A: How’s it hanging man?
B: Oh no.
A: Check it out dude?
B: Don’t say you’ve been watching Hannah Montana again?
A: ‘zacly
B: Bill Hicks had an interesting routine about Hannah Montana’s dad, you know?
A: Really.
B: Oh yes it was called ‘Hunt and …’but let’s move on.
A: OK
B: Well, I’ve just found a contender for worse book in the world.
A: And I thought the new Harry Potter wasn’t out yet?
B: It’s not.
A: Duh. Joke.
B: I get it. Well this bad book is called ‘Millionaire Upgrade’.
A: Let me guess… short book….get rich quick… 12 easy lessons?
B: Wrong – 8.
A: Tell me more.
B: Well the blurb describes it as ‘inspired by the true story of a flight with Sir Richard Branson.’
A: Don’t tell me…. He gets an upgrade to posh class and Dicky B tells him all the secrets of his success.
B: Sir Dicky, if you don’t mind.
A: Must have been a short flight.
B: Barely time to take the seatbelts off.
A: Anything on ethics in this treatise?
B: ‘Give something back for your success.’
A: That’s quite a nice message.
B: That’s not the end of the message.
A: Oh.
B: There’s the reason why you should give something back – ‘What you give out you will receive 1000 times back’.
A: Makes good business sense.
B: There are some profound words of wisdom.
A: I thought there would be. Shoot.
B: ‘A goal is a dream with a deadline.’
A: More.
B: ‘Luck is the crossroads of preparation and opportunity.’
A: One more please.
B: ‘If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough.’
A: Enough.
B: The cover’s a photo of the author staring into the sky out of an aeroplane window.
A: The last words in the book?
B: ‘Always travel in Seat 1A’.
A: Bad.
B: The introduction was written by Peter Ebdon.
A: Peter Ebdon the quite boring snooker player?
B: The same. And ‘praise for Millionaire Upgrade’ from Duncan Bannatyne..
A: Disappointing.
B: Rachel Elnaugh….
A: Unsurprising.
B: Mike Southon…
A: The Beermat Entrepreneur chap?
B: None other and David Taylor, author of the Naked Leader, which was a decent book if I recall.
A: Wow you are in ‘name and shame’ mode, aren’t you?
B: And….
A: ‘Methinks he doth protest too much’.
B: How so?
A: You wouldn’t be jealous at all?
B: Jealous? Furious more like.
A: Didn’t I read an article once about Tolstoy hating Shakespeare vehemently and King Lear in particular because it hit a little near home?
B: No way.
A: Way. George Orwell spotted it I think. Could this be true?
B: Not in this case.
A: So, Mr Management writer why are you so worked up about this book?
B: Well it’s because its books like this, and most management consultants that give the rest of us a bad name.
A: Have management consultants got a bad name?
B: Studies suggest their value and respect levels are somewhere between traffic wardens and marketing executives.
A: Perhaps it’s because they use phrases like ‘studies suggest’?
B: Possibly. It’s more to do with the 101 other glib phrases.
A: ‘There’s no I in TEAM’.
B: ‘ASSUME makes an ASS out of ME and U’.
A: ‘All the answers are in the room.’
B: Steady…
A: Sorry.
B: I hate all those earnest consultants in their £1000 suits, shiny shoes and management by numbers heads.
A: Couldn’t accuse you of any of that.
B: Thanks.
A: Not necessarily a compliment.
B: /RANT. I could be here a long time.
A: Please no. So what do you really want?
B: Respect, honesty and enough money to say the right thing.
A: The best of both worlds?
B: Stop that.
byron kalies 