Brief Banter By Ben

Lesson 1:

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the Next-door neighbour. Before she says a word, Bob says, "I'll give you £800 to drop that towel." After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her £800 and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, "Who was that?" "It was Bob the next door neighbour," she replies. "Great!" the husband says, "did he say anything about the £800 he owes me?"

Moral of the story: If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

Lesson 2:

A priest offered a Nun a lift. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg. The nun said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest apologised "Sorry Sister but the flesh is weak." Arriving at the convent, the nun went on her way. On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."

Moral of the story: If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity

Lesson 3:

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out. The Genie says, "I'll give each of you just one wish." "Me first, me first!" says the admin clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Puff! She's gone. "Me next, me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life." Puff! He's gone. "OK, you're up," the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."

Moral of the story: Always let your boss have the first say.

Lesson 4:

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing?" The Eagle answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the Eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Lesson 5:

A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy." "Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients." The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree. Moral of the story: BullS*** might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Lesson 6:

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realise how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Moral of the story:

(1) Not everyone who sh! ts on you is your enemy

(2) Not everyone who gets you out of sh! t is your friend

(3) And when you're in deep sh! t, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

Here ends the 3-minute management course.

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If my volume of reader mail is any indication, many of you are concerned about the imminent demise of a favorite antivirus tool. Take reader Graham Gwilliam's note, for example:

"Fred, I hear that Grisoft's AVG AntiVirus Free Edition will not be free in the new year. I, together with my friends, have used this excellent antivirus software for some years. Is this the latest free software that we will now have to pay for or find an alternative that works as well?"

Not to worry. It's only the older versions that are going away. The newest version of AVG (7.5) is already available, and is still offered in both free and paid versions. (I'll give you the links in a moment.)

The reason for the confusion is that Grisoft's main Web site is set up so that you have to read through a lot of descriptive prose about the paid version before you find the links to the free one.

That's not a malicious trick or raw greed on Grisoft's part, it's just good business sense. Grisoft is doing a wonderful service to the computing community by continuing to offer a free, fully-functional and quite complete antivirus tool for personal and home use. But although that version is free to end users, it's not free to Grisoft. They paid to develop the free version, they pay to make it available for free download, and they pay still more to keep it updated.

That's very generous of them, but no company can afford infinite largess. So, if you can spring for the paid version on at least one of your personal-use PCs, please consider doing so. It will help Grisoft stay in business and allow it to continue to deliver good software. But if you truly can't afford the paid version, or can't afford it on all your PCs, then fine. That's what the free version is for!

And, by the way, one of the reasons Grisoft is trying to move all its customers to the new versions is that AVG AntiVirus 7.5 (free and paid) will ship with the "Security Center" in the soon-to-be-released Windows Vista. That makes AVG one of the most widely applicable AV tools in existence: Version 7.5 will run on all versions of 32-bit desktop Windows from Win98 through Vista.

The new paid version 7.5 is available now from Grisoft's main site. The free version is also available either by navigating from the above site (look for the small type near the bottom of the pages) or by going directly to the free download area.

Other free antivirus tools: Avast, ClamWin, Comodo, Antidote Lite

Ed. I will put the hypertext links in later!

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Hi I got caught hook line and sinker by a call to the gallery yesterday- recorded message asking me to call back about a delivery - I called back 3 times - each time only to get a recorded message saying "We are busy- please call again" - it was an 070 number - apparently we will be charged £50/minute - so I am letting most of my address book know - and the gallery owner has just passed on this similar scam!