However, to even consider paying such a huge bonus to an individual who has by his managerial actions helped relieve hundreds of his staff of their livelihoods, let small businesses flounder by pulling their overdraft facilities, and put up our bank charges beggars belief.

What is worse, we the British Taxpayer provide the money to pay him.

They could give him a Knighthood instead. At least we could take it back off him!

My wife and I spent the past 7 or 8 weeks in the Southern Hemisphere and have acquired a taste for sunshine.

The majority of our time was spent in Western Australia, mainly in the Perth suburbs. Here we learned why most of the people in the North of England have a sad look on their faces.

For starters young people over in Perth have jobs whether they are qualified or not. People are not being retired early or been made redundant as so many in my road have been, but encouraged to stay on and contribute to their employers’ growth.

The local transport system is clean, runs on time, and very economical to travel on. Fuel prices are less than ⅔ the cost of ours and go up and down with the oil price unlike over here where the only way is up.

And there cars don’t rust.

Housing on the other hand is as expensive, or even more expensive, than it is in London. However, in Perth houses are modern and spacious and full of variety.

Right now I find it hard to sell myself the concept of staying in the UK waiting for the next big name business to collapse and watching the shops on the High Street close down one by one.

An Australian doctor says: “That is nothing; we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in 4 weeks.”

A Canadian doctor says: “In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in 2 weeks.”

A British doctor says: “You guys are way behind…… We just took a man with NO brain, made him Prime Minister, and now the whole country is looking for work.”

You see a gorgeous girl at a party.

You go up to her and say, “I am very rich. Marry me!”

That’s Direct Marketing.

Advertising

You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl.

One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you and says, “He’s very rich. Marry him.”

That’s Advertising.

Telemarketing

You see a gorgeous girl at a party.

You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day you call and say, “Hi, I’m very rich. Marry me.”

That’s Telemarketing.

Public Relations

You’re at a party and see a gorgeous girl.

You get up and straighten your tie; you walk up to her and pour her a drink.

You open the door for her; pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her a ride, and then say, “By the way, I’m very rich. Will you marry me?”

That’s Public Relations.

Brand Recognition

You’re at a party and see a gorgeous girl.

She walks up to you and says, “You are very rich.”

That’s Brand Recognition.

Customer Feedback

You see a gorgeous girl at a party.

You go up to her and say, “I’m rich. Marry me”. She gives you a nice hard slap on your face.

That’s Customer Feedback!!!!

Among these we met a delightful lady and her daughter who have taken time away from the families to rediscover some time for themselves. All was going swimmingly until yesterday morning when Mum M took her early morning shower. On getting out of the shower she realised the fire sprinklers had gone off in their cabin and water was pouring onto her still sleeping daughter.

This is the point at which you would think those efficient staff from the cruise line would come to the ladies’ aid. Surely if a sprinkler goes off some control system would alert technical staff to the problem?

The daughter awoke suddenly – at first drawn into thinking the ship must be sinking.

Mum, just wearing a small towel to cover her modesty, rushed into the corridor and tried to rescues clothes, passports, and valuables by tossing them in the corridor while daughter K sought help outside of the soaking cabin.

After an eternity had passed some not very knowledgeable assistance was found. The lady at the service desk gave some useless and frankly patronising help, and M ended up pleading with her for help out of total and understandable frustration. And by now it was over a half an hour since the incident and no human or practical help had been offered.

Slowly, very slowly, help did arrive and the two were eventually moved to an alternative cabin “fortunately” as the staff put it, made vacant because the previous occupant had vacated it due to medical reasons.

Twelve hours later promises made by the staff to dry out clothes, to give them a token $100 emergency credit each, to supply them with other help had only just begun to take place.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS.

M and K have been very upset, truly traumatised and heavily patronised by the staff of this ship. Thirteen hours after the incident never seen before “managers” have appeared but themselves seemed to be bemused by the incident and how to handle their customers’ plight.

M is left feeling that their problems will just be ignored and their on-going discomfort for the remainder of the voyage overlooked.

All of M and Ks friends feel that all the cruise company really care about is the value added Dollars that each passenger represents and not the comfort and safety of their paying guests.

I am not alone in asking why procedures for this and similar such predictable incidents is not in place, and why are the staff responsible not trained and up to speed with procedures to handle traumatised passengers?

In such a sophisticated ship as this surely staff should have the technology and support systems to handle incidents such as this?

Why cannot decisions be made at sea without having to first find out what to do from head office as has been implied by some staff?

I recognised that many passengers are on board using loyalty programmes. I suspect that none of us who witnessed the treatment these ladies were given will be taking a further cruise with this company if attitudes haven’t demonstrably improved today.

Lotto night comes and somebody else wins it.

Barbie again prays…”God, please let me win the lotto! I’ve lost my business, my house and I’m going to lose my car as well.”

Lotto night again comes and Barbie still has no luck.

Once again, Barbie prays…”God, why have you forsaken me? I’ve lost my business, my house and my car and Ken and my children are starving. I don’t often ask you for help and I have always been a good servant to you. Please just let me win the lotto this one time so I can get my life back in order.”

Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light as the heavens open and Barbie is confronted by the voice of God Himself: “Barbie, meet Me halfway on this. Buy a ticket.”

The bartender looks at them suspiciously, but decides to serve them anyway. “What’ll it be, boys?”

The first vampire says “Blood. Give me blood.”

The second vampire says “I too wish for blood!”

The third vampire says “Give me plasma.”

The Bartender smiles and says “Got it. Two bloods, and a blood-light.”

To encourage him, his teacher said, “You’ll know you’re really beginning to get it when you start dreaming in French.”

Next day the lad ran into the French class all excited, saying, “Miss Treacher, I had a dream last night and everyone was talking in French!”

“Great!” said the teacher; “what were they saying?”

“I don’t know,” he replied; “I couldn’t understand them.”

Like millions of other iPhone and iPad users I downloaded my updates within milliseconds of it being made available.

Just 6 hours later I had achieved my updates, but not before I had experienced the dreaded Error 3200 many times. Helpfully Apple give you a link to a web page which “tells” you what the error codes mean (did not include error 3200 though) and how to recover.

The key was a Twitter message which suggested that the error code was “too much traffic” so we should therefore continue to add to the traffic by trying again, and again, and again – until you got a positive result.

At one point I was the proud owner of an iPhone 3GS Brick, which I fortunately managed to restore eventually.

What I did discover is that there are 2 phases to the upgrade and you have to mate your iMachine with iTunes a second time to transfer the data and applications. Hence some Tweets which complained that “applications no longer work”.

One messy thing was that I had to sort of re-register my iTunes account to get iTunes working again.

But this morning all is fine.

So far.

Finally, before a big concert, in front of the assembled orchestra, he said, “When a musician just can’t handle his instrument and doesn’t improve when given help, they take away the instrument, and they give him two sticks, and make him a drummer.”

A whisper was heard from the percussion section: “And if he can’t handle even that, they take away one of his sticks and make him a conductor.”

I was working on a project called ITK which was shorthand for Intelligent Television Keyboard. With this tool we proposed that computer programmers using COBOL could work on their program development without tying up expensive mainframe time. We had the concept but no platform.

As the chief technical man I researched how we could do it. In the American magazine Byte I read about the Apple which sounded like a drop in for our requirement.

I invited the 2 gentleman to demonstrate their product to my management and we were shown their Apple II products which were in development. I do not recall for certain that the Steve I met that day was Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak and I believe the other man was called Mike.

The presentation went well; however, our marketing department did not think it could support an investment with what they referred to as “amateurs” so my project was killed!

I met Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in the early 1980′s at an exhibition meeting in Houston, Texas and then had the honour of visiting the Apple offices in Cupertino, California and met the developers of the Apple Lisa computer which later evolved into the Macintosh.

Rest in peace great man.

Just to let you know that I have been unable to sleep since I broke off our engagement last month.

Can I please ask, if you could find it in your heart to forgive and forget?

Not having you around and that empty space beside me is just breaking my heart.

I know I was a fool, and you do know that nobody can take your place.

I love you with all my heart.

My endless love,

Janet.

xxxxoooxxxx

P.S. Congratulations on winning Saturday’s record lottery.

As I got to the checkout line, she had got in line directly in front of me.

“Pardon me,” she said, “I’m sorry if my staring at you has made you feel uncomfortable.

“It’s just that you look just like my son, who emigrated to Australia recently.”

“I’m so sorry,” I replied, “is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yes,” she said, “As I’m leaving, can you say ‘Good bye, Mother’? It would make me feel so much better.”

“Sure,” I replied.
As the old woman left I called out, as she had requested, “Goodbye, Mother!”

Having put all my purchases through the checkout I realised that the till total was £127.59!

“How can that be?” I asked, “I only purchased a few things!”

“Oh, your mother said that you would pay for her stuff too.” said the lady on the till.

Yesterday morning I was certain I would be upgrading to the iPhone 5 as soon as possible after the announcement, so I was somewhat underwhelmed when I heard it was to be a revamp of the iPhone4 and not a new phone as such.

But now I have slept on it and am now seeing the iPhone4S as a front runner for my next phone and I will probably switch to Three to get better 3G coverage.

I hereby predict that I shall buy the “new” model and in less than 6 months it will be replaced by a new, all singing, all dancing, Simon Cowell sponsored iPhone 5.

Never mind I can look forward to replacing my next phone in 2 years’ time with an iPhone 5S.

H I J K L M N O

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/newfifty/index.htm

All was going well and they were all chatting and whatnot when one of the men, trying to get a chuckle, said to his wife, “Pass the, honey-pot!”

Getting the chuckle he expected, he carried on.

A moment later, the second of the men piped up, “Pass the sugar, sugar-pie!”

This too got a laugh, so the third man realised he too must join in.

He waited for the perfect opportunity, cleared his throat and then confidently said, “Pass the tea, bag!”

My first impressions are very good. It successfully installed on this system which had started out as Vista, had been updated to Windows 7 (when that was in beta testing) and finally properly upgraded to a full release version of Windows 7.

The download took ages using the laptop I was modifying and I created a loadable DVD. Then still running in Windows 7 I ran the disc and the software upgraded painlessly.

A couple of reboots later Windows 8 was running.

Now I will test the new environment with the knowledge that the laptop lacks a touch screen.

I am going to enjoy taking this for a ride over the next few days.

“But why?” asked his puzzled friend, “You’re a Labour man through and through, why change now?”

The man learned forward and explained, “Well, I’d rather it was one of them that died, and not one of us.”

“The taxpayer,” replied the Chancellor of The Exchequer.

As the rabbi stood next to the bed, old Chaim’s condition appeared to deteriorate and he motioned frantically for something to write on.

The rabbi lovingly handed him a pen and a piece of paper, and Chaim used his last bit of energy to scribble a note, then he died.

The rabbi thought it best not to look at the note at that time, so he placed it in his jacket pocket.

At the funeral, as he was finishing the message, he realized that he was wearing the same jacket that he was wearing when Chaim died. He said, “You know, Chaim handed me a note just before he died. I haven’t looked at it, but knowing Chaim, I’m sure there’s a word of inspiration there for us all.”

He opened the note, and read, “Hey, you’re standing on my oxygen tube!”

When I set out on the journey I had no idea of where the destination was nut I knew I needed to go there. The people in the house were strangers. They knew me, or they made out they knew me. She said she is my wife and they are our children but I don’t think I have ever met any of them before but that tall man does look familiar.

I was scared when she brought me the hot drink. Why was I in bed? Was it night or day?

I heard footsteps outside the room, was someone chasing me. I knew then that I must go home and get out of this strange and unfamiliar place. Funny there was a French window in the bedroom just like the one at home in my bungalow.

I opened it and started my journey home.

Copyright © Stuart Danton 2011

You see a car behind you in the rear view mirror and it is moving rapidly towards the rear of your car. An instant later there is are crashes like thunder and fireworks, and you are upside down with airbags blocking the view.

You hear the sound of emergency vehicles. They are coming for you.

Your brain hits replay and the whole incident appears in the video screen of your mind, back to front. You’re seeing it all as it appeared in the rear view mirror just minutes ago.

This time you see more detail. The blue VW Passat, newly registered according to the number plates, is being driven by a well-dressed, sales rep (he must be with a tie like that).

You can see his eyes, but they are not focussed on you, he is looking at something, is it the car’s dashboard?

He suddenly looks up and you can see fresh terror in his brown eyes as he is now focussing on your car. There is no sound accompaniment to this drama, no musical score, but you can really feel the noise.

The world is spinning over and over again and your head is trying to roll the other way, the seat belt is crushing your ribs and there is smoke as the bags suddenly surround you and block your view of the still spinning world.

You are awake and see there has just been an accident. A man is slumped over the steering wheel of a crumpled VW Passat. There is a red Ford Focus just like yours, upside down, straddled across the concrete bollards.

The driver of the Ford is clearly dead.

Copyright © Stuart Danton 2011

Right till the end he retained a sense of humour and a level of modesty just a shade less than mine. He was 30 years my senior, 60 years older than my youngest child, and 90 years younger than my youngest grandchild.

I am missing him already.

And so it has been, for many centuries.

But in the 1980′s one of us became a senior minister in the British government, and helped introduce the policy called “Care in the Community”. We were then free to roam the streets again, and of course again meet with our Mentors.

There are scientists, much more intelligent than I am, who hold with theories that explain cosmology using what I believe they call a “String Theory” and explain that there might be as many as 11 dimensions. My Mentor informs me they whilst they are wrong in many ways, they are correct that there are indeed multiple parallel universes. For starters our two.

She explains that is one of the reasons why we cannot account for all the matter in our universe.

So we coexist, but in multiple sets of different dimensions. We can and will learn to travel between these dimensions (just as she does) and understand that the “Big Bang” was not the creation of our universe merely a transition between universes.

You are right to ask me why I was locked up in the first place. It was 1966 and I was at University studying Physics.

The lecture on solid state physics had left me cold, Dr Parsons was explain tunnel diodes or something and I had started to drift off.

She was sitting beside me but I had not noticed her before. She was different looking, yet definitely fitted in with me and my fellow students. She was about my age (I was 19 at the time). Thing is she is still the same age as she was though I am now 64. She calls herself Carole in this dimension.

She has come into my life so many times since then, always guiding me through life’s guessing game with her words of wisdom, though I admit she has helped get me into trouble too often. For example it was taking her advice about getting married that got me committed in the first place.

Jenny and I met soon after Carole entered my life. We had a relationship which would now be called “open” although in the 60′s we called it free love.

Carole had explained time to me. I understood her explanation no better than I had understood what Dr Parsons was lecturing us about on the day we met. Nevertheless this is how it works.

Carole is a student at what we would call a redbrick university. She is studying time travel and is in her 8^th and final semester. I am her project. She is to mentor me throughout my life until my death next week. She must complete this before her final semester to achieve her accreditation.

The other students have similar tasks (including the one looking after the government minister I mentioned before). Apparently Carole’s course has been running for over 20 years and preceding students have looked after many human generations.

Jenny had me committed when I told her about Carole and her fellow students. I understand retrospectively why Carole suggested I keep this to myself. But I did feel that I owed it to Jenny to explain my frequent outages.

It all came to a head in 1973 when Carole told me that I was going to have a daughter in 7 months’ time and Jenny is carrying the child though she is not the mother. I was of course excited about this even if I had not quite understood it. It was then I blurted this out to Jenny.

I was sent to see a psychiatrist who with Jenny’s assistance had me “volunteer” as a patient in Nine Mile Clinic.

My daughter Frances was indeed born whilst I was being cared for by NMC, and Jenny gave her up for adoption at 5 weeks old just before she filed for our divorce.

Now Frankie is my carer and she has met Carole on two occasions. The resemblance is uncanny. Frankie does not believe I am irrational, even though I have told her that on my death she is to inherit a fortune courtesy of a lottery ticket I am to buy next week.

Of course I cannot myself benefit from things I have knowledge of in the future but Frankie can. So sad I will not be around to enjoy it with her.

Copyright © Stuart Danton 2011

In late 1966 when Paul McCartney completed the song by the above title for the fabulous 1967 “Sgt. Pepper’s lonely Hearts Club Band” I was still a shy 19 year old student at Reading University.

Now I have 6 grandchildren (none of whom are called Vera, Chuck or Dave). I would have never had predicted that.

Neither would I have predicted then that at this stage in my life I would be (almost) retired and would still be regularly visiting my father of 94 and discussing how things were in the old days. When this song was released my Dad was a merely middle aged 50.

Now I really am losing my hair, my wife still sends me Valentines, Birthday Greetings and, on occasions, a bottle of wine; and if I’d been out till quarter to three she would definitely had locked the door but she still needs me and still feeds me.

Back in 1966 I would not have predicted the personal computer revolution. Eleven years later in 1977 when I actually did write an article predicting this market, my employers (at that time ICL) concluded I was mad. If only I had a penny for every personal computer that ICL could have made if they had listened to me.

Copyright © Stuart Danton 2011

The time came when he became too big to fit in the bed and his father told him to sleep in another bedroom. During the night the son was afraid and went back to his parents but could not fit.

He undid the knot in his father balloon to make him smaller and thus create some space and then re-knotted it. This did not work and he did the same to the mother balloon, still no joy, so he did the same to himself and eventually managed to snuggle in.

The next day the father saw his son and very angry he said, “Son you’ve let me down, your mother down and worst of all you’ve let yourself down.”

At the roulette table she says, “I have no idea what number to play.”

A young, good-looking man nearby suggests she play her age.

Smiling at the man, she puts her money on number 32.

The wheel is spun, and 41 comes up.

The smile drifted from the woman’s face and she fainted.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Mother Mouse saw a cat slinking toward them. The cat was between the mice and their hole.

The mother mouse puffed up her lungs and went, “Woof! Woof!”

The cat turned tail and ran. With that, the mother quickly led her children back to safety in their hole.

When they were settled and breathing normally, Mother Mouse said to her children. “Now, what’s the lesson from that experience?”

“We don’t know,” the baby mice squeaked.

“It is this,” said Mother Mouse. “It’s always good to know a second language.”

The beggar holds out his one hand and Sir Alan drops a £2 coin into the man’s open hand.

A week later Sir Alan again walks pass the beggar and notices the beggar is now holding hold out both his hands.

Curious Sir Alan asked: “Why are you holding out both of your hands?”

The beggar replied, “You see sir, business was going so well I decided to do what you would do, and open another branch”.

“What does the pin signify?” I asked one of them.

“Oh! Nothing,” she said with a chuckle, “we just use them to keep the doctors away.”

“Come now,” coaxed the doctor, “you’ve been seeing me for years. There’s nothing you can’t tell me.

“This one’s kind of strange.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” The doctor replied.

“Well,” she said, “yesterday I went to the bathroom in the morning and heard a plink-plink-plink in the toilet and when I looked down, the water was full of pennies..

“I see.”

“That afternoon I went to the bathroom again and, plink-plink-plink, there were nickels in the bowl.

“That
night,” she went on, “I went again, Plink-plink-plink, and there were dimes and this morning there were quarters! You’ve got to tell me what’s wrong with me!” she implored. “I’m scared out of my wits!

“The gynaecologist put a comforting hand on her shoulder.” There, there, it’s nothing to be scared about.

“You’re simply going through the change!

Suppose, she postulated, just suppose that Erwin, her master, along with a vial of hydrocyanic acid, were placed in a sealed chamber. If also in the chamber, was a very small amount of a radioactive substance. She thought to herself that even if a single atom of the substance were to decay whilst he was in the chamber, a relay mechanism linked to a Geiger counter could trip a hammer, breaking that deadly vial and kill her owner.

This troubled Mia. After all, she thought, whilst her owner was in the chamber she could not tell whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and her owner killed.

She would not be able to tell if her owner was now alive or dead.

This was to her a paradox for in her mind Schrödinger be both dead and alive according to her master’s quantum physics laws he was always on about. An outcome as such does not exist unless it is observed.

All the thinking tired Mia, and she dropped off to sleep in her box.

Was that the sound of a vial cracking open?

Copyright © Stuart Danton 2010

Little Jesus, sweetly sleep, do not stir;
We will lend a coat of fur,
We will rock you, rock you, rock you,
We will rock you, rock you, rock you:

Notes
Fur is no longer appropriate wear for small infants, both due to risk of allergy to animal fur, and for ethical reasons. Therefore faux fur, a nice cellular blanket or perhaps micro-fleece material should be considered a suitable alternative.

Please note, only persons who have been subject to a Criminal Records Bureau check and have enhanced clearance will be permitted to rock baby Jesus. Persons must carry their CRB disclosure with them at all times and be prepared to provide three forms of identification before rocking commences.

Jingle Bells

Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
O’er the fields we go
Laughing all the way

Notes
A risk assessment must be submitted before an open sleigh is considered safe for members of the public to travel on. The risk assessment must also consider whether it is appropriate to use only one horse for such a venture, particularly if passengers are of larger proportions. Please note, permission must be gained from landowners before entering their fields. To avoid offending those not participating in celebrations, we would request that laughter is moderate only and not loud enough to be considered a noise nuisance.

While Shepherds Watched

While shepherds watched
Their flocks by night
All seated on the ground
The angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone around

Notes
The union of Shepherd’s has complained that it breaches health and safety regulations to insist that shepherds watch their flocks without appropriate seating arrangements being provided, therefore benches, stools and orthopaedic chairs are now available. Shepherds have also requested that due to the inclement weather conditions at this time of year that they should watch their flocks via CCTV cameras from centrally heated shepherd observation huts.

Please note, the angel of the lord is reminded that before shining his / her glory all around she / he must ascertain that all shepherds have been issued with glasses capable of filtering out the harmful effects of UVA, UVB and Glory.

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer
had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw him,
you would even say it glows.

Notes
You are advised that under the Equal Opportunities for All policy, it is inappropriate for persons to make comment with regard to the ruddiness of any part of Mr. R. Reindeer. Further to this, exclusion of Mr R Reindeer from the Reindeer Games will be considered discriminatory and disciplinary action will be taken against those found guilty of this offence. A full investigation will be implemented and sanctions – including suspension on full pay – will be considered whilst this investigation takes place.

Little Donkey

Little donkey, little donkey on the dusty road
Got to keep on plodding onwards with your precious load

Notes
The RSPCA have issued strict guidelines with regard to how heavy a load that a donkey of small stature is permitted to carry, also included in the guidelines is guidance regarding how often to feed the donkey and how many rest breaks are required over a four hour plodding period. Please note that due to the increased risk of pollution from the dusty road, Mary and Joseph are required to wear face masks to prevent inhalation of any airborne particles. The donkey has expressed his discomfort at being labelled ‘little’ and would prefer just to be simply referred to as Mr. Donkey. To comment upon his height or lack thereof may be considered an infringement of his equine rights.

We Three Kings

We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star

Notes
Whilst the gift of gold is still considered acceptable – as it may be redeemed at a later date through such organisations as ‘cash for gold’ etc, gifts of frankincense and myrrh are not appropriate due to the potential risk of oils and fragrances causing allergic reactions. A suggested gift alternative would be to make a donation to a worthy cause in the recipients name or perhaps give a gift voucher. We would not advise that the traversing kings rely on navigation by stars in order to reach their destinations and suggest the use of RAC routefinder or satellite navigation, which will provide the quickest route and advice regarding fuel consumption. Please note as per the guidelines from the RSPCA for Mr Donkey, the camels carrying the three kings of Orient will require regular food and rest breaks. Facemasks for the three kings are also advisable due to the likelihood of dust from the camel’s hooves.

Away in a Manger No Crib for a bed