The Oracle of Omaha

Warren Buff-Buff, the richest man of the desert, supped noisily through the straw while admiring the "can" of coke. He just didn't get it. We all have a share in Goldman Sachs.

Of absurdity and time, but not Proust

How do you know what you’re going to think?

It seems you would need to know what it is you are going to think before you think it.

That would be a reductio ad absurdum (reduction to the absurd).

How do you know what you are going to think is that your thought turns back upon itself.

It travels back and forth in time, feeding-off itself.

While you can articulate your thoughts in words and sentences in a linear like progression, thoughts themselves are not.

Perhaps, like a Klein bottle, thought has no boundary.

It self-intersects in time.

However, just as you cannot go back in time before time travel was invented, a thought cannot go back in time to before it was thought.

What is it?

It goes without saying.

What does?

It does.

What does?

It.

It?

It goes without saying.

What is it and where does it go?

If I could tell you, it wouldn't go without saying, now would it?

Is this how they broke you Pop-Pop?

Charity balls

I'm here to talk about humbleness, humility, modesty and strategic philanthropy, in what is quaintly termed, by the ordinary folk, the field of “charity”. I hate that word. Charity. It lacks reciprocity - giving without taking. Give and take are the capitalist foundations of this great, scorched earth: as we consume the world, it consumes us. See: take and give; give and take.

Let's talk balls.

Someone once said, “All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.”

Well, I can't pretend to know about all those merelys, but, if this very stage I speak to you from, this very night, were considered a faithful approximation of reality, I would - as indeed I am - be the biggest player on it.

For, Ladies and Gentleman, I think I can safely assume you already know me as a player - the player; the game changer in a whole new ball game and the ball's in my court.

I think, in my own way, I'm trying to tell you I'm a big ball player.

But enough about me, I'm here tonight to talk about the little balls, those smaller balls left to one side, punctured by life, and then thrown away to be forgotten like, well, deflated things that are no longer good for anything, least of all the business of sports.

That is why I'm both sad, yet immensely proud, to the be sponsor, and host, of this gathering of the great and good on Red Ball Day, indeed, the world was red and round last time I checked, which was Tuesday, I believe - or am I confusing it with Mars .... they're both arid and almost uninhabitable ...

Anyway, I digress. I like to think of those I help as my very own little red balls, as, in a sense, they are, due to their overexposure to the sun's radiation, twined with their inability to afford sun-block and my use of them for casual, outdoor labour.

With that, I'd like to thank you all for painting your big balls red.

So let our night of celebrity personality entertainment begin.

Think of the burnt, deflated, little balls.

Give generously to my Red Ball Day Foundation.

Let's make it big, red and round.

Dismissive

You are dismissed QT!

Sir?

Only temporarily from immediate presence you fool.

Trust issues

I trust you implicitly QT.

That's very kind of you Sir, but upon what do you base that emotional and intellectual investment?

You mean: how do I know, for example, that, just because you were reliable yesterday, you'll be reliable tomorrow? The problem of induction - the Scottish dilemma, you see?

Well, how do you know?

I don't know in the sense that I can deduce your reliability from first principles, however, I know in the sense that, because you display a certain predilection - predisposition if you will - towards reliability, you will tend to be reliable; towards reliability, all thing being equal - if you catch my drift.

All things being equal?

Yes, if you don't follow my instructions to the letter, you're fired and my post-post reference, which I shall post to any prospective employer, will make you unemployable. Indeed, trust, like leadership, is like a one-way street: I look both ways before crossing. Having said that though, you should in no way infer from my use of that simile, I'm pedestrian; that's why it's a simile - similars - not identicals. Now get me my morning coffee: black; sans sugar; and sans urine.

Specialness

I want to do something different for your yearly performance review. Do you know what makes something special?

Because it is valuable?

It's rare?

We form some sort of attachment to a thing, say, of a sentimental nature?

It is extraordinary or exceptional in some sense or manner?

Having a distinct functional attribute?

All very good answers, but what makes special, special, is you; you are the source of specialness - both individually and collectively - and I want you to know, you are all, special and I know, to you very, very, special people, money is not a motive ...

...I think I know where this is going.

Boys, boys, boys

You're sooooo talented.

I'm just that bit older than you and learned to fake it better.

Mandy felt the urgent throbbing of Jake's Blackberry against her thigh, which escalated her passion to an all-time fuck-me high.

Are you going to answer it?

What did It ask me?

Do you really love your wife?

Only in the sense that a man loves Jeremy Clarkson.

She melted in his arms, leaving him with third-degree burns.

The plastic surgery and Semtex tan could have been a factor.

First dinner with Jake...

Mandy was putting the final touches to the paella when she heard the door open and the expensive click of leather uppers on the faux pine floor of the hallway. It was the first time she'd cooked for Jake and this was the big night. He'd promised they could actually spend some proper time together, rather than just grabbing the fleeting moments of passion that had been sustaining them since this all began. It was so hard for them to spend any time together, what with his job and family and everything.

She was trying her new Nigella recipe that Trudy had recommended. "It never fails," Trudy had quacked, between glugs of sauvignon blanc at the CeleStar last Thursday. "It's a piece of piss to make, and it's sure to get him going - if you know what I mean!" While Mandy had never really cooked anything before, she had decided to bite the bullet and really prove to herself that she was a real woman, like her mum, who can rustle up a good meal for her fella without batting an eyelid. It hadn't started well, when she had spent over two hours in her local Tesco Express shopping for ingredients, and to ask a kind assistant to explain to her where the Extra Virgin Olive oil was - Mandy making the 16 year old blush deeply as she stressed the word virgin and winked uncontrollably. Things got better from there but she still got in a tis when trying to find a pan at home which was 'ovenproof'. Luckily Trudy had phoned on her fag break and helped her out. Thank god for Trudy! "If in doubt, just add shit loads of wine," she'd woofed. Mandy liked the sound of that and blessed her stars that she had friends like Trudy.

Now was the moment and as she heard Jake moving closer, a great shiver of excitement rushed through her from tip to toe and she called out the two words she'd always wanted to say to him: "dinner's ready!" She was so excited she could barely cut the lemon straight, but just as she pushed the blade through the rind, she felt his cool breath on her neck and his hands on her waist. Before she had a chance to turn around and see him, and without saying a word, he began kissing her roughly on the back of the head and she closed her eyes and melted...

He held her tightly where she stood against the sideboard, her still facing the wall, so she couldn't move and began unfastening her pinny. She felt held firmly in his vice like grip and squeezed the lemon gently as he slipped a hand inside her skirt (a short black number by Lipsy) and reached inside her new Boudiche panties. As he caressed her softly, she felt his manhood pressing against her rump asserting its desire in no uncertain terms. Still he hadn't said a thing while she began to murmur and mutter mild expletives in docile appreciation. He pushed her head down leaving her face dangerously close to the simmering fish dish and stray locks of hair began to sweep and absorb the fishy matter. Still with the knife in her one hand and the lemon in the other, he began to take her roughly, and her face splashed against the slightly over-salted mixture. Even as he drove harder and she became increasingly scorched and en-filthed, she thought to herself, I've never been happier.

As he climaxed, she shuddered and went weak at the knees, thinking she would collapse in a heap at his manly feat. However, she remained, bent over, quivering with pleasure kind of feeling like the girl whose had too much ice cream, in a sticky, burnt, hot, fishy haze. Before she really came to her senses, and removed her head from the steaming bowl, she realised he was gone, without having had a bite, and without saying goodbye. The lemon had sprayed all over the side and its empty, wrought carcass lay limply in her hand. "He must have had to get back home," she sighed to herself. "It was silly of me to think he would have the time to stick around for dinner and talking. What a silly girl I am. But I guess that is the way of the mistress, this is the life I've chosen. I'm just so lucky to have him when I can at all."

This is not a threat

Jesus wept

QT pushed the trolley around Kafka's Labyrinthine Supermart, and stopped by the Kafka's budget branded powdered water. Too expensive. He failed fiscally in even making that demographic bracket. He then noticed Jesus over in the tinned - ocean harvest fresh - fish isle.

Heard the good news Jesus? ... find budget branded products cheaper elsewhere, and Kafka's will refund you the difference. Less taxes.

Fuck off.

Love thy neighbour?

I hate myself; therefore, by logical extension, I hate you too. And you're not my neighbour, not even in the geographical sense, even less in the metaphorical or metaphysical sense. Theologically speaking.

He nodded in the direction of his basket which was filled with the finest banded H2O DRY range.

You want to be careful that doesn't transform into wine or you'll end up a dry alcoholic!

You disgust me.

Aesthetically or morally?

All of the above.

Well, cheer up: it might never happen!

Have you read the Bible? It did happen.

So, anyway, how's it hanging otherwise?

Do you want to me to punch you in the face with this spike?

Jesus lifted a skinny fist, clenched, so you could see the rusty nail poking through the torn, translucent flesh, waved it in the air before him in half-hearted menace, and then broke down, sobbing.

You still dating Madonna?

Thirsty

Joe Kerr Jr., in predictable fashion, paced, socked and shoeless, upon the boardroom table, as was his wont, when delivering his "beyond the envelope - deep space the other side of the black hole - ideas".

I think we all, Joe Junior, agree around this round table, that the notion of launching a new bottled water product, when, for want of a better phrase, "the planetary well is dry", is damned to fail.

It's really quite simple people, simple people. It's not about perspiration. It's about aspiration. What we are selling is the idea of liquid wealth in the form of a dehydrated water powder, which says, to your peers, "I'm a success, so much so, my busy lifestyle means I don't have time to fill a bottle full of water before I leave home for work, so I carry "H2O DRY" when I'm on the go, just add water, and I have an instance source of transparently thirst-quenching product."

Mistakes, there's been a few

"On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow."

Heraclitus

It's a serious fuck-up. How do we prevent this very same mistake happening in the future QT?

Well, we could exceed the speed of light, achieve infinite mass - warping space and time in the process - to bridge the gap between the present and the future in order to determine what, if any, future mistakes we are likely to make.

I want to see a position paper on my desk by yesterday. Noon.

Of course this is not exactly a solution ...

Yes ...

... it depends on whether the future is preordained in the sense that it is already fully determined as proposed by the “block” theory of time: that being the notion that all things, events and whatnot already exist, only we are, by dint of our of psychological make-up, capable of perceiving them in successively orderings - or “temporal slices” of the "block", so-to-speak.

Meaning ...

We are doomed to make the future mistakes we have, in one sense, already made, only we are unaware of our destiny to do so, however, even with the aid of future travel, even if we knew our own destinies, we could still do nothing about it.

How do we place a positive, robust and reassuring spin on this to the client?

If two things – in this instance the two things being mistake-making events – are the same in respect of all their properties, then, according to Leibniz Law, they are identical. From this we can deduce that mistakes made at different points in the spatial-temporal order of things cannot be the same, as they are numerically different and, therefore, not identical, merely similar.

Will the client swallow that?

Does it really matter?

What kind of response is that?

It's called "managing expectations".