When I started this blog about 6 weeks ago, I also started another blog, in which I presented myself as a woman. I put a reasonably attractive image (nothing too outrageous) and that was it. While under this profile I have been writing quite a lot, I did not write a single line in the under the other profile. Yet, I have many more profile views as a woman who has nothing to say. What do you recon it means I wonder?

Not much to say today, but as someone was asking about the cost of things, I just wanted to remind you that despite the cost of living, some things in life are priceless.

Enjoy

Some more mushrooms. Just an addition to my last entry.

Mushrooms are organic, natural and green;
mushrooms are full of nutrients and healthier than bean.
Mushrooms don’t emit carbon or led,
and always make you happy when you are sad.
So when you are alone, and feel lonely in your bed,
Why don’t you try some mushrooms instead?

I hope that this poem was not too bad,
and that you learnt something useful,
cause this is its end.
Oh oh oh oh, mushrooms.

Today is one of these days. I am sure you know what I mean by those days. It’s a day when nothing, absolutely nothing, works the way you want it to work. And by this I don’t mean that things work exceptionally well. So the only left for me to do in such a day (outside my normal job, of course) is not to take it seriously.

Going stupid is my way of not taking things seriously. However, as I am confined to sitting in front of a computer, I am pretty limited how stupid I can be while still keeping my job. I can’t, for instance, climb a tree, or fool around with my secretary (I don’t have one if you see). So rewriting my bio, was the stupidest thing I could think of. And here is the result.

One afternoon, when I was leisurely drinking my tea, I suddenly felt that my cup was trying to evade my grip. Closer examination, however, revealed that it wasn’t my cup at all; it was my hands, having been terrorised by a pair of claws that that had arrived to replace them, that were trying to escape.

“Not again!” I thought, and decided that this time I was going to file a complaint.

My spoon sounded busy at first, and then gave no dial tone, so I realised that a visit in person to my cup of tea would be necessary, so I dived in. Fortunately enough, I could easily reach the cube of sugar, which was still lying at the bottom. The complaints department, on the other hand, seemed to have moved and I couldn’t find it anywhere.

A little blue fish approached me and asked for the way to the technical department. But having missed my tea, I felt hungry and swallowed him. This somewhat seemed to upset his big brother, who appeared from behind the corner, and ignoring my unsavoury flavour, gulped me at once.

I knew I was heading in the right direction when I saw a Complaints Department sign shimmering from the back of his throat, and I started tracing the arrows on the floor.

Down the spiralling stairs I went, and up the dark corridors, until I found myself facing a locked door, who rudely refused to let me in. I was about to retrace my steps, when my claws, eager to prove themselves useful, scratched their way through the unfriendly door, to the other side, where I was attacked by champagne corks, balloons and a group of women who insisted on kissing me all over.

- “Surprise!” they called, blowing the trumpets.
- “Welcome to the accounting department,” said an accountant-looking woman. “You are the first person to have joined us since the freeze in human resource,” she said, and with a sweep of her arm cleared a space for herself on a big mahogany desk and set on it opened legged.
- “We are your family now,” she continued, pulling me towards her, with her eyes glowing. “So make sure your report is on my desk by seven tonight.”
- “But I’m only looking for the complaints department,” I said faintly.
- “The complaints department?” she shrieked loudly, attracting all eyes in my direction, making me wish I’d never uttered the words. “He wants the complaints department!
- “We are not good enough for him here. Let’s show him what we do to people who are after the complaints department!” she cried and kicked me straight through the wall into a small room, where I crash-landed over a machine, whose jammed cogs started to heat up to my touch, while humming cheerfully to themselves.

“Thanks for the lift,” said the small slimy blue fish, jumping out of my mouth. “Keep the change,” he continued, handing me a two-pence coin.

I wanted him to stay and introduce me to the machine, who seemed too shy to make my acquaintance. But he vanished in the crowed.

As conversation seemed impossible under the circumstances, I started staring the walls, hoping to find my way out. One brick after the other I tapped it, until I found what I was after.

- “Exit,” said the brick, and smiled temptingly.
- “Could you please open up for me?” I asked. But she kept quiet, and only her widening smile indicated that she’d heard me. I tapped her again, and she opened straight away, revelling half a dozen sulking people sniffing roses in disgust.

“No more complaints!” they shouted when they saw me. “Can’t you see we’re closed now? Take a rose and go away.”

But as I noticed that the roses formed the words ‘Complaints Department’ I decided to pursue the issue for which I’d come.

- “When will you open again?” I asked.
- “Tomorrow, It’s always tomorrow,” came the reply.
- “It’s only a small issue.” I insisted. “Look, I was having my cup of tea, when all of a sudden my hands decided to escape, and left me with these,” I said, making my claws visible.
- “A very nice pair of claws… Osprey’s I should say,” came the reply. “They look just fine to me.”
- “But I don't want them. I want my hands back!”
- “You think that you’ve got a problem, don’t you?” they grumbled. “Look at these roses, for instance. They don’t even smell. And they are all fresh. Do you really think that we can keep listening to your complaints under such conditions?”
- “But…” I said, feeling embarrassed to have been so selfish.
- “Listen mate, one more word from you and you’re the manager here. Then, all your complaints will be dealt with under our internal affair category, where they’ll be given a special clearing priority, just over there,” he said pointing to the dust bin in the corner.

- “But …” I said again.
- “That’s done it. “Starting now, you’re the manager here. And if you don’t want us all to be going on a strike, you’d better do something about these roses straight away,” they said, and pushed me into a manager’s soft-leathered chair.

As a manager my claws turned up to be of a great value, so I decided to keep them, and withdrew my complaint altogether. And this is how I ended in my current position.

In autumn I feel like flying.
It’s my time to be,
out there in the fields;
or to take a canoe and a tent and disappear.

In autumn I feel like taking the colours into me:
yellow, red and orange,
and let them float into the grey sky.
I want to feel the cold wind awakens me,
the rain wetting me,
my lungs fill with the cold fresh air.

In autumn I want to take a canvas,
paint it bright,
mix it with the fallen leaves.
Let it fly with the wind,
until someone who likes it will make it his own.

In autumn I feel alive,
and nothing can take it away from me,
not even being in the office,
and not out there where I really want to be.

This is my favourite frog. It is only 3 cm, and it lives in the Australian Alps. Isn't it a beauty?

Financial products is something I should know about. At least I hope I should, as this has been my living for most of my professional life. But even I got surprised when I found out the level of deception banks go to lure uninformed clients to buy their products.

It all started when my mother called me to say that her financial adviser had suggested a low-risk high-return investment. ‘You can’t go wrong,” he’d told her. But having been my mother for quite some time, she remembered me saying (over and over again as I can be quite repetitive at times) that there is no such thing as return without risk, so she decided to ask my opinion before committing to the investment.

I opened my spreadsheet and started working out the payout of her suggested investment. It was a very deceiving proposition: if none of these great companies will go below a certain level, you will get a great return. And as they are good companies we are sure they will never go there, so your investment is secure, the argument went. In professional terms it's called an option on basket of equities, and it is one of the riskiest instruments one an make.

I decided to go around and find out what else the banks are selling out there. I picked up bank brochures and started working them out, one by one. It was absolutely ridiculous. Some of the instruments, although may seem simple, were so complicated that it took me many hours to understand. Others were plain risky; the type of things that a professional investor will not touch without a huge risk-premium.

But think about it what does a bank that finds itself stuck with a risky investment do? It tries to sell it to its clients. After all, unhappy clients is a long term problem of reputation, while bad products on their books is an immediate lose of bonuses. What would you have done if you were in their shoes?

So we can't blame the banks for what everyone does. However, it is important to remember:

1. Always be suspicious. Banks are not working for you! They are just well spoken highly educated second hand car dealers. But the goal is still the same, to make money for themselves.
2. Banks are getting paid first to make profit for themselves. If they can use you for this purpose, they will. Later they may try to compensate for it by better marketing. This is particularly true at times that banks are not doing so well, when they need to offload more and more bad investments.
3. If something sounds too good, don’t be fooled, it is.

Sweet                           Hot

Hot                              Sweet

If we all agreed on the same (wrong) things, the word would be a hard place to find a decent dessert