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

Global Warming, Climate Change ... Call it what you like

Everyone knows that I read The Economist and from time to time feel that there is something worthy of sharing with everyone here: another simulcast, by the way.

You may have read or heard about how the Antarctic ice cap is melting and how that is PROOF that global warming is nigh and that we are all doomed. The article I am about to refer to says that if all the ice on Antarctica melted today (don't panic, it's not going to happen) then sea levels around the world would rise by 70 metres. In general, this message has been spread far and wide and we are being encouraged to panic because if, say, just 10% of the Antarctic ice melted then sea levels would rise by 7 metres ... Taking a very simple and linear view ... Feel free to tell me that such changes would occur exponentially, geometrically or otherwise and I'll happily concur with the proof. Although The Economist says, Even if part of that ice melted, the sea level would rise dramatically.

Moreover, the article says that of all the ice in the world, about 90% of it is on Antarctica.

It was a surprise for me to read that In much of the Antarctica so little snow falls each year that it is technically a desert. Nevertheless, the article also says that lots of snow falls in the East of Antarctica; and this means, they say, that the Eastern ice sheet is thickening at the moment although the Western ice sheet is thinning at the rate of 10cm to 1 metre a year.

 

So in addition to redressing the scare tactics of the global warming mongers who only tell us about the Western Antarctic ice sheet, the article also says So far, it looks as if the ice sheets have advnaced and retreated more than 50 times over the past 5 million years. They know this from the work being done on core samples taken from the ice sheets that allow scientists, literally, to drill back in time for many millennia.

 

My point is this, here in the UK we have had ice ages and now we haven't. In the Antarctic the ice has thickened and thinned: at the moment thickening in the East, thinning in the West. The world may be warming but I really, seriously, ask everyone to learn as much as possible before falling for all of the histrionic hype that we are all climatically doomed.

 

Yes global warming happens: it happens naturally. Yes man is pumping noxious substances into the atmosphere at an alarming rate: it should stop. The Al Gore film you might have seen, whose title I can never remember, has done more damage to the global warming crusade in my opinion than one excess tonne of carbon emissions. Anyone who watches that film and falls for his nonsense is guilty of the sin of having fallen asleep in their maths lessons and statistics lessons when they were around 14 years of age. Yes, in my opinion, Al Gore is using the maths and stats of the 14 year old to strengthen an argument that in my opinion is not as strong as such people would have us believe.

 

In conclusion: stop burning and using fossil fuels as a matter of routine for all our sakes, not just to feed this global warming frenzy. Stop driving around in a car with just one occupant: walk when you can, too. Turn lights off that you don't need. Do you really need an air conditioner in your house or office ... really need? Switch it off when it's not vitally necessary. Do you buy processed and pre packaged food and other items where that packaging serves not functional purpose? Stop buying it. Recycle where you can.

 

I have changed many light bulbs in my house from incandescent to energy saving and now spend just one sixth on them compared to before; and before you say that these new bulbs cost the earth, not at Home Base they don't. I work from home and told one client who wanted me in the office every day that I would continue to do stay at home as much as possible as I was wasting as much as £50 worth of petrol a week to fend off his loneliness: that's around 35 litres of petrol a week I saved. I am a lacto ovo vegetarian and because of that and because I buy loads of fresh fruit and veg, my packaging needs are tiny. When I am alone, I need my rubbish collecting no more than once a month. I recycle my plastic, paper and glass: they don't recycle card board where I live. In addition,once I learned that it could be costing me £1 a week to leave my television on standy by I switch it off at the set every time I go out or go to bed or stop watching it. I also know from carrying out a simple experiment that my laptop uses a lot of electricity when it's in stand by mode

 

Finally, please read State of Fear by Michael Crichton: it's a novel with some very useful and fascinating information on global warming and climate change. Really well worth reading as he takes the same stand point as me: man is a nuisance because he is doing lots of stupid things with the planet. However, he says, just look at the hype carefully please: you will be shocked at what he tells you. Your mind will, however, be better balanced as a results. The story in the novel is enjoyable too so that's an energy effiicient book to boot! You can read my review of this book here http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/cri.html although I have just found out that the graphics linked to the page have suddenly stopped working ... I'll find the cause and cure it!

 

 

Duncan

 

 

 

 

 

How the other 0.0000001% lives

You will not be able to empathise with what you are about to read but it's true!

There is a phrase in English, 'How the other half lives'. I have now invented a new phrase, 'How the other 0.000001% lives: that's an estimate, by the way.

He's 20 years old and his father has set up a credit card and concierge service for him. He did this one day: please have a Rolls Royce taxi outside my house in ten minutes time, the driver must speak xxxxxxx and I want to go to xxx restaurant. I will return home at xx:xx. It happened.

He then decided on this: round the world trip taking seven days. The aeroplane alone cost £30,000 A DAY and it was hired for the lad and his girlfriend. He went to Paris, Rome, Madrid, California, China ...

You can imagine the rest.

The father is a billionaire from a well known for soviet block country.

DW

The Quiz that was Fixed

As promised, here is the story of the quiz that was fixed. Not exactly on the same scale as the recent scandal surrounding premium telephone number scams on ITV but shocking nonetheless.

Spent some time with a South African chap and his wife and the last night we were together in our favourite bar he was approached by one of the waiting staff who invited him to complete the entry card for the evening's quiz. The question was on the ongoing world cup cricket being played out in the West Indies. This is the shocking part, he didn't know the answer but was told that he shouldn't worry as he's won anyway.

What?! A fixed pub quiz?

They helped him with the answer and he pushed his card through the slot of the box holding the other entry.

After a while, one of the other waiting staff said that Wendy, waitress one, was calling his name down at the other end of the room. She came down to our end and presented the "winner" with his prize: a rather large box of packets of instant noodles! Phew!

Corruption in low places! No offence!!

DW

Television today

Radio 4 went to Blackpool and Morecambe this week and as part of the programme they did they talked to someone whose name I missed but he said something profound and maddeningly true.

In the old days, talented people used to appear on television so that ordinary people could be entertained and informed in their homes.

Today the ordinary people are on the television while the talented people are at home.

That sums up the modern obsession with this ridiculous celebrity TV nonsense I am constantly avoiding now.

DW

Orang Utan Nonsense

Who are these ridiculous people they put on the telly?

 

I caught the second half of tonight's programme on BBC 1 on Orang Utans. They are following the work of an Orang Utan sanctuary in Borneo where they find baby OUs and so on and rehabilitate them then release them into the wild.

 

So this goofy woman took a baby OU for a walk through the trees and she was AMAZED when the OU climbed a tree. How did it know what to do?, she asked.

 

Then they came across a fully grown OU that had spent its life in a cage, poor thing. They released it into the wild immediately and then went back for a look see the following day. This woman was ASTONISHED to see the thing up a tree behaving as if it had been living there all of its life.

 

I'm sorry, woman, but these are wild creatures and they just know these things: sheep dogs know how to look after sheep without being told; snakes know how to eat mice without being told and turtles born on a beach with nary a mother nor a midwife anywhere near, know that they need to get into the sea and then do their business.

 

Can they put more intelligent people on these programmes? People who are neither AMAZED nor ASTONISHED when wild animals do what wild animals are meant to do.

 

DW

True story

How about this for a bit of nannyism?

Mr X was shopping at Tesco and when he was asked at the check out whether he wanted the vouchers for schools. He said no but the lady behind him in the queue could have them. That lady declined so the check out operator pointed at someone in another queue and said he could give them to her.

Mr X replied, 'Look at what's in her trolley. I'm not giving the vouchers to anyone who can buy that rubbish.'

I kid you not!!

DW

Vienna

So, I was in Vienna airport yesterday and because I had around five hours to kill I wanted to use their CAT train to get to the city sentre within 16 minutes. The instructions were entirely in German so found it a challenge. A knight in shining armour coming towards me: a member of the local constabulary.

Me:     Sorry, do you speak English?

Plod:   (Head goes down, pace of walking increases) Nein! (Walks off!)

That sorted that then.

I wandered on and found two more machines nearer the station but neither of them worked so I took it as my cue that I shouldn't bother. So I didn't. Pity; but I'll go next time!

DW

Dubai Story Two: Tarts in a Bar II The South African in our party had been with his wife and parents in law to an Indian Restaurant a few months ago and they said we'd enjoy the experience as it was fascinating. We went: he, his wife, the news reader, the psychologist and me. Excellent food. Horrendously loud singing all night from two men and a woman. An enthusiastic backing group too. Some catchy tunes but all of the songs were all in Hindi or Urdu so following the lyrics was a challenge. Then around a dozen very attractive ladies paraded onto the stage in a line: none was ugly and some were stunning beauties and all from the sub continent. The singer called out three names at a time and those three girls would remain on stage and would then dance, almost in time to the music, for the duration of a song. Then they would call another three girls to do the same. And so it went on. Then a chav approached the front of the stage and threw what looked like a fistful of business cards all over the stage. A man went onto the stage and swept them all up. Our psychologist announced that he knew which of the girls was sleeping with which singer!!! More singing and dancing and the odd bout of business card throwing. We all cackled at the thought that we were in with a chance with our favourite young lady ... usual man's rubbish talk. The news reader announced that he was in love and so was his chosen one. At some stage we started referring to her, perhaps uncharitably. as number 19. The South African sought out the owner of the bar and asked what was going on: who were the girsl, what was the chav doing (he had the baseball cap with the sinble biggest nib you've ever seen, by the way!) by flinging the cards ... The girls were ladies of the night and in order to spend some time with one, you had to remain there until the show was over and you had to throw your card onto the stage generally and one or even more of the girls would call you to arrange a date. Alternatively, throw your cards at your favoured girl, let's say number 19 for example; and if she liked the look of you she would call you. Good food and good company and the girls were lovely but we left at a commodious hour and as alone as when we arrived. DW

So I've done another successful stint and then in a hair raising dash to somewhere else to present a three day Train the Trainers workshop that went well too I believe. I am going to give you a few stories from that trip that include

• Tarts in a bar I
• Tarts in a bar II
• The quiz that was fixed
• It's only 16 minutes to Central Vienna ... Oh no it's not
• Thick with dust Tarts in a Bar I

There were seven or eight workshop leaders this time and one wife of a trainer. We went out for the evening to a bar/restaurant near the airport: eat all you can, drink all you can ... I think Lions would have been over faced by the amount of meat on offer to be honest. Veggies like me had little to choose apart from their glorious puddings. There really was an endless bar too but that was of no interest to me either. So I was happy with the ambiance and the company: apart from the loud and outrageously gay men on the table next to ours. Why do these kinds of gays have loud and lispy voices and mouths the size of the Channel Tunnel? Trouble is, although we were there until late, so were they!

There was a grump bucket in our party, sitting next to me of course, who tried to get me to leave with him at 11 pm. Not that he's gay, just that he wasn't enjoying himself and being far too tight to pay the entire £5 taxi fare, wanted someone to share it with. I stayed and so did he: like a cat on hot bricks he was too. There was a mainstream psychologist in our party and at times like that, it's best to put on a brave face on your personality can be laid bare once you've left the room. Wonder what he really thought about me? Paranoid perhaps?

Anyway, everyone left apart from three of us: we decided to go to the bar next door for a night cap and I had my first alcohol of the evening there: a pint of lager type stuff. The room was wall to wall ladies of the night with the saddest collection of flabby, old, foreign men I have ever seen. The girls were all in clumps of Russians, Chinese, Filippinos and others. One or two were very attractive but others were aggressive, not so pretty and were smoking like chimneys.

One young man found a very pretty young thing to dance with him but as he listed first to port and then to starboard, she resisted his attempts to maul here. I suppose he felt he was being amorous and as he might be a paying customer, it was fine by him. She clearly wanted his business but not his advances and whilst she left him soon after that eposide, she did go back to him but his neck was still listing at 45 degrees from the vertical so she left again.

One of our party declared he was in love and she was in love with him: the news reader we called him as he reminded us of a news reader from BBC World! The psychologist gave us a running commentary on what was happening hither and yon and I was eagle eyed at never having been in such a situation before.

The newsreader was in no fit state to test his hypothesis although I did try to teach him a few key phrases in Russian so that he could communicate with his would be paramour but his mouth lost consciousness! So we left and headed back to the hotel with the place still heaving: we had to pay to get in too but that included a free drink.

The news reader staggered from the car to the hotel with, believe it or believe it not, one of his leather flip flop type sandals on back to front. A miracle! You try it!! He headed off to the bar for yet another night cap astonishingly and he did make it to his 9 o'clock start seven and a half hours later.

See next messages for further instalments!

DW

The cheesemakers have arrived

Remember the Monty Python team lauding the cheesemakers? Blessed are the cheesemakers they said: Life of Brian, wasn't it?

Now, you might not believe it but it's true: there are two web sites that will allow you, I kid you not, to watch a cheese maturing in the way that it is sometimes said to be more interesting to watching paint dry or grass to grow or listening to a coffin warping.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVMt9ECdOjA (this is time llapsed and is over very quickly) and http://lbx.cheddarvision.tv/ as far as I can tell this is real time television on the web. At the time of writing the cheese has spent 103 days and seven and a half hours maturing.

Ifyou're mad enough you could even find out about the cheese making going on over in Ambridge as Oliver and Helen try to come up with their own brand new cheese from the milk from Oliver's dairy herd.

It's all go isn't it!

DW

Steve McLaren

Steve McLaren as the England football manager. Now let it be said again that he shouldnever have been appointed to the job. They shouldn't call him head coach: head case more like.

It's dreadful to have been proven prophetic in a case like this but I was right and he will go next week if England fails to rout Andorra: let drew 0:0 with Israel last night and that's another team they should have routed.

 

DW

Stupidity don't you think?

Correction the doomsday clock is at five minutes to midnight at the moment, 24th March 2007.

DW

Stupidity don't you think?

Let me tidy up that last post.

There is something in economics and finance called the efficient markets hypothesis that contains a massive get out clause for the wary amateur: don't expect sudden changes in the prices in the stock markets because you think there ought to be. The efficient market has probably already taken account of everything you and I can imagine.

So how stupid then that as a result of the holding of those 15 Bitish servicemen by Iran:

Oil prices have risen to their highest level this year after 15 British navy personnel were seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces in the Gulf.
(See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6485529.stm)

So a raging inferno is about to unfold? Universal conflagration? I don't think so.

End of that rant. New rant.

Now, what about that doomsday clock: currently set at seven mintues to midnight. Midnight represents armageddon. Now isn't that stupid? They initialluy set the clock around 60 years ago at a stupidly late place on the dial and every times something happens such as a Middle East crisis and global warming, the panic everyone into thinking armageddon is imminent. They out to have set it at around 2 am in my opinion and even now it should be no later than around 2:30 pm.

Who are these clowns?

DW

Scaps III: reminder

Finally! Older readers will remember that for my fiftieth birthday I was taken by my family to Harry Ramsden's original fish and chip extravaganza near Leeds as I'd asked for an experience that I could have enjoyed on the day of my birth. Fish and chips at Harry Ramsden's filled the bill.

The point is, that I asked for and got scraps with my dinner. Not just scraps but an entire plate of scraps all to myself. A side plate of scraps indeed. I must have a photo of them somewhere if Bill Gates didn't do for it when he did for the laptop I used to own!

Ah scraps! Are they really illegal now? If they are, no wonder we lost an empire.

DW

Scraps II: the sequel

Well, I'm shocked. Hot on the trail of my recent expose on scraps, as in chips and scraps, I have found an article on the web with the heading, This is 'Ull (This is Hull!) and in it they reveal the demise of scraps in that fine Northern city but they also reveal the shockng truth that scraps were on sale there too. More than that, just listen to this:

"Scraps have also been a popular tool for bartering with the local prostititutes. As elderly resident Arthur Handmill says : I remember when you could get a decent bit of how's- your- father for two shillings and a scrap buttie."

Now it may be that this article was initially published on 1st April so it might all be a bit of codology (pun intended ... chips shops ... fish ... cod and chips ... codology ... oh, forget it!) but just imagine that it's true. The suffereing we would have gone through if we'd had to pay. Then again, the affections of a young lady for the price of two bob and a mere scrap buttie!!!

Take a look for yourself at http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thisisull.com/humour/img/scraps.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thisisull.com/humour/hullnews1.html&h=164&w=140&sz=6&hl=en&start=23&tbnid=1A09l5G92yCgBM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=84&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchips%2Band%2Bscraps%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

You'll see a photo of some scraps there too: nostalgia!

DW

 

Scraps

Now, I imagine that many of you have never had scraps, as in chips and scraps. I bet that even fewer of you have had scraps and pea gravy. They were the stuff of life in a small Northern English town of the 1960s when we used to frequent the chip shop once or twice a week.

 

Now that I am inhabiting the nancy South of England, scraps are hard to come by. I am using a Chinese chip shop in Bicester at the moment and not only are their chips good by Southern standards but they serve huge portions: one bag of chips being enough for two or three people. Seriously, try it! Anyway, every time I go in I mention the scraps and am told they don't keep them. I then wax lyrical about them and am working on the outcome that one day they will relent and serve me with some scraps.

 

Someone in that chip shop told me last week that when they got scraps at their local chippy, they had to pay for them. Canyou believe that? Not me! As demonstrated by the Chinese, they are a waste product and the way they got into a bag of chips when I were a lad is that they were dumped into a container at the end of the frying range to be emptied into the bin once full. However, if anyone asked for scraps with their fish and chips, they got them ... FREE OF CHARGE. If no one asked for them, they were wuzzed.

 

I let it be known last week that scraps with pea gravy was a delicacy that impudent people like us used to ask for from time to time: again, completely free of charge even though they were served in a bag as in bag of chips! How about that: take a small ladle of liquid from the pan of mushy peas and add them to a bag of scraps? Marvellous! Beats chicken tikka marsala any day. I love curries, too, of course; but the old tastes can't be beaten.

 

DW