The Bathtub Test

The  Bathtub Test  

During a visit to the mental asylum, I asked the  director how do you determine whether or not a patient should be  institutionalized.

"Well," said the director, "we fill up a  bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient  and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," I  said "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the  spoon or the teacup."

Answer from the Director

"No." said the director, "A normal person  would pull the plug.  Do you want a bed near the window?"  

ARE YOU GOING  TO  PASS THIS ON,  OR DO YOU WANT THE BED NEXT TO  MINE??

I will Not F*^&$*^ Smile

I was clearing out my emails today and came across this sequence from 2010 and thought I would share:

I received this from a colleague in a weak attempt to make me smile

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul K
To: Tom Stronach
Sent: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 8:53
Subject: smile

 

Did I read the sign right?

In an office:
TOILET OUT OF ORDER...... PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW
In a Laundromat:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT
In a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS
In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

Outside a secondhand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN'T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR


Notice in a farmer's field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE , BUT THE BULL CHARGES.


On a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR - THE BELL DOESN'T WORK)
Now that you've smiled at least once, it's your turn to spread the stupidity and send this to someone you want to bring a smile to (maybe even a chuckle). We all need a good laugh, keep on smiling

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


I was in my usual -in the f*&^%*& office - mood and sent this reply

From: tom stronach
Sent: 21 April 2010 09:30
To: Paul K
Subject: Re: smile

 

Do you bloody mind.....

 

I most certainly WILL NOT f*****G smile 

 

I have invested a lot of time and effort in mastering the art of the scowl, grimace and general unpleasantness that comes with working in P..... for L..  and NB and this general attack by L.. Management on my whole attitude of generally being a bit of a miserable bastard will be ignored and we would be pleased if you would refrain from further unsolicited attacks or the attempted undermining of our generally accepted belligerent demeanour 

 

So, F**k Off..............................

 

and finally received this reply - it's good when people remember what my job description entails

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul K 
To: Tom Stronach - 
Sent: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:48
Subject: RE: smile

Hi Tom, pleased to note (and apologies for forgetting the requirement in your job description) your curmudgeonly attitude prevails, and that you remain a fully paid up member (with a potential nomination for grand poobar) of the P.....  chapter of the Grumpy Old Farts brigade ….

S#d off then…..

 

Book review Poems of Love and Hate by Julia R Barrett

How well do you know your friends on Twitter. You may never have met them and they might even be a well established author of a particular genre, that might not altogether be your cup of tea, but you have looked at it and that too has given you preconceptions of 'your friend'.

You have read her numerous blogs and found her to be funny, laughing out loud at her take on events in her life, even when they have been excruciatingly painful, as they happen to her, and she clearly sees the funny side of them too...

Then you have conversations with her and her friends on twitter and they make you laugh till your sides hurt and damn them (metaphorically only of course) they make you laugh so much you have to reach for the asthma pump...  So you've got to know her pretty well as a distant un-met dear friend.

Then out of left field she tells you in one quicky post (no I didn't feel used, that's what blogs and tweets can be quickies) that she is going to publish a book of poems and suddenly it is there and you take the day to read through them and you think... hell. I don't know this woman at all.  These are good. They are quite painful, the book is entitled  "Poems of Love and Hate"  by J.R. Barrett......

You wonder if the woman you have a dialogue with is on her 'second' attempt at life as the life she writes about in her blog bears no resemblance to the life she writes about in her book of poems.

You wonder if she has experienced the highs and the lows, the extreme love and the extreme pain that so often can be the flip side of that thing we call love, why 'Becuz' it's  all there in those 18 poems  and then you see some traits of your own contained in those poems and you wonder, 'are we all like that''

I used to,  'just sit there with your sports section And your bowl of cereal As if you're entitled And I'm Not'

I know this but I changed .... and became better, I hope for the change

But then you read, I remember the evening You beat me    Because YOU spilled the orange juice .....

Is this the same woman I have known for only a few months but it feels like years?  Well apparently it is and I don't know her half as much as I should and neither do you....

But you can rectify that easily by having a look at this moving tender and sometimes painful work of poems by an extraordinary woman   Julia R Barrett and her book Poems of Love and Hate

Available on Amazon US here and Amazon UK here

Outstanding 

Social Housing Sell Off - Conservatives Never learn from Past Mistakes

I heard a snippet on the news this morning as I passed a radio that Government are saying that council house tenants may get up to £70k knocked off the cost of their house should they wish to buy it.

Now we all know that the cost of most council houses that form terraced streets are not that large, but have over inflated prices, that the estate agents and BANKS propped up from the 80's and continue to do so today, so there will still be a substantial mortgage left to pay on the property.  Of course another reason for the inflated price of houses in the UK was the last disastrous sell off of council homes, also led by the Conservatives, this time assisted by the LIB Dems, and ignored by Labour, was that Councils were not allowed to use the money to build  more social houses to replace that which was lost.... SHAME ON ALL POLITICIANS FOR THAT DEBACLE OF BAD GOVERNANCE

Of course the Government will argue that SOME COUNCIL HOUSES are too large for some of there occupants and they want to throw them out into single bedroom homes or care homes, just so that their families, sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters can't come for a sleep over, unless they all huddle on the floor of the lounge of the single bed home they want to force the current occupants to move into.....

Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps twitter) Welwyn Hatfield MP and Minister of State for Housing & Local Government. Website here http://www.shapps.com is always harping on about the good that he is doing for housing and local government, well Grant I have news for you, you aren't!  You are doing exactly what your predecessors before you did, you are creating a disaster for the rest of us to clear up, or not, in the not to distant future.

Is it just me?  Every day I see and hear ministers and opposition members of Parliament prattling on about the need to create jobs, and yes there are undoubtedly SOME jobs being created, but more and more jobs are being lost and unless some government brings in a law to restrict the use of labour saving technological advances that science is making every day, more and more jobs will be lost to these technologies with no hope of bringing them back...

If the work place is shrinking and our children are suffering the deprivation of poor and inadequate education to their and our future detriment, for goodness sake we aren't even teaching them how to claim benefits, although many learn that easy lesson from their parents, yet we do tell immigrants, legal and illegal how to do that!

The point is that while we should all aspire to be more in life than we are and to, if we can, be in a position to, buy and own our own homes it is an easy move from home ownership to being thrown out in the street when you fall behind when that manageable mortgage is suddenly no longer mangageable.  I have no statistics to back this up but I would be interested to know if after the first time this sell off occured under a previous Conservative Government what was the average debt level of a council house tenant when they rented their house and what it rose to after they 'bought' their council house and fell into the trap of being in the coveted position of being a 'home owner'.  What is it with we Brits, why are we conned so easily into believing that home ownership IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO?

Did you know that only 39 percent of Germans own their own home, compared 68 percent in the U.K.   . Apparently Spain has the highest rate among advanced industrial nations in Europe at 82 per cent and in France it is around 56 per cent.  So while Spain beats us in this and I have no idea why, and maybe that is another reason to add for their current economic gloom which apparently is worse than ours, unless you are a banker or an MP or a member of the non elected upper house, with the salaries, expenses bonuses and platinum pensions, can you AFFORD TO BUY YOUR OWN HOME.  If I was sitting in a council house paying rent today, I would have to think long and hard about it and the answer would most definitely be a resounding NO.

Why, when so many people are unemployed? Why, when factories requiring thousand of shift workers are not being planned? Why, when so many people, like the country, are in debt? 

WHY, ARE THE GOVERNMENT TRYING TO CON PEOPLE INTO BUYING HOMES THAT THEY MAY NOT BE IN A POSITION TO MAINTAIN THE PAYMENTS FOR, WHY?

related posts:  It's all about delivery - response to a Grant Shapps speach