Photo Diary

Accountancy is too exciting.

P1000981, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

This is a scary photo. My old man, brother Keith, and his first son, Martin. All three of them did go the way I nearly did. They all became . . . Actuaries.
Scary.
You can see what happens to Actuaries. In general they are described as clever chaps – by themselves. Most other people describe them as too boring for words, people with personality by-passes, or (in a cruel jibe against consultants and accountants all over the world) as people who would find accountancy too exciting.
This is worrying. Because the real problem is bloody obvious. Look at them: you’ve got Martin, Smarty-Pants on the left, see? Then his dad, Keith, aka too many things to list them all here, and finally, the funny little fat man.
Now do you see the risk of becoming an Actuary? Yes, of course you do.
Before I became a computer salesman, I had a touching faith that I would be an Actuary as well. But I did suffer from one minor little problem, which was that I had no aptitude, interest or ability whatever. Keith, Bless him, while talking recently, suggested that actually I’d given up. Well yes, up to a point, Lord Copper. in reality, I failed every exam at university (which was when I first developed my Jecks Principle of Economics, which was, it’s a load of tosh) and decided to resign before being chucked out. So I do admire these three.
Of course the fat man (it’s ok, it’s a term of endearment) got out as soon as he qualified, and showed that he was a man with character and personality by becoming a computer expert.
Keith gave up and joined IBM before deciding/realising that was daft, and studied in his evenings, qualifying quickly. Clever boy.
Martin was a Durham lad. He got a good degree, but later, when he passed his finals as an actuary, he got an award for the best answers for centuries ( I may have got the precise details slightly wrong, but it was something like that).
So there you have it. Three lovely old chaps. All suffering from the same Actuarial problem.
What problem?
Look at them. The older they get, the weight of their heads forced them to shrink, and by the time they get to the Fat Man’s age, all their weight has dropped to the belly.
Hmm. I don’t have that problem. I’m just a writer.

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