It is good to know that there are honest people on this planet.

Went to Paris for a very nice dinner with other INSEAD folks at Le Refuge, near Gare de Lyon, a very artsy and cozy place. One of our Italian friends forgot her purse in the restaurant. By the time she realizes the loss, we are just out a restaurant/jazz club nearby, the China Club and Le Refuge has closed. We leave a message, prompting the owner of the restaurant to call us back. Wallet is restituted the following day.

Forgot my wallet on a train seat. A local ran after me with my wallet in his hand. I only suffered minor embarrassment as he was shouting out loud that I was jeopardizing my wealth on public transports.


***********************************************************************
Using the famous Jack Welch’s principle of Proudly Found Elsewhere
Enjoy

THAT CRAZY ENGLISH LANGUAGE!

Do you think communication would be so much more simple if everyone in
the world spoke English?? Let's face it -- English is a crazy
language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither
apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in
England or French Fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while
sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find
that quicksand can work slowly. And why is it that writers write but
fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the
plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? and why
do you pronounce Quay like Key but not cough like dough?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that
you comb through the annals of history but not a single annal? If you
have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what
do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If
vegetarians eat vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? What human
organ was used to design church organs?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an
asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a
play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have
noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on
parkways? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a
wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be
opposite, while quite a few and quite a lot are alike? How can the
weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the other day?
Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are
absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? And
where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would
ACTUALLY hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your
house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by
filling it out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the
creativity of the human race (which of course, isn't a race at all).
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the
lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch,
I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it