Ch/3-5 ASSumprions and “mistakes”

 

Ch/3-5

 

ASSumptions and “mistakes” 

 

you must know the saying or advice ;  “ NEVER ASS UME .,,, it will make an ASS out of U  & ME” ?

...and people get paranoid about making mistakes,,,

nut mistakes I made, which arguably cost me 3 “empires” were probably because Imade ASSumptions.. but those: mistakes” MADE me..

 

so to use SCOUSE vernacular I am NOW “MADE UP”  <it means “happy” with myself..

 

but I dont want to get “:cocky”  ;)

This subject came to mind when trying to recall where the local bus stop of B.P. was/is… I had passed through before , a long time ago probably on my way to Uzice or Belgrate <for a LIVERPOOL weekend> maybe 10 years ago..

 

I thought I recognized the location...but to be sure , I googled “autobuska stanica” and yes thats it..BUT there is NO sign directing any one to ir, nor any indication that it is the bus station...the Train station is also only SIGNED if you stand in front of it…

 

There are no city buses here either, and a hotel manager, when I asked about future room rates, said “yu can google us”…

 

THE MODERN ASS U ME world…

 

ASSUMPTIONS.

* that everyone has a “smart phone” ..surely smarter than 99.9% of its users?

* that everyone has a car, or cam taxi to wherever they want to go, locally.

* that no one will use the bus, or are they, as hap[pend, at “city ha;ll” paid off by the taxi compainies?

 

I have mentioned the lack of “info” from the first days of entering “Monty” … as if “service staff” were specially trained NOT to provide information to foreigners..

 

MY own…examples of impersonating an ASS , or in our language ARSE!

 

1. with Seabrook & SMITH Ltd, when I divorced from Mike, in 1983, after making us a million GBP profit , probably equal to 10 Million now..  To “play fair”  but I have since learned , when the “other partner” hires a lawyer, cheating & dirty tricks are “the norm” …

 

His lawyer <or Pat, his wife> told Mike not to give me ONE share, which is all I wanted  <not more share of the PROFIT , I had made>  simply so that I could LEAD the company, as Mike had broken my trust whilst I was on <my first> holiday, away from our office!

 

I believed I could go it alone, and I did, although Steve joined me after, as junior Director/shareholder,

MY biggest client, which I had achieved and brought into the company; Marks & Spencer, agreed to give ME the same business as before… but

 

Mike told Stuart Ninian, wine buyer & M & S, that His lawyer was suing me & my new service company for “stealing”

 

for M & S, reputation was important, Stuart apologised and said that he would have to renegue on the deal, and too back the orders I had started to ship for them… I had set up EIGHT companies; offshore holdings (C>S>H)  wine warehouse, shipping , agency, even a bar & investments co, but had ASSUMED that my major client s profit would make all that relatively easy..

 

BTW, Mike employed about 6 people to “replace me” … and “Seabrook & Smith Ltd” continued for another TWENTY FIVE years after we split, BUT , and I checked, NEVER made anything close to the profits made <50%> when I wa sits DRIVER!

 

2. During setting up of those 8 companies.. I ASSUMED that I had learnt who to trust… I employed my Brother Mick (!) and after a co-incidental visit to a fuel station/shop she managed, and hearing her deal with a difficult customer; Linda (P-B) …

 

Mick was general manager , I introduced into administration aspects of the companies all based in UK and “withdrew” becoming “continental”  based on the main ASSumption that we would have a steady & comfortable  UK income , I wanted to “rule the World’’

 

Linda had raw talent, a natural sales person, attractive and clever, I knew she could convince customers & she did that, and due to the driving ban, mentioned elsewhere, she also became my driver, when necessary, quite often, so I had the chance to “teach her all I knew”

 

I ASSumed this was a good thing, that she & Mick would manage the UK and I <on paper> resigned as director of those UK companies and controlled the holding company off shore, which owned the majority of shares… of each UK company..

 

However, our relationship became intimate, and WHEN rejected , he disappeared, apparently sick, she claimed , and I ASSumed this was true, why would she lie about a form of leukaemia??

 

Until one day an “anton pillar morava injunction” instigated by Linda & my brother Mick granted by the High court allowed “agents of thee court” <lawyers” to rain our home, accounts, corporate lawyers offices & warehouse, NOT ONLY removing stock, but cleaning out he company AND PRIVATE bank accounts of Myself AND documents of my wife , a director>  accusing US of fraud against our own copanies.They ensured that we had no evidence to oppose this injunction!

 

It took 3 months & a lucky intervention from a friendly lawyer <M.George> who had a copy of my holding companies status as ownership of 8 companies, those proving that I/it could receive management monies, but by then a value of about a million was gone, Mick took 6,500 compensation, & told our family I was “money mad” and Linda & some rivals <Weargrove Ltd directors & Mike Seasbrook> took or sold the rest!  I moved on, starting again, once more having had a kick up tmy ARSE!

 

3. GEMnet

 

I had become a sort of international strategic manager & consultant, and had some modest but average income from my adventures again, got <& get> bored easily...had learnt quite a lot about communication,. Not as a technician but as a dr8iver/user… in the same way my relationship with cars, I don’t think how a car  engine works very much, but I  new how to drive..my way…,

One day , sitting on the floor of my apartment in Freiburg I made several drawings, within half an hour, had the whole concept worked out & “designed”I LOVED drawing as a kid, and often convinced someone , at a restaurant to agree to my ideas by sketching the “plan” o a piece of paper, or even a serviette! …

 

Anyway on this particular day I drew , page after page , a design of a network. To connect 45 countries, with 500 online intranet services with everything they need or offer via 300 business partners backed by a consortium of major Europeam telecom & communication  providers & smaller software companies to provide ..

 

*  a satnet laptop – calendar & comms driven that would only cost 200 USD per computer, no frills

*  a GEMnet satnet converting former soviet defence network satellites to the laptop

*  all services would be covered by the 300 partners

*  a USD 6 billion value Genet user club

*  eventually a hand held mobile phone <handy> t low cost or zero to member users

 

:Star Trek” ???

 

ha, I invested 7 years of my own time & remaining monies , hundreds of meetings & some funny situation getting the partners to complete technical detail that which a DRIVER doesnt know…

culminating in a week with the ex KGB generals & new mafia in KIEV to agree to aa plan that would employ 2000 out of work technicians & engineers. I would be “occupied” as managing Director for the rest of my life, more influential, perhaps and more effective , as I saw community benefits, than Master Bates (Gates)…

 

as told elsewhere, I woke up in the night of 21/22 April after several days in CMA, there could be no analysis, as the paramedics had pumped my body full of antibiotics to keep me alive as I slipped into darkness in the ambulance from De Panne to Veurne clinic..

 

I was “lucky” to wake up, and quit business. And this “GEMnet” although I OWNED ALL intellectual roperty & still do.. so when the Belgian doctor at trhe clinic ASSumed it was meningitis, I accepted this, It wasn’t until many years later, when  discovered “c1a0” and probably agents of m16 were not only tracking me but interfering with comms & contacts thtt I suspected foul pay..

 

MY eventual strategy was to exclude USAcorp & their allies or agents to make GEMnet a purely European enterprise, the yankers had been sniffing around in KIEV and elsewhere at that time <and look what they have done there since>

 

WOULD it be wrong of me to ASSume, or rather propose that they could have poisoned me, in Kiev?

 Julie ... on her @little motor bike... courage to cross the Balkans alone..

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