First off, thank you to the kind gentleman in Bolton who sent my a donation. I will,with your permission, put this towards the new 89kg AJP PR3 that I am off to, em, "look at" tomorrow. Thank You.

So today I got the results back of a Very Important Experiment I did.

There's this website which runs a poetry competition. Some time back, I wrote one and entered it. Ever since, I have had about two emails a week from the site saying that I have won this Editors Choice Award and this-or-that accolade.

Me, I was cynical. The Missus, she thought it was for real. My cynicism was based on the fact that even though I had won the award, I still needed to send away a cheque for $dollars to get the certificate.

So I thought about this bizz-ness model. People are publishing poetry on your website right? So you figure that they are vain and want published. So what you do is make up a couple of hundred certificates at, say, a dollar each. Then you 'award' people the certificates and charge them, say, twenty dollars. You play to their vanity.

In order to prove this, I entered another poem using a different email address. My thinking was that I would get identical emails to this account saying that I had won such and such an award. In order to prove my point, I wrote a complete piece of nonsense that was in the style of Dr Seuss (the Cat in the Hat guy). It was about being six (which is how old the Wee Yin is), something stupid like:

I am six.
I like sticks.
Sticks and chicks and bricks.
Chicks with tricks and bricks on sticks...

that sort of thing. That'll show them. That'll prove the point.

So I got two emails today - one in each account. The first one said "you won the blurby bloop award" (or whatever it was).

The second one said:

"Unfortunately, after careful review of your contest entry, I am sorry to inform you that your poem "Six" was not chosen for publication and is no longer eligible for contest prizes. We understand that poetry is a form of artistic expression and that it is not always understood by those who read it."

It was the "not always understood by those who read it" that cracked me up. The Diplomatic Corps lost out when the guy who wrote that email didn't apply to them for a job.

Speaking of Internet stuff, my ITM bagged himself a nice little domain - mission2dakar.com. Him and Oz (the 2-stroke madman with the real talent for fixing KTM exhausts using old shock absorbers) are taking on Heroes and Legends in March.

This is the route of the original Paris-Dakar, except the stages aren't as long and the timings aren't quite as severe. Missus ITM wanted his team to be called "I like spending lots of money on motorbikes" or something like that, but it was Mission2Dakar that carried the day.

I was down having lunch with Mr Dragon's Den today, rinsing him for free advice. Not often you get something for free out of these guys. That said, I paid for lunch. Hmm.

My ageing friend and I had our now obligatory ding-dong this morning. It was about wallpaper funnily enough. I and my gangly friend had decided in our wisdom that it was very very important to make sure that every possible vertical surface in our offices (when we get them) is a whiteboard. OK, maybe getting ahead of ourselves but that's not the point.

My ageing friend held the very reasonable (his view) but dissenting opinion that oak panelling or something a little less outrageous than just encouraging people to graffiti the walls was in order.

Just wait until I tell him about our decision that nobody is getting a company car, and that everybody will be travelling around on AJP PR3s. Or the annual Company holiday to Dakar. It didn't stop Enron - they took their board of directors on the Baja 1000 rally.

I spent another couple of hours down at the University today trying to blag stuff for free. So far, I've managed to blag a bunch of time for Very Expensive and Clever Consultants from Price Waterhouse Coopers - they'll audit and assess our next proposal to the outsourcer. I've also managed to blag free sales and marketing help. And, possibly, a spot on Dragon's Den.

Force multipliers. It's all about force multipliers.

But that whole "Six" thing has got me annoyed now.

Speaking of writing, I've been following a thread on the freelance newsgroups about a guy called Ed Mitchell. Ed was a former ITN newsreader - all silk suits and £100,000 per year salaries, who fell prey to mental illness and a drink problem. He now lives on a bench on Brighton seafront.

The press went hot for it - this is one of their own after all. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth, "my how the mighty have fallen".

Thing is, this has resulted in the most massive flame war on the newsgroups. There's the people who are saying "this guy needs help" and the equally passionate people saying "this guy deserves everything he gets - its all his own fault blah blah blah".

There, but for the grace of God, go you and I. Nobody is immune. Nobody is incapable of developing mental illness, and it destroying their lives. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and, last time I looked, we're all in glass houses.

All of this asking for things for free today - trying to blag stuff - reminds me of a tale I once heard about a rabbit. Yes, a rabbit.

So this rabbit goes into a butchers shop. Walks up to the butcher, grins, and says:

"Got any cabbage?"

The butcher is perplexed. He explains to the rabbit that he only sells meat - nothing green. No cabbage. The rabbit hops off.

A few minutes later, he comes back in. Hops straight to the front of the queue and asks:

"Got any cabbage?"

The butcher realises he may not be dealing with the smartest rabbit that ever lived. He explains, again, more s-l-o-w-l-y this time, that he doesn't sell cabbage. The rabbit hops off.

A few minutes later, he hops back in. Straight to the front of the queue. Asks the butcher:

"Got any cabbage?"

The butcher gets angry, and starts shouting at the rabbit.

"IF YOU COME IN HERE ASKING FOR CABBAGE ONE MORE TIME, I WILL NAIL YOUR EARS TO THE FLOOR! NOW GET OUT!"

The rabbit hops off.

A few minutes later, the rabbit comes back. Hops straight to the front of the queue and asks:

"Got any nails?"

The butcher says that he doesn't.

The rabbit grins.

"Got any cabbage then?"

Thanks again to the Nutty Guy from Bolton.

Download the Manic Mission Information Pack for the full story ...