Within  a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars, the lawyer filed  a claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost ‘in a series of small  fires.’
The  insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the  man had consumed the cigars in the normal  fashion.

The  lawyer sued and  WON!                 (Stay  with  me.)

Delivering  the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the  claim was frivolous. The judge stated nevertheless, that  the lawyer held a
policy from the company, in which it had  warranted that the cigars were  insurable  and also guaranteed that it would insure them against  fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable  ‘fire’ and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the cigars that perished in the ‘fires’.

NOW  FOR THE BEST   PART…

After  the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company  had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!!  With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.
This true story won First Place in last year’s Criminal Lawyers Award contest.

Initially I was 100% sympathetic to the concept and it remains the case that I am completely supportive of the idea of a site that blows the whistle on wrongdoing but I am increasingly clear that is not what is happening here.

Julian Assange is claimed to describe himself as ‘An Apostle of Free Speech’. Well that is certainly nothing to do with Wikileaks. It should and could be a site for Freedom of Information but, if anything, it is tending presently to discourage Freedom of Speech. It simply cannot be right that anything anyone ever says to a colleague should be posted on a web site if it becomes available. Every one of us has occasion to say things privately, in either a domestic or commercial environment, in the expectation that they will stay private and also, it is clearly everyone’s moral right to be able to have confidences remain confidential. The alternative is anarchy and I rather hope that is a state we are moving away from rather than towards. In the same way it is obviously not proper to publish everything or anything that comes into their hands just because they can.

It is interesting that the leaks that have appeared on this site have all come from the closest we have in our current world to decent democracies. Places with the ability to remove politicians on a regular basis, prosecute corrupt officials and where freedom of information laws exist. It would be much more interesting if the leaks emanated from Russia, China or Iran or other closed societies where freedom of information absolutely is not sanctioned officially or willingly.

Now that’s advertising

When I was growing up there was an assumption that, in towns and cities, shop keepers, offices or residents kept the bit of pavement outside their house in passable condition whatever the weather and the drains clear if they were host to those as well. Now we all expect the local government to do everything, which would be fine, except that we also constantly bitch about the size of local taxes. This would be a safer, pleasanter and cheaper world if we all took a little more responsibility and pitched in to do our bit. If you have a neighbour you know is, for whatever reason, incapable then do their bit too. You never know you may even feel better for the deed as well as the exercise.

Rankeilour is looking absolutely stunning at the moment. we have had almost a meter of snow, about 32 inches in fact and all the trees are frosted and glint wondrously as the wind causes them to move in and out of the sunlight. Even the wretched Norwegian Spruce, which I normally cannot stand, is looking majestic and noble in these conditions and not at all the spavined apology for a tree that it actually is. There were times when the drive, which is 0.7 mniles long and all uphill when leaving home was becoming a bit of a trial but eventually common sense prevailed and the resourceful Chick  was persuaded to appear with his extremely asthmatic digger and remove most of it.(We are blessed with a choice of Chicks, both fairly piratical, but they conduct their piracy in non competing areas. Thank goodness for both of them.) Being Chick the bucket he had fitted was equipped with teeth so he was not able to get down to the black top but he removed nearly all of it and compacted the rest into an 0.7 mile sheet of ice. If anyone is in need of skid pan training we are able to oblige.

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay £1.
The sixth would pay £3.
The seventh would pay £7.
The eighth would pay £12.
The ninth would pay £18.
And the tenth man (the richest) would pay £59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every week and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until, one day, the owner caused them a little problem. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your weekly beer by £20.00 Drinks for the ten men would now cost just £80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink free but what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the £20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? They realized that £20 divided by six is £3.33 but if they subtracted that from everybody’s share then not only would the first four men still be drinking free but the fifth and sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fairer to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage. They decided to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so, the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (a100% saving).
The sixth man now paid £2 instead of £3 (a 33% saving).
The seventh man now paid £5 instead of £7 (a 28% saving).
The eighth man now paid £9 instead of £12 (a 25% saving).
The ninth man now paid £14 instead of £18 (a 22% saving).
And the tenth man now paid £49 instead of £59 (a 16% saving).
Each of the last six was better off than before with the first four continuing to drink for free.

But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got £1 out of the £20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got £10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a £1 too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get £10 back, when I only got £2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next week the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important – they didn’t have enough money between all of them to pay for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy and they just might not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible

Thnaks to James.

Whose organ had long ceased to function,

Deceived his good wife

For the rest of her life

With the aid of his constable’s truncheon.

What I believe we have learned from Ireland and Iceland (G for GB is dangerously close to I in the alphabet) is that governments need to devise a mechanism to prevent the speculative arm of their banks becoming larger than the economy that principally owns them. We seem to have got ourselves into a world where shareholders reap the upside and taxpayers reap the downside and that is, manifestly,  a corruption of capitalism that cannot be tolerated if capitalism is to survive. I wonder if governments are angry and frightened enough to act collectively to make this happen. I do not for a moment subscribe to the view that this cannot be done unilaterally, of course it can, but I do subscribe to the view that no government, except perhaps those of the United States and China believe that it can. Of the remainder Japan and Singapore took such action many years ago and came through the recent trauma with their investment portfolios greatly enhanced by being in a position to acquire good quality assets at fire-sale prices from the desperate. Well good for them. The most depressing outcome is that I have seen no indicator that any banker perceives any flaw in their modus operandi or any reason to change it.

A recent study conducted by Glasgow University found that the average Scotsman walks about 900 miles a year.

Kind Of Makes You Proud to Be Scottish doesn’t it!

Thank you Gordon.

Suddenly our life has been inundated with weddings and invitations to weddings and I seem to Have shed about 30 years. Safly for Management she only seems to have managed 25ish.

Well the top headline is that Prince Wiliam has got engaged to that lovely Kate Middleton. Someone on the wireless said that we must start to call her Katherine now but I assume that is the first outbeak of Pompous Twittery in an avalanche of PT that is about to be launched in our direction from all and sundry. I think that, if there was some danger that I might be actually introduced to the poor girl, I would go to some trouble to find out what she prefers to be called but among ourselves- get real. I am afraid that there will also now be an outpouring of about the most unpleasant aspect of British character which I shall call Natonal Bile. NB has been apparent for a considerable time during the wooing in the matter of her parents.   I believe that they both used to work for airlines but left and set up their own business which has been extremely successful over a good period of time. Pretty well as good a story as you are likely to find. Really admirable people with values and abilities to be admired and respected. Since their daughter had the temerity to catch the eye of a Prince they have been lambasted in the gutter press as you would expect, but also in the posh people’s press more or less ceaselessly. It has served to bring home to lots of the readers of these periodicals just how empty are the heads of their contribtors and just how unpleasant. God bless the newly engaged pair, marriage is wonderful but it is always hard work and marrying into a royal family, to a futue King no less, if he manages to outlive his granny, which absolutely cannot be taken for granted, is going to be a severe trial most of the time. My belief is that Granny has determned to get the Monarchical longevity record and put it so far out of reach that her entry in the Guinness Book of Records will, in time become its own record as the longest standing entry in The Gunness Book of Records.

In addition to these, for whose wedding the invitation has, as yet, not arrived our letter box has bulged with invitations these last weeks.  My nephew is to be married next spring in Orkney in St. Magnus Cathedral (Google it really worthwhile), My niece s to be marrid in Cyprus and my son is to be married in Bangkok. I suspect that travel may feature in my horoscope for next year.