Wrong Way Corrigan's hits and misses of 2023

@wwaycorrigan

In this independent blogging/vlogging game, the numbers do make a difference. OK, it's highly unlikely I'll ever make a living from it but one does get a small endorphin hit when one publishes what turns out to be a, um hit, views-wise.

The 2012-published Lord of the Dance proved popular in 2023. 

My modest hits would, of course, be considered terrible misses by the bigger players; it's all relative.

Missing the hits!

So what did Wrong Way Corrigan get right in terms of popular posts across the various platforms in 2023? And where was I a good bit off target?

Starting where my online content creation began, with Google Blogger, the most-viewed (I was going to write most-read but a view of the story doesn't necessarily mean that it was read!) was Living with unsettled and unsettling questions — 664 views as I write, in case you're wondering!

Incidentally, the most-viewed story on Google Blogger over the last 12 months wasn't a piece that was published this year. It was 2012's Lord of the dance. A timeless tale! 

'The Google blog is coming close to becoming a teenager. They grow up so fast, don't they?'

The least-viewed, excluding the most recent to be published, is Letter to the editor: Ireland's waste water, with a paltry 39 views.

Over at my El Tiempo blog, with a decent 1,458 views, Little thirst to teach English in these thinking times leads the way for the year ending.

At the other end of the scale is The care necessities: Dealing with old age with a rather pathetic 26.

On YouTube, A Boyacá fruit route: Tierra Negra-Nuevo Colón-Turmequé was the top performer of vlogs published in 2023  (YouTube makes the views public knowledge, so you can click on the hyperlink to find out the number!).

Making the bell toll for us while we still can | What's rung is rung! didn't quite reach the heights of A Boyacá fruit route!

For YouTube Shorts, A Bogotá jam ... is tops. Up in the clouds with Zetaquirá's Virgin Mary! has been more down in the dumps in terms of views!

Finally, on the podcast front, Not so gaga for physical footy: Time to nip it in the rib? didn't excite the masses. 

Finding that savoury spot between feasting and fasting performed a little bit better. Just a little, that is!

So there we have it. Perhaps 2024 will see Wrong Way Corrigan become more occupied with other, better-paying projects. The blog is our baby, all the same. In fact, the Google blog is coming close to becoming a teenager. They grow up so fast, don't they?
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Listen to The Corrigan Cast podcast here.

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Ten-up: a decade of 'Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog'

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

Ten years ago today, sat in Bogotá's popular Cranky Croc hostel and based on advice from an Indian friend I knew from my Belfast days, I started a Google-hosted blog.

Where will the next ten years bring us?

Google blogger, my acquaintance told me — he knew much more about these things than me, although that wasn't hard at the time — was blogging for dummies compared to the likes of WordPress (via El Tiempo, I've subsequently become au fait with various aspects of the latter).

Putting the world right, the Wrong Way

With the prospect of staying in Colombia for a time on the cards — I certainly didn't think that over a decade later I'd still be here — I wanted my own space to share my thoughts and views.

You see, whilst working as a broadcaster for Ladbrokes bookmakers in Belfast from 2009 to 2011, I became a serial letter writer to the Irish daily and Sunday newspapers. I touched on various topics, things I couldn't really get off my chest in the day job (although I did try, at times, to mention them in between greyhound races from such exotic locations as Monmore and Romford).

Rants to colleagues, housemates and down at the local pub weren't enough. I was a curmudgeon in my mid-20s you could say. And I felt that as much of the world as possible needed to know my thoughts. 

'Who knows how rich I'd be today had Google AdSense not suspended its services on this page for six years due to unspecified "irregular activity".'

Once the first few letters were published, this gave me the belief that at least some editors found what I had to say interesting. Or controversial. It became something of an addiction — I just wanted more, more, more.

However, moving continents and consequently not being as tuned in to events back home meant it became less likely that my musings would appear in Irish newspapers with the same regularity as before.

In any case, I couldn't be leaving it up to the whim of an editor to get my, um, profound perspective on the world "out there" (the way things are in these crazy, heavily censored pandemic days, that point has taken on extra pertinence now).

Hence the creation of the blog. The medium was kind of all the rage back then, although I may have been a little late to the game. Other, more visual media were beginning to take over.

Be that as it may, Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog has survived, for better or for worse.

At its birth, I flirted with the idea of giving it a more Colombian specific name but I figured I may not be in the country too long, so I didn't want it associated with one particular place over another.

Call it a lack of ambition or a failure to think big, but I always saw it as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

That aside, who knows how rich I would have been today had Google AdSense not suspended its services on this page for six years due to unspecified 'irregular activity'. I could have made at least 100 euros by now. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice, eh?

Nonetheless, and fittingly enough, it all started with The wages of love, something of a motif over these last ten years, writing about affairs of the heart. A mixture of bad romances and financial woes, in a way. Three hundred and eighty-three posts later, it could be said, plus ça change.

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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

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A new state of play?

Some of you may have noticed (hopefully you did anyway!) that there hasn't been a new post up here for some time. 

In fact, November was the first ever 'dry month' in terms of new blog stories since this page went live back in December 2011.

There have been a number of reasons for this. Now, while I enjoy having this little outlet to put my 'musings' about various things out there, the focus has been elsewhere of late.

The Colombia Cast: Off the ground, for now anyway ...

Newborn: The Colombia Cast

Since my return to Colombia in late October after a refreshing break back in Ireland followed by an interesting week in New York, and having kicked English teaching to touch, more energy has been put into IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz". My little baby let's say, one of almost four years of age albeit!

"It's best not to assign a sex to it in the current climate."

Now that baby has a sibling (I won't say what sex either one is lest I offend anyone). This latest creation was a long time in the womb — gestation for new projects, especially in these parts, is substantial. Nonetheless, it's alive and kicking, for now at least.

The Colombia Cast, in conjunction with Semana magazine, is the latest addition to that growing world of podcasts. In a similar vein to IQuiz, it's purely a labour of love, for the moment at least.

'Show me the visa (and the money!)'

Alongside this, though not quite in the labour-of-love category, is a new full-time gig at a global marketing company — work visa pending, but I've already started (not sure of the legalities of that one, guys).

So after over seven years as an independent worker in Colombia, being my own boss to a large extent, I've now entered the full-time workforce. Or so it appears: La Cancillería has to give it the official approval yet.

My mantra for most of the last seven years had been that I wouldn't work full-time for a Colombian company.

"The 'quantity of hours over quality of work' culture permeates."

Not only did I — and still do — value my independence, but the ridiculously long hours that many Colombians seem obliged to spend at work, whether they're actually doing work or not, is something I said I wouldn't sign up to.

The thing is, it's not actually a Colombian company I'm working for. Nonetheless, the quantity-of-hours-over-quality-of-work culture that permeates through many organisations here seems at play. It is early days, so I might be a bit off on that one. I hope I am in any case.

So in a year where it looked odds-on that my stay in Colombia was coming to an imminent end, it now appears I'm about to commit for a bit longer (visa pending of course!).

I might just be here for the opening of the new Irish Embassy in Bogotá after all.
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Colombia's locas

Of the many strange and wonderful things visitors and expats discover about Colombia, one of those is the various regional traits – quasi-subcultures if you will – that exist here. 

It’s not something you have to find out for yourself – although, spend enough time here and you undoubtedly will – as the locals are usually quick to fill you in.

'Rolo land' - twilight in Bogotá.

These subcultures are generally city or department confined (for the record, Colombia consists of 32 departments or departamentos in Spanish) and, at the risk of over-generalising, we tend to find that the characteristics associated with each region more or less hold true. 

Of course, you will find that the chief traits of one area are in existence in other locations, but perhaps just not to the same degree. 

A Colombian acquaintance summed up the most common of these regional behaviours thus:

Starting with the capital Bogotá, if you have three Bogotanos or rolos (rolas for women) as they are referred to, with you in a room, what happens? Well, they probably won’t talk to you and when you leave their company you’ll discover your mobile phone and other personal belongings have gone ‘missing’. 

As for the people from the country’s second city, Medellín, in the Antioquía department, find yourself surrounded by three paisas as they’re known and you’re in good business company. 

From the female point of view, they’ll also be fiercely attractive – now that’s saying something, considering this is Colombia – but, as we’ve found out to our cost, they might struggle to find their purse (see both ‘The wages of love’ http://bit.ly/MtWh7T & ‘Bienvenidos a Medellín – Bangkok Light’ http://bit.ly/N83NbB for related stories).  You don't get ahead in business by spending lots of money now, do you?

Get a trio of inhabitants from Colombia’s Caribbean coast, costeños, together and you’ll be partying and dancing non-stop, with the ladies suggestively rubbing their considerable posteriors in your crotch area. 

Apparently, even the region’s donkeys get to sample these erotic dances – even a bit more if they’re ‘lucky’.

There's much more to Santander than just the chicas.

The city of Cali’s good people (caleña(o)s) are best known for their sultry salsa skills – well they have to be good at something, right?

Then you have the santandereanas – that is the women who come from the department of Santander. 

In the words of our Colombian acquaintance – himself, we must point out, a santandereano – if you’re in the company of three of these ladies then you’ve got problems, big problems. In fairness, it only takes one to give you trouble, three is akin to a death sentence.

These are Colombia’s quintessential crazy ladies, locas. Again, that’s a big statement to make – it’s not like they don’t have much competition in this regard here. 

Now, being fiery and passionate as these santandereanas are doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. But these chicas have taken it to a degree that would see Jesus Christ himself reach for the shotgun after only a couple of days, if he survived that long.

If you’re contemplating dating one get ready for one of the most dramatic emotional roller coasters you’ll ever experience. OK, you might say that this is the case with women in general, but we’re referring to heretofore unprecedented levels of craziness here.

Personal experience of all this – not even in a dating sense at that – and the streams of anecdotal evidence from both Colombians and foreigners alike cannot be merely brushed aside as coincidence. So it is, Santander – the home of human ‘Black Widows’.

A Santand... ...er, sorry, a Black Widow spider.

Of course, as we always like to point out after making sweeping generalisations, there are, fortunately, exceptions. 

We have a small number of Santandereanas that we rate as good friends – trustworthy even. The fact that most of these spent some time outside of Colombia has obviously played a significant part in ‘normalising’ them – whatever that actually means. You know who you are.

So what about the perfect Colombian woman, based on the above? 

For us, it would be a paisa’s looks, the soundness of a caleña, a smidgen of santandereana passion and initial friendliness, a costeña's eroticism and rola, erm, daring.

We can dream, can’t we?

National interest?

To coincide with the London Olympics, Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper published a list of what it considers to be the ten worst national anthems in the world. 

Now, amazingly – well, perhaps not given the publication – ‘God Save The Queen’ didn’t make the cut. Come on, of all the people in the world who need saving, old pampered Elizabeth is not the top priority. Her British subjects, however, seem to think differently. 

One country’s national song that did make it onto the list – at number six, in case you’re wondering – was that of our current home, Colombia. 

This is something that hasn’t gone down too well with a number of the locals we met in the past week – that is those ones who feel part of this ‘Republic’ (see our ‘Whose Land Is It Anyway?’ at http://bit.ly/NQIsTr for more on that particular topic).

'Did you just criticise my country?' 'Sorry, I thought you wanted my opinion.'

In truth we can, sort of, understand the annoyance of some Colombians at this apparent affront to their national anthem (its name by the way is ¡Oh Gloria Inmarcesible!, Oh Unfading Glory!). It’s not that bad. 

Indeed, after you’ve heard it a few hundred times – by law it must be played on all the state’s radio and television channels at 6 am and 6 pm every day – the tune becomes quite catchy. 

Maybe, though, that’s just a result of intense exposure to it. We might begin to have similar feelings for the North Korean ditty – it topped The Telegraph’s list – if we heard it as often. OK, possibly not.

Outside of all that, this whole story has served to remind us of how passionate many Colombians are about their country. 

In many respects, this can be seen as a good thing, being proud of your nation, defending its honour. But like everything, it’s best in moderation. In its mildest form, nationalism can be blinkered and biased, in its extremist form it can be crushingly deadly – Nazism is all we need to mention here. 

Needless to say, Colombian patriotism is thankfully in the former category as is the case in most countries across the globe. But we should be at least open to a bit of constructive criticism from time to time. 

For some Colombians, however, just the slightest negative remark about their country is taken as a massive insult (for an example of what we mean, see, http://bit.ly/PxO5R8). The same can be said for many US citizens – the existence of this blinkered and biased nationalism.

'Never mind the rainbow, just look at that grey sky.'

In contrast, you’ve got the attitude of the majority of us Irish. Speaking positively about our country is practically frowned upon. 

We love to tell people how much of a mess it’s in – and it’s in a pretty big one. It’s not that we’re not proud of where we are from or don’t like it, it’s just we tend not to do hyperbole as the Yanks have perfected. 

In fact, we’re skilled in the exact opposite, making things seem far worse than they generally are. We talk down achievements rather than talk them up. Indeed, to that last sentence, our natural cynicism would ask, ‘What achievements?’ 

We are our own worse critics. To us, that’s a natural way to be. Anything else just smacks of arrogance – too North American or English. 

In a sporting context, for the fans at least, we believe this pessimism or cynicism or whatever you want to call it works well. Because our expectations are so low, when we do inevitably fail, we don’t get terribly upset. We just drink more and sing. Much better than the standard English reaction of rioting — isn't that right, Master Roy Keane?

Down & out, yet again.

Putting on, though, our ill-fitting ‘positivity hat’, we Irish, you have to say, have done quite well across the board, in relative terms. We just don’t brag about it. While this is a trait we tend to like, at times it can be self-defeating – especially when we go abroad, going up against other nationalities for jobs or whatever. 

Thus – if only for a time and for show – we have to learn to be a bit more boastful as to what we’re about. 

In fairness, we’ve done that pretty well through the years. Our international sporting excellence remains a work in progress, however.

Dining with death

Bright building with a dark past.

Contrary to popular belief, every now and again we don't mind spending a little more than the norm of our hard-earned Colombian pesos here. This is especially so if it seems worth it. 

That happened to be the case when the opportunity arose to dine in one of Bogotá’s most famous – well, infamous really – restaurants. Quality Italian food in a fairly luxurious setting (for us anyway) with a dark history was just too good an offer to turn down. 

Plus, we couldn’t let our departing Irish friend, from the UK part of the island albeit (no offence intended, Colin), feast on his own for his 'last supper' in Colombia.

Now, using such phrases as we have in that last sentence is moving into quite unsettling territory considering the place we’re referring to: Pozzetto restaurant. 

Why? Well, firstly we must say we were ignorant of its truly shocking past until we were invited to go there. For those of you in a similar position, here’s a brief account of one of the craziest days, and people, Bogotá has witnessed – and that’s saying something.

To start, a necessary background briefing on the man this all revolves around – Colombian native Campo Elías Delgado. A quick Google search will tell you that he, reputedly, served in Vietnam with the US army, after which he lived as a refugee in New York before returning to Bogotá, finding work there as an English teacher. 

His experiences in Vietnam were said to have made him antisocial and resentful, while he also blamed his mother for many of the problems he had in his life. His descent into what can only be described as utter madness reached its nadir on 04 December 1986.

Mass murderer — Campo Elías Delgado.

His day of carnage started by stabbing to death one of his teenage students along with her mother in their apartment. From there he returned to the apartment he shared with his mother, arming himself for his next round of slaughter. 

That started by killing his mother with a single stab to the back of the neck. He then set her body alight, went out to the apartment complex corridor and alerted other residents to the fire. As his neighbours emerged he killed them one by one – one man with his knife, another five by gunshot.

Still blood thirsty – and seemingly hungry – Delgado headed to the aforementioned, exclusive Pozzetto restaurant. 

On arrival, he ordered spaghetti bolognese along with red wine and eight vodka tonics. He tucked into that for about an hour before beginning the final part of the slaying, opening fire on his fellow diners. 

Although one woman managed to quickly call the police, Delgado still had time to slaughter 21 people before they arrived. His method was to coldly corner his victims, shoot them in the forehead, then move on to the next.

When the police eventually landed Delgado held them off for about a minute before finally being shot dead himself.

In total he ended the lives of 30 people that day, the majority of them at Pozzetto.

Fine dining — the stylish interior of Pozzetto.

As far as our experience at the same restaurant went, well needless to say, and thankfully, it was nothing like the above.

Indeed it’s hard to imagine that such a slaughter could have happened in such salubrious surroundings. 

The only shots taken were those from our camera, the majority coming courtesy of our enthusiastic but far-from-clinical waiter. If only Delgado had had such a hopeless aim.

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*For those in Bogotá interested in checking out Pozzetto, it's located in the Chapinero district, Carrera 7 # 61-24.

Whose land is it anyway?

Independence Day celebrations are novel events for us here at Wrong Way. The fact that the freedom of our own island from colonial rule has never been achieved to the majority of our past liberators’ wishes means independence is an awkward subject for us Irish. 

So instead of a national day commemorating a political foundation, we celebrate our submission to Christianity – or what is commonly referred to as St Patrick’s Day. 

In the past year, though, we’ve been able to witness at first hand a couple of nations getting all patriotic and merry to mark their birth as free countries – Chile last 18 September and more recently Colombia on 20 July. 

Independence Day celebrations in Bogotá, Colombia.

Both national days celebrate the defeat of the Spanish colonisers by, um, the previous Spanish colonisers. The kids grow up so fast, don’t they? The initial Spanish conquest was so successful that the indigenous populations they encountered were quite literally blown away by their new masters. 

These natives – well, those who remained – were reduced to mere silent and powerless spectators as the Old World invaders divvied up as their own what is Mother Nature’s earth. 

OK, there was some interbreeding between old natives and new settlers but for the indigenous that meant surrendering to the Spanish way of life – the opposite seldom occurred. Of course, this isn’t a unique story, the same happened in North America and in many colonised lands.

The lesser-spotted Kogi Indians of Colombia.

Hence, we can only imagine that these Independence Day celebrations are met with, at the very least, indifference among the indigenous. It must be like having a party in your own house that not only you do not want but the organisers didn’t even invite you or ask for your permission to hold it. And then you’re left to clean up the mess. 

For some of the old natives – particularly the tribal indigenous – the country and its borders that is Colombia or Venezuela or wherever doesn’t even exist. They live in a world – or at least tried to – without man-made borders. (For a previous article related to this topic, see Phantom Freedom at: http://bit.ly/SOQUl0.)

This whole indigenous versus Latino question is very topical in Colombia at the moment. In the country’s south-western department of Cauca, where both the indigenous populations and the outlawed Farc are at their strongest, the old natives have taken it upon themselves to defend what they see as theirs. 

They claim that the presence of the Colombian military in the area – to "pacify" the region as far as the Government’s official line goes – only attracts more Farc attacks, which have been numerous in recent times. Their lack of confidence in the state’s security to adequately protect them is deeply rooted in history. 

Meanwhile, for many Spanish Colombians living in the big cities, their belief is that the indigenous are in the pocket of the Farc – the removal of the army will only serve to strengthen the rebels, no more, no less. There could, certainly, be some truth to that. But it’s quite arrogantly dismissive of the indigenous’ own, unique concerns. 

Life before the Spaniards — the Incas Machu Picchu in Peru.

Of course, any group of people that feels it is being mistreated is quick to point to the rights it believes it is entitled to. The indigenous in these parts have a strong case going back hundreds of years in this regard. But as we all should know, with rights come responsibilities. 

Too often, different minorities are quick to demand the former, yet fail to face up to the latter. For one, if you claim you don’t recognise a certain authority or state and thus will not be bound by its rules, it’s a little bit rich to be asking for benefits and assistance from said authority or state. 

In an Irish context, the IRA and Sinn Féin know all about that. Sometimes you just have to face up to the reality of a situation, no matter how disagreeable it may be for you.

As ever in such conflicts, and as alluded to above, the lack of trust in the motives of the other side is at the heart of the problem here. 

The gun, however, has rarely provided a long-term, satisfactory, solution. These Independence Day celebrations could be seen as proof of that.

Taking stock

Every now and again it can be prudent to take stock of your current situation. Reflect on what has happened and look ahead to what might be in store for you. 

We believe that second part isn’t as beneficial as the first as you never know with any certainty what life will throw at you next. That aside, we’ve been analysing the state of play for Wrong Way and associates in the last few weeks.

Who'd have thunk it? Wrong Way on-stage in Colombia.

We feel like it’s a good time to do so: The one-year mark has passed since we took the decision to leave a relatively steady yet limited job behind on the island of Ireland and take a semi-gamble to make what we’ve termed our ‘Second Coming’ to South America. 

So how has it been thus far? What, if anything, have we learned?

As opposed to the ‘First Coming’ to South America, which was solely travelling, this time around the aim was to see if we could source some work in order to settle for a longer term. Considering we’re still in the continent almost 13 months later, a few necessary departures apart, that first aim has gone relatively well. 

Aside from our initial, far from humanitarian, slave-like voluntary media gig in Santiago de Chile, any paid employment we’ve engaged in here in Colombia to date – from the standard hostel work and teaching English to the more unusual TV extras work (see: http://bit.ly/NrbPc3) – has been largely enjoyable and, at times, even profitable.

'In Ros Trust' — well, at least in the classroom.

If we were to pick a negative from the most profitable and reliable of those, the English teaching, it’s that our use of the Spanish language has decreased as our class hours have increased. But a lot of that is down to pure laziness on our part – we’ve plenty of time in between classes to be using and (hopefully) improving our Spanish. It comes down to desire and need in the end.

Like any place you stay in for a while and as regular readers of this blog will know, you begin to see the warts nestled among, at first glance, the more obvious beauty. 

We’ve touched on many of these ‘ugly spots’ before, from public transport manners (see http://bit.ly/N68gKL) and business dealings (see http://bit.ly/LVpK8p) to relationship attitudes (see http://bit.ly/NsJyB5) and friendships (see http://bit.ly/LbcE9V) to name but a few. 

On that latter one, outside of some notable mostly expat (although, thankfully, not exclusively) exceptions, the ability to build trustworthy friendships is disappointing. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.

Not much left to play with (above) - time to spice things up like below?

As negative, though, as all the above may seem, it’s appropriate at this stage to state we still like it here, for now anyway. Heck, if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here. 

We can leave at any stage – well, at least we think we can. Yes, there are times when we might get frustrated with certain things or even feel a little bored – but we’ve experienced enough to know that these are emotions that can happen anywhere at anytime. Life, after all, is as exciting or as dull as you want to make it.

Possibly one of the best things that our second stint in South America – and Colombia specifically – has further reinforced for us is the adage not to take yourself, or indeed life, too seriously. 

We’re trying not to sweat the small stuff. OK, now and again, the infamous Wrong Way temper goes off; a blow-out here and there is healthy, right? But on the whole we’re concentrating on remaining positive, working on the things we can control while trying not to worry about those we can’t. 

Weighing it all up, we have to be reasonably happy with the current state of play. 

Perhaps, though, we’ve just about rode out this particular wave. The time might be fast approaching to catch another, wherever it may take us.

Marketing matters

We don’t do generalisations here. No really, we don’t. However, if it so happens that we notice certain traits in some groups or nationalities, or whatever the case may be, we feel obliged to point them out. 

As far as we are concerned, when person after person from a particular sect behave in the same manner, making assumptions about their character becomes more acceptable.

Throughout our professional career we’ve had to deal closely with marketing people – or women, to be more specific. You can’t really avoid them when you’re working as a broadcaster as they normally have more of a say as to what gets aired than you do. 

We did, however, think, naively, that we wouldn’t encounter them working in the world of English teaching here in Colombia. Alas, no such luck. They just seem to follow us wherever we go.

An honest, hard-working female dog.

So, what is it about them? Why do they get under our skin so much? 

Well, firstly it must be said that on face value, they tend to be semi-attractive specimens. Initial encounters are usually positive – heck they come across as likeable, almost. But it’s not long before all that begins to change. Their personalities – or lack thereof – turn any superficial beauty well and truly on its head.  

For one, in both conversational and written English, they use a different language to us mere mortals. 

In an Irish context, even the healthiest of country accents is transformed into a posh, ‘D 4-ish’ (an area of Dublin, but its cringe-worthy characteristics are not geographically confined) drawl. We have it on good authority that similar transformations occur in these ‘mor-keting’ types across the globe. 

Then you have their love of acronyms. It’s neurotic to say the least. OK, the use of an odd one here and there isn’t that bad but these guys feel a need to put everything into a shortened form. They then expect you to fully understand what they just said or wrote. You’re obviously ‘stupid roight’ if you don’t get it.

Nazi Marketing - Goebbels in his prime.

Now, we’re not sure when the word ‘bitch’ was first used to describe some women, but no doubt a marketing-type was the initial recipient of the snide remark. Not that it would faze them. They are masters of the verbal put-downs. Indeed, playing them at the same game is a futile exercise – there will only be one winner.

All of the above, of course, fast tracks them to positions of power in their particular business/organisation in no time at all. If they’re not actually running the show then they’ll be the head honcho’s number one go-to girl for all company matters – and perhaps some extra-curricular activities to boot. They’ll do anything to have a bit of power firmly within their grasp.

You must remember that all this is only evident when you’re working for the same company as them. That is when you’re not a potential client or of any worth as far as they’re concerned. 

Because if you happen to be of value to them then they’ll make you feel very special - very special indeed. Many have perfected their art to such a degree that you may even think they’re human. Do not discount the power of years of marketing indoctrination. Joseph Goebbels in his prime wouldn’t do half as good a job.

'Tea for everyone.'

Of course, as you know, we always like to find positives even from the direst of situations. 

In this context, difficult as it may be to find any, we’re glad to state we have one. On rare occasions – if you’re lucky – a number of our marketing ‘friends’ do make a fine cup of coffee. 

It’s a modicum of proof that they do hold on to some of the finer feminine characteristics – knowing what to do in the kitchen. Perhaps they’re a dab-hand at ironing, too? OK, let’s not get too greedy.