Category: Fourre-tout

“Destiny has two ways of crushing us – by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.”
Henri Frederic Amiel

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 In other words, be careful what you wish for because unbeknownst to most, there are always pesky strings attached.

The latest big story making the news has been the Powerball Lottery with an obscene jackpot of over $1.5 billion. To make sure that I am making myself clear, 1billion = 1,000,000,000,000 (twelve zeros) dollars.

The lucky (?) people whose wishes have been fulfilled might be in for a nasty surprise.

As Roman rhetorician Marcus Fabius Quintilianus said a long time ago: “Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.”

The inconspicuous silky strings (five times stronger than steel) hanging from the jackpot might very well ensnare and destroy you.

The most common consequences of winning big jackpots are: loss of friends, divorces, lawsuits, and yes, murder.
And few people are smart enough to escape unscathed the lottery winning curse.

You cannot undo a wish come true, but if you are semi-smart, the first thing to do if you win big is to go underground and scrub your Facebook and all your other social media accounts.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that your vaunted Facebook friends will immediately want to strengthen their friendship with you. And so will the relatives that you have not spoken to since Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.

You should also change your name (it can be done), possibly your face, your phone number, your e-mail address and preferably move to another country. Switzerland might be nice. If you can (discreetly) prove that your are well off, the Swiss won’t quibble.

If you are in a shaky relationship, your winnings will immediately start open warfare.
You might welcome a divorce, but it is going to cost you big time. And you will never be sure that your next paramour will fancy you for your looks or for your cash.

Don’t be a numbskull. If you ever come into money, don’t be a Donald. Be a Whitey Bulger.

Wishing upon a star is a dangerous hobby. If you want to live happily ever after, scale down your wishes (a good meal, a pétanque win, good health) and enjoy the small things that Lady Luck granted you.

Keep in mind that there are always strings attached, even on the 72 virgins.

One last thing… if I personally ever win big at the lottery (extremely unlikely) I have never known any of you.

On second thought, if you happen to come into money, let’s do lunch. I have an extremely interesting proposition for you.

Your pragmatic advisor

Alain aka Iznogoud

 

 

Why do we have so many angry young men in the Middle East?
Why are they so easily driven to fight or blow themselves to bits?
Are they really battling for a New Caliphate or Sharia Law?
I very much doubt that.

I have my own theory about that.
These young men don’t give a flying fig about the Caliphate; they are just fighting for sex. All their heinous crimes are hormone driven and the results of intense sexual frustration.

In Muslim countries women are sequestered and jealously guarded by their relatives. Hanky-panky is absolutely forbidden and can have deadly consequences.

Unlike most western countries where sex outside marriage is now readily accepted, a young Muslim man must get married in order to have sexual intercourse.
And there lies the conundrum.
They usually cannot get married if they are jobless and penniless, and most of them are.
Therefore intense frustration.

It is the promise of unlimited sex (sex slaves on earth and virgins in Paradise) that drives these hormone driven young men to fight. Delusional victory holds the tantalizing promise of the forbidden fruit.

But many Muslims tired of the constant fighting are seeking their fortunes somewhere else. They flee, leaving most of their possessions behind but taking with them (alas) their antiquated beliefs.

Once out of their repressive, absurdly strait-laced countries, young males are acting like a pack of hungry hyenas. They think that any woman in plain sight is good for the taking. They have absolutely no respect for the other sex.

As proven by recent incidents in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, sexual harassment of women by refugees is getting out of control.

“Rafi Ibrahim, a Syrian who has lived in Denmark for years, said new migrants don’t know how to behave around women in Western society.
He said: ‘If they see a girl, they go nuts. They simply can’t handle it.
‘In Syria and many other countries, it is not normal for a strange woman to smile at you.” 

 Well-meaning but misguided Angela Merkel must bear responsibility for opening Europe’s floodgates to a quasi-unlimited number of asylum seekers.

It is time to raise the drawbridges and stop the Muslim influx in the West.
Most of the western countries are slowly starting to understand the danger and starting to close their borders but it might already be too late.

I have very little sympathy for organized religion and absolutely none at all (especially after the Bataclan bloodbath in Paris) for Islam.
Do what you please in your own country, but don’t try to impose your barbarous customs and misogynistic behavior anywhere else.

Batten down the hatches and raise the drawbridges my politically incorrect friends. Don’t let Islam’s Trojan horses inside your walls.

Alain

There is absolutely no denying that my cat’s hearing is vastly superior to mine; as a matter of fact, she can hear a mouse fart and I can’t. BUT in spite of my wife’s perfidious insinuations, I am not as deaf as a doorknob.

Granted, my hearing is not as acute as when I was in my prime, but I still hear perfectly well as long as you articulate, use the correct term, put the stress on the correct syllable (tonic accent) and remain at a hearing distance.

Women I have noticed (and I have known a few biblically) like to communicate from another room, another floor or preferably from a closet.
Even worse, they are often convinced that they already talked to you about something that was absolutely never mentioned before.

“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw

 Mister Shaw said this a long time before I said it.

One of our problems is that we are both foreign-born and that we are trying to communicate in a language that is not inherently ours.
I hail from a French background and she comes from a Slavic country where they speak a language totally devoid of articles.
And this can cause significant problems. “Grandes problemas” as Castro would say.

The absence of an article can make a sentence sound peculiar or even totally incomprehensible to an English speaker.
Without proper grammar, it becomes extremely difficult to communicate properly.

Bad punctuation can have the same effect.
Let’s eat grandma! and Let’s eat, grandma! have quite a different meaning and could significantly perturb a relationship.
Talking about eating grandma is not always something that goes down well. Especially if it is your own grandmother.

The tonic accent (putting the emphasis on a syllable) is also extremely important and trips many foreigners.
In English the stress is usually on the first syllable. In Spanish it is often on the second syllable and In French sometimes there is no emphasis on any syllable.

For instance take the word “comedy”:
In English, the stress is on comedy
In Spanish, comedia (the stress is on me)
In French, comédie (no stress on any syllable).

Fortunately, there is a good way to settle arguments.

You can test your diction with Apple’s Siri (Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface); she is the impartial, ultimate arbiter.
If lovely Siri doesn’t understand your utterings, don’t blame anybody but yourself; there is obviously something flawed about your speech.

So before “the pot calling the kettle black”, talk to Siri (or any computer for that matter), and when proven speech-deficient, crawl back to me.

I might accept your apologies.

Alain

A husband and wife went to the doctor. [The husband is hard of hearing]
The doctor says to the wife, “You’ve got to do 3 things to keep your husband well.”
“1st you got to keep everything real clean and smooth. You got to iron everything.”
“2nd you got to fix him fresh meals every day from scratch. No left overs, no fast or frozen foods.”
“3rd you got to give him more lovin.”
They get home and the husband asks, “Well what did the doctor say?”
The wife looks at him and responds, “You’re going to die.”