Bluebells By The Bus Stop

My Dear Fellow,

Isn't it funny how bluebells suddenly just HAPPEN. These were not here on Friday. Where did they come from? Suspicious.

Back at work today, but definitely not feeling into it. Fortunately, I was also listening to podcasts most of today and came across the story of Victor Lustig, a man who made money by selling "money machines" on cruise ships. He would feed a $100 bill into these machines, then turn a handle and amazed onlookers would watch as a duplicate bill came out.

He would hold an auction on the last day of the cruise. It had to be the last day so that he could leg it with the cash before the dupe realised he'd been sold a lemon. Victor then moved to Paris where he sold the Eiffel Tower to a scrap metal merchant. The authorities were bemused when the poor chap turned up with his permit to dismantle it.

Victor ended up in jail (for counterfeiting) but managed a classic sheets-tied-together escape. His cherry on the cake was pretending to be a window cleaner on the way out of the jail, so loads of bored onlookers saw him escaping, but no-one realised that was what he was doing.

Sadly, that was the last of his Big Adventures and he ended up recaptured and dying in Alcatraz.

So a sad end to the tale. But a good yarn to get me through a day of credit card application analysis.

El Parsones