January – no laughing matter
Jan 29 2009 by Phil Renton, The Journal
FEBRUARY may already be nearly upon us, but many people just can't seem to shake the January blues – and who can blame them?
The weather is pretty miserable to say the least, it’s dark when you get up and dark by the time you leave work. For many, January also seems like the longest month of the year by far – especially when they have been paid early for Christmas and have to make December’s pay stretch to almost six weeks. In addition to this there isn’t a day that passes by without another recession story hitting the headlines.
But at least it’s good to know that one person in the world is laughing. Xu Pinghui, a young Chinese girl has possibly the most interesting medical complaint. She has been laughing uncontrollably for an astonishing 12 years.
But what started her laughing spree I hear you ask? Well let’s cast our mind back to 1997…
Was it the surprising victory of Katrina and the Waves in the Eurovision Song Contest, the UK’s most successful ever entry? Nice thought, but probably not. Perhaps she’s laughing because she managed to guess the ending to Titanic, the year’s highest grossing film.
Did Xu Pinghui, foresee something when US President Bill Clinton was inaugurated for his second term in January 1997 – Monica Lewinsky, anyone? Or maybe she was so delighted to learn that the UK had finally handed Hong Kong back to the People’s Republic of China.
Hopefully she wasn’t laughing as a computer hacker published the devastating Microsoft C source code, WinNuke which quickly spread across the internet forcing Microsoft to issue a security patch. Even 12 years later computer viruses are still an issue and businesses need to protect themselves – because as we all know IT security is no laughing matter.
Unfortunately for Xu Pinghui her condition isn’t a result of these 1997 highlights, a year that seems such a distance memory for many people. Rather it is a bizarre side-effect of a fever which the young girl contracted when she was a baby.
Croft may not be able to make you laugh non-stop for 12 full years, but why not give us a call and we’ll certainly try our best to make you smile!
Phil Renton is managing director of Newcastle IT services firm Croft Technology.
