BOW WAVE 213

Xmas Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2003 WavyLine.com	Issue No 213 22 Dec 03
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. German Transport Law Newsletter
3. Gary Price's List of Lists
4. The Heaviest Element Known to Science
5. Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

We wish our Readers all good things and seasonal greetings. Thank you for your enthusiasm and support in 2003

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New Readers this week include:

David Westcott
Mirel Rusu
Linda Veitenhaus
Helena Wallerius Dahlsten of The Swedish Club
Readers at Gastaldi International Srl Naples

News of Readers

Andrew Moore Associates have become the new Lloyd's Agents in Hong Kong. The company will be responsible for providing survey and adjusting services for the international marine insurance market for any shipping incidents occurring in the Hong Kong area. It will also be the sole provider of up to date information about shipping incidents in Hong Kong to the global maritime insurance industry.

Readers Write:

Niels Kim Balling writes:

I don't usually pass on tips but felt I had to pass this one on. It could be another Enron. Hope you have a very merry Christmas and a healthy and hopefully obscenely prosperous New Year 2004:-

Please review any holdings you have in the following stocks:

AMERICAN CAN
INTERSTATE WATER
NATIONAL GAS
NORTHERN TISSUE

Due to uncertain market conditions, I advise you to sit tight on your American Can, hold your Water, and let go of your Gas. You may be interested to know that Northern Tissue touched a new bottom today, and millions were wiped clean.

From Capt. Roger Womersley in Ko Sichang, Thailand.

Herewith an anonymous 19th Century poem which you may like,
The Clock of Life is wound but once,
And no man has the power,
To tell just when the hands will stop,
At late or early hour.

Now is the only time you own.
Live, love, toil with a will,
Place no faith in tomorrow,
For the clock may then be still.

Seasons greetings to you,

As a result of our appeal for light hearted contributions, the Bow Wave in-box has been full of fine examples of the kind. So no apologies for this edition which on the whole eschews much seriousness. Our next Issue just before new year's will ponder the year to come.

Enjoy.

2. German Transport Law Newsletter

Many of us have grown used to the periodic newsletters issued by firms of lawyers active in the shipping, international trade and transport fields. One fairly recent addition to this corpus is the one issued by the Hamburg firm of BBL Bracker, Buehlhoff Luebbert which takes Readers in either English or German version through the technically advanced German law rules applicable to goods in transit

To read the newsletter go to:-

http://www.bbl-law.com

3. Gary Price's List of Lists

If your taste runs to this sort of thing there is a very long list of top 50 or top 100 transport related categories in the fields of aviation, logistics and warehousing. Highly recommended.

http://www.specialissues.com/lol/dispLOL.cfm?Subject_ID=TRANSPO004

4. The Heaviest Element Known to Science

The heaviest element known to science was discovered recently by physicists at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. The element, tentatively named Administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons, and 111 assistant vice neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together in a nucleus by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons.

Since it has no electrons, Administratium is inert. However it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with.According to the discoverers, a minute amount of Administratium caused one reaction to take over four days to complete, when it would normally occur in less than one second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately 3 years, at which time it does not actually decay, but instead, undergoes a reorganisation in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant vice neutrons change
places. Some studies have shown that the atomic weight actually increases after each reorganisation.

Research at other laboratories indicates that administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such as government agencies, large corporations, universities, and the United Nations. It can actually be found in the newest, best maintained buildings.

Scientists point out that Administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any positive reactions where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how Administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising.

5. Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Container industry analyst Charles de Trenck has contributed this extensive update on a very old form of joke:-

George Bush's Answer:
We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.

Al Gore's Answer:
I invented the chicken. I invented the road. Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the application of these two different functions of government in a new, reinvented way designed to bring greater services to the American people.

Bill Gates' Answer:
I have just released eChicken 2003, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook - and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken.

Martha Stewart's Answer:
No one called to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

Dr. Seuss' Answer:
Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes, the chicken crossed the road,
But why it crossed, I've not been told!

Ernest Hemingway's Answer:
To die. In the rain. Alone.

Martin Luther King Jr's Answer:
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Grandpa's Answer:
In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

Barbara Walters' Answer:
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road.

Ralph Nader's Answer:
The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.

Jerry Seinfield's Answer:
Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?"

Pat Buchanan's Answer:
To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.

Rush Limbaugh's Answer:
I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.

Jerry Falwell's Answer:
Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side." That's what they call it -- the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that hicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side.".

John Lennon's Answer:
Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace.

Aristotle's Answer:
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

Karl Marx's Answer:
It was a historical inevitability.

Voltaire's Answer:
I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the death its right to do it.

Captain Kirk's Answer:
To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

Fox Mulder's Answer:
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it?

Scully's Answer:
It was a simple bio-mechanical reflex that is commonly found in chickens.

Bill Clinton's Answer:
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken, please?

The Bible's Answer:
And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Albert Einstein's Answer:
Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?

Sigmund Freud's Answer:
The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

L.A.P.D.'s Answer:
Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Richard Nixon's Answer:
The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.

Buddha's Answer:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.

Joseph Stalin's Answer:
I don't care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omelette.

Carl Jung's Answer:
The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and, therefore, synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Louis Farrakhan's Answer:
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down.

John Locke's Answer:
Because he was exercising his natural right to liberty.

Albert Camus' Answer:
It doesn't matter; the chicken's actions have no meaning except to him.

Oliver Stone's Answer:
The question is not "Why did the chicken cross the road?" but is rather "Who was crossing the road at the same time whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

The Pope's Answer:
That is only for God to know.

Immanuel Kant's Answer:
Chicken, being an autonomous being, chose to cross the road of his own free will.

MC. Escher's Answer:
That depends on which plane of reality the chicken was on at the time.

George Orwell's Answer:
Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests.

Plato's Answer:
For the greater good.

Nietzsche's Answer:
Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

B.F. Skinner's Answer:
Because the external influences, which had pervaded its sensorium from birth, had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own freewill.

Jean-Paul Sartre's Answer:
In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Emily Dickenson's Answer:
Because it could not stop for death.

O.J. Simpson's Answer:
It didn't. I was playing golf with it at the time.

Ken Starr's Answer:
I intend to prove that the chicken crossed the road at the behest of the president of the United States of America, in an effort to distract law enforcement officials and the American public from the criminal wrongdoing our highest elected official has been trying to cover up. As a result, the chicken is just another pawn in the president's ongoing and elaborate scheme to obstruct justice and undermine the rule of law. For that reason, my staff intends to offer the chicken unconditional immunity provided he cooperates fully with our investigation. Furthermore, the chicken will not be permitted to reach the other side of the road , until our investigation and any Congressional follow-up investigations, have been completed.
(We also are investigating whether Sid Blumenthal has leaked information to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, alleging the chicken to be homosexual in an effort to discredit any useful testimony the bird may have to offer, or at least to ruffle his feathers.).

Colonel Sanders' Answer:
I missed one?

Stockbroker's Answer:
To get a bigger bonus

6. And Finally...

PR man David Cheslin reminds us here in Britain that it is around this time of year that filing deadlines hove into view for the purposes of income tax:-

A genuine reply from Customer Relations at the Inland Revenue to yet another angry customer

Dear Mr Addison,

I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more than prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise.

I will address them, as ever, in order.

Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a "begging letter". It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a "tax demand". This is how we, at the Inland Revenue have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.

Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the "endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat" has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer I would cautiously suggest that their being from "pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers" might indicate that your decision to "file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies" is at best a little ill-advised. In common with my own organisation, it is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a "lackwit bumpkin or, come to that, a "sodding charity". More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole.

Which, brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay "go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services", a moment's rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to "stump up for the whole damned party" yourself. The estimates you provide for the Chancellor's disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on "junkets for Bunterish lickspittles" and "dancing whores" whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, "that box-ticking facade of a university system."

A couple of technical points arising from direct queries:

1. The reason we don't simply write "Muggins" on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system;

2. You can rest assured that "sucking the very marrows of those with nothing else to give" has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal Allowance didn't render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.

I trust this has helped. In the meantime, whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that even if you did choose to "give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in Grand Cayman" you would still owe us the money.

Please forward it by Friday.

Yours Sincerely,

H J Lee Customer Relations

PS from writer Peter Krijgsman

How the Angel Came to Be on top of the Tree

It was supposed to be a happy time, but it wasn't. Santa was not very happy. It was Christmas Eve and NOTHING was going right. Mrs.Claus had burned all the Christmas cookies. The Elves were bitching about not getting paid for the overtime they had put in while making toys, and the reindeer had been drinking all afternoon and were dead drunk. They had taken the sleigh out for a spin earlier in the day and crashed it into a tree, breaking off one of the runners.

Santa was in fact beside himself with anger. "I CAN"T believe it! I've got to deliver millions of presents all over the world in just a few hours from now and all my reindeer are drunk, my Elves are on strike and I don't even have a Christmas tree! I sent that stupid Little Angel out HOURS ago to find a tree and she isn't even back yet! What am I going to do?"

Just then the Little Angel opened the front door and stepped in from the snowy night, dragging a Christmas tree. "Yo, Santa, where do you want me to stick the Christmas Tree this year?" She asked.

And thus the tradition of Angels perched atop the Christmas trees came to pass.

BOW WAVE is published each week to around 9300 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries.

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