What an idiom

Parental discretion advised as Dave gets wind of phrase-mangling execs, cheese-abusing snackers and hot sex with Michael Gove

Over the years I've noted a predilection among channel executives for the kind of nuggets of homespun wisdom that might make really good Facebook wall posts if paired with a picture of a particularly resourceful otter.
The problem with these pearls of profundity is they're just so tricky to remember. What's that one about killing someone making you stronger? And the one that's something to do with a journey of a mile taking 1,000 steps?
But even by the occasionally metaphorically mixed standards of the IT industry, I was impressed by the syntactic gymnastics of one partner chief I met recently. The poor fella knew there was a saying concerning fish and food that spoke to the power of education - rather than simple charity - as a tool for emancipation. After chewing over the fish-man-food-teaching quandary for a few awkward seconds, he settled on the perfect wording.
"If you teach a fish to feed itself, then they don't wanna give you the food; it's all about empowerment."
Or put another way, if you can teach a fish to feed itself, then get out of the IT industry, create a variety act, and take your incredible intelligent fish on a world tour.

Sexual Ealing
In a move cribbed straight out of Reverse Psychology for Dummies, I was intrigued to see recently that Michael Gove wants ambitious young businesspeople to come to London for "a good time and loads of hot sex".
The national press reports that the education secretary was speaking at a summit attended by government top brass and former Facebook exec Joanna Shields, who is leading David Cameron's Tech City task force. The improbably stretchy-faced Scot claimed he had been "talking to some young entrepreneurs recently [who] said the reason they love London so much is not so much the high-tech opportunities, but that it's a fantastic city with great opportunities to be successful, enjoy a great culture, have a good time - and loads of hot sex!".
Home secretary Theresa May reportedly "gasped", while Cameron also acted the square by allegedly saying: "make sure that does not appear in the minutes".
Completely made-up rumours that Gove then proceeded to chase Shields and May around the room to the strains of Yakety Sax remained thoroughly untrue as CRN went to press.

Fromage frayed
Working in the IT industry, I'm reminded daily of the awesome power of technology and the opportunities for social and economic progress afforded by the advent of things such as unified communications, immersive telepresence, and cloud computing. But just when you think the human race is progressing to a ubiquitously connected future of smart cities and intelligent objects, I remember that many among us haven't yet mastered their toaster.
The London Fire Brigade was recently called to an incident in Croydon caused by an inventive snack-assembler trying to make cheese on toast by flipping their toaster on its side. Press reports indicate that the owner's kitchen suffered minor damage, and the gambit "left the snack completely charred".
"Toasters are not designed to be put on their side," sighed an impressively deadpan crew manager Nick Morley. "I never thought I'd have to give this advice as it's painfully obvious, but if you want cheese on toast, use a grill, not a toaster."
Alternatively, reassess whether you really want melted cheese, and make a sandwich instead. Making sure to use plastic knives. As well as safety goggles and a full hazmat suit.

Ex-XP
Having exhausted literally several options in trying to get stubborn users to migrate from Windows XP, Microsoft has gone for a more fun approach to warn of the security dangers of staying on the ageing OS.
A side-scrolling shoot-em-up game dubbed Escape from XP casts a lonely developer as the last man standing in a world of vastly inferior software. Accompanied by an ear-violating soundtrack, our hero has to blast beloved icons like IE and the Recycle Bin while an evil version of that unbearably smug paperclip looks on.
Fair play to Microsoft - I've shown this to a number of my clients and they've all agreed it's time to move on. I've got four company-wide Linux rollouts scheduled for next week alone.