How to lose 4.1 billion in a report.

How do you mis-report 4.1 BILLION dollars?

Thats a lot of moolah, regardless.....the National Australia Bank up to its ears in some black-art-of-accounting-practices including $360 million lost in "unauthorized trading in foreign exchange options". (Note the article lists the figure at the beginning of findings as $180 million which after further investigation, DOUBLED)

Nevertheless, we're assured shareholder's profits are in safe hands NAB is set to take the axe to 4662 workers (>10% of their workforce).....arseholes, perhaps they'll employ monkeys.

On the bright side, I suppose any errors could be then listed as "monkey error". A headline I'd one day like to see.

NAB blames monkeys for annual report mistake

The head of the National Australia Bank (NAB) says human error is most likely responsible for a $4.1 billion mistake in the company's annual report for 2005.

NAB chief executive John Stewart says the level of lending to the real estate construction sector was overstated because of a classification error as the bank switches from manual to automatic systems.

The company requested its shares be placed in a trading halt this morning, pending an explanation to the Australian Stock Exchange.

Mr Stewart says an investigation will be launched into why the error occurred.

"We have systems. We've been admitting we're on a turnaround and parts of the bank are broken," he said.

"We have to fix them, we are pretty sure, our auditors are pretty sure all our numbers are right.

"But we keep saying, we don't know what we don't know."

And for further NAB weirdness see this Crikey article on Anne Jackson who was auditing the foreign exchange trading desk that went bad, was a previous auditor on the Australian Wheat Board and is currently "program director for the BASLE(sic) II accounting changes."

Could these accounting changes be the above reason for the missing $4.1B?

So I've got a bit of time on my hands

Looking up a "Definite grammatical article that implies necessarily that the entity it articulates is presupposed; something already assumed as existing." reveals.......

9 trillion webpages

A rather interesting list of websites; that one thinks, are more than likely, NOT capitalising on this little known googilism fact.

The Wreckroom turns One.

Just one of the reasons I keep going back, Sleepy thinks he can't write that well but I always get a good read over at the Wreckroom.

so, anyways, we made it to a still battered, but very vibrant metry. it seems to be getting up and about, if just a little slowly. but not as slow as new orleans proper. parts of the city look just as they have right after katrina. it is heartbreaking to see. what the fuck happened to 'whatever it takes, as long as it takes'? guess we are not in the sights of the bush plan to build nations. it's only a few months before the next hurricane season. and nobody really cares, unless you're there. but then if you had a house in the worst parts, you ain't there at all. there are miles upon miles of debris and destruction. no rebuilding, no thought of it. it really feels like the city of the dead. the city that care forgot. what a cryin' fuckin' shame. it is heartbreaking to see.

He's got the usual excellent article about a musician/band (Paul McCartney this week) with some obscure tracks posted from his collection of tonnes of vinyl. This guy has more knowledge of things musical in his little finger than most!

Happy blogging birthday mate!

What the??????

The subliminal state of the-open-mind

Picked this up via Johnny the Horse and Adam Shostack (who appears to be keeping on topic) on the other side of the pond.

Man, I need to prick the nationalist deal with a big pin.

The generator is available here.

Autumn Years

I'm pretty well at the end of my summer years, autumn is looming. Hip joints that my grandfather had replaced with shiny stainless steel are beginning to show signs of a little wear in my body, a reminder of my paternal line. One of the GOOD things I picked up from this line was a full head of hair and delayed greying, I missed out on the shortness of stature though, benefitting from maternal loftiness. The eyes are still sharp, despite staring at this screen for years. Thats the body section.......

Other observations from the autumn years.

Cops are looking younger and younger every day.

My friends are going through their second marriages. I have another one to go to next week. The stag nights are better organised and better behaved.

Accumulated pounds seem harder to get rid of than it used to.

Friends are having kids with a second partner, step brothers, sisters, sons and daughters seem to be in fashion. Dropping off someone else's kids at school is commonplace.

Relationships are more complicated with the addition of two sets of career, children, ex-partners, alimonies and the like. Accumulated karma, baggage and chatels seem to take a begrudged priority.

Wine becomes more of a treat than beer.

Cant think of anything else but I'm sure there's more, I'll edit it as time ticks on.

Light on the Words

I'm not feeling like writing too much, so here's some pictures that I like which haven't been published..... now they have :-)

Old Stable: Mannum, South Australia

Stone Cottage near Murray Bridge South Australia 

Steam Train Water Tower Murray Mallee

French Church 

Three Flame Trees 

Mossaic Cathedral, Southern France

Three sisters 

Swimming Laps

Pool 

It's been about ten days and I've made the 500mtr mark swimming laps.

I started off in a 25 metre pool, beginning with with the modest goal of six laps of the pool (150 metres). One the first day, I thought my lungs would explode after doing the first 25metres, gasping, eyes bulging and wondering what the hell I was doing in this environment unsuitable for humans.

I suppose I thought back to the glory days when I could do 800mtrs fully clothed (with shoes),without stopping, as part of my lifesaving certificate. Wooss! So I pressed on and did a rather painful 150 metres..... rather slowly.

From that point it's just been a matter of adding a couple of extra laps. The second day was a little better, the third day better still, the fourth etc etc. Today I made it to 20.

It can get deadly boring, looking at the black line pass underneath you. One is wondering churning through the water when that darned wall will appear. Then there it is like a welcome friend becking with open arms.

I'm still not able to do the 20 laps without stopping, I'll take a break now and then. Today it was eight laps, six laps, six laps....... I still remember that ghastly first day. One lap, stop, feel heart about to explode out of chest and puff, one lap, puff some more, another bloody lap,I'm too old for this, one lap, I do look fat don't I?..... better do another lap take a break and do the LAST LAP! I felt ill for a good hour afterwards.

It did get easier and now I must admit I'm sort of enjoying it. Still not able to pace up and down like some people doing 40 pretty slow laps non-stop but hey I'm getting there. Sometimes I stuff my breathing rhythm up, I usually do three strokes (left and right which I think as six strokes) and then have to start doing a breath per stroke, which is more an indication of my cardio vascular system than anything else.

But yep, it's becoming fun, I'm feeling better and my hair is getting that dried out bleached chlorine look.

The painter

The Painter
By Neil Young

The painter stood
Before her work
She looked around every where
She saw the pictures and she painted them
She picked the colors from the air

Green to green
Red to red
Yellow to yellow
In the light
Black to black
When the evening comes
Blue to blue
In the night

It's a long road
Behind me
It's a long road
Ahead

If you follow every dream
You might get lost
If you follow every dream
You might
Get
Lost.

She towed the line
She held her end up
She did the work of too many
But in the end
She fell down
Before she got up again

I keep my friends eternally
We leave our tracks in the sound
Some of them are with me now
Some of them can't be found

It's a long road behind me
And I miss you now

If you follow every dream
You might get lost
If you follow every dream
You might
Get
Lost.

Le meme quatre

Four Stroke

Late on this one as I haven't been around the blogosphere for a bit.

Apparently I've been taged by Moff with this four meme and seeing he's an all round, square deal kinda feller I'd thought I'd oblige. I actually thought I'd track down where this thing originated......... it started (as far as I can tell) at the Live Journal site appropriately named Prince Whore of Babylon. This guy has an enormous amount of similar time wasters.

Just a thought........ if you collected all this data and fed it into a super-computer, you'd have a good profile of some of the networks of people who populate the blogosphere...... plus some good profiles of individual's past locations, occupations, travels, likes, dislikes, crimes and misdeneamors.

The left side of the blogosphere figures prominently in answering this particular meme.

The four meme has 9150 entries on Google.

So given that and all sorts of opportunities for guys who like to know about you...... but you aren't supposed to know about them, here are my answers.

Four jobs I’ve never had:

Enron financial advisor
Mongolian ferret wrangler
Underarm deoderant quality control officer
Deep sea oil rig welder

Four movies I missed out on:

Santa with Muscles
Santa Claus conquers the Martians
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?
Gymkata


Four places I’ve liked:

A bar
An empty road
A beach
A river

Four TV shows I 'm glad I never saw:

Cop Rock
Circus of the stars #15
Valentine Magic on Love Island
Dick Clark presents: The Krypton Factor


Four places I’m glad I've never taken holidays:

Abu Ghraib
Guantanamo Bay
Qala-i-Janghi
Fallujah

Four things dishy:

How old is your Wedgewood dish?
These guys ARE The Dishes
Dishlickers (Aussie slang for Greyhounds)
And this rather interesting report from the Australian Government

Four sites I visit daily:

Badgers
Badgers
Badgers
Badgers

Four places I would be interested in visiting:

Oak Island
Rosslyn Chapel
Coral Castle
Area 51(Groom Lake)