The man who walked into the bar had hiccups, the gun scared him so much his hiccups went. Funny stuff indeed! Here's another one for a laugh, I'm on holiday at the moment so my next long post will have to be tomorrow.
A man is hanging in a barn, there is a puddle on the ground, the doors are closed and padlocked from the inside and the beams are too high to reach without a ladder. Yet the man is hanging from a short rope. What happened?
Until tomorrow my curious readers!
Monday, 31 January 2011
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Conumdrums and curiosity
Here's a good puzzle I came across yesterday:
A man walks into a bar and asks for a glass of water. The barman quickly pulls a gun from under the bar and points it in the man's face. The man says thank you and walks out. Why?
I saw it in one of these puzzle books you get in Christmas stockings, I will post the answer in my next blog post.
Another puzzle is the fact that Britain only has one time zone while Scotland goes dark well before London. Russia has many time zones and they work fine!
Enough of rants for today, I'm holidaying in oxford :)
A man walks into a bar and asks for a glass of water. The barman quickly pulls a gun from under the bar and points it in the man's face. The man says thank you and walks out. Why?
I saw it in one of these puzzle books you get in Christmas stockings, I will post the answer in my next blog post.
Another puzzle is the fact that Britain only has one time zone while Scotland goes dark well before London. Russia has many time zones and they work fine!
Enough of rants for today, I'm holidaying in oxford :)
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Revolutions
Egypt has decided to follow Tunisia's example and overthrow a president who has been in power for 30 years. A ridiculous thing the government did was turning the internet off and thereby such social media as Twitter and Facebook.
I cannot help myself in thinking the 20th century was vastly characterised by revolutions, global wars, regional upheavals and the worst of tyrants. Here are a few countries that experienced revolutions: Algeria, China, Cuba, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nicaragua, Russia, Spain, Turkey and Zanzibar. The number of countries that saw a change of government is even greater and includes France, Germany, Japan and most countries in Europe and Africa. And the list goes on!
As far as I know, absolutely none of these revolutions had anything to do with Twitter or Facebook!
I cannot help myself in thinking the 20th century was vastly characterised by revolutions, global wars, regional upheavals and the worst of tyrants. Here are a few countries that experienced revolutions: Algeria, China, Cuba, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nicaragua, Russia, Spain, Turkey and Zanzibar. The number of countries that saw a change of government is even greater and includes France, Germany, Japan and most countries in Europe and Africa. And the list goes on!
As far as I know, absolutely none of these revolutions had anything to do with Twitter or Facebook!
Friday, 28 January 2011
The State of the World
UK - the conservatives don't like unions / weather is c-c-c-cold
USA - Obama has problems
Africa - Sudan split / Tunisia blew up / Egyptian army gives people a shower / Mandela is OK
Asia - Burma still confused over definition of democracy / China adopts property tax
Latin America - Mine explosion in Colombia / Free homes for wet Brazilians
North America - US trains gay troops / Piano on Miami beach
Middle-East - Yemen on fire / Palestine on fire / Iraq on fire
But we'll be fine because Andy Murray won his semi-final match in Oz :)
USA - Obama has problems
Africa - Sudan split / Tunisia blew up / Egyptian army gives people a shower / Mandela is OK
Asia - Burma still confused over definition of democracy / China adopts property tax
Latin America - Mine explosion in Colombia / Free homes for wet Brazilians
North America - US trains gay troops / Piano on Miami beach
Middle-East - Yemen on fire / Palestine on fire / Iraq on fire
But we'll be fine because Andy Murray won his semi-final match in Oz :)
Interview Woes
My first interview was with for the position of recruitment consultant. I was asked into an office and waited 10 minutes for a manager to interview me. Smiles all round his face he subjected me to a 'relaxed' interview where the only answers he wanted were about my hobbies and interests. 30 minutes past and I seemed to have convinced him I wanted the job. He said I'd be contacted for a second interview within the week.
Bearing in mind I was in Lancaster and the position was in Slough, you can imagine I wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of traveling the length of the country yet again for what could be a pointless chat! Instead I met the previous bloke's boss, a woman who as she walked into the room I could tell she wouldn't think twice about branding herself 'top dog in a dog eat dog world'. She sat, I sat, we began talking about my ambitions, my skills, my availability. I was ticking all the boxes. She then asked me about my sales experience; I had already told her I had no work experience, to which she frowned. ok, one box wasn't ticked. I asked her about the importance of being a salesman in a recruitment position... she said it was very important, and then criticised my general appearance/attitude/approach to life by saying I couldn't possibly interact with my colleagues if I was always shy.
I explained this was my first interview, and that I was naturally the kind of guy who smiles and takes things easy instead of jumping round the room with excitement, and maybe knocking a few heads in the process. I told her about my previous experience leading various teams and providing positive results. She said the people I would work with were always 110% all the time and I would be expected to go out to the pub for drinks every Friday. I quietly thought 110% is 10% more than possible, and I want a job not drinking budding who sounded like pricks.
The final stage of the interview was a test. Apprentice style. I had to think of a product in 6 minutes and detail the marketing and sales budget. She came back in with a guy holding a calculator. I gave my presentation. She was not impressed, she asked me if I thought of the inflation that applied to the cost of renting factory space in China... whatever.
She had clearly chosen the right candidate before my interview, the questions had nothing to do with recruitment, and she didn't take into account the fact I had NEVER done this before!
Recruiters beware! I'm on to you!
Bearing in mind I was in Lancaster and the position was in Slough, you can imagine I wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of traveling the length of the country yet again for what could be a pointless chat! Instead I met the previous bloke's boss, a woman who as she walked into the room I could tell she wouldn't think twice about branding herself 'top dog in a dog eat dog world'. She sat, I sat, we began talking about my ambitions, my skills, my availability. I was ticking all the boxes. She then asked me about my sales experience; I had already told her I had no work experience, to which she frowned. ok, one box wasn't ticked. I asked her about the importance of being a salesman in a recruitment position... she said it was very important, and then criticised my general appearance/attitude/approach to life by saying I couldn't possibly interact with my colleagues if I was always shy.
I explained this was my first interview, and that I was naturally the kind of guy who smiles and takes things easy instead of jumping round the room with excitement, and maybe knocking a few heads in the process. I told her about my previous experience leading various teams and providing positive results. She said the people I would work with were always 110% all the time and I would be expected to go out to the pub for drinks every Friday. I quietly thought 110% is 10% more than possible, and I want a job not drinking budding who sounded like pricks.
The final stage of the interview was a test. Apprentice style. I had to think of a product in 6 minutes and detail the marketing and sales budget. She came back in with a guy holding a calculator. I gave my presentation. She was not impressed, she asked me if I thought of the inflation that applied to the cost of renting factory space in China... whatever.
She had clearly chosen the right candidate before my interview, the questions had nothing to do with recruitment, and she didn't take into account the fact I had NEVER done this before!
Recruiters beware! I'm on to you!
Endless Driving
At university I drove a minibus taking the fencing team around the country to what turned out to be many of our best victories. One particular trip stand out: Leeds. This immense city has a series of one way roads that are cunningly positioned to offer drivers the opportunity to get from one end of the city to the other without going through the centre.
We left Lancaster at 11 o'clock, leaving plenty of time for our 2 o'clock match; the road down was pretty straight forward, motorway down to Manchester then a second leg to Leeds. Done. No! We knew where the campus was but the one way system took us to the other side of town. Our natural flair got us even more lost until we decided to make the ultimate humiliation for any male driver by asking for directions. 'oh dear' the directions weren't good so far, 'you're miles away, go up that road to the car park and a traffic warden will help you'. Great, we left the big road and I ended up driving a large vehicle through the small streets of an unknown city.
One good thing was that the directionless man was right about the traffic warden in the car park, who was so nice he gave us a map! 10 minutes later we arrived at the gates to the campus, about half an hour late for the match, no worries though, we had some very fast fencers with us and could still grab victory on a good day. This day however was not a good day. The university was experiencing what we should have been dreading the most... an open day. What seemed to be hundreds of millions of people were flocking at the gates and the campus parking was reserved for those young ignorant teenagers. We were given directions to another car park which we promptly set off for. We arrived at a large empty field labeled 'car park', success! No, this was reserved for the open day. We were given more directions and yet again we came to dead ends. We considered just leaving the bus on the side of the road but these spaces were reserved for permit holders only.
Finally we arrived back at the front gate, I pleaded a great plea and ended up handing over a crisp 5 pound note, the guard in his bright yellow jacket acted like he couldn't see us go through and we finally made it to the car park. We ran as fast as possible but it was no use, we scored some good points and lost by a small margin. Later we found out their best players were either ill or in exams, so we left disheartened. Victory could have easily been ours against one of the strongest teams in the league.
We got back at 7pm, I had done a little over 6 hours solid driving. On the positive side, we maintained our place in the league table, coming second behind mighty Manchester. We got through to the Trophy play-offs and ended up semi-finalists, loosing to Loughborough who went on to win a promotion.
We left Lancaster at 11 o'clock, leaving plenty of time for our 2 o'clock match; the road down was pretty straight forward, motorway down to Manchester then a second leg to Leeds. Done. No! We knew where the campus was but the one way system took us to the other side of town. Our natural flair got us even more lost until we decided to make the ultimate humiliation for any male driver by asking for directions. 'oh dear' the directions weren't good so far, 'you're miles away, go up that road to the car park and a traffic warden will help you'. Great, we left the big road and I ended up driving a large vehicle through the small streets of an unknown city.
One good thing was that the directionless man was right about the traffic warden in the car park, who was so nice he gave us a map! 10 minutes later we arrived at the gates to the campus, about half an hour late for the match, no worries though, we had some very fast fencers with us and could still grab victory on a good day. This day however was not a good day. The university was experiencing what we should have been dreading the most... an open day. What seemed to be hundreds of millions of people were flocking at the gates and the campus parking was reserved for those young ignorant teenagers. We were given directions to another car park which we promptly set off for. We arrived at a large empty field labeled 'car park', success! No, this was reserved for the open day. We were given more directions and yet again we came to dead ends. We considered just leaving the bus on the side of the road but these spaces were reserved for permit holders only.
Finally we arrived back at the front gate, I pleaded a great plea and ended up handing over a crisp 5 pound note, the guard in his bright yellow jacket acted like he couldn't see us go through and we finally made it to the car park. We ran as fast as possible but it was no use, we scored some good points and lost by a small margin. Later we found out their best players were either ill or in exams, so we left disheartened. Victory could have easily been ours against one of the strongest teams in the league.
We got back at 7pm, I had done a little over 6 hours solid driving. On the positive side, we maintained our place in the league table, coming second behind mighty Manchester. We got through to the Trophy play-offs and ended up semi-finalists, loosing to Loughborough who went on to win a promotion.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Rather Cold Swim
Having lived in the south of France I get a lot of 'you must have been swimming every day!', but I tend to be quite picky on what temperature the water is. Our pool used to be heated to 28 degrees Celsius, but I still didn't go near it unless the sun got it closer to 30!
I now sit in absolute awe at the polar bear that swam 426 miles in the Arctic sea. FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX MILES. Crikey! The water varied from 2 to 6 degrees and it took the bear 9 days to make the epic journey.
Here is the BBC story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9369000/9369317.stm
I now sit in absolute awe at the polar bear that swam 426 miles in the Arctic sea. FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX MILES. Crikey! The water varied from 2 to 6 degrees and it took the bear 9 days to make the epic journey.
Here is the BBC story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9369000/9369317.stm
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