Life's answers

My wife and I were sitting in a bar recently, and I must have been staring at a drunken woman swigging her drink, as she sat alone at a nearby table.
"Do you know her?", asked the wife.
"Yes," I sighed. "She’s an old girlfriend. She started drinking after we split up, years ago, and I hear she hasn’t been sober since."
"Wow!" says the wife. "Who would think a person could go on Celebrating that long?"
At times like this, I think to myself, you could have married Cherie Blair mate!
But then I think, Cherie's worth a fortune.
I also hear she's the numero uno barrister for Human Rights in the UK.
Missed her vocation, with her looks it should have been animal rights.
Mind you, she got half way there when she married our Tone.
Did you hear Cherrie spouting off about how Tone is advising El Gordo how to win the next election.
That's a bit like asking the captain of the Titanic for sailing lessons.
It's no coincidence that Cherie has started talking to the press, her long awaited book has hit the shops earlier than planned.
Earlier than planned...that's marketing speak for "I got it out before the sh*t hit the fan"
You see, you can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but if the people don't speak English in the first place you can fool all of the people all of the time.
Tone is nobody's fool.
He has now realised that the number one money making business in the world is religion.
That's why we don't hear too much from him at the moment.
He's a Protestant convert to Catholicism already.
I now believe that we will shortly see the Reverend, Father, Rabbi, Imam Pope Tone the 1st as the next Queen of England.
Do you ever wonder about life?
I do.
All the strain, all the pain, and then…nothing.
You die.
But I’ve been thinking.
Maybe, just maybe, someone got it all wrong.
People talk about the Great Architect of life, what if he had the plans upside down?
It does happen.
Maybe what we call negatives in photography are really positives.
We’d all walk around black and white.
And the Earth.
Maybe we should be living inside, not outside.
In one stroke we’d do away with global warming and ozone layers.
No more heating bills.
Aeroplanes would be built to fly in water.
Space would start on the surface.
It all makes sense.
All we’d have to worry about was that no one pulled the plug, the inside of the Earth would fill with water.
And life itself.
We go through the hassle of existing, and what happens at the end.
Nothing…we die.
But what if we started off dead.
First thing we’d know is waking up in an old people’s home, feeling better every day.
You’d know things could only get better.
Then they’d kick you out for being too young and healthy, you could then start collecting your pension, then, all of a sudden when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day.
You’d work for forty years feeling better all the time.
You’d feel fitter, younger, and full of life.
Your teeth would fall back in, you’d de-bald and other parts of you, if you’re a man, would start looking up again.
The longer it went on the more virile you’d get.
One long party until you’re ready to start school.
You graduate on your first day, snog all the girls you could find, and get ready for junior school.
There you’d become a kid, play all day long, no responsibilities, and “George” would be peeking out all day long.
As time went on you’d leave school to become a playschool kid.
Then as you got even younger, oh happy days.
You’d live in centrally heated luxury, nothing to do but sleep and play with boobs all day long.
Your food on tap.
You wouldn’t even have to get up to go the bathroom.
Then someone would turn the lights of and you’d spend your last 9 months in warm peaceful sleep.
And then one day, when your time had really come…you’d finish your life as an orgasm.
Go out with a bang!

Yuppie Yachtie

Old Leigh at Low tide - Looking like the Maplin Sands.

I was asked recently if I was a “yachtie”.
Me!
Me what sailed the squalls and tempests of the Regents Park boating lake reliving Swallows and Amazons.
Me that had the distinction of sailing my full rigged schooners so fast I beat the Isle of Wight ferry.
OK , I was rowing and the first I knew about the ferry was when his air horns nearly blasted me out of the water coz I was rowing right across its path!

Me what sailed from Old Leigh in Essex to Hullbridge in a 14’ dinghy.
A trip we’d planned to take 4 hours.
We cast off, ramming very few moored boats, and set our sails towards the setting sun.
Actually the sun was behind us, but it didn’t sound so good, and you couldn’t see it anyway as it disappeared after an hour as mist closed in.

So we headed towards our destination sailing serenely along the Essex coast.
Maybe 5 hours into our 2 hour journey I began to suspect that my seafaring mate was not the old sea dog he’d professed to be.
I was even more sure when he brought out his nautical map, an A to Z of London streets.
Give him his due, there was a blue line which said river Thames...More
http://www.med-liv.com/hms.html

Sex and Marketing!

Do you remember the days before supermarkets were invented?
Those were the days when the owner of the business was pleased to see you.
Instead of cold impersonal shelves full of merchandise, the shop owner would often greet you personally and welcome you into his shop.
He would find out exactly what you wanted, and then do his best to supply it.
No ultra modern, plush interiors, just the basics for his trade.
The great thing was, you felt you were a person not another number.
You were the owner's reason for his existence, and he knew it.
You were treated like the most important thing in the proprietor's life because you were.
The shop owner was grateful for you visiting him and would do his utmost to make you feel wanted, and cater to your every comfort to make sure you stayed. Deliver your goods for you.
Quite simply, the customer was his business, not an interruption to it.
Sigh those were the days.
Not a lot different from the recipe for success in the world's oldest profession.
Customer satisfaction is high on the list of priorities for every call girl, street walker or prostitute, call them what you will.
A happy customer is a satisfied customer, and satisfied customers come back for more, no matter what you're selling.
Remind you of something?
It should.
Because if you remove the mystique and secrecy spun by the so-called internet guru's, it is exactly like the internet today.
On the internet, the customer is king, or queen, or in some cases both.
I have said it before and I will say it again, the mystery of the internet is a fallacy put about by those who stand to make money by perpetuating that myth.
Snake oil salesmen I called them, and so they are.
Rather than the wonder of the modern age, the internet is a great lesson in going back to basics.
Where Mr Entrepreneur sitting in his bedroom in front of a computer monitor can compete fairly with the biggest multinational company.
Providing you supply the right goods, of the right quality in the right place at the right time you can compete with the biggest and the best.
That quotation is attributed to Gordon Selfridge, an American, who opened Selfridge's store in Oxford Street London in 1909 because he was unimpressed with the standards of service offered at that time.
His maxim, "The customer is always right" summed up his attitude to a service industry.
His staff was taught to do everything possible to make the customers visit enjoyable, which would in turn ensure the client stayed to spend money.
This is the blueprint for the internet today. It's exactly what many of the internet "experts" preach.
There is no secret formula, except supplying your customer with what they want.
Gordon Selfridge had a very basic work ethos, and that attitude towards his customers is summed up in the title of a book he wrote, "The Romance of Commerce" which traced the sales process as far back as Greece and China.
Ancient merchants would travel the trade routes with their donkeys loaded with rugs and spices, tools and clothing to satisfy the needs of their customers.
They studied their market and bought the right goods to satisfy that market.
Trade at its most basic level.
Two thousand years later. Gordon Selfridge was using the same principles to serve his customers in his Department Store. And now, one hundred years on, the internet is using the same basic principles.
Customer satisfaction is the name of the game.
You see, things really haven't changed.
It's all about having the confidence in yourself to embrace what is effectively just a new design to the traditional shop.
Whether it be a street barrow, shop, upmarket boutique, or a high-class call-girl, the principles remain the same.
The creation and satisfaction of customers.

My Perfect Woman

Sigh.
As soon as I saw you, I fell in love.
I’d dream't about you for ages.
My ideal, I knew what I needed.
I could picture you, all of you.
You were in my mind.
I was desperate for you.

Then I saw you.
I was lost.
You had me where you wanted me.

We were out together.
I needed you.
Wanted you, yes I craved you.

You dominated my every thought.
I felt you wanted me too.
We left in my car.

I drove you slowly home.

Bliss.

I caressed you.
Soon you would be mine.

I waited until the mood was right.
We were both ready.
I slowly undressed you.
You teased me.
Made things difficult for me.

The strap…I had problems.

You moved away.

You tried to escape my waiting arms.
I persevered, I wooed you, I won.
But I did it. I released your charms.

Slowly you revealed yourself to me.
You looked so vulnerable.
Incomplete.

Soon I make you whole, complete, as you wanted to feel.
I explored you.
Touched your secret parts.

Wonder in my eyes.
I tormented you sooo slowly.
Made you want to feel whole…made you want me.

Slowly you came to me, responded, to me.
Together we reached unheard of delights.

Later as I relaxed.
Looking at the wonder of you.

I thought of our short time together.
How you had blossomed.

I was in awe.
I was in love.
In love with you.

You had won me over.

I love you my IKEA flat pack.

How Do You View Age?

Welcome to MMS...Made Me Smile

Aging is a funny thing to humans.

The fact that our views on aging change throughout our lives is not what makes it unique. (Our views on almost everything we think about will change throughout our lives as we continue to gain more and more perspective and experience to draw on.)

It’s the inescapable nature of the subject that makes it worth looking at and finding humor in. Whether you’re the president of the United States or flipping burgers at White Castle, you have an age, and that number means something to you and the people around you.

Aging is an experience we all share, and that alone makes it noteworthy…

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

“How old are you?” “I’m four and a half!” You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key.

You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. “How old are you?” “I’m gonna be 16!” You could be 13, but hey, you’re gonna be 16!

And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . . . YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk. He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There’s no fun now, you’re just a sour-dumpling. What’s wrong? What’s changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you’re PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it’s all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 . . .. and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn’t think you would! So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You’ve built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it’s a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday! You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn’t end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; “I Was JUST 92.”

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. “I’m 100 and a half!”

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

Anon.

Why do they cry "Foul"?

I watched with horror today at CCTV footage of a poor, innocent, epileptic, black mother aged 20 being beaten up by a white British Policeman.

At least that’s how it came over on TV when a few seconds of the CCTV footage were aired.

The TV station interviewed the girl and her pious and distraught parents.

The world should be horrified at what was done to their poor innocent baby.

Am I cynical in wondering just how innocent the girl really was?

On the night in question she, and a friend, had polished off the best part of a bottle of Brandy to celebrate daddy’s birthday.

And THEN they went out clubbing and drank even MORE.

“I had had a drink”, she said.

She was then evicted from the nightclub, and later returned to damage a car belonging to a member of staff in the club.

She had already pleaded guilty to this offence.

A policeman had witnessed this vandalism and had tried to arrest her. The two of them had fallen down a flight of stairs, and even then, she struggled while he tried to handcuff her.

Yes, the policeman was shown to have punched her five times, “In the arm”, he said to handcuff her. “In the head”, she said.

No matter.

Don’t you feel that when someone commits several criminal offences and then resists arrest they have effectively opted out of the civilised world?

They have chosen to offend against society.

And isn’t it their own stupid fault if they are bruised while the police try to restrain them from committing more criminal deeds?

When Your Words Come Back To Bite You.

Spin, PR And Viral Marketing.

The difference between Spin, PR, and Viral Marketing.

Spin is when you lie to promote a good image.

PR is what you have to do to get you out of the crap left by your lies!

And Viral Marketing is the bad or good things people say about you, all depending on your Spin and/or PR.

There couldn’t be a finer cautionary tale on the dangers of spin than the venereal (my misprint!) British Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Anthony Blair, Our Tone to his friends.

Putting my political bias to one side, Mr Blair seems to have really believed that the public are fools.

He used spin to enhance his image with the public, but to him image was the priority over substance.

There is no point in enumerating the many examples of Downing Street spin, they are already well documented.

But image over content is no way to engage and build on the trust of a not so gullible public.

Remember that any promises you make, every word you utter can, and often does come back to haunt you.

And to try to cover half-truths and maybe downright lies, as in the Iraq war, with spin attempting to make the decision appear correct is a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

No matter what the size of your company, a one-man business or the British or US Government PLC, your word is, or should be your bond.

There is no finer way to build a business than to have a well-earned and respected image, honestly won and diligently built on.

A good reputation, enhanced by PR and voluntarily passed on to others by Viral Marketing is worth more than any amount of paid for Advertising or Spin.

Mr Al Fayed, who bought the illustrious Harrods store in London, also discovered that a good name must be earned not bought.

Money can’t buy a good name, or the prestige, which goes with it.

And empty words and rhetoric will not maintain it.

PR, Public Relations, is just that, building a relationship with the people you come into contact with.

And Spin is what a car often does when it runs out of control, just before it crashes!