The Apprentice

I watched The Apprentice last night: the first time I have watched the Alan Sugar version. I watched a few of Donald Trump's version and thought it was tripe.

I missed the start of the programme but was hooked by what I saw. I am pleased to reveal that as soon as I saw the person who was fired last night, I decided that she should be sacked. I felt she was like a fish out of water. I then turned over to see the follow up programme with the sacked one and she just got worse. I was reaching for the off button (NB, not the stand by button!) as she was describing her personality, how she was academically so well qualified (erm, why is that relevant in that context?) and had just said that she was 'bubbly' when I cut the power.

The thing that struck me most of all about that episode last night was how the contestants are allowing personality clashes to get in the way of just about everything they are doing.

Bubbly my @rse.

DW

The marshal of where?; spo; and Polish bus drivers

During my trip to Halifax last week I met the Marshal to the Baron de Musard: whew!

The Marshal's real name is Robert C Johnson and he runs the second hand bookshop in the Piece Hall Halifax! A chirpy Scot with a definite Scottish accent who's lived in Yorkshire for 33 years!

I asked him what he does as Marshal and was told that he's the official organiser of the Baron's weddings, christenings and funerals and such. He gets paid three bottles of Claret a year for his pains.

Hmm, impressive I thought. So I asked him how many such events he's organised so far and he said, with a grin, none!

Ah well, he must have a job before too long, surely?!

Good to meet the chap and his 37,000 books. At least he was able to sell me a copy of Gerald Durrell's My family and other animaals for my sister who's been looking for a copy for months: £2 it cost me.

Well done! You can see Robert on the internet here: http://www.piecehall.info/ click on the link to the bookshop, funnily enough! You can find a brief history of the Piece Hall there too, starting with:

The Piece Hall was opened on 1st January 1779.  It was built as a place for handloom weavers to sell their pieces of cloth, hence the name,  and was a replacement for an earlier, smaller, Cloth Hall.

Anyone know what spo is? I haven't had any for years but I bought the ingredient last week for it and may well have some on the go before too long. Answers on a postcard or through the comment facility here!!!

All fascinating stuff isn't it?

Then there's our fantastic bus drivers. A Polish young chap told me that he's impressed by our bus drivers: they are thanked by their passengers and they are friendly and helpful. In complete contrast, he says, to the Polish bus drivers in Poland who are miserable and grisly ... unless you know different, of course; as I wouldn't like to malign anyone on the basis of a sample of the story from one!

DW

Warped people

A couple of years ago I said in a discussion forum that I KNEW many people in the former Soviet Union (FSU) who revered the time when Stalin was in charge. They felt, I said, that everything was better then as everything worked, the trains ran on time ...

I was then subjected to a nasty attack by people who said I should crawl back to live with those communists ... Someone pathetically said that he'd worked in an office in the USA where they put together proposals for Aid projects in the FSU so he KNEW that I was a liar. I was even threatened with violence by a student at Oxford University who said that if ever he saw me in Oxford then he and his friends would beat the sh*t out of me. In this latter case, I tracked the lad down and told him that as I worked in Oxford I was in fear of my safety and unless he withdrew that threat and apologised unreservedly I would take the appropriate legal action. He apologised.

No surprise then that I heard the story that someone (I won't name himfor fear of yet more unprovoked attacks on him or me) had said that he liked the artistic and architectrual work of some specific and named people who were Nazis or Nazi sympathisers. He was then forced to apologise because certain groups felt offended at what he had said.

Freedom of speech was something that took centuries to secure. However, there are those who clearly don't understand what it is and how it works. There are those who simply do not understand how to respect it either.

DW

Women or eels, you choose!

I have started reading a biography of Samuel Pepys and this is quoted:

He that hath a woman by the waist
Hath a wet eel by the tail

I don't necessarily agree with it. Then again I might. I merely record that I found it!!!

DW