Shrek! Okay, a red and redhaired Shrek. Trade Scots dialect for Irish.

James Joyce Business School

Do you find it frustrating to write business letters and memos that say all that you want to say? Maybe it's time you considered a business writing course at the James Joyce Business School. James Joyce was one of the greatest writers of the Twentieth Century. Now you can use his principles to improve your own business writing. For example, the job application letter.

Dear Sir or Madam or Sodom or Whom It May Confirm:

I understand you are hiring programmers and hereby present my amplification for annoyment by your firm. As you see, I see, juicy lucy goosy poosy, I have long expedience in grammar and was medicated in the best schools and my dram is to ride underwear. On my clothes is my consomme. Please feel free.

I remain your humble serpent.

There's an application letter that's sure to be noticed! And then there's the staff memo. The James Joyce method gives you a memo that gets your employees' attention everytime.

TO: All Staff, Falstaff, Full Stuff, Fellow Stiff
FR: Vice-president Buttrick
RE: Office conditions

And so it was Wednesday I was in search of the report the report the short report on the client O'Brien and I am walking walking looking in the cubicles where ladies file their cuticles and the desks with potted plants and clippings and cartoons and by gosh yes hold on here is that report no it isn't it's an old smelly rotten cloth used to mop up spilled coke and and who is this romeo Molly has got his photo taped to her keyboard and what does she need eyeliner for it's an office it isn't a nightclub and if it is then I need a drink

The stream of consciousness style is so good for memos. And for letters to clients, too. Clients need something more than the formal letter; they need to feel that your company really cares about them.

Dear Sir:

You wrote and asked is the large size still in stock and yes I said yes it is yes and the moon set over the torrents of clouds and the sea and the sky were blue and you asked could you have it by tomorrow and yes I said yes you can yes and the sky and the sea and the sun rising in tumult and you said could I have forty-four of them and in black and yes I said yes and your eyes and my eyes and the birds flying round the end of the pier and you said could I have ten percent discount and yes I said yes take it take it yes ten percent yes I said yes yes.

The James Joyce Business School, here in Dublin, call for the brochure. Do they take credit cards? Yes they do yes they do yes yes yes.

Credit: Garrison Keillor, Prairie Home Companion

PHC is my guilty pleasure.

And the point of this is??

Should this thread not read " How The Irish Saved Civilization - until they got to the 21st century"?

Search me …

Jon

They say the Irish discovered civilisation. Then they had another Guiness and forgot where they put it.

I found Jesus last week. He'd slipped down the back of the sofa, amongst the socks, coins and missing Bic lighters.

And he came fifth and lost the job.

Here's another Joyce:



de HalfWitt from Three's Company!

                       
Jon

That's the clubs suit. I did find a clover ☘ but it has only three leaves.

Not that it matters, but neither of them are the official symbol of Ireland anyways ....

Not to harp on you too much but I tried &potato; and it didn't do anything.

Okay, it says "hot beverage", but we can pretend, can't we?

Jon

Okay, see y'all again next March 17.

Bumping Back Up for Ease of Reference …

Grin Grow The Rashes, O—

Bleah. Since Guinness-on-tap is hands down my favorite beer, I feel obligated to point out that it tastes best when cool, which is how they serve it.

Not ice-cold, which is the only way one can gag down piss-yellow Bud or Miller Lite.

So that's why it keeps coming up on me!?

Jon

I'm partial to Killian Red, myself.

But I digress.

What is the significance of the heroic character being a redhead?

I don't know how you can presume to discuss that question without mentioning Still Life With Woodpecker.

What do you take me for? A Can of Beans?

e-scapers guide to “the e-stablishment”

Jon

Well, that was refreshing.

Update on the Irish

No Thanks. You can keep your snake handlers and bible bashers, Lyndon.

By the way, what accent did that guy have?

Is “Bible Basher” the UK equivalent of “Bible Thumper ” in the US, or something different?

I guess a bit of “Who's On First” — or any old set piece turning on the overly literal pixilation of words — is fine for a spiel-spell of comic relief, in good Joysprickian fashion, but if it gets too far out of frame, I'll have to purge it to the Purgatorio of Politick and Religion.

“Considerate la vostra semenza …”

Jon

Kato, you might want to get yourself checked for a condition known as irony deficiency.

Hersch, your piece began with a straight faced proclamation that during the recent Irish bail out talks, the Irish have dealt a blow to the British Empire!

If you could distinguish efforts at irony from the rest of that gibberish, please do!

The irony, dear friend, lies in the fact that the UK claims already to be Christian, and in fact possesses a quasi-theocracy where the monarch is also the head of an established church.

Clearly the Christian thing to do, is let the Irish go fish, as happened in the potato famine. It beats the Cromwell treatment, at least.

Though I think it's safe to say that while the Irish are in trouble, they're doing better, relative to the UK and Europe now, than they ever have in history. They just spent themselves broke with retirement and entitlement programs, like the rest of Europe. And business is bad all over. Ouch, but that can be fixed. It's not like their kids are so short of vitamin C that they just sometimes fall over and die. Which used to happen happen to the Irish not that long ago.

Bear in mind that Ireland doesn't want or need a bailout. It's the banks that are bankrupt, and most of them aren't even Irish banks. The Irish are being asked to take a truly staggering cut in their standard of living in order to co-sign a bailout of foreign financiers.

Banks don't really have a nationality, they are global. They are the parasites feeding off the body politic. They need to be destroyed.

Oh, yeah, that's a brilliant idea. And replaced by what?

Nothing! Yeah it's amazing aint it, a world without banks!! Oh the horror.

Yep. It's like the idea of a "world without governments." Except no such thing can exist. They guys with the most guns are always the functional goverment, whether or not you grant them the title. And it's the same with the guys who have all the money. They're "banks." It doesn't matter if you don't want to CALL them banks. If you want to borrow money, you still have to see them. There have always, in that sense, been banks in the modern world (at least since we've had writing and money). Do you know where the word "bank" comes from, even? It's the same root as the bank of a river. Or a board. It was some guy with a table, on which he put his money and you put a paper with your signature.

Still stuck on the concept of money are we. Now try imagining a society without it.

Banks are an absolutely essential feature of a modern economy. Without them, you can't have credit, and without credit, your economy cannot progress and must perish in short order.

That being said, governments must regulate banks up one side and down the other, lest they become the master instead of the servant. Unregulated banking does indeed become parasitic.

It's sort of neothithic. So you really are sitting there typing on a computer filled with integrated circuits made by multi-billion dollar technical companies, advocating that we return to a world without representative money. How many grains of barley do you suppose a chip fab plant is worth?

This guy knows the truth.

Who wants a modern economy? Not me.

There are plenty of places you can move ..

grumpy old guy is right but missing part of the story. Much of economics is driven by psychology. After the great depression people thought credit was evil. You wanted a car ... save your money and pay cash. Nowadays most people choose to live their whole lives with large credit loads.

Easy credit is like a drug, some people can't get enough of it and end up bleeding themselves dry. Governments have been making credit easier and easier for decades.

That's also true. Interesting article here which shows the situation in 2004. Back then, they were stating that nearly 43% of American families spend more than they earn each year. So yeah - not good, but where does the blame lie; government or wide-eyed, gullible people?

"Call 1-800-YOU-FAIL to get the credit you deserve!"

Deserve?? How many times have they played those adverts on TV? And they're always aimed at people with already bad credit ratings

All that nice easy credit puffs up the economy until eventually it goes POP!

This is the basis of the "modern economy", it is a fundamentally flawed system.

Everything is geared toward short term gain, and to hell with the future.