The Searchlight of Insight

And the winner is...

Trinie in New Zealand... never underestimate the creative mind of a Kiwi! Many years ago when Igor's was a popular, haunted house dinner theatre in Hong Kong, I was on a business trip to New Zealand. (I was in Auckland - north island. Personally I am a Speights Beer boy, that would make me south island, but never mind.) Walking down the central shopping district I was amazed at the variety of shops that lay before me... wide variety. In one of the shops I managed to score Tess a sexy Cat Woman suit that she subsequently wore to Igor's on a number of occasions, including on their closing night in Hong Kong. Igor's moved to Singapore and then after a good run, shut down. Now all we have are the great memories. Enuf rambling... yes, Trinie guessed correctly... the bag contained a used condom.

Huh?

I found this link courtesy of Brian at Deeper. Can you imagine trying to sleep in this house... or worse across the street? Click on this link to see what I mean.

I Beg to Defer

The credit for this post goes to Paul's sister-in-law who lives in London, England. (I have to emphasize England so the Canadians reading don't get confused with London, Ontario.) She sent Paul <long time friend, now colleague, occasional loose cannon on deck> an article about the following proposal being put forward with the education body in the UK.

Education Secretary Ruth Kelly has dismissed suggestions that the concept of "failure" should be removed from school in favour of "deferred success". Think about it, this would actually raise the bar because eventually teachers professors would stop saying "F for Failure" in favour of "D for Deferred!" In no time students would be studying harder to avoid deferring.

On the business side, Paul's sister-in-law claims that at her office they coined a similar phrase “deferred employment” which translates into “You’re fired.” This aroused our interest within our own HR department and opens up a whole new world assuming that failure = deferring.

There are many places in society where we use the word failure:

Would this approach help us to avoid conflict? "I defer to understand what you are talking about?" Response: "Okay then, we'll talk about it later." Or even create procrastinators?

Create cliches: "Embrace deferring, we all must learn from our deferments."

Save lives: "He is suffering from heart deferment."

Alter nasty expressions: "Yup, his life is a mess, he is a deferrer."

Warranty Periods: The Company is only responsible for product deferments when the purchaser has submitted a warranty coupon without deferring.

Computers: "Warning: there has been a critical deferment in your operating system. If this deferment happens again, please re-boot."

Or create confusion? "Hello, this is Product Deferment, how may I help you?" Response: "Have I called Shipping or Quality?"

Create new self-help books: "Overcoming the Fear of Deferred Success" or "The Art of Deferment"

Insightful comments: "Deferment reminds us of our faulty definition of success."

And then at intersections:

Officer: Excuse me sir, you failed to stop at the stop sign back there.

Driver: Oh officer, I merely deferred to stop at the stop sign. I'll do it later. Honestly I have a coupon right here: 'good for one deferment provided deferrer embraces deferment.'

Officer: Yeah, okay, this is when I show you my "Deferred to get out of jail free" card.

Anything to add?