My nephew Boris is keen to set himself up as a Motor Trader. He has aquired a lock-up garage in the seedier part of Basingstoke with a couple of spanners and a large jack. He tells me he needs Motor Trade Insurance in case he buggers up someones car while using it to go to the pub overnight. He has been more or less on the straight and narrow ever since he was released from Wormwood Scrubs and wants to earn a living to supplement his benefits. He has approached a number of companies claiming to offer Motor Trade Insurance but as yet to no avail. He keeps asking around for motor trade insurance quotations but no one wants to know!!

I've been making some enquiries about Motor Trade Insurance on Boris's behalf. One large well known insurance company said on the phone that they could send us a motor trade insurance quotation form but would have to ask some questions first. These are some of the questions asked, and Boris's answers:

Q - How long have you had a driving licence?

A - Since my release (provisional, test applied for)

Q - Do you want Combined Motor Trade Insurance or just Road Risks?

A - Just enough to satisfy the Old Bill

Q - Will the Motor Trade Insurance apply to any other driver?

A - Only my mate when he picks cars up from Auction but he will always have "L" plates and usually his dad will be with him.

Q - Do you sell cars and if so how large are your premises?

A - Yes, and the road outside my flats is only partly yellow band and now the council have cleared the burnt out wrecks we have plenty of room.

Boris was getting a bit fed up with this invasion of his privacy by this time and started to tell the "nosey git" at the other end what she could do with her Motor Trade Insurance quotation. However, the Anger Management course he took during his recent detention at Her Majesty's Pleasure, mainly to get out of assembling chip fryers for export to China, kicked in and he settled for ripping the phone cable out of the wall.

We'll try again after BT have been.

When I was a child I could recite all the Nursery Rhymes in this competition (which I just made up all by my ownself).
The point is that teaching children nursery rhymes is a dying part of our culture. Does it matter?

Have a go! NO CHEATING!! Answer from memory. Post your honest score out of ten (NOT THE ANSWERS) in a comment. Answers some time tomorrow ... maybe.

My prediction for scores by age group:
Age 60 plus = 5 out of ten
Age 40 - 59 = 3 out of ten
Age 20 - 39 = 1 out of ten
Age up to 19 = You what??

Here goes ...

Q1 - What did little Jack Horner put in his pie?

Q2 - In Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been ... what was under the Queens chair?

Q3 - In Hey Diddle Diddle ... who ran away with the spoon?

Q4 - In Baa Baa Black Sheep ... where did the little boy live?

Q5 - How many bones did Old Mother Hubbard's little doggie get?

Q6 - What did the pieman want Simple Simon to show him?

Q7 - What grew all in a row in Mary Mary Quite Contrary's garden?

Q8 - When the Owl and the Pussycat went to sea, what did they wrap their money in?

Q9 - Who stole the Queen of Hearts tarts?

Q10 - Where did Goosey Goosey Gander throw the old man?

Remember! Post scores out of ten only and AGE GROUP of contestant.
Winner will receive £100,000 out of my personal Online Lottery Scam cheque when it comes!D

HOW TO RECRUIT THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THE JOB?

Put about 100 bricks in some particular order in a closed room with an open window.

Then send 2 or 3 candidates in the room and close the door.

Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours and then analyze the situation.

If they are counting the bricks ...
put them in the Accounts Department.

If they are recounting them ... put them in Auditing

If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks ...
put them in Engineering.

If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order ...
put them in Planning.

If they are throwing the bricks at each other ...
put them in Operations .

If they are sleeping ... put them in Security.

If they have broken the bricks into pieces ...
put them in Information Technology.

If they are sitting idle ... put them in Human Resources.

If they say they have tried different combinations, yet
not a brick has been moved ... put them in Sales.

If they have already left for the day ...
put them in Marketing.

If they are staring out of the window ...
put them on Strategic Planning.

And then last but not least, if they are talking to each
other and not a single brick has been moved ...
CONGRATULATE them and put them in TOP MANAGEMENT!

How have we managed it?!?!?!
How great we were!!
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE

40's, 50's, and 60's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Football teams had trials and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL !!!

And YOU are one of them!
CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

A photographer for CNN was assigned to cover southern California's Wildfires last year. He wanted pictures of the heroic work the Firefighters were doing as they battled the blazes.

When the photographer arrived on the scene, he realized that the smoke was so thick it would seriously impede, or even make impossible, his getting good photographs from the ground level. He requested permission from his boss to rent a plane and take photos from the air. His request was approved and he used his cell phone to call the local County airport to charter a flight. He was told a single engine plane would be waiting for him at the airport.

Arriving at the airfield, he spotted a plane warming up outside a hanger. He jumped in with his bag, slammed the door shut, and shouted, "Let's go".

The pilot taxied out, swung the plane into the wind and roared down the runway. Once in the air, the photographer instructed the pilot,

"Fly over the valley and make two or three low passes so I can take some pictures of the fires on the hillsides."

"Why?" asked the pilot.

"Because I'm a photographer for CNN," he responded. "And I need to get some close-up shots."

The pilot was strangely silent for a moment, finally he stammered, "So, what you're telling me, is... you're NOT my flight instructor?"...

A newlywed couple arrived late at their honeymoon hotel, and exhausted from a long hard day at the wedding, they went straight to their suite and began to undress for bed.

The bride, a young and rather naïve virgin hestitated shyly while her new husband removed his clothes. She had never seen him naked and was shocked to suddenly discover that he had an artificial leg. His foot had been amputated after a road accident. She watched in horror as he unstrapped the false limb and stood it in the corner before hopping into the bathroom.

As soon as he closed the bathroom door the girl burst into tears and grabbed her mobile phone to break the news to her mother.

"Oh, Mummy! It's awful!" she sobbed inconsolably, "Richard has only got one foot!"

"Consider yourself lucky Darling," said the mother rather snootily, "your father only has five inches!!"

I just rang the Muslim Council of Britain.
"Mumble, mumble," said a female voice at the other end.
"Are you by any chance wearing a burkha?" I asked.
"Mumble, mumble."
"Can you take the fekkin' thing off?" I said, "I can't hear you!"
"Mumble, mumble."
"Oh shit! Just put me through to a man, you stupid woman!" I requested politely.
"Hello?" said a male voice.
"Are you a spokesman for the Muslims of Britain?" I asked.
"Yes", said the voice.
"Were you elected to that role?"
"Yes", came the reply.
"Who elected you?" I asked.
"I did! What do you want?"
"I'd like to know your position on hair", I said.
"Male or female?" the voice asked.
"Does it matter?" I said.
"Oh yes!" said the voice, emphatically, "Female hair must be covered at all times."
"And male hair?" I pressed.
"That's fine. All the best muslims have big bushy beards and must show them off with pride!"
"Why is womens hair different?" I asked.
"Because it grows round the genitals!" whispered the voice in disgust.
"Now I understand!" I replied. "That's why whenever I see a muslim woman wearing a veil, she's usually got a big hairy prick in front of her!!"