Jim’s Blog

Well, it’s after midnight again so I feel pressed into writing just a short note while promising myself faithfully that this won’t happen again – not much!

I have decided that I must soon change from writing loosely structured notes to essays dealing in more detail with specific issues. For tonight however I will continue as before simply to get more practice at writing down my thoughts.

I realise that I now have the problem of having to remember what I have already written so that I don’t repeat myself. I suppose I must let the cat out of the bag – on this coming Saturday (22/11/08, St Cecelia’s day) it is my seventieth birthday. It‘s hardly surprising that my memory isn’t so good – but there again it never has been. I consider myself to be more of a thinker than a walking encyclopaedia.

For the past week, I have been an avid Euro-tracker. My wife and I are in the process of setting up a Discounted Gift Trust to help provide for our (really) old age and to minimise the dreaded Inheritance Tax. To this end, I have requested the transfer of a substantial sum from an account in Euros to one in Sterling. During the past week or so the Euro rose from about 77.5p to over 86p before the week-end then fell back to 84.4p (tonight). Unfortunately, the transfer cannot actually take place until probably Friday (21/11/08) so I’m hoping the Euro will have recovered again by then. We shall see. Anyway, it’s just money! – but I can see how those people in Canary Wharf came to sell their souls.

I recall another book I never wrote, If you are being ignored at a Reception Desk because the Receptionist elects to give preference to a telephone caller, just start pointedly to scribble in a note-book. The receptionist will eventually became curious and ask what you are writing. You reply “just making notes for a new book” which prompts the response “what’s it about”. You now check-mate with “1001 ways of wasting my time”. There again – and now finally – I thought of a great theme for a TV documentary series: “It seemed a good idea at the time” – the first episode could feature “the Internal Combustion Engine”! This leads nicely up to the buffers with a definition of the Second Law of Thermo-Dynamics:- “It’s easier to take a thing to pieces than it is to put it back together again”

Jim Naisbitt.        <jim_naisbitt@talk21.com>    St Albans.    18/NOV/2008.

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