Whenever I read something odd and amusing via email I think of this quote from 1943 in a letter from Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr to Lord Pembroke at the Foreign Office:
“In these dark days man tends to look for little shafts of light that spill from Heaven. My days are probably darker than yours, and I need, my God I do, all the light I can get. But I am a decent fellow, and I do not want to be mean and selfish about what little brightness is shed upon me from time to time. So I propose to share with you a tiny flash that has illuminated my sombre life”
In Sir Archibald’s case he was referring, in a casually racist way, to a new colleague’s name.
My own example of little shafts of light, is slightly less amusing, but still made me chuckle. Some rather unlikely targeting, to say the least…
I wondered if the global recession had got so bad that I was being pitched to buy a ship for $18 million dollars or more.
Must hunt around down the back the sofa for this one:
“Subject: Ship for sale
Directly from our yard, we are please to offer you following for immediate transaction:
SECOND-HAND
– M/V TONG YU, 1002dwt Chemical Tanker (Built 1988 in Japan), USD 680,000
– M/V DONG HANG, 1600dwt Container General Cargo Vessel (Built 1993 in China), USD 850,000
– M/V ZI HANG, 1983dwt Gearless Cargo Vesse (built 1992, Japan), USD 1,000,000
IN POPULAR:
– 7,500dwt Oil Tanker (Built Nov, 2008 in China), USD 9,500,000
– 6740dwt Chemical Tanker (Built Nov, 2008 in China), USD 11,000,000
– 10,800dwt Bulk carrier(Built 2009 in China), USD 9,500,000
BRAND NEW FROM OUR YARD
– 9000dwt MPP (Built Sept, 2009 in China), USD 18,000,000
– 17,000dwt crude/product oil tanker(Built May, 2009 in China) , USD 23,000,000
– 19,800dwt Bulk carrier(Built May, 2009 in China), USD 17,500,000
– 23,800dwt Bulk carrier(Built May, 2009 in China), USD 23,000,000
– 32,000dwt Bulk carrier(Built May, 2009 in China), USD 28,000,000
– 38,000dwt Bulk carrier(Built May, 2009 in China), USD 35,000,000
Feel free to drop us an email or call for any question.
Best Regards,
AJ7 Global Group Co,.Ltd (Shanghai, China)
Mobile: + 86 135 6421 7233
office: + 86 21 5424 1474
Fax: + 86 21 6402 1958
Email: fortunatelyjudy@gmail.com”
Anyone wishing to pick up a Chinese ship, presumably at bargain prices, should contact Judy above, who will justify her name should you want your own ship.
I'm Tobias Webb, founder of Innovation Forum and Sustainable Wine. I write on this blog, with others, about areas of interest to me in supply chains, circular economy and sustainability in general. I hope you find it useful. I've worked in sustainability for about 20 years, and work with large companies, NGOs and governments all over the world. I often act as facilitator, at our conferences, and other meetings, either private or multi-stakeholder. I also work as a 'critical friend' advisor to companies on strategy and stakeholder engagement. I have a separate wine website on sustainability in wine at 
ship maintentance
lol, I haven’t had the pleasure of receiving such spam, I wonder if they are thinking ‘If we just get one sale out of this, it’ll be totally worth it!”.