A note from the author July2009: To put this piece of writing in context I need to explain a few things. It was written many years ago (about 1990s) during the 'dot com revolution' when every greedy bugger on the planet was investing in any nut-job who came up with an idea for a website. This situation spawned many 'investor' clubs where greedy rich people could mingle with very clever people in blue suits and white shirts and give them eye-watering amounts of money; the idea being that they would both become rich in about 2 months max when they went public and sold all the shares in the business. Most of the ideas were completely worthless but because it was an internet business it 'couldn't fail' to make money.
Some people did make a huge amount of money selling the company as fast as they possibly could, despite the fact that the company was technically worth.......nothing!
(At these meetings investors would wear a green dot and people with an internet idea would wear a red dot.)
The Dot Com Revolution
I'm was reading the news about all these people who become Internet Squillionaires, and I thought, "Hey, I'm perfect for that! I'm self employed. I'm internet aware. I have a white shirt."
But do I really qualify?" So I did a check list.
| a) Have you any experience. | NO! |
| b) Are you making any money? | NOT A BEAN. |
| c) Are you likely to make any money? | NOPE. |
| d) So you won't be making a billion in profit in say, a year? | Ermmmmm... |
....which meant of course that I was a perfect investment. So I went to the Tuesday Club and chatted to this woman wearing a green dot on her forehead, for an hour, before it turned out that she wasn't an investor after all but was actually a colour blind Buddhist called Ghitta. (She was actually a fascinating woman. Wanted to start a business making super hot curries, called flashinthepan.com. I asked her if she had an office but she said she was working from Om.)
Anyway I met this guy called Nigel and told him that I had a great idea for an internet business. It was new, it was sleak, it was simple, and yet unique. I would set up a web site and he would give me two million pounds because I'm a nice bloke. So he did. Because they do that.
So DivadHallamshire Dot Com was born, due to a slight typing error when I registered the domain name. But, never mind eh.
And then it was just an easy step for DivadHallamshire dot com to go public and I'm now worth £58.000.000....on paper. In real life that comes to.....nil. But, never mind eh.
Only the problem was, that, being a writer, I have no company assets, or machinery, or property. In fact, the only asset is me. So what I ended up doing was selling shares in me.
This would have been o.k. but I forgot that I needed some shares for myself, so I sold them all and that's when I lost control of my body to a Japanese Syndicate called Mashogoshi Enterprises. My legs are now the property of a lunch time investment club called The Undertakers and even more worrying, is that my testicles are controlled by Wimmin Say No To Everything.
I tried a hostile take-over bid of my arms, but the share price slumped when I was downsized by Mashogoshi. (I'm now four foot two, but very efficient.) And then if that were not enough, I found that an Iranian syndicate were laundering money through my kidneys for terrorist activities.
At my last General Meeting of share holders, I wasn't allowed in, because I'm not a share holder, so I protested outside until the police moved me on.
So if you have any shares in DivadHallamshire Dot Com.....erm....can I have them back please.