The “nobody has that much bad luck” lie detector

On my blog, I try to bring new information in the form of charts, graphs and pictures that readers may not have been aware of. And I try not to get lost in self-indulgent drivel or just repeating what others have written elsewhere. However, today after two days of grim blogs about the religion of peace. I thought it might be time to lighten up a bit.

First: the world’s stupidest drug dealer

Here in Thailand where I am at the moment, the rainy season has just ended. Each year many people lose their homes in floods. This is not due to supposed “global warming”. It’s because massive illegal deforestation and building means the rain no longer soaks into the land.

Being good Buddhists, many Thais have been donated money and rice to the flood victims (how much actually reaches the victims is anybody’s guess).

One local drug dealer decided to help out. Unfortunately he was under the influence of his own produce at the time. He�went to his nearest temple and handed over a quantity of substances telling the recipients they could sell them to raise money for flood victims. There were two things wrong with this decision. One was that the monks don’t usually get involved in selling narcotics. And secondly, the volunteers collecting money were members of the local constabulary who were giving up a couple of days off to help the collection. As the newspaper reported, the drug dealer’s heart may have been in the right place, but the rest of him is now behind bars where he will remain for some years.

Secondly: Nobody has that much bad luck

Once when I was working on a consultancy project in Sweden, my masters informed our team that they were sending in a new project director to take charge. Three days after he was expected, the guy (I think he was called Hector) turned up with a long complicated story about why he had been delayed. This involved missed flights and lost baggage and several other misfortunes.�On hearing the sorry saga, one company director muttered prophetically “Nobody has that much bad luck”.

He was right. A�week or so later we got a call from the boss at the hotel where we were staying. He informed us that Hector had been getting so drunk in his room each evening that he was wetting his bed as he couldn’t get up to stagger to the toilet. There was a brief discussion with Hector who then left to pursue�what was left of his career elsewhere.

Many times when listening the reams of excuses from lawyers, estate agents, builders, call centres and other such pondlife as to why they have not done what they promised, in the time promised at the cost agreed, the phrase “nobody has that much bad luck” has served me well as a lie detector.