Twenty five random things about me

1. I grew up in a desert, the Little Karroo, and now live in a country,
Ireland, with more shades of green than anywhere else on earth.

2. When I was a boy in the countryside in South Africa, we didn't lock our
house when we went away on holiday.

3. I don't remember how many scholarships I won, but I took up 43 full
scholarships and lived like a prince. I was very surprised when all those
corporations wanted me to work for them... I went to one of my grad schools
by jet every evening, a thousand miles, and back in the mornings.

4. The first words I ever spoke to my wife were, "You with the legs, this
is the pol I'm making Premier, whose name momentarily escapes me. Bring
coffee and brandy, and later tonight I'll introduce you to [some rock band
whose name I don't now remember; they were very big back then]."

5. My favourite color is sunflower yellow. That reflects in my cheerful
character.

6. People think I was a writer in advertising. Not so. I was a
troubleshooter, and those famous lines I wrote were desperate measures after
all the writers failed.

7. I published my first two volumes, poetry now mercifully out of print,
when I was 13, in three different countries.

8. As an exchange schoolboy in the States I played lacrosse.

9. A suit John Stephen of Carnaby St cut for me was so loudly checked that
at the polo Prince Philip tried to place a bet with me.

10. During my political exiles, I was a yanqui coronel, one of those
chaps in shades and seersucker suits you see whispering in El Presidente's
ear just before he announces that due to good advice he's pandering to
American squeamishness by not committing a small massacre at this time. The
CIA still owes me a $1000 for my last day's consulting fee.

11. When I played polo for the Argentinian Air Force, a sore loser put a
price on my head and I was shot by some peasant trying to collect. That's
how I got to be an Australian, because the first plane out was to Australia.

12. Nelson Mandela said of me, "Andre is never more brutal than he has to
be." In return I tried to persuade the apartheid government in South Africa
that "Nelson doesn't want to rape your wife or kill you." That's why I had
to go into exile. Well, that and a few other "outrages".

13. When I was 14, Howard Hughes owned my life story, of which he said
he'd make a film.

14. I once stood for more than an hour with Howard Hughes and the
literary agent Lefty Lazar at the door of a toilet in a Las Vegas casino
after we finished discussing our business because all three of us feared the
germs on the door and would not touch the handle, and Mr Hughes's Mormon
thugs kept everyone else from opening the door from the outside.

15. When I worked in advertising, my address in Who's Who was "aboard the
company plane". The Revenue refused to believe I lived three miles up over
No-Man's Land. One of my friends in Australia owned an offshore island,
submerged at high tide; once more the Revenue refused to believe we lived on
it... I've concluded that the Revenue altogether lacks a sense of humour.

16. I used to drive sunflower yellow Porsche, paid for by the grateful
shareholders, of course.

17. In one year in NY I lost nine sunflower yellow Porsche because I'd
be sent off somewhere to sort out a problem, forget where I parked the car,
and order a new one from a dealer who kept a sunflower yellow in stock for
me.

18. I was arrested as a scofflaw for 3000 unpaid parking tickets. The
judge threw out the case because several of the tickets were dated at the
same time in different parts of the city. In grad school I sat next to a
fellow of Italian extraction some of whose family thought Dannemora was a
country club. Dannemora is where the car plates are made, so I had an
unlimited supply of plates that all read FU 1. The judge lectured the police
for persecuting me, and apologized on behalf of the city for wasting my
time.

19. I would like to claim 3000 unpaid parking tickets as a record but my
publicist, even as she announced my "record", was embarrassed when the very
next case on the judge's docket was for 11,000 unpaid parking tickets.

20. In college, I took a bet that I could raise $100,000 "for the humane
treatment of sewer rats in New York". I took me two hours on Park Avenue to
raise over a million. The charities commissioner would not let us give the
money back. It was awfully difficult to spend it all on rats.

21. I gave up the car in 1990 and have cycled everywhere since then.
Environmentalists hate me for practising what I preach.

22. My famiy motto is "Sauvitor in modo, fortiter in res." It's Latin for
"The iron hand in the velvet glove." You can look us up in the Encyclopedia
Britannica: we are a peace-loving bunch who get blamed for what those
violent Angles and Saxons did.

23. I've been fired by six of the ten most famous brand names in the
world. Every single one of them rehired me, some more than once.

24. For a cigarette commercial I built a styrofoam replica of the Taj
Mahal accurate to within one inch. It only cost a couple of million more
than we could've bought the original for at the time. The client gave me a
big bonus for being so frugal with his money.

25. I once owned a leash of Borzoi. They were such ungrateful dogs, I now
keep a hedgehog as my pet. http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/archives/1140
I'd like to keep tarantula or a bonobo again but the authorities here take a
decidedly restrictive view on lethal pets.
http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/archives/1942

Oh, my books? Yeah, I've written seven shelf-feet of books. Maybe in the
next trivia collection there will be space to mention them.

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick...4#.U7V6tJXD-8k

On Thursday, July 3, 2014 5:02:52 AM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
1. I grew up...

snip

23. I've been fired by six of the ten most famous brand names in the
world. Every single one of them rehired me, some more than once.

Here's one that I can relate to, having been fired by many,
many employers (not necessarily famous), and re-hired by at
least one (with the very same man making the decision).

snip

25. ... I now keep a hedgehog as my pet.
http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/archives/1140

So cute! (I love hedgehogs.)

snip

WELL, folk in California tell me......


what is it you are into diamonds or gold ?

On Thursday, July 3, 2014 7:37:47 PM UTC+1, Dan O wrote:
On Thursday, July 3, 2014 5:02:52 AM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:

1. I grew up...

Reluctantly.

23. I've been fired by six of the ten most famous brand names in the

world. Every single one of them rehired me, some more than once.

Here's one that I can relate to, having been fired by many,
many employers (not necessarily famous), and re-hired by at
least one (with the very same man making the decision).

Heh-heh.

25. ... I now keep a hedgehog as my pet.

http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/archives/1140

So cute! (I love hedgehogs.)

We have a pair hedgehogs of breeding age, but we haven't seen the littlies, probably because we've also acquired a fox, which wandered in from the gulley at the bottom of the orchard and liked our food better than whatever wild stuff it lived on (I suspect a neighbour's ornamental garden fowl).

Andre Jute

On Thursday, July 3, 2014 11:27:53 PM UTC+1, wrote:
WELL, folk in California tell me......

what is it you are into diamonds or gold ?

Come on, Gene! For a while there you were doing good; I could understand what you wrote. But now you're back to some kind of hip patois.

California, diamonds, gold? Give us a translation, if you please.

Andre Jute

California, diamonds, gold? Give us a translation, if you please.


you have the floor....is your 'wealth ' from diamonds or gold ?

you spout materialism so where's the dinero come from in South Africa ?


Leno has Utubes..go watch....have you seen the electric phone booth ?

On Thursday, July 3, 2014 7:11:27 PM UTC-7, wrote:

California...


snip


Leno has Utubes..go watch....have you seen the electric phone booth ?

Kimmel has a pizza oven out by the swimming pool!

I'm a Chicago School economist, which is a matter of the principles of classical economics, not quite the same thing as a materialist. Ask Andy Muzi; he's read the literature. It's no good asking me for the secret of wealth: I just know what everyone else knows: with hard work and a little talent you make your own luck. Now I'm beyonds such merely temporal considerations, a poor artist in his garret, chewing his crust of dry bread.

Andre Jute
....and other bull****

On Friday, July 4, 2014 3:11:27 AM UTC+1, wrote:
California, diamonds, gold? Give us a translation, if you please.





you have the floor....is your 'wealth ' from diamonds or gold ?



you spout materialism so where's the dinero come from in South Africa ?





Leno has Utubes..go watch....have you seen the electric phone booth ?

On Friday, July 4, 2014 11:27:20 AM UTC-4, Andre Jute wrote:
I'm a Chicago School economist, which is a matter of the principles of classical economics, not quite the same thing as a materialist. Ask Andy Muzi; he's read the literature. It's no good asking me for the secret of wealth: I just know what everyone else knows: with hard work and a little talent you make your own luck. Now I'm beyonds such merely temporal considerations, a poor artist in his garret, chewing his crust of dry bread.



Andre Jute

...and other bull****



On Friday, July 4, 2014 3:11:27 AM UTC+1, wrote:

California, diamonds, gold? Give us a translation, if you please.











you have the floor....is your 'wealth ' from diamonds or gold ?







you spout materialism so where's the dinero come from in South Africa ?











Leno has Utubes..go watch....have you seen the electric phone booth ?




right good deal that gold mine....so are you related to Oscar Pratoriuos ?