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So wacky pterodactyl impersonator Lee McQueen won The Apprentice. What a huge relief.
Common sense triumphed over the intensely clever stupidity so often displayed by people who are super bright but, somehow, don’t live in the real world.
Hard work and effort triumphed over a fistful of academic qualifications.
It makes the heart sing, because after Lee’s CV rumpus, I thought he was out for the count.
For those not addicted to one of the most gripping TV shows of the year, Lee told a fib on his CV. I say fib because lie seems too harsh. He said he’d spent two years at college when in fact he dropped out after four months.
It was a fib born out of embarrassment. Lee thought he wouldn’t stand a chance without a list of academic qualifications as long as his arm. So, he reinvented himself, ever so slightly, like countless others before him.
He could have done far worse, like claiming he was an Oxbridge grad.
I don’t condone what he did but I do understand why. So did Sir Alan.
What Lee failed to realise was that if anyone was not going to judge him on academic results alone, it was the multi-millionaire tycoon.
Like so many of Britain’s top entrepreneurs, he came from a humble background and left school at 16. The hard work started there – not five or more years later after partying on down at uni for three years,
Sir Alan saw beyond that CV slip-up and recognised that in Lee a bright, loyal grafter with passion, enthusiasm and good humour was waiting to be moulded.
Nevertheless the holier-than-thou brigade have been casting their eyes heavenwards at Lee’s CV faux pas.
But, it’s not as bad as stealing from your employers, surely? Shirking on the job? Having more academic qualification than you know what to do with but being utterly hopeless?
In fact, while I’m motoring on this theme, Derby City Council’s corruption allegations spring to mind.
Is lying on your CV as bad as using your employees’ materials and joinery shop to build stuff for private homes?
Telling a white lie on your CV can hardly rank alongside theft, misuse of company property or just being a complete waste of space in the workplace.
After more than 20 years in half a dozen different jobs, I’ve pretty much seen it all. Graduates who, like Lee, struggle to spell; shirkers who got away with doing as little as possible, a couple of alcoholics and a thief – not at the Evening Telegraph I hasten to add.
Talking of shirkers, my favourite was the woman who insisted on having her hair cut in works’ time – because it grew in works’ time.
For all of these reasons and because like Sir Alan Sugar, I am crusty, old and wise, I am chuffed to bits for Lee.
He displayed more energy and enthusiasm than the rest of the apprentices put together and was that rare thing – a good team player but also a great leader.
He’s also good fun, a vastly underrated strength in the workplace. Who wants to be surrounded by an army of high maintenance whiners?
Attitude and hard work count for everything in my humble opinion. And if you smile along the way, hallelujah!
Yes, you need to be bright but degrees don’t guarantee that, especially these days as youngsters are pushed into higher education whether it suits them or not, because so few jobs are available.
And why on earth don’t we value practical intelligence, a much rarer commodity than a degree?
It was Lee who led The Apprentice team who located the Jewish quarter in Marrakech to buy a kosher chicken during a bizarre task for Sir Alan – unlike a lad with a degree from Edinburgh who went to the halal butcher.
Lee, if you don’t like it at the Sugar empire, you’re hired.
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
The joy of being a frugalista (tight!)
Careful with your money? Harshly dubbed tight? Not any more, you’re a funky new frugalista.
You’re so stylish, Madonna would kill for just a fraction of your money know-how.
I bet she wishes she had a Home Bargains store close by, stuffed with cut-price toiletries and packs of 18 toilet rolls – yes, I said 18 – for an astonishing £2.99.
Yep, the credit crunch is biting hard. Thanks to the mighty media’s scare stories about rocketing gas and electric bills, plummeting home values and rising fuel and food costs, we’re all cutting back.
Phew! What a relief. I no longer feel guilty for being a frugalista (OK, tight), something I have been all my life.
It all started in 1972 when, clutching my 10p pocket money tightly, I walked to the sweet shop and thought long and hard for half an hour before buying a bag of chocolate tools for 1p each. Mmm... those hammers and spanners tasted good. Whatever happened to chocolate tools?Though just a tubby tot, I knew then that money definitely didn’t grow on trees. I had to make every penny count. When I bought my first house at 21 for £13,000 I felt like I’d borrowed a million. The mortgage seemed huge and it was compared to my measly salary.
My first job paid £40 a week.
Despite the cash shortfall I managed to run a car, though its rickety doors flew open when I rounded a bend, and I never, ever got into debt.
As a student I used thrift shops. I made Amy Whinehouse look like the epitome of chic. As long as I averted my gaze when I passed a mirror, it really didn’t bother me.
As I grew older and started to earn more money, cash pressures eased but that frugal nature never went away.
I’d never go out and blow £300 on a handbag, my mobile phone’s like Del Boy’s brick and I drive a battered Peugeot 106 that rattles when I round a bend. At least the doors don’t fly open!Friends have goaded me over the years, especially a couple who I dub “the princesses”.
One refuses point blank to shop anywhere where they don’t pack your groceries for you. One almost passed out in horror a few years ago when I dragged her into Kwik Save. It was as much as she could do not to vomit.
When we get together they show off their designer buys, Burberry is a favourite make. In fact, I fell off my bar stool when one revealed the purse she’d just bought – for £295.
More money than sense is the phrase that springs to mind as I quickly decide in my head what I would have bought for the same amount of money – a new bathroom suite maybe, or flights for a holiday.
But now, despite their laughter at my expense, their hoots of derision when I confess that my new dress cost a fiver in New Look’s sale, I am in tune with current thinking and they are so 1980s, so bling.
Even the London luvvies are having lessons in how to save cash. I saw one on telly this week being introduced to the delights of Aldi.
Shopping around, she discovered – surprise, surprise – could save hundreds of pounds a year on her groceries. It was a total revelation to her. “Their bacon is incredibly cheap,” she gasped in awe.
It is indeed. Come to Derby, love, and you’ll really bag a bargain. Where have these people been? Bathing in vats of £50 notes?
Now, suddenly, they are realising how incredibly stupid they are. As a fellow frugalista said: “ I hear people whining about being poor and in debt while feeling like they’re too good to lower themselves to ‘that level’ of hard-core frugality. Screw that. Party like it’s 1959 – or 1929 if you’re really on a tight budget. Live on a smaller income, think like our grandparents and great-grandparents. I'd rather clip money-off coupons than be an indentured servant to Mastercard for the rest of my life.”
Me too. Frugal and proud – and oh so fashionable! This credit crunch thing isn’t so bad after all.
You’re so stylish, Madonna would kill for just a fraction of your money know-how.
I bet she wishes she had a Home Bargains store close by, stuffed with cut-price toiletries and packs of 18 toilet rolls – yes, I said 18 – for an astonishing £2.99.
Yep, the credit crunch is biting hard. Thanks to the mighty media’s scare stories about rocketing gas and electric bills, plummeting home values and rising fuel and food costs, we’re all cutting back.
Phew! What a relief. I no longer feel guilty for being a frugalista (OK, tight), something I have been all my life.
It all started in 1972 when, clutching my 10p pocket money tightly, I walked to the sweet shop and thought long and hard for half an hour before buying a bag of chocolate tools for 1p each. Mmm... those hammers and spanners tasted good. Whatever happened to chocolate tools?Though just a tubby tot, I knew then that money definitely didn’t grow on trees. I had to make every penny count. When I bought my first house at 21 for £13,000 I felt like I’d borrowed a million. The mortgage seemed huge and it was compared to my measly salary.
My first job paid £40 a week.
Despite the cash shortfall I managed to run a car, though its rickety doors flew open when I rounded a bend, and I never, ever got into debt.
As a student I used thrift shops. I made Amy Whinehouse look like the epitome of chic. As long as I averted my gaze when I passed a mirror, it really didn’t bother me.
As I grew older and started to earn more money, cash pressures eased but that frugal nature never went away.
I’d never go out and blow £300 on a handbag, my mobile phone’s like Del Boy’s brick and I drive a battered Peugeot 106 that rattles when I round a bend. At least the doors don’t fly open!Friends have goaded me over the years, especially a couple who I dub “the princesses”.
One refuses point blank to shop anywhere where they don’t pack your groceries for you. One almost passed out in horror a few years ago when I dragged her into Kwik Save. It was as much as she could do not to vomit.
When we get together they show off their designer buys, Burberry is a favourite make. In fact, I fell off my bar stool when one revealed the purse she’d just bought – for £295.
More money than sense is the phrase that springs to mind as I quickly decide in my head what I would have bought for the same amount of money – a new bathroom suite maybe, or flights for a holiday.
But now, despite their laughter at my expense, their hoots of derision when I confess that my new dress cost a fiver in New Look’s sale, I am in tune with current thinking and they are so 1980s, so bling.
Even the London luvvies are having lessons in how to save cash. I saw one on telly this week being introduced to the delights of Aldi.
Shopping around, she discovered – surprise, surprise – could save hundreds of pounds a year on her groceries. It was a total revelation to her. “Their bacon is incredibly cheap,” she gasped in awe.
It is indeed. Come to Derby, love, and you’ll really bag a bargain. Where have these people been? Bathing in vats of £50 notes?
Now, suddenly, they are realising how incredibly stupid they are. As a fellow frugalista said: “ I hear people whining about being poor and in debt while feeling like they’re too good to lower themselves to ‘that level’ of hard-core frugality. Screw that. Party like it’s 1959 – or 1929 if you’re really on a tight budget. Live on a smaller income, think like our grandparents and great-grandparents. I'd rather clip money-off coupons than be an indentured servant to Mastercard for the rest of my life.”
Me too. Frugal and proud – and oh so fashionable! This credit crunch thing isn’t so bad after all.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
My Rams fan shame...
The Arsenal game on Monday night was sadly marred by what can only be described as racist chanting. I am usally proud to be a Rams fans. Everyone has commented on our supporters' loyalty in this most dire of seasons.
But the tendency, almost through boredom, to wind up star Premiership players in the opposing team actually works against us in every way. In fact, it fires them up to score hat-tricks. Not so clever, then.
Come on Rams fans. Support your team, don't just get bitter and twisted with our opponents. Roll on next season and some opposition we can actually beat!
But the tendency, almost through boredom, to wind up star Premiership players in the opposing team actually works against us in every way. In fact, it fires them up to score hat-tricks. Not so clever, then.
Come on Rams fans. Support your team, don't just get bitter and twisted with our opponents. Roll on next season and some opposition we can actually beat!
Sir Alan Sugar and Me
SIR Alan Sugar’s down to earth attitude of mind would mean we would get on just fine. I am sure of that.
Nevertheless, in the unlikely event of me ever getting onto BBC’s hit show The Apprentice I would be sacked in the first week.
That’s because I failed to get a degree in back stabbing, a Masters in bitchiness or even an A* GCSE in selfish survival at all costs.
“You’re out of your depth, love,” Alan would say with a sorry glint in his eye. “You show compassion for goodness sake. You need to be a right cow to survive with this lot.”
Apologies for a rare TV addiction but right now The Apprentice is the only programme I make time to watch – along with more than seven million others.
And, though I know I shouldn’t as the language can get pretty ripe, I let my sons watch it, too. It’s an education.
“Watch and learn lads,” I say. “This is how horrible people can be at work sometimes.”
But the most revealing lesson in life that The Apprentice proves with a vengeance is my mediocre theory.
Many moons ago a fellow news reporter and colleague on the smallest daily paper in the country landed himself as a job on The Guardian in London, the sort of rag that would eat itself if it was chocolate.
“Aren’t you intimidated?” I ventured as he prepared for the big move.
“Jill,” he said in his lovely Geordie twang. “If there is one thing I have learned in life, especially at university, is that everyone is mediocre.”
How right he was. It’s just that the mediocre people who shout the loudest often get on. If there is one thing The Apprentice triple underlines it is that even arrogant know-it-alls are pretty useless, it’s just that they never admit it. Either that are they are hopelessly deluded.
We see this with amazing clarity thanks to fly-on-the-wall TV. The cream of Britain’s entrepreneurs and go-getters come together to do a task and a battle of egos emerges.
The project managers are undermined by members of their so-called team, everyone thinks they could do things better and they always make giant errors. Like trying to sell ice cream to shops that make their own, or offering a washing service and getting everyone’s clothes hopelessly mixed.
And when it comes to facing the steely gaze of Sir Alan in the boardroom afterwards, the blame shifting and blatant lying is incredible to behold.
Women, of course, are the worst. Men can stick the knife in but never with the intensity that some members of the fairer sex display. They plunge the knife through the shoulder blades at a rate of knots and give it a few sharp twists for good measure.
Their attacks get personal and their character assassinations ferocious.
They make each other cry for goodness sake, eyes ablaze with bitterness, mouths belting out bitter vitriol.
They stitch each other up, let each other down and are hopelessly indiscreet.
“Listen and learn lads,” I say to my sons. “Whatever you choose to do in life, make sure you’re never stuck in a job where you’re just working with women.”
Us girls can’t help stirring it, can we? Men, bless ‘em, just stand on the sidelines, mouths agape, looking confused.
They might give each other a thump of they have a fall out but then it’s all forgotten and they start talking about football. But the conversation will never last too long. Men also know when to button it.
Women, on the other hand, sometimes don’t.
A chum was trying to get away from work on time earlier this week but her female boss demanded a word just as one of her friends passed in the corridor.
Instead of a swift “cheerio, see you tomorrow” a conversation was struck up while my pal stood on the sidelines, blood pressure building as she needed to pick up her son.
Though the first thing the women said to each other was “I only have a minute” more than 20 minutes of tittle tattle followed. They discussed, among other things, the unexpected death of a pet rabbit and its effect on the entire family; what colour pegs they used to hang out the washing (they should be the same, apparently); hair appointments; what they were having for tea and the fact that Delores (name changed, of course) had had a two-and-half hour lunch break with Jack.
My chum, being a little like me, was too polite to interject. Our parents brought us up to have manners, something now sadly lacking in society according to a recent survey.
Manners, kindness and compassion do not seem to get you very far these days.
Nevertheless, I’ll still teach all three traits to my sons – with a little help from Sir Alan.
Hard man he may be, but I detect a touch of compassion – and he still got to the top.
Nevertheless, in the unlikely event of me ever getting onto BBC’s hit show The Apprentice I would be sacked in the first week.
That’s because I failed to get a degree in back stabbing, a Masters in bitchiness or even an A* GCSE in selfish survival at all costs.
“You’re out of your depth, love,” Alan would say with a sorry glint in his eye. “You show compassion for goodness sake. You need to be a right cow to survive with this lot.”
Apologies for a rare TV addiction but right now The Apprentice is the only programme I make time to watch – along with more than seven million others.
And, though I know I shouldn’t as the language can get pretty ripe, I let my sons watch it, too. It’s an education.
“Watch and learn lads,” I say. “This is how horrible people can be at work sometimes.”
But the most revealing lesson in life that The Apprentice proves with a vengeance is my mediocre theory.
Many moons ago a fellow news reporter and colleague on the smallest daily paper in the country landed himself as a job on The Guardian in London, the sort of rag that would eat itself if it was chocolate.
“Aren’t you intimidated?” I ventured as he prepared for the big move.
“Jill,” he said in his lovely Geordie twang. “If there is one thing I have learned in life, especially at university, is that everyone is mediocre.”
How right he was. It’s just that the mediocre people who shout the loudest often get on. If there is one thing The Apprentice triple underlines it is that even arrogant know-it-alls are pretty useless, it’s just that they never admit it. Either that are they are hopelessly deluded.
We see this with amazing clarity thanks to fly-on-the-wall TV. The cream of Britain’s entrepreneurs and go-getters come together to do a task and a battle of egos emerges.
The project managers are undermined by members of their so-called team, everyone thinks they could do things better and they always make giant errors. Like trying to sell ice cream to shops that make their own, or offering a washing service and getting everyone’s clothes hopelessly mixed.
And when it comes to facing the steely gaze of Sir Alan in the boardroom afterwards, the blame shifting and blatant lying is incredible to behold.
Women, of course, are the worst. Men can stick the knife in but never with the intensity that some members of the fairer sex display. They plunge the knife through the shoulder blades at a rate of knots and give it a few sharp twists for good measure.
Their attacks get personal and their character assassinations ferocious.
They make each other cry for goodness sake, eyes ablaze with bitterness, mouths belting out bitter vitriol.
They stitch each other up, let each other down and are hopelessly indiscreet.
“Listen and learn lads,” I say to my sons. “Whatever you choose to do in life, make sure you’re never stuck in a job where you’re just working with women.”
Us girls can’t help stirring it, can we? Men, bless ‘em, just stand on the sidelines, mouths agape, looking confused.
They might give each other a thump of they have a fall out but then it’s all forgotten and they start talking about football. But the conversation will never last too long. Men also know when to button it.
Women, on the other hand, sometimes don’t.
A chum was trying to get away from work on time earlier this week but her female boss demanded a word just as one of her friends passed in the corridor.
Instead of a swift “cheerio, see you tomorrow” a conversation was struck up while my pal stood on the sidelines, blood pressure building as she needed to pick up her son.
Though the first thing the women said to each other was “I only have a minute” more than 20 minutes of tittle tattle followed. They discussed, among other things, the unexpected death of a pet rabbit and its effect on the entire family; what colour pegs they used to hang out the washing (they should be the same, apparently); hair appointments; what they were having for tea and the fact that Delores (name changed, of course) had had a two-and-half hour lunch break with Jack.
My chum, being a little like me, was too polite to interject. Our parents brought us up to have manners, something now sadly lacking in society according to a recent survey.
Manners, kindness and compassion do not seem to get you very far these days.
Nevertheless, I’ll still teach all three traits to my sons – with a little help from Sir Alan.
Hard man he may be, but I detect a touch of compassion – and he still got to the top.
I'm an internet dunce
I’VE just discovered – not that it should be any surprise – that I am an online dunce with an internet age of seven.
This shocking revelation was made to me after I tackled a questionnaire on website www.myinternetage.com.
Launched by communications company Orange, it gauges your internet experience to work out your ‘internet age’ and was built to quantify different generational attitudes to the internet.
The site is on track to become one of the UK’s largest ever studies into internet use. I followed in the hallowed web-steps of 16,000 people, including Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry, who, no doubt, scored a little better than me.
The website told me in a gentle teacher-to-child way, that “I’m doing well but I have a lot to learn”.
My problem soon became apparent. I don’t download or upload, use instant messenger, talk to anonymous online punters, parade my private pictures across Facebook or make funky video clips for You Tube. In fact, I am so out of touch the computer survey could only assume I was a child.
Bit patronising really. Most seven year olds are more computer literate than their parents. For example, my high-tech, switched on, internet-savvy kids (aged nine and 12 but with a joint internet age of 182) wanted a Facebook page. I said no but (and this is probably illegal) said they could create a site for me. It kept them quiet for all of five minutes.
Consequently a web page exists in my name plastered with rotating Burton Albion and Derby County logos. It also states that my favourite TV programmes are The Simpsons and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the person I would most like to meet is Robbie Savage “because he’s a real character”. So far, the sophisticated online community – with respectable online ages – have not cottoned on to the fact that an ancient mother-of-two is living in a 12-year-old’s world.
And that says it all for me. The internet is a make believe wonderland, where people sit for countless hours escaping from reality when they should be doing the garden, housework, essential DIY or at least cooking the tea.
Me? I’m too busy doing the washing to bother with it all. Just coping with oodles of e-mails and text messages is enough for me.
This morning I had 600 spam e-mails in my work inbox. The vast majority were utter junk but, irritatingly, I had to flick through the lot as genuine stuff gets trapped amid the rubbish.
To my tender, seven-year-old- internet-age sensibilities, the online world seems to be obsessed with replica watches, cheap viagra and men’s privates.
Tempting subject lines among this hefty batch of spam included: Playboy bunnies in beach photo shoot; No woman can resist you; Express your masculinity better!; Nominated for an MBA; Safe natural way to size up; Very CheapPrice Bacheelor, MasteerMBA, and Doctoraate dip1omas eklyvjxa yq33rp3 (that’s how it read, by the way) and Be as attractive as 007.
All laudible pursuits, no doubt. I’d love to look like Daniel Craig but I am not sure his macho muscles would look so good on me. These spam machines really should learn to differentiate between the sexes!
Anyway, those waste-of-space e-mails have been sent to the great recycling bin in the sky – but still used up valuable minutes of my day. They underlined to me yet again what a complete waste of time the web world can sometimes be.
Yes, it’s great for shopping, football news and booking holidays but, beyond that, I can’t help feeling it’s seducing a generation of people into being obsessed with the virtual world rather than the real one.
For example, a chum practically married to his PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) spent his entire weekend downloading a whole series of the Sopranos. He hasn’t actually watched any of it yet. When time allows, he can enjoy countless hours of fun glued to a screen as big as the palm of his hand. Whatever lights your fire...
Personally, I haven’t got the time to download that lot, let alone watch it. Perhaps I’m spending my time stupidly doing mundane stuff like washing the car, shopping for food and scrubbing the bog. I’m going to be left behind, a technological dinosaur, unable – or unwilling – to embrace the digital age with the passion it demands.
The trouble is I have hit 42 – the official age when your brain gives up the ghost when it comes to learning anything new, or so the experts say. I’m sure anyone reading this who is beyond that age will beg to differ.
I certainly do. What age has taught me, however, is that life is too short to spend countless hours glued to a computer screen.
If that means I’ve got an internet age of seven, so be it. I’m rather proud of the fact. Because at last it means I’ve got a life.
This shocking revelation was made to me after I tackled a questionnaire on website www.myinternetage.com.
Launched by communications company Orange, it gauges your internet experience to work out your ‘internet age’ and was built to quantify different generational attitudes to the internet.
The site is on track to become one of the UK’s largest ever studies into internet use. I followed in the hallowed web-steps of 16,000 people, including Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry, who, no doubt, scored a little better than me.
The website told me in a gentle teacher-to-child way, that “I’m doing well but I have a lot to learn”.
My problem soon became apparent. I don’t download or upload, use instant messenger, talk to anonymous online punters, parade my private pictures across Facebook or make funky video clips for You Tube. In fact, I am so out of touch the computer survey could only assume I was a child.
Bit patronising really. Most seven year olds are more computer literate than their parents. For example, my high-tech, switched on, internet-savvy kids (aged nine and 12 but with a joint internet age of 182) wanted a Facebook page. I said no but (and this is probably illegal) said they could create a site for me. It kept them quiet for all of five minutes.
Consequently a web page exists in my name plastered with rotating Burton Albion and Derby County logos. It also states that my favourite TV programmes are The Simpsons and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the person I would most like to meet is Robbie Savage “because he’s a real character”. So far, the sophisticated online community – with respectable online ages – have not cottoned on to the fact that an ancient mother-of-two is living in a 12-year-old’s world.
And that says it all for me. The internet is a make believe wonderland, where people sit for countless hours escaping from reality when they should be doing the garden, housework, essential DIY or at least cooking the tea.
Me? I’m too busy doing the washing to bother with it all. Just coping with oodles of e-mails and text messages is enough for me.
This morning I had 600 spam e-mails in my work inbox. The vast majority were utter junk but, irritatingly, I had to flick through the lot as genuine stuff gets trapped amid the rubbish.
To my tender, seven-year-old- internet-age sensibilities, the online world seems to be obsessed with replica watches, cheap viagra and men’s privates.
Tempting subject lines among this hefty batch of spam included: Playboy bunnies in beach photo shoot; No woman can resist you; Express your masculinity better!; Nominated for an MBA; Safe natural way to size up; Very CheapPrice Bacheelor, MasteerMBA, and Doctoraate dip1omas eklyvjxa yq33rp3 (that’s how it read, by the way) and Be as attractive as 007.
All laudible pursuits, no doubt. I’d love to look like Daniel Craig but I am not sure his macho muscles would look so good on me. These spam machines really should learn to differentiate between the sexes!
Anyway, those waste-of-space e-mails have been sent to the great recycling bin in the sky – but still used up valuable minutes of my day. They underlined to me yet again what a complete waste of time the web world can sometimes be.
Yes, it’s great for shopping, football news and booking holidays but, beyond that, I can’t help feeling it’s seducing a generation of people into being obsessed with the virtual world rather than the real one.
For example, a chum practically married to his PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) spent his entire weekend downloading a whole series of the Sopranos. He hasn’t actually watched any of it yet. When time allows, he can enjoy countless hours of fun glued to a screen as big as the palm of his hand. Whatever lights your fire...
Personally, I haven’t got the time to download that lot, let alone watch it. Perhaps I’m spending my time stupidly doing mundane stuff like washing the car, shopping for food and scrubbing the bog. I’m going to be left behind, a technological dinosaur, unable – or unwilling – to embrace the digital age with the passion it demands.
The trouble is I have hit 42 – the official age when your brain gives up the ghost when it comes to learning anything new, or so the experts say. I’m sure anyone reading this who is beyond that age will beg to differ.
I certainly do. What age has taught me, however, is that life is too short to spend countless hours glued to a computer screen.
If that means I’ve got an internet age of seven, so be it. I’m rather proud of the fact. Because at last it means I’ve got a life.
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Rams fan signs up for another season
"Hey! You've got a text message!"
My trendy (!!) phone alerted me to an incoming text and this one was from none other than Rams player Alan Stubbs. Yes, really.
Unfortunately my monentary hope that he'd spotted me inthe South Stand and just wanted to know me a little bit better, was soon quashed. I swiftly realised that I was just one of around, perhaps, 20,000 people who got the same message urging them to go online to see a special video Stubbsy had made for us.
In it, the poor bloke, clearly embarrassed in front of camera, urges Rams season ticket holders to cough up the sheckles for another season - "I've committed myself to the Rams for another season, I hope you will, too."
Well, of course I will Alan! In fact, unbeknown to you, I'd signed up for the new season that very day. Always intended to. Only the fact that I don't earn Prem wages made me drag my feet.
But I had to smile as I watched Stubbsy's semi-tortured performance in front of a video camera. Good on the Rams for getting so high-tech with their promotions but why, oh why have we all got to become video stars? You Tube has got a lot to answer for.
I've even been urged to put mini video clips of myself on this blog. "What do you want me to show 'em?" I ask."Me pegging out the washing or scrubbing the bogs?"
Any ideas warmly welcomed...
My trendy (!!) phone alerted me to an incoming text and this one was from none other than Rams player Alan Stubbs. Yes, really.
Unfortunately my monentary hope that he'd spotted me inthe South Stand and just wanted to know me a little bit better, was soon quashed. I swiftly realised that I was just one of around, perhaps, 20,000 people who got the same message urging them to go online to see a special video Stubbsy had made for us.
In it, the poor bloke, clearly embarrassed in front of camera, urges Rams season ticket holders to cough up the sheckles for another season - "I've committed myself to the Rams for another season, I hope you will, too."
Well, of course I will Alan! In fact, unbeknown to you, I'd signed up for the new season that very day. Always intended to. Only the fact that I don't earn Prem wages made me drag my feet.
But I had to smile as I watched Stubbsy's semi-tortured performance in front of a video camera. Good on the Rams for getting so high-tech with their promotions but why, oh why have we all got to become video stars? You Tube has got a lot to answer for.
I've even been urged to put mini video clips of myself on this blog. "What do you want me to show 'em?" I ask."Me pegging out the washing or scrubbing the bogs?"
Any ideas warmly welcomed...
Parks rule OK
MOVING house to live near a park has changed my children’s lives beyond belief – for the better.
So I was perplexed to see that Derby City Council is contemplating closing 10 play areas to save money.
Being close to a park was a key reason why I chose my new house.
After years of living in a quiet but dull road with nowhere to play (we had a field behind us but the owner put up barbed wire and sent residents a stiff letter informing them that they we could not use it), I was chuffed to spot a small but well maintained park opposite the house I liked.
It was so close I knew that I would finally be able to give my sons a taste of the freedom I enjoyed as a youngster.
Nevertheless, I could never have anticipate the total transformation of their childhoods which the park has brought about. From day one, the local lads included my sons in their daily football matches. Two or three times a day a youngster arrives at our house on his bike, a ball stuck up his jumper, and asks: “Are you coming to the park?”
It’s a jumpers-for-goalposts mentality which I thought had vanished forever. On long summer evenings the matches last for hours. And it’s safe, too. A glance out the window assures me that they are fine.
That small neighbourhood park has improved all of our lives tenfold.
House builders should be forced to incorporate them into every major development instead of squeezing houses with practically no gardens into every square inch of space.
And they moan that children don’t exercise enough.
Lose parks? We should be making more of them.
So I was perplexed to see that Derby City Council is contemplating closing 10 play areas to save money.
Being close to a park was a key reason why I chose my new house.
After years of living in a quiet but dull road with nowhere to play (we had a field behind us but the owner put up barbed wire and sent residents a stiff letter informing them that they we could not use it), I was chuffed to spot a small but well maintained park opposite the house I liked.
It was so close I knew that I would finally be able to give my sons a taste of the freedom I enjoyed as a youngster.
Nevertheless, I could never have anticipate the total transformation of their childhoods which the park has brought about. From day one, the local lads included my sons in their daily football matches. Two or three times a day a youngster arrives at our house on his bike, a ball stuck up his jumper, and asks: “Are you coming to the park?”
It’s a jumpers-for-goalposts mentality which I thought had vanished forever. On long summer evenings the matches last for hours. And it’s safe, too. A glance out the window assures me that they are fine.
That small neighbourhood park has improved all of our lives tenfold.
House builders should be forced to incorporate them into every major development instead of squeezing houses with practically no gardens into every square inch of space.
And they moan that children don’t exercise enough.
Lose parks? We should be making more of them.
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