The below is a job application that Hunter S. Thompson sent to the Vancouver Sun before he was famous. Thanks Shapshak and Louis for the link.

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Vancouver Sun

TO JACK SCOTT, VANCOUVER SUN

October 1, 1958 57 Perry Street New York City

Sir,

I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Time magazine did this week on The Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I'd also like to offer my services.

Since I haven't seen a copy of the "new" Sun yet, I'll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn't know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I'm not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley.

By the time you get this letter, I'll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I'll let my offer stand. And don't think that my arrogance is unintentional: it's just that I'd rather offend you now than after I started working for you.

I didn't make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he'd tell you that I'm "not very likable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person." (That's a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)

Nothing beats having good references.

Of course if you asked some of the other people I've worked for, you'd get a different set of answers.

If you're interested enough to answer this letter, I'll be glad to furnish you with a list of references -- including the lad I work for now.

The enclosed clippings should give you a rough idea of who I am. It's a year old, however, and I've changed a bit since it was written. I've taken some writing courses from Columbia in my spare time, learned a hell of a lot about the newspaper business, and developed a healthy contempt for journalism as a profession.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you're trying to get The Sun away from, then I think I'd like to work for you.

Most of my experience has been in sports writing, but I can write everything from warmongering propaganda to learned book reviews.

I can work 25 hours a day if necessary, live on any reasonable salary, and don't give a black damn for job security, office politics, or adverse public relations.

I would rather be on the dole than work for a paper I was ashamed of.

It's a long way from here to British Columbia, but I think I'd enjoy the trip.

If you think you can use me, drop me a line.

If not, good luck anyway.

Sincerely, Hunter S. Thompson

It’s great to be back at work, but also great to reflect on one our best holidays ever. Yolande and I rented a house in Onrus, just outside Hermanus, right next to the beach. Staying with us was Yolande’s sister Jeanne-Marie and her Italian hubby Andrea, who travelled down from Modena in Northern Italy. It was an opportunity for our kids, Mikael, Chrissy and Helena, to meet their cousins Chiara, Dante, Luca and Kadin – as well as hang out with baby Keira (brother Jason's beautiful baby daughter). We fished, surfed, walked, swam, partied, ate out, shopped, braai’d, wine-tasted and braai’d some more. I avoided social media, my mobile phone and email completely, and also wore my silly cricket hat far too often. Sweet memories.

"Sky Park", opened in Singapore on June 24 2010. Marina Bay Sands is located on three 200-meter high skyscrapers, as if on three pillars. The hotel is filled with casinos, bars, restaurants, the largest outdoor swimming pool, 150 meters long, and a Museum of Modern Art – and is now considered one of the world’s most famous landmarks.  

Personally, I think it looks a little silly, but that’s just me.

This awesome gentleman is mates with Chris from World Wide Creative and shaved his ‘tache in reverence of Cape Town’s mountain achieving Seven Wonder status.

Apparently this doesn’t happen very often around these parts. Global warming anyone? Or maybe the market for sardines is a little depressed these days.