Where my money goes: dental agony and a little journey into Promiseland

Some spend their money on fine wines. Others go cruising or skiing. Still yet others invest in rare motor cars, paintings and antiques.

But what money I have left after my last divorce (score: Wife 34; Bird 0) tends to flow in the direction of my dentist, the worthy Tariq Idris. My bridges, implants, flying buttresses and so on are a monument to his ingenuity, and that of his predecessor.

So after three hours at his hands yesterday you couldn't get much sense out of me due to protracted agony. I was cheered up no end though by my new hobby - reading the outrageous claims of those who specialise in putting you in what rogue salesmen I worked with when young called Promiseland.

One heading was "Is this a scam?" followed by ingenious protestations of good faith and the usual cavalcade of testimonials. But the one that got the biscuit contained the following stream of wondrous pr0mises:

Not only is my friend Jeff "Herschy" Schwerdt giving you a Cash Flow Supercharger, he's handed you the keys to his Viral Submitter software, helping drive traffic to your own Cash Flow Funnel.

Wouldn't you like all that stuff, friends?

In case you have doubts I shall start shortly be launching my Prehistoric Unsupercharged No-Miracles Get Rich Slow But Sure alternative which works on the old-fashioned basis: you have to do a little work.

Among other things I will be analysing how all these schemes work. There is much to be learnt because they are all based on sound principles, even if their promises are a little high flown.

Just so you know what a dreadful bunch of low-lifes some of my clients are ...

The following glorious piece of bad taste was sent to me by someone we've done the odd job for. I really do sometimes wonder where we find them.

A US army platoon was marching north of Fallujah when they came upon an Iraqi insurgent, badly injured and unconscious.

On the opposite side of the road was a British soldier in a similar but less serious state. The soldier was conscious and alert and as first aid was given to both men the platoon leader asked the injured soldier what had happened.

The soldier reported, "I was moving north along this highway and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent. We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along the road.

I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein was a miserable, low-life scum bag who'd got what he deserved, and he yelled back that Gordon Brown is a fat, useless, lying one-eyed porridge wog and Lord Mandelson is a pillow biting old whoopsie.

So I said that Osama Bin Laden dresses and ponces about like a frigid, hatchet-faced dyke. He retaliated by yelling, "Oh yeah? Well, so does Harriet Harman!"

And, there we were shaking hands in the middle of the road when a fucking bus hit the pair of us."

If you have the same appalling sense of humour as my old client, pay on time, and need better results and good advice without being financially raped in the process, e-mail me at drayton@draytonbird.com. We should get on well.

This seductive invitation is limited by time as I am unbelievably old, and stringently limited by number (just four clients wanted) as I am involved in everything we do and very busy**.

Of course, you may conclude that I'm not too bright, as I mentioned this golden opportunity casually the other day but failed to stick in my email address - but if you go to www.draytonbird.com you'll find lots of testimonials, many of which I didn't write myself.

** Busy doing what? Putting the final touches to Commonsense Marketing - but I have this rather old-fashioned idea that I should not just pontificate but work on real stuff every day.