Working for BookScan gives me the ideal perk in that I can usually blag books from the publishers. Some I don't have to ask, they just send them. And if a blag doesn't work then there is always something called Trade Discount!

Anyway, I saw a title in today's Bookseller - A Rhyming History of Britain - which I'd really like. So I sent off the following poem

This excellent book is bound to be
A hit with people such as me
Who have an interest, nay a passion,
For history. And do not ration
Their love of their country be it England or Wales
Or Scotland and Ireland with their Celtic tales.
Stories of battles and hamlets and towns
From the Highlands through to the Sussex Downs.
From the Eastern Wolds to the rugged Welsh Coast
Covering Britain as the title doeth boast.
And hence my bookcase will look bare
Until a copy resteth there.
So, Mr Hayward, heed my plea
And send a copy straight to me.

(with apologies)
Ta ever-so

Haven't heard yet.............

Lucky you. Working for a cream cake manufacturer, all I get to blag are cream cakes. And I don't eat cream. :-(

And working in a laboratory, all I get is the odd T-shirt, calendar. notepad pen or letter opener with a logo on it. Otherwise it's free samples of reagents, sample tubes and plates, racks for floating tubes in water baths, rubber gloves, and product catalogs.

I did get a laser pointer keychain as a free gift at a big product show last year, but usually it's just free food.

Speaking of Book blagging, try and blag from Random House "the time travellers wife" it's coming out in january and it's really good!

Read it last week - thought it okay. Meant to mention it but other things happened.

The only books I get are music related ones to review, not that I'm complaining. What I do get fed up with is being sent upwards of 30 CDs a week to "review" - and only one in ten is even vaguely listenable.

I have the same problem with some of the books I get to review - there is only so much one can say about yoga!

finished? ahh i'm on page 370 and want to keep reading but need to work...

Aunty, why don't you pretend it's been exposed to the mispeling virus and write a review about Goya instead of Yoga? Surely lots more possibilities there! ;)

There's a thought *and away it flew with AuntySassy chasing it....*

as a professional lady of leisure and amateur cat herder, the only thing I get for free are hairballs. Oh, and hair on my trousers from sitting where the cats were.

i have the ideal job... and i could blag more but i'm not cheeky enough / haven't been working in head office for long enough...

*choughs quietly* Blagging?

for the not quite sure American :)

Blagging = scamming for free...kind of like taking office supplies...perks of the job

AnnMarie, a "blag" is literally a "robbery", but it's commonly used in England these days to mean to get something for free, hence "blag a free ride", "blag a copy of the book from the publisher".

There's a useful dictionary of English slang available at:

[www.anglik.net]



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* I'm backing the campaign to get the official Stalker for 2007 evicted *

you know, I don't think I'll ever understand British rhyming slang...that's just beyond me! Too many possibilities, I suppose.

AAC - that's why we like it. It belongs to us and us only. Not that we don't like you of course but you know.........

well, I guess we have all sorts of non-sensical words too, but since you lot seem to get most of our media, they don't stay secret too long. Perhaps if you all made better media to send to us...

hehehe (actually, the truth of it is, our media steal ideas from you and then make it into American versions, ie Millionaire, Survivor, Big Brother, Weakest Link, etc...)

I love rhyming slang myself, but I don't know a lot of it.

Much is hard to understand now, because it refers to things that were common knowledge when it originated, but aren't anymore (especially in the States). Then you can combine that with the fact that many of the phrases have since been shortened....

Think yourselves lucky!

I work for a charity so all I get is the warm fuzzy glow of helping people