not to worry, Gerry. You are the Conductor and we will provide the orchestra I arrived in Paris on 11th July 2006 to find that the orchestra consisted of two part-time and extremely fed-up UK-based Network Planners and one Finn whod never done this kind of work before. The French management team said, Bonjour and Bienvenue and promptly left on their six-week holidays. The next day, I met the customer. Without rambling on too long, I have to say that this was what corporate organisations like to refer to as an extremely challenging period in my career and things did not improve for some months (but were radically improved by the arrival on the project of a whole bunch of English Planners and one English Project Manager, an old chum of mine, who I brought in myself. I can tell you, that some evenings, in the early days, sat in the Cambridge Tavern near the Arc dTriomphe, reading Sharpes brutal exploits was extremely cathartic and I thank you for that. Your book also inspired me to pee the French off in a good style. The Project grew so large, (105 persons when I handed it over to my French replacement in February 2007 and 125 the last time I checked) that we actually opened a whole new wing in the Nokia office in St Ouen to accommodate us. This necessitated a couple of meetings with the architect, not an unpleasant duty as she was an extremely pretty Parisian. Once the build was finished and the fitting out was well in hand, I wrote an official memo to all the French senior management team, including the Account Director who hated my guts (and I his). Sirs, I wrote. No one can spend long in Paris without noticing the propensity of you French for naming roads, buildings etc after famous people and battles. Charles de Gaulle airport and Gare dAusterlitz are just two cases in point. As you know, we have the habit in Nokia of giving our Meeting Rooms real names instead of numbers and I have some suggestions for the nomenclature for our new wing. The large meeting room, I would like named Agincourt, the small one Crecy and the whole wing could be either The Waterloo Wing or The Wellington Wing, I would be agreeable to either option. Stunned silence followed. For several days. Then my French boss came to see me to explain Ow we could possibly invite the customer to meet in The Agincourt Room, in the Waterloo Wing. Merde!! Cest ne possible pas!!! I said, you guys really dont have any sense of humour at all, do you! They got their own back in typical French style. They took me to one side and told me that I would be the only Project Manager not be included in the corporate box when we invited our customer SFR to watch the Rugby World Cup because, many of the customer cannot speak English well and, honestly, your French is not good enough. You will make them feel uncomfortable. I retaliated by waiting until the Kiwis gave them a good kicking on two successive occasions and turning up to the next high level (internal) meeting in an All Blacks jersey. Ive grown to love Paris. My French has improved, though many French people would dispute that point. And, although working now primarily in Madrid, I frequently come back and even now am writing to you from a taxi hopefully somewhere in the 15th arrondissement (depending on how well the driver understood my instructions). But, Sharpes Waterloo came at a very good time for me, so thank you once again and I look forward to your next work. Best Wishes Gerry Robinson