Category: Joke

Actually it’s a bit crap really. In fact, you’d almost certainly prefer to listen to something else. But all my imaginary friends like it. In fact quite a few of them make guest appearances on the record. And I released it just in time for Christmas!

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Honk! Honk!

Variants of this have been doing the rounds for some years now. This is my updated version, especially for all those good, quiet, little geese out there in Internetland who are permanently baffled by human politics & economics…

Socialism

You have 2 cows.

You give one to your neighbour.

Communism

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and gives you some milk.

Fascism

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and sells you some milk.

Nazism

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and shoots you.

Bureaucracy

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

Conventional Capitalism

You have two cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your herd multiplies and the economy grows.

You sell them and retire on the income.

Enron-style Venture Capitalism

You have two cows.

You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank.

Then you execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.

The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a company in the Cayman Islands.

This company is secretly owned by the majority shareholder.

He sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.

The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option buy one more.

You sell one cow to buy a new President of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.

Obviously no balance sheet is provided because it has been shredded.

The taxpaying public then buys your bull.

American corporation

You have two cows.

You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.

Later, you hire an expensive consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

French corporation

You have two cows.

You go on strike, organize a riot and block the roads, because you think you deserve three cows.

Japanese corporation

You have two cows.

You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.

You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon‘ and merchandise it ruthlessly worldwide.

German corporation

You have two cows.

You genetically re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

Italian corporation

You have two cows but you don’t know where they are.

You decide to have lunch.

Russian corporation

You have two cows.

You count them and learn you have five cows.

You count them again and find you have 42 cows.

You count them again and discover that you only have 2 cows after all.

You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

Swiss corporation

You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.

You charge the owners for storing them.

Dutch corporation

You have two cows.

You want to make them happy.

You let them smoke some grass.

Chinese corporation

You have two cows.

You have 300 people milking them.

You claim that you have full employment and high bovine productivity.

You arrest all journalists who report anything different.

Indian corporation

You have two cows.

You worship them.

Iraqi corporation

Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.

You tell them that you have none.

No-one believes you, so the Americans bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.

You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a democracy!

Australian corporation

You have two cows.

Business seems pretty good.

It’s a nice day.

You close the office early and go for a few beers to celebrate.

Hungarian corporation

You have two cows.

They both become very depressed and commit suicide.

New Zealand corporation

You have two cows.

The one on the left looks very attractive.

British corporation

You have two cows.

Both are mad.

Surrealism

i.e. corporate policy after a hectic team-building weekend in Amsterdam…

You have two giraffes.

The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Honk! Honk!

Following futher concerns from health experts about the global spread of bird flu, United States president George Bush has just announced drastic measures.

Tomorrow morning, the US Airforce will start bombing the Canary Islands.

This fairy tale was sent to me for publication. It’s sender asked to remain anonymous…

Once upon a time it was resolved to have a boat race between a Japanese team and a team representing the British National Health Service (NHS). Both teams practised long and hard to reach their peak performance. On the day the Japanese team won by a mile.

Afterwards, the NHS team became very discouraged by the result and morale sagged. Senior Management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found and a working party was set up to investigate the problem and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was that the Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering, while the NHS team had one person rowing and eight people steering.

Senior Management immediately hired a consultant company at great expense to do a study on the team’s structure. Millions of pounds and several months later they concluded at a press conference that, Too many people were steering and not enough were rowing. To prevent losing to the Japanese team next year the team structure was changed to three Assistant Steering Managers, three Steering Managers, one Executive Steering Manager and a Director of Steering Services. A performance and appraisal system was set up to give the person rowing the boat more incentive to work harder.

The next year the Japanese team won by an even larger distance. The NHS laid off the rower for poor performance, sold off all the paddles, cancelled all capital investment for new equipment and halted development of a new canoe. The money saved was used to fund higher than average pay awards to Senior Management.

Of course, this is only a fairy story, isn’t it?