Poor men are apt to think everybody flouts them

When you are at the bottom of the heap you think everyone is on top of you. Well, this is a surprise?

Knowing your humble position can make you oversensitive to criticism, real or imagined. Things you might laugh at or pass over when things are going well and your confidence is high will prey on your mind and seem barbed when you feel weak and vulnerable.

One obvious answer is to increase your wealth and status but that can be very difficult, though you should consider trying it. The other approach is to develop a thick skin and realise that most people will try to be polite and not rub your misfortunes in because they know the saying: there but for the grace of God go I. Remember that those who are up one day can be down the next. Every dog has its day.

Keep your chin up, stay optimistic and enjoy a wry smile at the thought of all the worries, stresses and ulcers the guy at the top is experiencing.

The human race has one really effective weapon and that is laughter. - Mark Twain. Learn to say it with limericks:
700 Limericks & How to Write Them by William Clark

"Pretty pussy" will not feed a cat

The human race has one really effective weapon and that is laughter. - Mark Twain. This book shows you how:
700 Limericks & How to Write Them by William Clark

"Pretty pussy" will not feed a cat
This is a variant of the idea behind: Fine words butter no parsnips. In other words: You gotta walk the walk not just talk the talk.

Politicians discover at a young age that if they talk well and learn to schmooze the public they get a highly paid job and lots of opportunities to grow rich. This means they concentrate on learning to do what pays best - persuading people to vote for them. Ideally they would learn to do worthwhile things and let their actions speak for themselves.

But that is letting the cat out of the bag!

A brave retreat is a brave exploit

The human race has one really effective weapon and that is laughter. - Mark Twain. This book will arm you:
700 Limericks & How to Write Them by William Clark


The high point of Old Western films was the arrival of the cavalry with trumpets blaring and guns blazing. Attacks are always more satisfying than retreats but: he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. In World War II the British retreat at Dunkirk was hailed as a triumph as the battered army limped off under constant bombardment to reform and later to return to victory.

In our personal lives we have moments of success and failure - times to advance, times to pull in your horns and retrench. In the current financial turmoil many people will be faced with job losses and money worries till they feel like an army in retreat. The British at Corunna were in total disarray and falling back when somehow they managed to reform and fight back to win a defensive battle and then withdraw.

If you are reeling under a financial crisis try to keep cool and disciplined. Success can be snatched from the jaws of disaster if you stay positive, focussed and determined to grasp any opportunity to advance. Be brave: fortune favors the bold.

A shut book is but a block

If you don't read you don't learn; if you don't learn you can't do; if you can't do you don't earn.

We are being encouraged here to apply ourselves to the acquisition of knowledge. In the day when this saying was first coined, books were probably hard to come by and a privilege to own; so not making full use of them would have been seen as foolish.

Today we are inundated with knowledge and our main preoccupation is how to filter it out. "How do we shut the book?" is the question because the Internet is like a hose of knowledge that is difficult to turn off. We are drowning in facts, figures and opinions.

There is a need for clever software that helps us to identify and chose the things we ought to know. Perhaps people need to learn to exist/work as teams, each specialising in their own niche and reporting to the group anything that everyone should be aware of. A sort of brain collective.

Escapist holiday read: verse adventure story from James Hogg abridged by William Clark.
Queen Hynde of Berigonium, Scotland by James Hogg & William Clark

A deluge of words and a drop of sense

This saying could have been written for politicians.

How much do we take away from the average conversation, political address, or even the news? Often not a lot. The modern world is filled with information - so much so that we can't cope.

At one time there were polymaths - people who tried to master all known subjects - but that age is long gone. Today we need coping strategies to filter out all the irrelevant stuff. But how do you know it is irrelevant until you have read it? If you read too much how can you retain it?

Speed reading is one useful technique where you learn to skim, picking out only the really important bits. You need to grasp some idea of what knowledge should you seek. Having wise old friends to point the way is good.

Hacking a path through this knowledge jungle to find the treasure requires a goal, planning, team work, tools, lots of preparation, and a mind set ever ready for the unexpected. You might have a map of sorts or just be winging it but the temples of knowledge contain many fair jewels for those who find their way there.


The human race has one really effective weapon and that is laughter. - Mark Twain. This book will arm you:
700 Limericks & How to Write Them by William Clark

Empty vessels make the most noise

Try dropping a sauce pan early in the morning and the literal truth of this is very evident.

The idea is, of course, that people who don't know very much are always convinced of the greatness of what little they do know. Experience tends to teach you to be wary of jumping to conclusions, and as you acquire deeper wisdom you learn to be more tolerant and understanding of others. It is very rarely that an argument or situation is totally clear cut - shades of gray are the norm. It is an observable fact that people who are the least useful at something are always the most critical.

The expression to sound someone out, meaning "to seek their opinion" is interesting here, as tapping on a vessel can tell you whether it is full or not. Perhaps rapping so called experts in banking and politics on the head with your knuckles might be a better way of testing their ability - or sending them a message!

The fish will soon be caught that nibbles at every bait

This saying could have been made for the Internet Age when our inboxes are filled with emails offering goods or services. Information overload is the downside of the technological revolution that brought the PC to our desktops. How to deal with masses of emails, and other information, overloading the mind and causing inertia is a problem.

A useful strategy is to form clear goals and delete everything irrelevant, no matter how interesting it might be. To compulsive information junkies this is not easy but wasting time reading immaterial stuff is not wise.

The advent of services like Twitter allows a quick glance to let you know what should be followed and what to avoid. No doubt, as time progresses, clever people will come up with ways to streamline and organise our information requirements. Perhaps a robot that thinks for us!



Escape from everyday reality with this verse adventure tale from James Hogg abridged by William Clark.
Queen Hynde of Berigonium, Scotland by James Hogg & William Clark