Do Not Cheat on the CV, it is Your Life. Don't lie. Period

My second grandson Marko (Isn't he cute?) will be four in a couple of months, is entering the great childhood phase of publicly fantasizing just about anything. Not that he is mine, but the he is a very, but very-very bright kid. He is lightning fast and loves making chaos to play a risky game of making-chaos-of the-house with me. My son and daughter-in-law, who are on a tour of duty in a foreign land, try their best to rear him up with proper manners. Failing, they jointly accuse me of inducing an absolutely awful and a very costly example at that. Marko appears to have become a menace and outright danger for theirs and other people's fine bone china and crystal.

But that is not the point of this post. His present inclination to fantasizing is.

Namely, with guests around, Marco had begun throwing innocent, loud questions like "Daddy, you remember how we dived in the backyard pool of our house in London?" or "It is boring here, when shall we go sailing on the yacht with grandpa?". If the guests would be Dortje and Mo from the Volkskrantblog, nobody would give a damn. Unfortunately, they are often very highly ranked civil servants, businessmen or diplomats who tend to take Marko literally. That is where troubles begin because silencing the kid adds oil on the fire while laughing up is tantamount to a public admission of the suggestion.

Thus, where does the money come for houses with an outdoor swimming-pool in Kensington or a yachts moored in Amsterdam? We know of the old adage that "Where there is smoke, there must be some fire". The troubles begin when people begin searching.

Take for instance this poor Patric Imbardelli, till a week ago the boss of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) for all the Asia-Pacific region, member of the Board of directors of IHG, a chain employing 345,432 people and managing 558,000 hotel rooms - without mentioning their yachts and backyard swimming pools. The man resigned because he fantasized (in his long forgotten CV) that he not only attended (a fact) but also graduated (pure fantasy) from Victoria University, Sydney and Cornell University, USA. There is no point at all discussing his particular case (the CV was old, written with a job application for another firm) because none of this would affect you even if you have booked your holidays with Inter-Conti on Bora-Bora, in the Pacific. (This, of course, is my hypothesy only: will the chambermaids of the chain have new fancy ideas after the big boss was caught lying? Or would they be aware that there will not be a golden parachute opening for them upon leaving IHG?)

Let's concentrate on those who fantasize (cheat, lie, falsify, deceit) for acquiring something (position, other power, influence or plain money) through a position in the political or corporate structure. Then, googling brought me to the facts extended by the Risk Advisory Group (specialized in employee screening) which, actually, nailed Patric Imbardelli once he exposed himself at the top. These CV fantasy-busters claim that 50% of the people applying for a job lie in their Curriculum Vitae scripts by including one or more inaccuracies. They have checked, painstakingly, 3,700 CVs during the last year only and concluded that lying spreads and becomes ever more serious.

Thus, every second captain of the industry or a top bureaucrat is like my grandson Marko. The only difference is that he really fantasizes (he is not aware of the consequences) while they lie for gain, for profit and are, therefore, crooks. One out of five CV lies about collisions with the courts, present directorship positions or academic qualifications or a mix of all those. One out of five. 20% of the people who ever signed a CV are liars or, if you are sensitive to the word, they are "rather economical with the truth". People lie telling what were their previous salaries, what are their skills, their criminal records.

That is why I have a proposal:

Let us demand that Netherlands BV invite Risk Advisory Group to make a survey of all the CVs in storage with our national archives. Let us press Parliament invite the businesses that Risk Advisory Group will be authorized to check all the CV for comissarissen, CEOs and CFOs with Dutch enterprises. Period. Let us see where the hack are we in this jungle. Eventually, all CVs would have to carry a stamp "A public document. To be deposited with the Dutch Archives 25 years after being signed".

May be we shall be somewhat poorer for a number of colorful fantasists but will be merrier with so many liars out of our sight.

Global Warming, Bill Clinton and Al Gore

Seriously speaking, I think that this is more Bill Clinton's view of the effects of Global warming than Al Gore's. They are anyway less important than the fore-running Hillary Rodham Clinton. But one may safely guess that she would find this pun base...

The Death Toll in Iraq and President Bush

Really, what the hell is the difference between a zillion and a brazillion?

French philandering and Segoleme

French top politicians cheat on their wifes -or husbands- routinely. This implies the family may soon be finished. But then, who will take care of the toddlers, of the children, the youth, the very old, the handicapped? Me or the State? If the family is obsolete, shall we incubate the new generations?

(This madame is sexy, and she had four deliveries. Then, why did Hollande cheat on this attractive woman? A mystery? Throw him out of work, Sego, teach the bastard a lesson.)

You probably feel somewhat neglected, because of my long abscence, don't you? So sorry. Telling you that you were almost day and night on my mind wont do the trick of making it up to you, would it?

The point is that I was crushed with obligations I simply could not postpone nor handle lightly, as I prepare breakfast for my grandchildren. But then, there were so many interesting experiences that I have harvested while out there, encounters with absolutely crazy ideas and attitudes that, once sorted out and presented for your consumption, you might, just, be tempted to excuse me.

Sorry once more.

One of the last posts here was my outburst of support for Sagoleme Royal. We all know how she failed in the bid for the French presidency. Pity. But then, two days ago, while reading how badly, how cowardly she was betrayed, stabbed in thee back by the father of her four kids, I was once again, stupid me, reminded of the growing amorality among our species. Only 30 days after the night she was defeated by this guy Sarkozy, my heroine Sagoleme disclosed that she was splitting with her partner, Hollande, that she had asked him to leave "their house" (why did she use that adjective there, as in "mine and my kids' house" or something along the line of "our old family castle") and go his philandering path away from her and the kids.

There was a hint that her partner's affair with another woman was not a yesterday's shocking piece of news, something that had just happed after the presidential election. Her statement and my googling point to the fact that her parter has been cheating on Sagoleme for some time, that his new relationship was a common knowledge in France, that the media had entertained the public with the fact.

This means that she had fought for the Presidency with this big burden on her shoulders, heart and mind. Deep down she must have known that millions of French were aware that she, if they vote for her, will be either moving to the Elysee alone or her relationship with Holland would have to be renegotiated. Is it possible that she judged the French so very emancipated as to send her, together with this lying partner to the pinnacle of power?

Since Francois Hollande has been secretary-general of the French Socialist party, did the fact also imply a fundamental shift in family values and norms? Segoleme did not tackle in full the issue of the status of single mothers and their position in the society. Did she, did he, in their different political positions, imply that the private is to be individually defined, that the individual and not the family is the basis of the society.

Fine, who takes care of the toddlers, of the children, the youth, the very old, the handicapped? Me or the State? If the family is obsolete, shall we incubate the new generations? If we do, why not go into bio-engineering and produce super-kids, clean of ailments, self-supportive, self-destruct at the age of what, 90 or 110 or 75? Or different time-limits for different incubated offsprings. Then we may have the geniuses engaged in wanking their sperm all the time instead of producing genial solutions for the humankind.

That is the real topic for a French election. Forget new corporate taxes, french industry, salaries of the entrepreneurs, Airbus, TGV, NATO and the rest. Tell me about the family and my place in the society.

They did not dig into it. She did not. Hollande did not outline his party's position related to those questions. So why trust them with this affair growing as a malign tumor between them? Is it possible that all of France is well aware of such a problem and allows it to simply grow? And this Hungarian immigrant Sarcozy. His wife leaves him for a sex fling with somebody then comes back than says will not move to Elysee, will be "independent". How independent can be the official wife and the mother of a child of the President of France?

Then, totally by itself, the picture of Hillary Clinton, hours after the Monica Levinsky affair, surfaces in front of me. She stood by her husband. I think I understood her explanation. She did not do it for him as Bill. She did it for her her husband who was the President of the United States. She did it for those two institutions and, a little bit, for her ambition to run for president herself. Hollande behaved differently.

Personally, I like womanizing. I love women. Period. I think sex is the greatest thing around. Period. By I am not the secretary-general of the Socialist party of France, neither I am the partner of a woman who delivered me four children out of love through quarter of a century of sex. Dammit, you are a promiscuous pig, Francois.

And you deserve that Sagoleme kikcks your ass out of that office. And Sarcozy's too. Everything in its due time.