Does anyone know what Gus (Aidan Gillan) was counting or doing when he was walking to his office in the morning?
I interpreted it as some kind of OCD or superstitious ritual (based on spotting car number plates of something similar) that decided how he would invest that day, which implies that his job is far from a science and just a pile of BS completely dependent on market conditions.
My guess is that he was calling out the prices for the more expensive cars, but I don't recall the figures so I could be way off. When he became frustrated the second time we saw him doing it it was because the only traffic coming his way was buses, motorcycles, white vans and (relatively) inexpensive cars. It felt like he was waiting for something like a Mercedes.
I'll take a look on iPlayer and see what the figures were. Whatever it was I don't think it had any influence on his business decisions.
"If I have any genius it is a genius for living" - Errol Flynn
He was counting the numbers on the licence plates, when he was doing well he could get them to add up to specific numbers, but when he was doing badly he couldn't.
shareYou sure?
I guessed it was some kind of crude economy tracker based on the number of expensive cars he saw on his way to work. May seem stupid, but if you read this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8201997.stm you'll see that it's actually only slightly less sophisticated than the methods economists use!
Just a guess though, I don't really know what he was doing...