Hugh Brammer
As others see us
My name is Alice Smith and I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his dental diploma, which bore his full name.
Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my secondary school class some 30-odd years ago. Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then?
Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, grey haired man with the deeply lined face was far too old to have been my classmate.
After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Morgan Park secondary school.
'Yes, yes I did. I'm a Morganner! 'he beamed with pride.
When did you leave to go to college?' I asked.
He answered: ‘In 1965. Why do you ask?’
'You were in my class!' I exclaimed.
He looked at me closely.
Then the UGLY, OLD, BALD, WRINKLED, FAT-ARSED, GREY-HAIRED, DECREPIT, BASTARD asked:
'What did you teach?'
Americans abroad
Spotting the Lady Chapel in Llandaff cathedral: “Oh, how sweet! Naming a chapel after Lady Di.”
Visiting the catacombs in Rome where early Christian martyrs are buried: “Were these early Christian martyrs A.D. or B.C.?”
A visitor to Stratford on Avon sent a picture of Anne Hathway’s cottage to an American friend who observed with surprise that visitors were allowed right up to the door. “Surely a film star of her standing could afford better security.”
As two middle-aged American women turned a corner and the full splendour of King Ludwig II’s castle in Bavaria came into view, one turned to the other and said: “Gee, honey. I never knew King Ludwig visited Disneyland.”
…and Brits, too
Overheard at a Bulgarian ski resort. “Aren’t you sick of this foreign food? I can’t wait to get back to Manchester and have a Chinese.”
Cross rancher
A successful rancher died and left everything to his devoted wife. She was a very good-looking woman and determined to keep the ranch, but she knew very little about ranching. So she decided to place an ad in the newspaper for a ranch hand.
Two cowboys applied for the job. One was gay and the other a drunk. She thought long and hard about it, and when no-one else applied she decided to hire the gay guy, figuring it would be safer to have him around the house than a drunk.
He proved to be a hard worker who put in long hours every day and knew a lot about ranching. For weeks, the two of them worked and the ranch was doing very well
Then one day, the rancher’s widow said to the hired hand: You have done a really good job, and the ranch looks great. You should go into town and kick up your heels.”
The hired hand readily agreed and went into town one Saturday night. One o’clock came, however, and he didn’t return. Two o’clock came and no hired hand. Finally, he turned up around two-thirty.
Upon entering the room, he found the rancher’s widow sitting by the fireplace with a glass of wine, waiting for him.
She quietly called him over to her. “Unbutton my blouse and take it off”, she said. Trembling, he did as she directed. “Now take off my boots.
He did so, ever so slowly. “Now take off my socks.” He removed each gently, and placed them neatly by her boots.
“Now take off my skirt.” He slowly unbuttoned it, constantly watching her eyes in the firelight.
“Now take off my bra.” Again, with trembling hands he did as he was told and dropped it to the floor.
Then she looked at him and said: “If you ever wear my clothes into town again, you’re fired.”
Rules of Cricket
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out and when he is out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out.
When they are all out the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When both sides have been in and out including the not outs, that’s the end of the game!
HOWZAT?
Now you understand perfectly!
Common tech.
A toothpaste factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty toothpaste boxes without the tube inside. This challenged their perceived quality with the buyers and distributors. Understanding how important the relationship with them was, the CEO of the company assembled his top people. They decided to hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem. The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, and third-parties selected. Six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution − on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased.
They solved the problem by using a high-tech precision scale that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighed less than it should. The line would stop, someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and then press another button to re-start the line. As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes were being shipped out of the factory.
With no more customer complaints, the CEO felt the $8 million was well spent. He then reviewed the line statistics report and discovered the number of empty boxes picked up by the scale in the first week was consistent with projections. However, the next three weeks were zero! The estimated rate should have been at least a dozen boxes a day. He had the engineers check the equipment. They verified the report was accurate.
Puzzled, the CEO travelled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed, just ahead of the new $8 million dollar solution, a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. He asked the line supervisor what that was about.
"Oh, that," the supervisor replied, "Bert, the kid from maintenance, put it there because he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang"
Text of a letter from a kid from Eromanga to Mum and Dad. (Eromanga is a small town, west of Quilpie in the far south west of Queensland.)
Dear Mum & Dad,
I am well. Hope youse are too. Tell me big brothers Doug and Phil that the Army is better than workin' on the farm − tell them to get in bloody quick smart before the jobs are all gone! I wuz a bit slow in settling down at first, because ya don't hafta get outta bed until 6am. But I like sleeping in now, cuz all ya gotta do before brekky is make ya bed and shine ya boots and clean ya uniform. No bloody cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to stack − nothin'!! Ya haz gotta shower though, but its not so bad, coz there's lotsa hot water and even a light to see what ya doing!
At brekky ya get cereal, fruit and eggs but there's no kangaroo steaks or possum stew like wot Mum makes. You don't get fed again until noon and by that time all the city boys are buggered because we've been on a 'route march' − geez its only just like walking to the windmill in the back paddock!!
This one will kill me brothers Doug and Phil with laughter. I keep getting medals for shootin' − dunno why. The bullseye is as big as a bloody possum's bum and it don't move and it's not firing back at ya like the Johnsons did when our big scrubber bull got into their prize cows before the Ekka last year! All ya gotta do is make yourself comfortable and hit the target − it's a piece of piss!! You don't even load your own cartridges, they comes in little boxes, and ya don't have to steady yourself against the rollbar of the roo shooting truck when you reload!
Sometimes ya gotta wrestle with the city boys and I gotta be real careful coz they break easy − it's not like fighting with Doug and Phil and Jack and Boori and Steve and Muzza all at once like we do at home after the muster.
Turns out I'm not a bad boxer either and it looks like I'm the best the platoon's got, and I've only been beaten by this one bloke from the Engineers − he's 6 foot 5 and 15 stone and three pick handles across the shoulders and as ya know I'm only 5 foot 7 and eight stone wringin' wet, but I fought him till the other blokes carried me off to the boozer.
I can't complain about the Army − tell the boys to get in quick before word gets around how bloody good it is.
Your loving daughter,
Sheila
