A man had been feeding swans from a plastic bag that blew into a 3½ft-deep model boating lake in Walpole Park in Gosport, Hampshire, in the U.K. He went in to retrieve it and while he was in the water he had a fit and fell unconscious. He lay floating face-down for more than half an hour while 25 emergency workers stood and watched because they weren't 'trained' to go into the water!
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AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.
ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.
A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.
A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.
A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.
A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows.
None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.
A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.
A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.
AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy....
AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.
A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.
A GREEK CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You borrow against the cows from the Germans.
You kill the cows and make souvlaki.
You can't pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money.
You can't pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money.
You can't pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money.
You can't pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money
If you are interested in getting an iPad, I can get a few of them through a contact that I have. These iPads are totally legal, meaning that they are NOT off the back of a truck. They are available because of a cancelled hospital contract, due to government cutbacks.
However, the numbers are limited. In fact, I have only 20 iPads that are going for less than half price, so it's first come, first served.
I have already sold one. Below is a picture so you can see exactly what you would be getting.
Please get back to me as quickly as you can if you want one.
Daniel Hannan is the author of nine books of which the most recent — The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America — is a New York Times best-seller.
He blogs every day at www.hannan.co.uk, addressing political and cultural issues. His blog attracts 200000 hits a week.
In a press conference on Saturday, Kevin Rudd, who has resigned as foreign minister to challenge his boss, Julia Gillard, said something revealing. 'The job of the Australian government', he pronounced, 'is to keep Tony Abbott out'.
Really? That's the primary purpose of the state machine of the Commonwealth of Australia? Not to run the country? Thanks for clearing that one up, Kevin.
We've had several sales in Sproxton Lane just a touch below the $1million-mark in the past; this week we've broken through the $1million-mark with the sale of # 5 Sproxton Lane at $1.2million. Congratulations, Jack and Pam!
Jack & Pam's 3-bedroom/1 bathroom house sits on a 1771 square-metre block of land. Two more properties of similar size are still for sale in the Lane at $1.39million and $1.95million respectively.
And then there is the best of them all, "Riverbend", a large 2-storey brick residence sitting on 29,200 square metres of absolute waterfront land. That's 18 times the average block size in Sproxton Lane! And yet it's on sale for just $2million!
Form an orderly queue, please!
The question for Labor MPs is this: do we march off the cliff with Gillard or do we roll the dice, elect Rudd, save some seats, and then march off the cliff?
After a good breakfast, we again drove to Ulladulla.
We are now seasoned visitors of the Ulladulla Leisure Centre, having bought a season pass for the heated swimming pool, the spa, and the gym.
After my swim, I had a bit of a work-out in the gym when I spotted a sweet young thing.
I asked my personal trainer, "What machine should I use to impress that sweet thing over there?"
The trainer looked me up and down and said, "Try the ATM in the lobby."
I think I stick to swimming.
If these guys were in private enterprise, they'd all be sacked because, instead of doing the jobs they're paid to do, they're wasting company time waging their own personal battles.
It's time that we sacked them as well! Bring on the elections and send LABOR back to the political wilderness!
It's amazing how quickly the search engines pick up new blog entries. Why not spread the word about "Riverbend Cottage" this way? So if you've just now GOOGLEd for 'Holiday Accommodation on the South Coast", please read on:
There is a marvellous amount of nothing to do at Riverbend on the beautiful Clyde River. Eating well, sleeping soundly and moving about in beautiful surroundings is a therapy for which many return year after year.
Escape the stresses and excesses of urban life! Come to "Riverbend" and rediscover what you've always known - that simple pleasures are the best.
Some places have waterviews, others are close to the water. Riverbend Cottage has absolute deepwater river frontage along its whole seven acres. You are so close to the water's edge that for environmental reasons we had to build the modern bathroom a few metres away from the cottage (very romantic on a starlit night!)
For more of this 'infomercial', click here.
... occasionally interrupted by breakfast, lunch and dinner.
A glass (or two) gives me just the right 'gravitas' for a long snooze on the verandah. I drink to that!
... and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand." Ecclesiastes 5:15, 1769 Oxford King James Bible
For most of my life, I hadn't known anything about Ecclesiastes but still subscribed to the belief that there was no point in accumulating 'THINGS'.
All this changed when I returned to Australia in 1985 and had settled, first in Canberra and, eight years later, at "Riverbend".
During all this time I have been accumulating 'THINGS' and 'THINGS' and more 'THINGS' with an absolute vengeance. My 'Bibliothèque' alone now holds more books than I could ever hope to take with me should I move again.
It remains to be seen which I shall run out of first: time or space?
The iron lady wants to watch "The Iron Lady". I told her to wait until it comes out on DVD but she prefers to watch it within earshot of the popping of popcorn and the slurping of slurpies and the coughing and sneezing of a hundred other people, not to mention the ringing of mobile phones at the most inappropriate moments.
So I have booked two tickets for tomorrow at the Bay City Cinemas, one in row 10 and the other in row 40.
New migrants should get taxpayer subsidies to visit overseas relatives, an Islamic group has told the Federal Government.
The Islamic Women's Welfare Association also says Muslims prefer to live close to their own people and Australia should consider how to "facilitate the purchase of homes for new migrants".
In a submission to a federal multicultural inquiry, the association has urged the Government to give tax deductions to newly arrived migrants so they can visit relatives in their homelands.
"Migrants face a lot of sacrifices such as having to travel long distances to visit relatives, spending on communication costs, missing out on some events occurring in native countries etc," the submission said.
"This loss should be compensated by the Government in one way or the other to retain migrants in their country of adoption." Source Daily Telegraph
Want you know my suggestion? Give them a ticket - one-way only!!!
I don't know why I didn't figure this out before!!!!!!
I wash my hair in the shower and the shampoo runs down all over my whole body. Printed very clearly on the label is the following warning: FOR EXTRA VOLUME AND BODY.
No wonder I have been gaining weight!!!!
Well, I have gotten rid of that shampoo and started using dish washing liquid instead. Its label reads, DISSOLVES FAT THAT IS OTHERWISE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE.
Problem solved! If I don't answer the phone ... I'll be in the shower!
Mist on the river heralding a hot day ahead! Time to sit in the shade and do some reading and reflect on the crazy world outside Riverbend. Here's some really crazy news:
"Saudi Arabia's religious police have arrested more than 140 people for celebrating Valentine's Day. The Organisation for Promoting Virtue and Discouraging Evil says officers have punished those caught so far, and that its campaign of arrests is continuing. In a six-page statement, the religious police said they were saving women from 'deceiving men', who used the day to give the fake impression that they loved a woman while pretending to be a 'harmless lamb'. The religious authorities say Muslims who take part in Valentine's Day are in fact weak, lacking imagination, and far removed from the 'sublime and virtuous' objectives of their religion. The organisation has also confiscated all red roses from shops."
Not a good day for exporters of red roses to the world's largest sandbox!
With 25mm of rain falling overnight and this morning looking a bit gloomy, soaking my creaky old bones in the heated indoor pool at Ulladulla seemed to be just about the only thing left to do.
Afterwards, it was lunch at the Milton Ulladulla Bowling Club - roast beef covered in thick gravy, followed by a large slice of Black Forest cake with whipped cream, all washed down with a couple of glasses of their house wine - and a romp through the hoarded treasures of a local second-hand bookseller - or should that be in today's language a pre-owned book re-allocation consultant? - before returning to the peace and quiet of "Riverbend".
I walked them over the property and they kept saying, "We want land, we want land". Seven acres seemed big enough because a few days later I received their email, "We’ve made some preliminary arrangements with the bank, with a view to the purchase. We’d like to arrange for their valuer to come by and appraise the property" - click here.
Then the valuer arrived. I gave him all the facts and figures, and made the off-the-cuff remark that the last offer which I had rejected had been for $1.64million.
Guess what the valuation turned out to be? Yes, you've guessed right: $1.64million!
I've no idea how much this professional valuation influenced them but their subsequent email read, "We regret to tell you that we won’t be in a position to pursue the purchase of Riverbend, as much as we’d love to."
May I ask you again to guess? Yes, you've again guessed right: they bought it for the full asking price of $950,000!
I was gobsmacked and had barely recovered when the adjacent uncleared 1700 square metre block (marked "16" on the map's pink area) came on sale and the same couple also bought it for the full asking price of $750,000!
That's $1,700,000 for a renovated wooden fishing shack on some 3400 square metres of land!
Versus $2,000,000 for "Riverbend"'s 2-storey brick residence (plus plus plus) on 29,200 square metres of land!
Methinks I'd better put the price up before people begin to wonder if there's something wrong with me or "Riverbend"! ☺
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ..." Indeed!
And here's the post-mortem some years later: the new owners put a high colour-bond fence around their combined two blocks which wasn't to the liking of the neighbours who went from house to house to get a signed petition to present to Council that this fence was not in keeping with the lane's rural setting. I had heard rumours of this and emailed the owners, adding that "I grew up next to the Berlin Wall and can handle any sort of fence, so this is not coming from me!" Predictably enough, Council asked them to lodge a Development Application for the fence which, also predictably, was rejected, and they had to pull the fence down again - except for that portion facing me as I had not been part of that abominable conspiracy. However, the damage was done and they put the properties back on the market: the block with the wooden shack sold in 2015 for $799,000 - click here - and the vacant block in 2017 for $525,000 - click here, resulting in a thumbing-big loss of $376,000, not counting stamp duty on the two purchases and advertising and agent's commission on the two resales. And all because of a fence they wouldn't have needed at all around Riverbend's seven acres!
It's raining outside so what better way to spend the day than relaxing in a hot bubble bath with a good book and a glass (or two) of wine.
Things looked a bit dull this morning so we went for a drive to Ulladulla to spend a couple of hours in the pool, alternating between lap-swimming and sitting immersed up to our necks in a hot-tub, and followed it up with a Beef Stroganoff, washed down with a glass of Chateau Cardboard, at the local bowling club. With plenty of time left, we drove a little farther north and wandered through the picturesque village of Milton.
Back at "Riverbend", the postman had left a book-parcel containing Eric Newby's "Departures & Arrivals", Alain de Botton's "A Week at the Airport", Michel de Montaigne's Selected Essays, and "The Journey to the East" by Hermann Hesse. Enough to keep me occupied for the rest of the week!
Ich wanderte im Jahre 1965 vom (k)alten Deutschland nach Australien aus. In Erinnerung an das alte Sprichwort "Gott hüte mich vor Sturm und Wind und Deutschen die im Ausland sind" wurde ich in 1971 im Dschungel von Neu-Guinea australischer Staatsbürger. Das kostete mich nur einen Umlaut und das zweite n im Nachnamen - von -mann auf -man.
Australien war der Anfang und auch das Ende: nach fünfzig Arbeiten in fünfzehn Ländern - "Die ganze Welt mein Arbeitsfeld" - lebe ich jetzt im Ruhestand in Australien an der schönen Südküste von Neusüdwales.
Ich verbringe meine Tage mit dem Lesen von Büchern, segle mein Boot den Fluss hinunter, beschäftige mich mit Holzarbeit, oder mache Pläne für eine neue Reise. Falls Du mir schreiben willst, sende mir eine Email an riverbendnelligen [AT] mail.com, und ich schreibe zurück.
Falls Du anrufen möchtest, meine Nummer ist XLIV LXXVIII X LXXXI.
This blog is written in the version of English that is standard here. So recognise is spelled recognise and not recognize etc. I recognise that some North American readers may find this upsetting, and while I sympathise with them, I sympathise even more with my countrymen who taught me how to spell. However, as an apology, here are a bunch of Zs for you to put where needed.
He reserves the right to revise his views at any time. He might even indulge in the freedom of contradicting himself. He has done so in the past and will most certainly do so in the future. He is not persuading you or anyone else to believe anything that is reported on or linked to from this site, but encourages you to use all available resources to form your own opinions about important things that affect all our lives and to express them in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everything on this website, including any material that third parties may consider to be their copyright, has been used on the basis of “fair dealing” for the purposes of research and study, and criticism and review. Any party who feels that their copyright has been infringed should contact me with details of the copyright material and proof of their ownership and I will remove it.
And finally, don't bother trying to read between the lines. There are no lines - only snapshots, most out of focus.