The day of reckoning

The day of reckoning is nigh!

On the day that new opportunities arise for some, this is the day of reckoning for many others. There are but a few hours left to complete your reckoning to HMRC, have you done so? Or are you exempt? If you must still do so, and are not yet ready, do not let Coco delay you any longer.

Continue reading

The Turk’s head

Knotty problems require several solutions

It was an article on the BBC which reminded me, but Coco forgets which among the many thousands it was.

The building work had at the last reached its completion and Lakshmi, the very capable and ferocious forewoman, had left her three workers, Erdogan, Mahmud and Stephen, whom she trusted without reservation, to clear up. Stephen, who was able to read and assimilate plans and instructions quickly and accurately, was a bright and sparkling electrician but willing to turn his hand to most aspects of building work. Mahmud was as strong as an ox, ready, willing and able to carry out any instruction given to him with a swiftness and certainty unparalleled among men. He was not given to reading but could mix plaster and cement in huge quantities and lay bricks in straight rows and even lines. Erdogan was every bit a plumber by nature, a plumber by trade and a plumber by size, but knew his rafters from his joists without even thinking about it. He was also exceptional with plaster. If anything could be plastered, he could skim it.

Continue reading

Farming targets

How to use a cane

A tautologous repetition of conceptual ideas will not produce the making of a taxonomic classification of factual data items however well clothed with an investment in a garb of reasonable logic, but it may provide a cane with which to rod those with whom your tolerance will have nothing to do.

Continue reading

Committees

If Coco said that the opinion that ‘A is safe’ is supported by 100 years of medical experience, and the opinion that ‘A is not safe’ is only supported by sixty such years, which opinion are you more likely to trust?

Continue reading

Conspiracies

It has been said if a lie is to believed it must be a big one

Now certain reports have suggested to Coco that not many of you are likely to read this post through as it is too long, nevertheless it shall be long. Sometimes a short rebuke is both necessary and effective, but in reasoning and critique a longer reply may be required. Another reason for you not wanting to read it through might be that it is far too convoluted, perhaps, some would say, dense or even turgid, but whatever your reason might be Coco hopes that you will be able to overcome any such propensity and continue to plough a furrow through it such as shall not be erased at least not before the late rains have come.

Continue reading

Twelve years

A man is ‘called out’ for posting a workout referencing a film ’12 years a slave’ . What are we supposed to do? What is wrong with using such simile? ‘I’m working like a slave’ is not an uncommon phrase. Are we to be banned from using it anymore? Surely it both celebrates the capacity of a slave to work hard and at the same time recognises that a man should not have either to work as a slave or be a slave. What are we to say instead? I’m running like a winger? I’m spinning like a jet engine? Or ballet dancer? They don’t have quite the same impact, do they? And the impact that I’m working like a slave has is derived from the very thing that slavery is.

Continue reading