An amusing/not so amusing incident.


Some years ago whilst in Perth WA on business I was invited to have a go at ten pin bowling. Having played squash and tennis for quite a while in a number of countries, I thought this is a doddle. I arrived at the appointed time, and was told to go and choose a bowling ball. I did this and was suprised, nay, staggered to feel the weight of the bowling ball. Litle wonder they put three little holes in the ball into which you place your fingers to facilitate handling. No one told me though, that you place your fingers up to the first joint, you don't thrust three fingers into the holes up to the end of your fingers!. Staggering under the weight of the bowl, and clutching it to my chest, in the manner of a mother protecting her baby, I finally found the start line. "Your go" shouted my chums. Now I'm ready to admit as far as ten pin bowling is concerned, I am the original Eunuch, meaning I have seen it done, I know how it's done, but I have never done it!!!!!.However, allowing the bowl to fall gently by my side, I swung the bowl behind me and then, with all the grace and elegance for which I am well known, swung it forward as hard as I could. I realised, all too late, that I could not extricate my fingers from the bowl, so as the bowl flew down the lane with the speed of la Formula One motor car I went with it, and I swear to God, another couple of inches and I would haves scored a strike with my head.[I have seen similar incidents in Tom and Jerry cartoons!!] However, the day was not yet over. I could hear this roaring in my ears and realised it was the sound of hysterical laughter from around seventy odd other players. Slowly I staggered to my feet, still clutching the bloody bowl to my chest,. and I have to tell you, the walk back along that lane was one of the longest and most embarrassing journeys I have yet undertaken. It was then that my real problems began when I tried to pull my fingers free. Two of them came out, but the third finger on my right hand was well and truly stuck. Butter and oil were tried as lubricants, and there was a suggestion from some bright spark that a larger hole should be cut into the bowl in order to free my finger, which by this time was growing even larger. With oil dripping all over the place, and using a twisting motion, [the pain you can only imagine] my finger finally came free. Covered in light brown oil, my finger resembled a green fat gherkin straight out of the jar.
Now when my finger aches in the damp, I am reminded of my first attempt at ten pin bowling. Never, never again.

Caz.

A SAD CONCLUSION.

I was recently sent some pictures of war torn Beirut, showing the injured, maimed and the dead. The pictures did not move me as I expected they would. and I think the reason is that we have seen it all before, similar incidents have been happening in every town and city where war has laid its filthy hand. Think, the Japanese and its war with China in the thirties, the thirteen years of Nazi rule, the second world war, Vietnam, Korea, middle east crises, one after the other. We relied on newsreels to bring us these horrors, and now we have television and computers, the delivery is instant, almost as it happens. The pictures are not new of course, such incidents have been going on since time began. The latest batch has confirmed my long held opnion that we are all born evil. We do not have to be taught to be evil, it comes quite naturally to all of us. However, we do have to be taught, exhorted and cajoled to be good, from the cradle to the grave we are threatend with all sorts of punishment if we are not 'good'. Thousands go to Church every Sunday to be berated for their sins, promised hell and damnation if they stray, to make a better effort to be good, without sin. thousands all over the world go to Church to 'Confess', having done so they are absolved from sin, and are free to carry on the following week. Many of these people carry out this ritual for most of their lives, particularly towards the end of it. It seem that we have learned to live with a cover of veneer of civilisation/sophistication, and the thickness of that veneer will vary from one person to another. In many cases it takes little for the veneer to crack and for people to revert to 'normal', behaviour. Given the right
circumstance for the veenr to crack, and we are off and running. The veneer cracks when we have a traffic problem, we berate the other guy who is always in the wrong,
and give him the 'finger',happens all the time. We show the evil/natural side when we lock up people for years without trial, subject them to forced sex acts, allow snarling dogs near the naked genitals of a terrfied prisoner, force naked bodies on top of one another, and ENJOY doing it .'We were following orders' is the cry, and that excuse was heard at Nuremberg, [not that it did them much good.] The veneer is cracked when suicide bombers ply their filthy trade and kill hundreds of totally innocent human beings. When women are happy for the little ones to be trained as suicide bombers. When hostages have their throats cut and are beheaded for the benefit of television cameras, whilst the scum that carry out these deaths are covered from head to foot, presumably so that we won't recognise them. Sadly we don't have to learn how to do these things, the 'how' comes quite naturally to us, and worse, we find sound logical reasons for that behaviour.

I simply don't understand why it is so bloody easy to be evil and difficult to be good all the time. The many acts of goodness carried out by so many over the world every day, comes nowhere near the evil that is carried out in he name of particular deity. 'God is on our side'. 'Praise be to Allah,' 'Allah is good' 'Allah is great', said the Bali bombers as they killed over 200 hundred innocent people.
So, what have we learned, nothing, except how to kill more and more people more and more quickly with ever viler means, to kill them more efficiently [gas chambers] and more and more inhumanely. You think things are going to improve, on the available evidence, you are whistling in the wind. Remember a film called 'Lord of the Flies, which depicted a number of well dressed, well educated boys from wealthy families who are stranded on an island. Left to their own devices, they quickly, within days, revert to 'normal/evil'behaviour. They didn't learn to behave that way, it came to them perfectly naturally, they became normal.There appears to be no end in sight of man's inhumanity to man.
Many believe in the Second Coming, if that is the case, it had better hurry up, for man needs all the help he can get. We are hell bent on killing each other , and the planet, and by the time Second Coming arrives, it may well be too late, perhaps it is already.

Caz.

What is a Salesman?

A salesman is many things. He is a pin on a map. A quote to the office, and overloaded expense account to the auditor, a book keeping item called 'cost of selling' to the sales manager, a smile or wise crack to the receptionist, and a purveyor of the balm of flattery to the buyers.

A salsman needs the endurance of Hercules, the brass of Barnum, the craft of Machiavelli, the tact of a diplomat, the tongue of an orator, the charm of a playboy, and a mind as fast as Univac. He must be impervious to insult, anger complaint, and the effect of spending all evening with a customer.

He must be able to sell all day and the next and the next, and be on the job at 9 am the following day, fresh as a water lilly. He must be an expert golfer, storyteller, businessman, and listener to sad stories.










































He wishes his rates lower, his commissions higher, and his territory smaller. His competitors ethical, his books delivered on time, his Boss sympathetic his customers human. He is a realist who knows none of this will never be. He is an optimist, so he makes the sale anyway. He rolls his life away in the tedium of aircraft, bars and hotel rooms. In the morning he hoists the the deadweight of yesterdays's target,and tahe weeks quota. He writes finish to the day with the curse of the daily report.

Despite all lthis, there is nothing he would rather do, and he will be the first to tell you so. As long as there is something to sell,. and someone to sell it. He is a salesman.

Caz.