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An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until she knows absolutely everything about nothing...

The government promised me a stimulus package... instead I got a raft of measures.

A woman turned me down for a date... I had to explain I wanted to have dinner with her - not having her for dinner.

"My passport photo does not do me justice." "You don't need justice - you need mercy!"

French people do not like fast food. They eat snails instead.

"I can't find what's wrong with you - must be the drinking or something..." "I'm sorry to hear that doc, what about if I come back when you're sober?"

The drought forced a farmer to turn his field into an auto-parts junkyard. From that time on every year was a bumper crop.

What do you call a lump of metal, wiggling at the bottom of the sea? A nervous wreck.

If God is watching us... we'd better be entertaining...

If you're feeling unwanted or insignificant... try missing a couple of mortgage repayments.

I told my shrink I thought I was a dog At my next appointment he wouldn't let me up on the couch.

I never drink coffee at work I toss and turn at my desk all day.

A divorce lawyer put on his sign Satisfaction guaranteed or your honey back.

Marriage is the way to stop people fighting with strangers. Divorce is the way to get custody of your sanity.

I've been sacked from every job I've ever had At least you can't call me a quitter.

He's not a complete idiot ...some parts are missing.

My psychiatrist says I'm manic-depressive. I have mixed feelings about that...

I've got an inferiority complex. But I say it's not a very good one...

He never treats a woman like an object. But occasionally he treats an object like a woman.

The magic hasn't gone out of our marriage. He still disappears every few weeks...

Ours was a mixed marriage. She was perfect and I wasn't...

My ex-wife said she wanted to dance on my grave. So I arranged for a burial at sea.

She said she was sick of me. Undeterred I bought her a get well card.

She was so nervous on our blind date. When I picked her up she put the seatbelt around her knees.

I had a terrible nightmare. I dreamt I was eating a giant marshmallow. When I woke up my pillow was gone.

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Large ministries have a huge appetite for cash yet George Muller ran an orphanage on virtually nothing.

The consumer society mindset has infiltrated the church and the leadership is forever inventing new and elaborate ways to make donation appeals.

The subtle inference is that if you extend yourself in giving a significant offering you will find the perfect wife, get healed of cancer or buy the house of your dreams.

Christian marketing is a fine art with paid-up seminars (they used to be called crusades, retreats or outreaches in the past), regular worship CD releases and school of ministry for those who dream of being one day on the payroll.

If you really want to run a church like a business then let us have an AGM and see if it was a good investment. Unfortunately the financial statements are nowhere to be seen. What about the social balance sheet? How many people were provided jobs, accommodation, counselling, etc...? How many lonely folks were provided with caring friends and social activities? How many shaky marriages were saved from impending divorce? Do you think they would have a story to tell, bring in all their mates and the recruiting drive would be sorted out once and for all?

The few churches left who do welfare work receive grants from the government and are denied the right to present the gospel to those they care for.

This is quite a contrast to the way it works in Third World countries. NGOs don't send missionaries to stand on a soap box, preach an upbeat message and collect tithes. No, they meet people's needs by providing disaster relief, healthcare or housing projects. Then they have earned the right to tell folks about Jesus Christ.

Well enjoy the show while it lasts but remember that as a believer you too are accountable for this poor state of affairs. For starters you are supposed to uphold in prayer those in position of leadership. Also you cannot afford to let yourself be upset by what is going on. If you ask: "Lord whom can I bless today?" you will find you have the ability, the gift and the duty to brighten somebody else's world.

Then it will make all the difference to you and you will be empowered to do more.

Your enemy the devil is prowling like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour. Taking offense at what goes on in the churches and falling out of fellowship with other believers is the best way to let him do just that. Don't let yourself be his next snack.

Christians are having a hard time in their witnessing efforts because their personal lives lack the power of living out the gospel. Good Samaritans are very rare indeed.

Yet this is the perfect atmosphere for a revival to take place - that no one could take credit for it - only the hand of God could achieve such a turnaround.

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Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin or HCG is a hormone only found in pregnant women and can be easily recovered from their urine.

A 500- Calorie diet over 26 days with 23 daily injections of HCG will remove abnormal fat.

"We have grown pretty sure that the tendency to accumulate abnormal fat is a very definite metabolic disorder, much as is, for instance, diabetes. Yet the localization and the nature of this disorder remained a mystery. Every new approach seemed to lead into a blind alley, and though patients were told that they are fat because they eat too much, we believed that this is neither the whole truth nor the last word in the matter."

A controversial usage of HCG is as an adjunct to the British endocrinologist A.T.W. Simeons' ultra-low-calorie weight-loss diet (less than 500 calories). Simeons, while studying pregnant women in India on a calorie-deficient diet, and "fat boys" with pituitary problems (Frolich's syndrome) treated with low-dose HCG, claimed that both lost fat rather than lean (muscle) tissue. He reasoned that HCG must be programming the hypothalamus to do this in the former cases in order to protect the developing fetus by promoting mobilization and consumption of abnormal, excessive adipose deposits. Simeons, practicing at Salvator Mundi International Hospital in Rome, Italy, recommended low-dose daily HCG injections (125 IU) in combination with a customized ultra-low-calorie (500 cal/day, high-protein, low-carbohydrate/fat) diet loss of adipose tissue without loss of lean tissue. After Simeons' death, the diet started to spread to specialized centers and via popularization by individuals, such as the controversial author Kevin Trudeau, famous for promotion of alternative therapies and treatments.

Cansema (also known as black salve) is a brand name of a popular alternative cancer treatment. The product is commonly classified as an escharotic. When applied to the skin, escharotics burn and destroy tissue and leave a thick, black scar called an eschar. Escharotics were widely used to treat skin lesions in the early 1900s, but have since been replaced in mainstream medicine by safer and more effective treatments such as Mohs surgery. Escharotics such as Cansema are currently advertised by some alternative medicine marketers as treatments for skin cancer, often with unsubstantiated testimonials and unproven claims of effectiveness.

Cansema is listed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as one of 187 fake cancer cures. Cansema continues to be marketed by numerous individuals, as referenced by recent FDA Warning Letters. The FDA has taken enforcement action against illegal marketing of Cansema as a cancer cure, as in the 2004 arrest and conviction of Greg Caton.

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The next trend in computer games will be an attempt to interface your emotions to the unfolding course of the action play. In other words as your heartbeat increases or your palms become sweaty the game's pace will react.

How is that for developing good social skills? If you have seen teenagers in your neighbourhood they can either grunt or misspell text messages.

As a society we have to make up our mind as to what it is we want to hand over to the next generation (if there will be one left - that is).

You can either be real showing concern for your fellow man - or you can be a fake and live in a virtual made-up world in the forever quest of "What's in it for me?"

Trying to skirt a path with a foot on either side is a recipe for disaster.

The saving grace is that all of us crave for true love and attention - that's the way we are wired by design. Those who have dated on the internet will tell you that those commodities are in short supply in cyberspace. Let's get real and go for a bushwalk in the open spaces as a family and re-discover who we are.

When is the last time you felt the breeze and the sunshine on your face? When is the last time you made lunch to share with someone else? No need for a games console to do that.

And that's my point. We take it for granted that progress is to replace the real thing with man-made substitutes when God-made reality is the original thing and cannot be faked or duplicated.

The original fall of Lucifer was to dare to be like God and he has never turned back on his original project.

Unfortunately social disorder is such that for some loneliness and neglect is a reality and they are seeking a virtual world to escape from this nightmare. We have a social responsibility to reach out to those who have been shipwrecked through family breakup, alcoholism, drug abuse, bullying at school, etc...

You might think that being addicted to make-believe computer games is a better outcome than suicide but it is only a delaying process. As young people are being deprived of true social interaction they grow up to become social outcasts.

The government is well aware of the situation and the falling rate of new apprenticeships is an alarming trend.

The solution? Putting real life into our lives. Cut out the clever computerised substitutes and live a more fulfilled simpler life putting the interest of others before our own.

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A common phenomenon to grace our roads these days is the regular appearance of men in tight lycra outfits swinging their posterior in the air and holding up the traffic at a snail's pace.

To me a bicycle was a means of transport back in France when I used it to go to school and move around the town.

My bike was a reliable appliance and although we didn't wear helmets in those days it was fitted with all the right accessories which are sorely missed on today's expensive show-off machines.

It had a rear vision mirror so that I could see any traffic backing up behind me.

It had mud guards so that my trousers remained clean if I had the misfortune of riding across a puddle. We wore clasps or tucked our trousers inside our socks so that it wouldn't get tangled up with the chain or pedals.

The handlebar and the brakes could both be used in an upright position as well as a reclined position to minimize the air drag.

There were luggage racks both above the front and rear wheels as well as a couple of panniers.

It had a dynamo producing electricity for the lights. We were not wasting money with disposable batteries.

It had a stand to park it upright in case there wasn't any wall or fixture to lean it against.

It had a bell so that I could warn any pedestrian traffic of my silent arrival.

The railway station had undercover rack cycle parking for 500 bikes to cater for all those workers commuting to work in Paris. People padlocked their bicycle to the rack and no-one would dare to interfere or steal any parts as the local police officer kept watch from a distance. He would also get you booked for an offense if your vehicle didn't have a small plate in the middle of the handlebar engraved with your name and address. No rego plates for bikes but authorities still wanted to know who owned any bike left about.

Men climbed on their bike by standing to the left of it, raising the left pedal to the 11 o'clock position, putting the full weight of their body on it with the left foot and then swinging their right leg over to the right side.

Women were more elegant and rode a bike with a lowered frame. Mature ladies cycled each day to do their shopping down Main Street. They could easily sit on the saddle of their stationary bike loaded with groceries and take off on a low gear.

Since such a large part of the population were cyclists motorists would respect them and give them right of way instead of squeezing them into the gutter. In fact they would slow down, honk at you and say hello if they knew you.

Today cycling is not a means of transport but a sport and that's where the problem lies. You don't want children to play in the middle of the road but when adults do it as a group this is the wrong activity in the wrong place. Go and find yourself a velodrome. Breathing in exhaust fumes and putting your life at risk for the sake of fashion is no sport at all.

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