The twins, Matthew and Scott were 10 years old yesterday. I now call them my ‘Double-Digit Boys’.
Harvey: my lass’s new dog… a 4 month old Springer Spaniel. He’s luvverly. Here he is last Saturday on a walk with his new family at Barlaston downs.
(Thank you Daftbugger.)
Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers’ loans).
Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit .
By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit.
He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!
At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINK BONDS.
These “securities” then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.
Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AAA Secured Bonds” really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.
Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi’s 11 employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINK BOND prices drop by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities.
They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi’s bar.
Now do you understand?
I’ve not been entirely idle. This is Sam and Tom playing in the sea at Cornwall.
I go into Google images and look for a bloke smoking a fag. This is what I get. 
I anner blogged for a while – too busy writing. But then this gem popped up! Too good to miss? I think so. This is mar mate, Trev, having disposed of a bottle of whiskey and rye in quick time; entertaining his family. Trev is a man of many talents. He makes a good party piece, dunner he! I’ll try and get him top of the Pottery Pops. Maybe worldwide? Be my guest folks and put it on your blog. It deserves a wider audience. 
Sing along folks, and I wish all my readers a super Xmas and a very happy New Year. 
We’ll wind this up with another of my favourites. There’s a reason for this one. After a hectic night of bopping, you’d probably be with the wench of your choice, so this one was sort of fun and it had intervals when you could get close enough for some spiel, and then ask, “Can I take you home, baby?”
