Carbonara

I was thinking about global warming yesterday. What are its consequences? Are they as hideous as some would have us believe? Polar icecaps melt, animals living in polar regions migrate (and probably evolve to cope with the change), sea levels rise, mass migration of humans from flood plains toward higher ground, previously uninhabitable areas become conducive to life in an equitable quid pro quo (much of the Sahara was once a fertile area), a proliferation of vegetation through a warmer climate, warm and shallow seas bringing a proliferation of waterborne life.

In other words, a return to the conditions which sucked carbon from our atmosphere in the first place and laid down seams of fossil fuels – coal and oil. Admittedly we won’t be able to utilise it, but our descendents millions of years in the future will – unless they’ve progressed well beyond burning the earth’s natural resources for energy and mastered the sub-atomic forces.

Releasing anthropogenic carbon merely creates the conditions necessary for the earth to develop the life that actually eliminates it again – it’s a simple feedback control mechanism. When you think about it, coal and oil are merely the earth’s way of converting and storing the sun’s energy – very inefficiently.

Message to The Spiv

Firstly I must thank The Spiv for delivering the tajine he promised me a few months ago. Unfortunately Hay and I were in Cornwall and couldn’t be here to accept it personally and provide some refreshment and recompense for his efforts. Spiv old boy, I note the tajine had a price tag on it of 18 Euros, so let me know your address or bank account details and I’ll put £20 your way.

I’m not able to post much at present as I’m down by the head with work in the lead up to a couple of large and important bids that will bring in enough revenue to reach my target 3 months early, so please bear with me if I’m somewhat distracted for a few weeks.

Boring, boring, boring

Beastly sorry I haven't had time to reply to comments, but I've had no time.

Wednesday we worked from 09:00 to 18:30; yesterday we worked from 08:00 to 18:30; today we work from 08:00 to 15:00 – then I have to drive from Basildon in Essex to Hayle in Cornwall, a midge’s nudger short of 400 miles. I suspect I may not make it in one go and will have to overnight at the caravan and set off at sparrow’s fart on Saturday morning.

I’m going to bore you rigid now. Much to my amazement, I actually learned something valuable from the sales training yesterday; to view what I’m selling from a different perspective. I’m not selling radars, autopilots, VHFs and satellite communication services, but predictability in budgeting. I know it sounds trite, but that simple concept enables me to move away from box shifting (which I hate) to selling a strategic solution to a critical business issue – something I’m more experienced at selling.

This concept enables me and my salesmen to enter an organisation at a higher level than we have heretofore done, as I’m addressing a strategic issue which bedevils many capital-intensive organisations – that of the fact they find it hard to plan ahead due to capital expenditure on purchasing, repair and maintenance being unpredictable. Immediately we focus the conversation on strategic issues, we suddenly find ourselves talking to the Master of Ceremonies rather than his assistant footstool bearer.

If I can enter in to a strategic win/win partnership with a prospect organisation, then I can sell services at a fixed price and product at a mutually agreed and independently audited discount, enabling them to feel confident in putting all their purchases through me – even for products we don’t actually sell today, but on which we can nonetheless obtain trade discounts. That in turn then means they don’t have to waste time and effort obtaining competitive quotes and analysing the results while all the time their ships are being delayed by not having the necessary equipment delivered immediately.

It’s an interesting twist on our selling model and takes it to another level. Whether my staff will be happy with it is another matter. There are already mutterings of dissent within my team, but that’s merely people not liking change and being afraid of new concepts that raise the game. I’ll have to coerce them into coming aboard through example.

Give Me Your Watch.......

Well, the sales training is an object lesson in consultancy more than anything else. By consultancy I mean asking someone for their watch in order to tell them the time.

It transpires that the hour or more I spent on the phone last week with the consultant telling him about my market was repeated with the managers of other two smaller markets. They certainly did their groundwork to make the course relevant to our markets using our own input.

Yesterday we learned to seek out those with ultimate decision making power. Now if you haven’t grasped that within your first few weeks in sales, then you probably won’t last very much longer than another couple of weeks, let alone 30 years.

The other thing we learned was to make the sales pitch relevant to the target person’s business problems. Again, kindergarten stuff you learn pretty quickly from your sales peers or a half competent manager.

The rest of the time from 9am to 6:30pm was spent debating issues on which individual salespersons are sure to differ – and a sure way to waste time while giving the appearance of being productive, as what works for one salesperson will not necessarily work for another (and justifiably so). Every salesperson has his or her own approach, and will defend that approach to the death as being the best approach – it’s simply human nature.

I can guarantee we are being charged a minimum of £1k per person - and there are 11 of us on the 3 day course. Not only that, but 3 other divisions of the company have received the same course. An object lesson in how to capitalise on senior management’s fears that their salesmen aren’t good at their jobs when the failure to reach targets is actually down to the worst recession since the Wall Street Crash and irrational targets that seem to ignore this inconvenient fact. Also an object lesson in referral selling within a large organisation.

I just hope the next 2 days of the course teach us how to perform the impossible by persuading non-existent customers (because they’ve gone bust) to part with money they simply don’t have in the first place as they have suffered a 25% reduction on income. However, having said that, the consultants managed to persuade my company to part with money it doesn’t have, and they’ve done it by preying on fears and the setting of ridiculous expectations. That’s certainly worth learning.

Seems one of my old beards has made it to the National Beard Registry.

The Yolk's On You

At breakfast this morning in the Premier Inn near HQ, I was contemplating the humble fried hen’s egg.

I don’t particularly like the white of an egg, particularly if it’s ‘snotty’. It can also hold its heat like a nuclear furnace. I eat it under sufferance, waiting to attack the yolk; however, if not cooked to perfection and still very runny, it disappears the minute you cut into it and spreads all over the plate, being virtually impossible to eat unless mopped up with something else, completely destroying its flavour in the process.

Are you as frustrated with fried eggs as I am?

My Grandmother Sucked Eggs

Been in sales and marketing virtually all of my shore-based life, but I and my team (all of whom are on the verge of retirement and have been in sales for the last 30 years too) have to go to HQ in Basildon till Friday to be taught how to sell by a bunch of consultants who know bugger all about my market and had the nerve to conference call me for 2 hours last week in an effort to find out more about it. The words 'grandmother', 'teach' and 'eggs' come to mind.

In the words of Capt. Oates: "I am just going outside and may be some time."

U Turns

UK politicians of all hues are accusing each other of U turns in policy after realising that cuts have to be made to spending plans.

Are these people lunatics? Being able to recognise you need to change your mind due to changing circumstances is a positive virtue, not a weakness! It’s not being able to adapt that caused the disaster at Arnhem, the anniversary of which was celebrated last weekend. Montgomery, in his fixation on beating the Americans across the Rhine, ignored all warnings and objective intelligence to the effect that it was an impossible task and doomed to failure. Dogma is not a virtue.

We went to the Cross Hands Hotel in Old Sodbury for dinner on Friday evening. Nice place, if a bit impersonal and branded (Greene King). The food is cheaper and of higher quality than The Dog, but I still prefer The Dog due to the ambience and the fact we know the landlady personally – plus the profits (albeit negligible) remain within the community. An excellent 3 course meal for two with wine, coffee and double liqueurs came to only £65, excluding the tip.


While Lancelot “Capability” Brown landscaped nearby Dodington Park, his less well-known brother, Sid “bloody rubbish” Brown did the Cross Hands’ car-park.

I’d love to run a restaurant where I could arbitrarily decide on a whim whether customers can be served. On Thursdays I’d issue an edict that ugly people will not be served, or on Fridays that no-one dressed in anything red will be served. Saturdays would mean no-one who is obese would be able to eat there. I had a problem with Sundays, but finally plumped for customers only being served if wearing a burqa – male or female, so as to not be discriminatory.

Why are Moslems allowed to get away with missing the u after a q? That’s discriminatory. Burqa, Al-Qaeda, etc.

What a Carry On - Confessions of a Clay Hoarder

Now for the answer to yesterday’s question.

Words ending in ‘ing’ are a subset of the words having ‘n’ as the penultimate letter (‘ing’ itself having ‘n’ as the penultimate letter); ergo there are more words with ‘n’ as the penultimate letter than ones ending in ‘ing’.

If you thought the answer was words ending in ‘ing’, you’re not alone. The vast majority of people do not analyse the question and spontaneously think there are more words ending in ‘ing’ as you can append it to lots of words. We’re a highly irrational species.

Panic over the infection of a handful of kids in the UK from e-coli caused by petting farm animals has resulted in a swathe of petting farms closing down and hundreds of people being made jobless. I’m not sure of the statistics in the UK, but in the USA you are twice as likely to die from a road accident than die from e.coli, which kind of puts all the hysteria into perspective. Again, an example of pure irrationality.

Talking of irrationality; confession! Never heard of a more kack-handed and ridiculous ideology in my life. The idea that you can expiate your guilt by confessing your misdeeds to a disinterested 3rd party (and by disinterested I mean someone not involved in being ‘sinned’ against – or even mythical) is totally irrational and counter-intuitive. Having confessed your sins you’re free to go on your merry way free of all guilt while the victim of your actions is possibly still suffering the consequences. If you’re going to confess, then it should at the very least be to your victim.

Safari suits! Unless you’re off to the Serengeti or Umfolozi National Parks, what’s the point? My old man used to wear them ever since he returned from one of his voyages to South Africa in the 60s.

I was reading Charles Hawtrey’s wiki page yesterday and was amused by the following observation: “Hawtrey finally retired to Deal in Kent in the 1980s, where he devoted much time to the consumption of alcohol.” For foreign readers not of the British persuasion, Hawtrey was a regular on the Carry On series of film farces.

While we can all probably name half a dozen female supermodels, can any of you name a single male supermodel? Even if you can, are you able to name a single one that married a rich woman? I suppose it just goes to show how shallow men are when compared to women.

Anyone want to take 40 tonnes of excavation clay off me?

Footings In

You wouldn't believe how far the concrete delivery system can reach.








Cat made herself scarce yesterday; she was obviously aware of the superstition that burying a black cat in your walls or foundations is meant to bring good luck to a house and keep the nasty spirits away.

I'll end today with a question. Are there more words having the letter 'n' as the penultimate letter, or more words ending in 'ing'?

Fuel For Thought.

Petrol in the UK has recently gone up by roughly 3%, whereas autogas (Calor) has increased by 10%. So much for persuading people to use more environmentally friendly fuels.

Here are a couple of thoughts for Friday:

Do intelligent people simply have a higher level of consciousness which enables them to assimilate more information about everything?

Did Jesus have a messiah complex?