Sweets

A few years ago someone offered me a sweet; not that this is a rare occurrence, it is just that this was a particular type of liquorice sweet that I remembered from my childhood, I even remembered that it was called a 'Poor Ben' and I have subsequently learned that it is manufactured by Lion's of Cleckheaton, Yorkshire, in the U.K.

Having remembered the taste of 'Poor Bens' and found where to buy them I decided that I needed a ready supply, I therefore bought a large jar in which to put them, and I kept this on my desk.

A growing number of people used to come to see me with the only reason being to take some of my Poor Bens.

After having given a successful presentation in Geneva I arrived home to find that my wife had bought me a present; a large can of jelly beans!

Not just any old jelly beans! No, 'gourmet' jelly beans! At first I thought, ' I could put these in the jar with the Poor Bens', and then I found out how much there jelly beans cost. The next step was pretty obvious, I had to find some way of the jelly Beans becoming self financing. It did not take me long to find the answer; -' a jelly bean machine!'

And so, the 'Jelly Bean Machine on Terry's Desk was born!'

It did not take long for the fame of the 'Jelly Bean Machine on Terry's desk' to spread. Soon, there were queues of people lined up to put their money in the machine and become 'gourmet's'. Eventually, I tired of the queues and took one of my new customers to the sweet shop to examine the 'Jelly Bean Machines'. It was then that people realised that there were bigger machines to look at, there were bigger challenges to face!

And so it was that the Systems Department became the proud owner of a 30" tall jelly bean machine, together with lbs of Jelly beans, at a discounted price. And I regained the use of my desk!