Bills Blog

July 2008

I am going to start my blog by telling you about a team building exercise I have recently attended. What a load of old rubbish! 

The objective of the course was to see how our minds work.

The briefing went like this.

There are 6 people in a cave and the cave is going to be flooded within the hour. There was only time to save 2 people in the cave and it was my job to choose who lived or who would be left to perish.

To help choose who would survive I needed to examine a file which gave me their personal profiles –

Fred

A 47 years old house husband. He has 3 young children and a wife who has her own business, working 70 hours a week as a witch in Glastonbury.  They live in a house in Surrey and have a dog called Jasmin. Freds favourite colour is green and he has a small bunion on his left foot which makes him limp when walking. Fred likes poetry and cooking. He killed a man at the age of 16 but he was let out of prison after serving just 5 years. The man killed was Freds step father who beat his mother on a daily basis. Fred keeps fish.

Mandy

21 year old, Mandy  is a Leo and always insists on doing things her way. She lives in a flat in Acton, Birmingham. She attends yoga classes on a weekly basis and owns a Red Renault Scenic which is 3 years old. Mandy like traditional folk but mixes the music with drum and bass sounds. Mandy will only wear blue clothes because someone once said it was her colour. She has a dog. Her boyfriend has a lung condition but isn't aware of it. Mandy helps run a school for gifted children in Burma.

Arthur

A 79 year old collector of antique shoes, he is allergic to tomatoes.

Simone

Retired bus conductor. Simone (formally Simon) after a sex change operation at the age of 20. Tool part in the 1964 Olympics as a shot putter. Prominent in local women groups. Collected £100,000 for charity in 1988 and then lost it. Accused of embellishment but released without charge due to lack of evidence. Took part in a round the world backwards walk raising £300,000 for charity before falling down a manhole in Leicester city centre, just half a mile from her finish line. Now aged 79 she drinks a bottle of gin a day.

Harry

A fish farmer from Surrey. Has 1 love child. A minor member of the Masons he has raised money for local charities, usually unwillingly. Owns 4 dogs and a snake. Member of Mensa.

Sue

A Chocoholic. 4 children under 4 years old. Totally hairless from the age of 12 after being frightened by a dog. Refuses to wear a wig she is a local celebrity. Occasionally interviewed on GMTV. Typical Aquarian.

The person running the team building exercise asked me to choose who should survive and  gave him my answers. I chose Sue, in the hope that she would reward me by introducing me to the GMTV crew. I would then tell them about my song Mars Bar Party and then be interviewed by The Sun where I would quickly become famous, spend a month in Celebrity Bog Brother, write a book about my experiences in the house and then retire to Bermuda.

The second person I would save would be Mandy, simply because I would like to go to Burma one day and with her connections in the country she might be able to get me cheap tickets.

Anyway, I would never have gone down in the cave in the first place so the whole exercise was futile

August 2008

The Olympics has all become just a little bit boring so I think the London 2012 extravaganza should have new sports.

My top 10 new Olympic sports would include -

50 meter Hedge Cutting Championship: Athletes cut a hedge into set shapes (i.e. a parrot, dog, dragon etc). The best one wins.

Slow bicycle racing: Olympians ride around a track very, very slowly. The last one wins.

Frisbee throwing: Two people throw a Frisbee to each other. The best ones at it wins a gold medal. (Other Frisbee competitions could be Full-on contact Frisbee where two people throw Frisbees at each other, any contact scores points. Anyone killing a competitor killing a fellow Olympian would mean immediate disqualification and a 3 month ban.

Internet Surfing: The same rules as surfing on a board in the water, but only on the Internet.

Spinning: People gather together and spin a nice jumper. The best jumper is the winner.

Morris Dancing: The best Morris team wins gold.

Smelling: Olympians guess the smell of things. (This is one of our senses that we give little credit for. People with a good sense of smell should be rewarded with a gold medal.

Feather Throwing: Current world record is 4.5 inches, many have come close but no one has beaten this outstanding free style event.

Subbuteo: More difficult that it looks, this should definitely be promoted to an Olympic event.

Synchronised swimming: Where swimmers have to swim around a bit in the swimming pool and their Olympic partner copies everything they do. On second thoughts, that is just plain stupid and would never become an Olympic sport in a million years.