Dark, isn't it?*
I thought tonight might be a good time for this; it's not the version I was originally planning to use, but I was so blown away by the fact that Bon Jovi have covered this particular song, I couldn't resist. Besides: it's not half bad.
*You will probably be more inclined to agree if you live in England (our clocks went back last night.) Or, anywhere else which is dark. Like in a cave or something.
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Friday, 29 October 2010
Nano -WHAT now?
NaNoWriMo. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and is how I will be spending a large chunk of November. Hence the new little gadget over there on the right.
The idea is simple, in theory; to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. I'll save you the maths - that's an average of 1667 words a day. The whole point is that it's perfectly OK if those words are completely and utterly devoid of grammar, or plot, or factual accuracy. In fact, they'll probably need to be; the only way to hit the word count day in, day out, is just to write with abandon, and worry about all that stuff later. It's a good general rule for writing the first draft of anything, to be fair, but the beauty of NaNoWriMo is that you have permission to do it.
I signed up for the first time last year and secretly, I didn't think I'd finish. The first problem was that I hadn't written any fiction for years. I wasn't sure I knew how to. But there was a bigger hurdle than that; my distinct (and often lamented on these pages) lack of self-discipline. I was convinced that I would last a couple of days - a week at the most maybe - before the novelty wore off, my enthusiasm waned, and writing a novel in a month would be addded to the long list of ideas I've toyed with but failed to commit to.
Still, I signed up. The best advice anyone gave me before I started was "don't write the novel you've always wanted to write during NaNoWriMo." If you do, this person said, you'll care about it too much. You'll want to agonise over each word and every decision, to make sure you get it right. And you can't afford to do that during NaNoWriMo - there's not enough time. Write something else instead; have fun with it.
It was advice which made a lot of sense. It also meant that on November 1st, when I sat down, and started to write, I had nothing other than a main character and an opening sentence in my head. I was terrifed.
That day I churned out 1816 words. The next day I managed 1990. Then 1688, and, the day after that, 1673. As my word count grew, and something vaguely resembling a story unfolded, I actually began to enjoy myself. I was writing complete tosh, and I had no plan, no outline, and absolutely no idea what I was doing, but that was half the fun. And most importantly, I was soaring ahead of the daily targets I'd set myself.
I'd like to be able to say that the rest of the month went as smoothly as those first few days did, but of course it didn't. A lot of the time writing felt like a chore, and some days other things - work, social commitments, housework - got in the way. But on the good days, I loved it. I became obsessed with the numbers - how many words I'd written, how many I had left to go - terrified that if I fell too far behind target I'd never catch up; or worse, would become despondent and just give up.
But that didn't happen. Oh, I fell behind alright, several times, actually; but each time I managed to pick myself up again and keep on going. Somewhere along the line, and I'm not quite sure when, I just knew that giving up was no longer an option; I was going to finish, no matter how much I hated doing it.
And eventually, I did finish. With a couple of days to spare, in fact. 50,012 words. The manuscript - all 128 pages of it - is still sitting on my desk. It's a complete disaster in writing terms - full of ridiculously long winded descriptions (with targets like those, why use one word if forty three will do the job?), there's not a decent plot twist (or indeed a plot, for the most part) in sight, and the timelines are all out of kilter. I made several attempts at editing it into some kind of shape early this year before realising it's probably beyond repair. But I couldn't care less about that. Even now, a year later, I'm ridiculously proud of those 128 pages.
A lot of good things came out of my first NaNoWriMo experience. I discovered that I do have a tiny ounce of self-discipline after all; enough, at least, to churn out that many words day in and day out for a month. It's what gave me the courage to leave my comfortable job for the great unknown; a decision I'm still convinced was the right one even if I still haven't quite worked out why. It re-ignited my interest in writing, and fiction in general, and got me into a writing habit which has stuck with me, more or less, ever since.
In theory it should be much easier this time around. Last year I was still working full time; this November I have a few bits of work lined up but there are also plenty of spare hours stretching out in front of me. I've got a year's writing experience under my belt and have spent a lot of the last year immersed in the world of words and stories, books and authors. Surely some of that has to have rubbed off? I've certainly thought more about writing, and spent more time writing this year than I ever have before.
I'm just as terrifed though. Probably more. After all, with some experience under my belt, and so many more hours to play with, I have no excuse for failing this year. Plus, I've made a decision; this year I AM going to write a novel I really care about. In fact, it's the exact novel I was warned not to write; the one I've been thinking and talking about for years. The one which made me want to write in the first place. I still don't know if I can write it, but there's only one way to find out.
So that's how I'll be spending November, mainly. The actual writing doesn't start until Monday, but for the last few days I've been knee deep in post-it notes and wall charts, madly scribbling down ideas and trying to come up with a plot. To be honest I have no idea how to go about plotting a novel, but then again this time last year I had no idea how to write one, and that sort of worked out, so............
Bring on November, I say.*
*a bit nervously
The idea is simple, in theory; to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. I'll save you the maths - that's an average of 1667 words a day. The whole point is that it's perfectly OK if those words are completely and utterly devoid of grammar, or plot, or factual accuracy. In fact, they'll probably need to be; the only way to hit the word count day in, day out, is just to write with abandon, and worry about all that stuff later. It's a good general rule for writing the first draft of anything, to be fair, but the beauty of NaNoWriMo is that you have permission to do it.
I signed up for the first time last year and secretly, I didn't think I'd finish. The first problem was that I hadn't written any fiction for years. I wasn't sure I knew how to. But there was a bigger hurdle than that; my distinct (and often lamented on these pages) lack of self-discipline. I was convinced that I would last a couple of days - a week at the most maybe - before the novelty wore off, my enthusiasm waned, and writing a novel in a month would be addded to the long list of ideas I've toyed with but failed to commit to.
Still, I signed up. The best advice anyone gave me before I started was "don't write the novel you've always wanted to write during NaNoWriMo." If you do, this person said, you'll care about it too much. You'll want to agonise over each word and every decision, to make sure you get it right. And you can't afford to do that during NaNoWriMo - there's not enough time. Write something else instead; have fun with it.
It was advice which made a lot of sense. It also meant that on November 1st, when I sat down, and started to write, I had nothing other than a main character and an opening sentence in my head. I was terrifed.
That day I churned out 1816 words. The next day I managed 1990. Then 1688, and, the day after that, 1673. As my word count grew, and something vaguely resembling a story unfolded, I actually began to enjoy myself. I was writing complete tosh, and I had no plan, no outline, and absolutely no idea what I was doing, but that was half the fun. And most importantly, I was soaring ahead of the daily targets I'd set myself.
I'd like to be able to say that the rest of the month went as smoothly as those first few days did, but of course it didn't. A lot of the time writing felt like a chore, and some days other things - work, social commitments, housework - got in the way. But on the good days, I loved it. I became obsessed with the numbers - how many words I'd written, how many I had left to go - terrified that if I fell too far behind target I'd never catch up; or worse, would become despondent and just give up.
But that didn't happen. Oh, I fell behind alright, several times, actually; but each time I managed to pick myself up again and keep on going. Somewhere along the line, and I'm not quite sure when, I just knew that giving up was no longer an option; I was going to finish, no matter how much I hated doing it.
And eventually, I did finish. With a couple of days to spare, in fact. 50,012 words. The manuscript - all 128 pages of it - is still sitting on my desk. It's a complete disaster in writing terms - full of ridiculously long winded descriptions (with targets like those, why use one word if forty three will do the job?), there's not a decent plot twist (or indeed a plot, for the most part) in sight, and the timelines are all out of kilter. I made several attempts at editing it into some kind of shape early this year before realising it's probably beyond repair. But I couldn't care less about that. Even now, a year later, I'm ridiculously proud of those 128 pages.
A lot of good things came out of my first NaNoWriMo experience. I discovered that I do have a tiny ounce of self-discipline after all; enough, at least, to churn out that many words day in and day out for a month. It's what gave me the courage to leave my comfortable job for the great unknown; a decision I'm still convinced was the right one even if I still haven't quite worked out why. It re-ignited my interest in writing, and fiction in general, and got me into a writing habit which has stuck with me, more or less, ever since.
In theory it should be much easier this time around. Last year I was still working full time; this November I have a few bits of work lined up but there are also plenty of spare hours stretching out in front of me. I've got a year's writing experience under my belt and have spent a lot of the last year immersed in the world of words and stories, books and authors. Surely some of that has to have rubbed off? I've certainly thought more about writing, and spent more time writing this year than I ever have before.
I'm just as terrifed though. Probably more. After all, with some experience under my belt, and so many more hours to play with, I have no excuse for failing this year. Plus, I've made a decision; this year I AM going to write a novel I really care about. In fact, it's the exact novel I was warned not to write; the one I've been thinking and talking about for years. The one which made me want to write in the first place. I still don't know if I can write it, but there's only one way to find out.
So that's how I'll be spending November, mainly. The actual writing doesn't start until Monday, but for the last few days I've been knee deep in post-it notes and wall charts, madly scribbling down ideas and trying to come up with a plot. To be honest I have no idea how to go about plotting a novel, but then again this time last year I had no idea how to write one, and that sort of worked out, so............
Bring on November, I say.*
*a bit nervously
Thursday, 28 October 2010
The Apprentice Week 4: the eyes have it.
I am literally speechless. So speechless, I may have to make up some words to replace the ones I can't find to describe the events of last night's episode. (Yes, LAST NIGHT. I imagine that, if you are a regular reader you too are speechless because you have been struck dumb with wonder at the relative promptness of this post. It may or may not have something to do with fact I am meant to be writing a job application at the moment, but either way, well done me, even if I do say so myself.)
We start with a summary of last week's episode. Here's something I never thought I'd say, but I'm going to miss Shibby this week. He was good for comic value. Speaking of comic value, I have just realised how funny it was that Melissa said in last week's boardroom: "For the first time in my life I can honnestly say I minced my words in that pitch." She minces more words than anyone I have ever met. It would have been even funnier if she had said it the week before, when they were mincing meat for sausages, but it's still pretty funny.
Next comes an early morning phone call (no surprises there), and *BAM* - they're off to the Science museum. Whose turn is it to be made to look stupid by failing dismally to predict the task this week, I wonder? Oh, it's Jamie. We must be doing something about science, he says. Or museums.
In fact, it's that task where they have to pick some products and then pitch them to retailers. Alex is sent over to team Apollo to balance up the numbers, and Lord Sugar explains everyone will have their own order books this week. He wants to see EVERYONE sell. EVERYONE. They can run, but they can't hide.
Time to pick the project managers and......WHAT?? Melissa wants to be Project Manager AGAIN?? Jamie wants the job too. This is what happened last week. Am I watching the right episode? Wait....yes, I must be, because they've picked Jamie this time. Meanwhile over on the team which no one ever wants to manage, Chris puts himself forward. Not surprisingly, there's no contest. I've just realised two things about Chris; he is quite posh and has the most incredibly blue eyes. How have I not noticed this before? They are just like.....oh, I don't know. Something really blue.
There's no time to ponder eye-based similes, becuase it's time for the teams to pick their products. They each have to choose two, and contenders include a NASA designed face lift mask which looks like one of those virtual reality helmets which made a brief appearance in the 80s and never quite took off. There's also a slouch-detector alarm for improving posture. You'd probably have better posture if you wore it, but only until someone punched you in the face for constantly making a very annoying beeping sound.
Stella almost passes out when a fit bloke models an ab-sculpting t-shirt and there's some sort of weird double headed garden shovel contraption which I'm sure I would understand more if I gardened, but I don't, so let's just keep calling it the weird double headed shovel contraption. There's also a shower head which will somehow save lots of money on water bills, but no one ever actually explains how. What the shower-head man (and that's a description of his product, not his appearance, by the way) *does* go to great lengths to explain is that the wholesale price is £12.95 or for bulk orders, ones over 1000 units, this can be discounted to £9.95. BUT ONLY FOR ORDERS OF OVER 1000 UNITS, he warns them very sternly. This is called foreshadowing.
The product which gets everyone excited is something called a baby-glow, which is basically a hypercolour t-shirt (remember them?) for babies. It changes colour if the baby gets too hot, giving anxious parents an early warning sign of impending DEATH AND DOOM. (I am being needlessly flippant. It's actually a very sensible product which helps to solve quite a serious issue. But where's the fun in saying that?) Both teams love it. Jamie's team point out they have five kids between them. Stella shouts at Stuart Baggs the Brand for speaking rudely to the baby-glow lady. I didn't think he was that bad, to be honest, but Jamie points out very sternly that Stuart might have cost their team the chance to sell the baby glow. This is also called foreshaddowing.
Sure enough, baby-glow lady picks the other team. Jamie's team have to settle for the weird double headed shovel contraption, (which I'm now wishing I had decided to call something shorter) and the shower head. Meanwhile the other team are being so smug about the baby glow that I can't even remember what else they choose.
Jamie, Melissa and Christopher first pitch to Debenhams, who don't sell showers or garden tools. Melissa thinks they should start to, though. She tells them this quite a lot. They don't agree.
Then Chris and his team visit Debenhams, where Chris pitches the t-shirt (oh, so that's what else they chose.). The buyers quite like it but are not sure whether it's underwear or outerwear. Chris says it's underwear. The buyers think that at £50 it's jolly expensive underwear. I wonder if this means he'll pitch it as outerwear next time? I almost hope so; as much as I'm enjoying listening to Chris talking about underwear in his incredibly posh voice, I don't think I'll be able to cope with it much longer. Especially if they keep showing shots of his incredibly blue eyes.
Next it's silent Liz's turn to pitch the Baby Glow. We haven't heard a peep out of Liz so far, in three episodes but finally here she is. And she's good. She even manages to keep a straight face while blasting a baby with a hairdryer, which is no mean feat. (That's an assumption, just to be clear; I have never actually done this to a baby.)
Back at the house, Jamie's team are planning for tomorrow. Jamie's team have a meeting with B+Q lined up by Lord Sugar, and Jamie announces that it will be himself, Joanna and Chris doing the big pitch. Melissa isn't happy about this. "What's wrong with me?" she asks. "This is my job, it's what I do". Yes, but you are RUBBISH at it, screams an entire nation, except Jamie, who just looks a bit awkward. Melissa has a big old rant but Jamie stands his ground -she's not going to B+Q.
The next day, as well as visiting the big retailers Sir Alan has found for them, the teams are allowed to drum up some business of their own. Chris's team take the baby glow to some boutique stores who think the packaging is cheap and nasty looking. They are right, it is. How did no one notice this before? Maybe they were all distracted by Chris and his incredibly gorgeous blue eyes.
Meanwhile, Laura, Shibby and Paloma are working the streets of Soho. They've got individual order books, but they are all going into each retailer together. What can possibly go wrong? The first sale is supposed to be Laura's, but the other two both step in to 'help' with the pitch and then try and take the order themselves. Needless to say, Laura's not too happy about this; after a bit of arguing they agree to take it in turns to lead the meetings and take the orders.
Cut to Jamie's team. On the way to B+Q Jamie, Joanna and Chris drop into a local village shop and manage to sell 1000 shower units at the bulk discount price. Joanna also finds time to do some cold calling and arranges a meeting with a big plumbing discount store; Jamie dispatches the other half of the team to deliver this pitch. Who'll be presenting? asks Joanna. She has a vested interested in the answer as Jamie has decided she ought to get credit for half of whatever the other team manage to sell, and she's not happy to hear it's going to be Melissa. Well, you wouldn't be, would you?
The meeting doesn't go well, but to be fair to Melissa it's not all her fault. The shower doesn't work in the demonstration and Stuart does his best to fix it by chewing on it, which inexplicably doesn't seem to work. The buyers decide it's too expensive for them anyway, even at the discounted price, and there's no sale.
Meanwhile Chris and Liz are at a big online baby retailer. Liz does her hairdryer trick again; Chris handles the questions and flashes his baby blue eyes at the buyers. It seems to have gone well.
Meanwhile the other half of Chris's team are still in Soho, trying to sell the t-shirt. they go to one shop, where Sandeesh closes a sale, and then try another shop, where it's Paloma's turn to take the lead. The guy in this shop likes the shirt but demands exclusivity. (Come on..... he has had to have been put up to that by the producers, surely?)
"Sure", says Paloma, while Sandeesh quietly turns purple. There's a discussion outside; Sandeesh isn't happy that this means they'll have to go back and retract their offer to the first shop, which means she'll lose her sales figures. She demands half of this sale be placed on her order book instead. Paloma says 50% is too high, because it's a much bigger order, but that Sandeesh can have the value of her original deal and she will keep the rest.
Now Laura's not happy; she stepped in to finish Paloma's pitch, she says, and was responsible for closing the deal, so she should get a cut as well. You might remember Laura; she was the one complaining about other people taking over her pitches about twenty minutes ago.
The girls ring their project manager; Chris tells them that he is worried the deal won't count because the exclusivity would need to be agreed by the supplier. Could this be MORE foreshaddowing? Well, he's speaking in a very stern voice, so it's a good guess.
Meanwhile back on Jamie's team the gap between the two groups is widening. Stella, Stuart Baggs the Brand and Melissa are at a smal retailer trying to sell showers. We can offer a discount price, says Stella. How many do I have to buy for the discount, asks the buyer? 60 units, she says. HANG on....... anyone spot anything wrong here? the deal is made.
Jamie's gang go to B+Q and sell a gazillion items, then laugh at the rest of their team, especially because Stuart Baggs the Brand hasn't got any orders in his book at all. He did work hard in the pitches though. Did no one see him EATING the shower head? Surely that deserved some credit. Nice leadership there, Jamie. (I can't warm to Jamie. Is that obvious?)
We're in the boardroom. Lord Sugar starts with Jamie's team. You wanted the babyglow, he says. Why didn't you get it? I don't know, I mean, we have five children between us, says Jamie. It's Stuart Baggs the Brand's fault. He doesn't have any kids. (I am being a bit harsh here. He didn't say that was why it was Stuart's fault. And I can appreciate that this is a situation where having kids might mean you know a bit more about keeping babies safe; ie don't blast them with a hairdryer. But I do get cross when parents think they know everything about everything becuase they have kids. And this seemed like as good a time as any to have a bit of a rant about it.)
Next Lord Sugar mentions the Debenhams debacle and blasts them for trying to sell inappropriate items. His ire over this is nothing though, compared to SHOWER-GATE. The 60 showerheads sold at £9.99 were against the rules and won't be counted. We will return to Shower-gate.
Over to Chris and we start with a nice close-up of those eyes. Oh my. They really are very, very blue. Why didn't you have a model for the t-shirt, Lord Sugar asks? "We thought it would be better to remain professional" says Alex. Hmmmm....what happened to taking one for the team? Remember Stella in a bikini, anyone? I think Chris ought to have modelled it, with his nice eyes and his nice posh voice he could have sold loads of them. Nick disagrees with me about Chris's voice, saying it's monotonous and likening him to a low flying heavy bomber. I now have a rather lovely vision of Chris in a Biggles-style helmet (no goggles, though; they would hide his eyes) and flying jacket.
Nick takes the girls to task over their Soho squabbling. It seems that neither of the Soho deals will count towards their final total. Harsh but fair, I suppose; they did take the first deal of the table after all, and the second one doesn't count because the supplier hadn't agreed to any sort of exclusivity clause. I have a new theory about Sandeesh and Laura, by the way. I think they might both be robots. It's something about their eyes. (I know, I know. I am obsessed with eyes this week. But seriously, there is something Stepford-esque about both of them.)
It's time for some numbers. Street sales for Apollo, which is Chris's team, come to £3725.90, not counting the deals which didn't count. But the other team blow this out of the water with a figure of £12 000.
At Debenhams, Jamie's team get no orders (no suprises there), but £19 000 worth of orders go to Chris's team, for the Baby Glow. Chris's team all start to look quietly confident. But wait, there's still the specialist shops to go. It's not over yet. Seriously, have they not SEEN this program before?
It turns out B+Q ordered £63 750 worth of spades and showers, giving Jamie's team £76518.80 of sales in total. That's an impressive number, and they all look relieved. But we stil need to hear the final figure for the other team. It's not over yet. Seriously, have they not SEEN this program before?
There is a dramatic pause before Nick announces that Liz (singlehandedly, apparently) managed to get £99 0000 worth of sales from the online baby store, giving Chris, his eyes, and the rest of the team £120,000 worth of sales in total - a record. Melissa looks gutted. I think she knows what's coming.
The winning team go to a spa, the losing team go to the cafe for the usual tea and arguing, and then the boardroom.
Lord Sugar immediately points out that Stella, Stuart Baggs the Brand and Melissa were the real problem, bringing in only £897 of the team's total sales between them. Jamie agrees, and Stuart Baggs the Brand blames Melissa. Karren tells Melissa she's not good at pitching. Jamie tells Melissa she's no good at pitching. Lord Sugar tells Melisssa she's no good at pitching. Melissa tells them all that in fact she's very good at pitching. Can you spot the odd one out?
Next Lord Sugar has a go at Stella because of Shower-gate. He asks her how she could stand by and let the sale happen at the wrong price. When I first watched the episode last night, I was outraged by this. How dare he pick on Stella? I LOVE Stella! Stella to win, I've been saying. But watching it again today (such dedication!) I realised that it wasn't that she just stood by to let it happen - she actually LED ON THE SALE. So she deserves the blame in this case, and I say that with a heavy heart. Then again, she also tried to blame the others for not jumping in to say anything, and then claimed she didn't hear the condition about the bulk order price being limited to 1000 units in the first place, which was a bit lame. I may have to re-think my position on Stella.
When he's asked who he wants to bring back to the boardroom, Jamie raves about how fantastic Jo was (I think Jamie has a bit of a crush on Jo, between you and me) and after being hurried along by Lord Sugar he chooses to bring Stuart and Melissa.
It's all car crash TV from here on, basically; the boys blame Melissa, who still thinks she pitched brilliantly; Melissa thinks the boys are ganging up on her, and makes up a stream of words to argue her case - analysation, professionality - before being fired and then hurling some vitriol at the boys as she leaves. It is hideous to watch.
Meanwhile Chris and his team have a lovely day out at a spa hotel having treatments and massages and cocktails. This is a lot less hideous to watch.
We start with a summary of last week's episode. Here's something I never thought I'd say, but I'm going to miss Shibby this week. He was good for comic value. Speaking of comic value, I have just realised how funny it was that Melissa said in last week's boardroom: "For the first time in my life I can honnestly say I minced my words in that pitch." She minces more words than anyone I have ever met. It would have been even funnier if she had said it the week before, when they were mincing meat for sausages, but it's still pretty funny.
Next comes an early morning phone call (no surprises there), and *BAM* - they're off to the Science museum. Whose turn is it to be made to look stupid by failing dismally to predict the task this week, I wonder? Oh, it's Jamie. We must be doing something about science, he says. Or museums.
In fact, it's that task where they have to pick some products and then pitch them to retailers. Alex is sent over to team Apollo to balance up the numbers, and Lord Sugar explains everyone will have their own order books this week. He wants to see EVERYONE sell. EVERYONE. They can run, but they can't hide.
Time to pick the project managers and......WHAT?? Melissa wants to be Project Manager AGAIN?? Jamie wants the job too. This is what happened last week. Am I watching the right episode? Wait....yes, I must be, because they've picked Jamie this time. Meanwhile over on the team which no one ever wants to manage, Chris puts himself forward. Not surprisingly, there's no contest. I've just realised two things about Chris; he is quite posh and has the most incredibly blue eyes. How have I not noticed this before? They are just like.....oh, I don't know. Something really blue.
There's no time to ponder eye-based similes, becuase it's time for the teams to pick their products. They each have to choose two, and contenders include a NASA designed face lift mask which looks like one of those virtual reality helmets which made a brief appearance in the 80s and never quite took off. There's also a slouch-detector alarm for improving posture. You'd probably have better posture if you wore it, but only until someone punched you in the face for constantly making a very annoying beeping sound.
Stella almost passes out when a fit bloke models an ab-sculpting t-shirt and there's some sort of weird double headed garden shovel contraption which I'm sure I would understand more if I gardened, but I don't, so let's just keep calling it the weird double headed shovel contraption. There's also a shower head which will somehow save lots of money on water bills, but no one ever actually explains how. What the shower-head man (and that's a description of his product, not his appearance, by the way) *does* go to great lengths to explain is that the wholesale price is £12.95 or for bulk orders, ones over 1000 units, this can be discounted to £9.95. BUT ONLY FOR ORDERS OF OVER 1000 UNITS, he warns them very sternly. This is called foreshadowing.
The product which gets everyone excited is something called a baby-glow, which is basically a hypercolour t-shirt (remember them?) for babies. It changes colour if the baby gets too hot, giving anxious parents an early warning sign of impending DEATH AND DOOM. (I am being needlessly flippant. It's actually a very sensible product which helps to solve quite a serious issue. But where's the fun in saying that?) Both teams love it. Jamie's team point out they have five kids between them. Stella shouts at Stuart Baggs the Brand for speaking rudely to the baby-glow lady. I didn't think he was that bad, to be honest, but Jamie points out very sternly that Stuart might have cost their team the chance to sell the baby glow. This is also called foreshaddowing.
Sure enough, baby-glow lady picks the other team. Jamie's team have to settle for the weird double headed shovel contraption, (which I'm now wishing I had decided to call something shorter) and the shower head. Meanwhile the other team are being so smug about the baby glow that I can't even remember what else they choose.
Jamie, Melissa and Christopher first pitch to Debenhams, who don't sell showers or garden tools. Melissa thinks they should start to, though. She tells them this quite a lot. They don't agree.
Then Chris and his team visit Debenhams, where Chris pitches the t-shirt (oh, so that's what else they chose.). The buyers quite like it but are not sure whether it's underwear or outerwear. Chris says it's underwear. The buyers think that at £50 it's jolly expensive underwear. I wonder if this means he'll pitch it as outerwear next time? I almost hope so; as much as I'm enjoying listening to Chris talking about underwear in his incredibly posh voice, I don't think I'll be able to cope with it much longer. Especially if they keep showing shots of his incredibly blue eyes.
Next it's silent Liz's turn to pitch the Baby Glow. We haven't heard a peep out of Liz so far, in three episodes but finally here she is. And she's good. She even manages to keep a straight face while blasting a baby with a hairdryer, which is no mean feat. (That's an assumption, just to be clear; I have never actually done this to a baby.)
Back at the house, Jamie's team are planning for tomorrow. Jamie's team have a meeting with B+Q lined up by Lord Sugar, and Jamie announces that it will be himself, Joanna and Chris doing the big pitch. Melissa isn't happy about this. "What's wrong with me?" she asks. "This is my job, it's what I do". Yes, but you are RUBBISH at it, screams an entire nation, except Jamie, who just looks a bit awkward. Melissa has a big old rant but Jamie stands his ground -she's not going to B+Q.
The next day, as well as visiting the big retailers Sir Alan has found for them, the teams are allowed to drum up some business of their own. Chris's team take the baby glow to some boutique stores who think the packaging is cheap and nasty looking. They are right, it is. How did no one notice this before? Maybe they were all distracted by Chris and his incredibly gorgeous blue eyes.
Meanwhile, Laura, Shibby and Paloma are working the streets of Soho. They've got individual order books, but they are all going into each retailer together. What can possibly go wrong? The first sale is supposed to be Laura's, but the other two both step in to 'help' with the pitch and then try and take the order themselves. Needless to say, Laura's not too happy about this; after a bit of arguing they agree to take it in turns to lead the meetings and take the orders.
Cut to Jamie's team. On the way to B+Q Jamie, Joanna and Chris drop into a local village shop and manage to sell 1000 shower units at the bulk discount price. Joanna also finds time to do some cold calling and arranges a meeting with a big plumbing discount store; Jamie dispatches the other half of the team to deliver this pitch. Who'll be presenting? asks Joanna. She has a vested interested in the answer as Jamie has decided she ought to get credit for half of whatever the other team manage to sell, and she's not happy to hear it's going to be Melissa. Well, you wouldn't be, would you?
The meeting doesn't go well, but to be fair to Melissa it's not all her fault. The shower doesn't work in the demonstration and Stuart does his best to fix it by chewing on it, which inexplicably doesn't seem to work. The buyers decide it's too expensive for them anyway, even at the discounted price, and there's no sale.
Meanwhile Chris and Liz are at a big online baby retailer. Liz does her hairdryer trick again; Chris handles the questions and flashes his baby blue eyes at the buyers. It seems to have gone well.
Meanwhile the other half of Chris's team are still in Soho, trying to sell the t-shirt. they go to one shop, where Sandeesh closes a sale, and then try another shop, where it's Paloma's turn to take the lead. The guy in this shop likes the shirt but demands exclusivity. (Come on..... he has had to have been put up to that by the producers, surely?)
"Sure", says Paloma, while Sandeesh quietly turns purple. There's a discussion outside; Sandeesh isn't happy that this means they'll have to go back and retract their offer to the first shop, which means she'll lose her sales figures. She demands half of this sale be placed on her order book instead. Paloma says 50% is too high, because it's a much bigger order, but that Sandeesh can have the value of her original deal and she will keep the rest.
Now Laura's not happy; she stepped in to finish Paloma's pitch, she says, and was responsible for closing the deal, so she should get a cut as well. You might remember Laura; she was the one complaining about other people taking over her pitches about twenty minutes ago.
The girls ring their project manager; Chris tells them that he is worried the deal won't count because the exclusivity would need to be agreed by the supplier. Could this be MORE foreshaddowing? Well, he's speaking in a very stern voice, so it's a good guess.
Meanwhile back on Jamie's team the gap between the two groups is widening. Stella, Stuart Baggs the Brand and Melissa are at a smal retailer trying to sell showers. We can offer a discount price, says Stella. How many do I have to buy for the discount, asks the buyer? 60 units, she says. HANG on....... anyone spot anything wrong here? the deal is made.
Jamie's gang go to B+Q and sell a gazillion items, then laugh at the rest of their team, especially because Stuart Baggs the Brand hasn't got any orders in his book at all. He did work hard in the pitches though. Did no one see him EATING the shower head? Surely that deserved some credit. Nice leadership there, Jamie. (I can't warm to Jamie. Is that obvious?)
We're in the boardroom. Lord Sugar starts with Jamie's team. You wanted the babyglow, he says. Why didn't you get it? I don't know, I mean, we have five children between us, says Jamie. It's Stuart Baggs the Brand's fault. He doesn't have any kids. (I am being a bit harsh here. He didn't say that was why it was Stuart's fault. And I can appreciate that this is a situation where having kids might mean you know a bit more about keeping babies safe; ie don't blast them with a hairdryer. But I do get cross when parents think they know everything about everything becuase they have kids. And this seemed like as good a time as any to have a bit of a rant about it.)
Next Lord Sugar mentions the Debenhams debacle and blasts them for trying to sell inappropriate items. His ire over this is nothing though, compared to SHOWER-GATE. The 60 showerheads sold at £9.99 were against the rules and won't be counted. We will return to Shower-gate.
Over to Chris and we start with a nice close-up of those eyes. Oh my. They really are very, very blue. Why didn't you have a model for the t-shirt, Lord Sugar asks? "We thought it would be better to remain professional" says Alex. Hmmmm....what happened to taking one for the team? Remember Stella in a bikini, anyone? I think Chris ought to have modelled it, with his nice eyes and his nice posh voice he could have sold loads of them. Nick disagrees with me about Chris's voice, saying it's monotonous and likening him to a low flying heavy bomber. I now have a rather lovely vision of Chris in a Biggles-style helmet (no goggles, though; they would hide his eyes) and flying jacket.
Nick takes the girls to task over their Soho squabbling. It seems that neither of the Soho deals will count towards their final total. Harsh but fair, I suppose; they did take the first deal of the table after all, and the second one doesn't count because the supplier hadn't agreed to any sort of exclusivity clause. I have a new theory about Sandeesh and Laura, by the way. I think they might both be robots. It's something about their eyes. (I know, I know. I am obsessed with eyes this week. But seriously, there is something Stepford-esque about both of them.)
It's time for some numbers. Street sales for Apollo, which is Chris's team, come to £3725.90, not counting the deals which didn't count. But the other team blow this out of the water with a figure of £12 000.
At Debenhams, Jamie's team get no orders (no suprises there), but £19 000 worth of orders go to Chris's team, for the Baby Glow. Chris's team all start to look quietly confident. But wait, there's still the specialist shops to go. It's not over yet. Seriously, have they not SEEN this program before?
It turns out B+Q ordered £63 750 worth of spades and showers, giving Jamie's team £76518.80 of sales in total. That's an impressive number, and they all look relieved. But we stil need to hear the final figure for the other team. It's not over yet. Seriously, have they not SEEN this program before?
There is a dramatic pause before Nick announces that Liz (singlehandedly, apparently) managed to get £99 0000 worth of sales from the online baby store, giving Chris, his eyes, and the rest of the team £120,000 worth of sales in total - a record. Melissa looks gutted. I think she knows what's coming.
The winning team go to a spa, the losing team go to the cafe for the usual tea and arguing, and then the boardroom.
Lord Sugar immediately points out that Stella, Stuart Baggs the Brand and Melissa were the real problem, bringing in only £897 of the team's total sales between them. Jamie agrees, and Stuart Baggs the Brand blames Melissa. Karren tells Melissa she's not good at pitching. Jamie tells Melissa she's no good at pitching. Lord Sugar tells Melisssa she's no good at pitching. Melissa tells them all that in fact she's very good at pitching. Can you spot the odd one out?
Next Lord Sugar has a go at Stella because of Shower-gate. He asks her how she could stand by and let the sale happen at the wrong price. When I first watched the episode last night, I was outraged by this. How dare he pick on Stella? I LOVE Stella! Stella to win, I've been saying. But watching it again today (such dedication!) I realised that it wasn't that she just stood by to let it happen - she actually LED ON THE SALE. So she deserves the blame in this case, and I say that with a heavy heart. Then again, she also tried to blame the others for not jumping in to say anything, and then claimed she didn't hear the condition about the bulk order price being limited to 1000 units in the first place, which was a bit lame. I may have to re-think my position on Stella.
When he's asked who he wants to bring back to the boardroom, Jamie raves about how fantastic Jo was (I think Jamie has a bit of a crush on Jo, between you and me) and after being hurried along by Lord Sugar he chooses to bring Stuart and Melissa.
It's all car crash TV from here on, basically; the boys blame Melissa, who still thinks she pitched brilliantly; Melissa thinks the boys are ganging up on her, and makes up a stream of words to argue her case - analysation, professionality - before being fired and then hurling some vitriol at the boys as she leaves. It is hideous to watch.
Meanwhile Chris and his team have a lovely day out at a spa hotel having treatments and massages and cocktails. This is a lot less hideous to watch.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
The Apprentice Week 3 - insert appropriate bread-based pun here
One of these weeks I'll actually manage to get a blog post written a day or two after the episode is broadcast, while there's a chance the events are still fresh in people's minds. Not this week.
We start with the usual early morning phone call "It's the middle of the night!" moans one of the boys - I didn't see who - summoning them, this week, to posh food emporium Fortnum and Mason. On the way, Melissa tries to work out what the task will be. They sell food hampers and Fortnum and Mason. Maybe they'll have to create a food hamper, suggests Melissa. One which really speaks to people. Yes, Stuart agrees, laughing. A speaking hamper. They both find this hillarious. With jokes like that, you might be thinking, it's going to be a LONG episode. Brace yourselves; it's going to get a whole lot worse.
Lord Sugar arrives. There's not a hamper in sight (or sound.). But that's OK, because the thing which Fortnum and Mason are REALLY famous for, apparently, is their afternoon tea. Between you and me, I think Fortnum and Mason could do with a better marketing campagn for their world-famous afternoon teas. I had no idea they served them. Perhaps what they need is some exposure on a nationally broadcast, non-commercial television progra....... oh. Carry on.
Anyway, the task is to make and sell various baked goods of the sort that might be served at one of Fortnum and Mason's world famous afternoon teas. Or, as Lord Sugar says, looking very pleased with himself, turning FLOUR into SERIOUS DOUGH! Hahahahahahaha. The teams pretend to laugh.
Next, Lord Sugar mixes the teams up a bit. Because there's been so much fighting, he says, before moving Joanna and Melissa, who have spent most of the last two weeks fighting with each other, over to the other team. Yeah, that should work.
It's time to picke a project manager. Jamie wants the job. Melissa wants the job. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Melissa tells them she has all the right skills for the job. It's a task about food manufacturing. "That's my bag" she says. There will be some selling. "That's my bag" she says. Everything is her bag. Melissa has a lot of bags. This task, she says, "speaks to her bag". Just like the hampers they won't be making. The team vote Melissa in as team leader, and Jamie turns into the incredible sulk. On the other team, Shibby decides he wants to be team leader and no one else puts themself forward. Bo-ring.
(I think Melisssa and Stuart Baggss the Brand should get together. Then, when she looks at him she can say "that's my Ba...." - oh no, wait. That doesn't quite work. "THOSE are my Ba....." - no, never mind. They probably wouldn't get on, anyway.)
The first job is to pick what they're going to bake; Shibby's team decide nice and quickly giving us more time to watch Melissa flap about indecisively. Jamie, who has been taking lessons from Nick in the face pulling department, pushes her for a decision and she finally mutters something about bagels. That nice Lord Sugar has found each team a bakery to use, and they split into two groups, with one group doing the manufacturing and the other pitching for orders from some commercial clients.
Shibby's team seem to think this means they are now competing against each other, and not against the other team. On team Shibby, Chris, Liz and Sandeesh are the bakers; they are making muffins and bread. Or more accurately, that's what Chris is making. Liz is making some sort of bright purple stuff and Sandeesh is whining.
Meanwhile Mel is still flapping about, and starting to look more and more like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights of a large lorry. Jamie is driving the lorry. (There is no actual lorry.) She still doesn't seem to know what they are going to make, let alone what to charge for it. They go off to pitch for business at a hotel. "What would you like?" Melissa asks the customer. "Bread rolls," he says. "A thousand please. What can you do?"
Melissa giggles nervously. "We can do many things," she says. Except, as it transpires, some basic maths. We see an excruciating sequence of shots of Melissa tapping away at a calculator and scribbling numbers in a notepad, the customer looking irate, Melissa doing some more scribbling, and the rest of the team shuffling about nervously behind her. Eventually she comes up with a price of 1.82 per bread roll. Not surprisingly, the hotel declines. They're not Fortnum and Mason, you know.
Shibby and Paloma are pitching for the other team and accept an order for a million (or thereabout) muffins and croissants. Then Paloma pushes to customer to order a few more muffins.
Sandeesh has a hissy fit when the order is phoned through. She doesn't want to make stupid little rolls and stupid muffins and everything is STUPID. At the other bakery, Melissa's team get all sarcasatic about the amount of orders they have received (none) and Stuart Baggs the Brand moans about being stuck doing the cooking and not selling because he's an AMAZING salesman in case we had forgotten.
Melissa, meanwhile, is in the car on the way to the next meeting, and asks the others if one of them could do the calculations for her next time. I couldn't POSSIBLY learn this half way through the process, says Jamie, from behind the wheel of his imaginary lorry. Alex finally volunteers and in the next meeting, at a cafe chain, he steps in and actually manages to get an order. Yay for Alex.
Shibby and Paloma are also offered another order at their next pitch but Shibby turns it down, worried aboout them taking on more work than they can handle. Which is probably just as well, since Sandeesh is about to spontaneously combust from the amount of baking she is being expected to do. "All that WEIGHING!" she moans.
The next day sees them delivering the goods which have been ordered, and no one is impressed. Not the hotel owner, who only gets 16 of the thousand rolls he ordered, or the coffee shop who think the other team's cherry muffins look cheap and nasty. Shibby is wearing the world's most stripey jumper, which I can only assume he has chosen deliberately to distract the hotel owner's attention away from the missing bread rolls. It doesn't work. Shibby offers to pay him compensation money.
The rest of the day is spent selling to the general public in various locations across London. Shibby impersonates the child-catcher, Chris is dressed like an oven, Sandeesh does bugger all and Melissa still fails to make a decision about anything. Did you know, by the way, that Alex tells has 11 A* GCSEs? No, I don't know why it's relevant either.
In the boardroom, Lord Sugar makes some more bread jokes. We are reminded about Melissa's background in food retailing, and she admits she messed up the hotel pitch. The conversation about Shibby's team is more positive; could this mean his team have won?
Of course not. Lord Sugar reminds Melissa AGAIN that she was a rubbish team leader even though her team won. Their prize is dinner at a Moroccan restuarant where there are snakes, belly-dancers and a nice display of two-faced-ness (is that a word? I'm sure it's not a word. Oh well.) from Jamie, who talks smugly to the cameras about how awful Melissa was, and how she'd definitely be leaving it their team had lost, and how she needs to learn from this; before proposing a toast to her on behalf of the rest of the group.
Meanwhile, the other team are in the boardroom and we meet someone who I expect we'll see a bit more of in the coming weeks: EVIL PALOMA. After bread jokes AND doctor jokes from Lord Sugar, there's a bun-fight (ha! see what I did there? That wasn't even one of his) between the whole team, and Shibby decides to bring Paloma and Sandeesh back with him.
Evil Paloma comes out fighting; she attacks Shibby, clearly isn't scared to talk to Lord Sugar and then blatantly lies to save her own skin. I liked her up until this week; I'm not quite so sure now. Sandeesh, who has been accused of sitting on the sidelines pulls out a classic Apprentice get-out-of-jail-free card and explains that she hasn't had a chance to show Lord Sugar her best side yet, and if he keeps her in next week she can be team leader and show him what she's made of.
Lord Sugar's having none of that though - I'LL pick when you are the team leader, he says, not you. But Sandeesh lives to fight another day; Lord Sugar squeezes in one last joke about doctors before telling Shibby he's fired. Then back at the house Paloma squeezes in one more BIG FAT LIE about what hapened in the boardroom.
Will we see Evil Paloma unleashed again next episode? Who knows. My money, for what it's worth, is still on Sensible Stella to win.
We start with the usual early morning phone call "It's the middle of the night!" moans one of the boys - I didn't see who - summoning them, this week, to posh food emporium Fortnum and Mason. On the way, Melissa tries to work out what the task will be. They sell food hampers and Fortnum and Mason. Maybe they'll have to create a food hamper, suggests Melissa. One which really speaks to people. Yes, Stuart agrees, laughing. A speaking hamper. They both find this hillarious. With jokes like that, you might be thinking, it's going to be a LONG episode. Brace yourselves; it's going to get a whole lot worse.
Lord Sugar arrives. There's not a hamper in sight (or sound.). But that's OK, because the thing which Fortnum and Mason are REALLY famous for, apparently, is their afternoon tea. Between you and me, I think Fortnum and Mason could do with a better marketing campagn for their world-famous afternoon teas. I had no idea they served them. Perhaps what they need is some exposure on a nationally broadcast, non-commercial television progra....... oh. Carry on.
Anyway, the task is to make and sell various baked goods of the sort that might be served at one of Fortnum and Mason's world famous afternoon teas. Or, as Lord Sugar says, looking very pleased with himself, turning FLOUR into SERIOUS DOUGH! Hahahahahahaha. The teams pretend to laugh.
Next, Lord Sugar mixes the teams up a bit. Because there's been so much fighting, he says, before moving Joanna and Melissa, who have spent most of the last two weeks fighting with each other, over to the other team. Yeah, that should work.
It's time to picke a project manager. Jamie wants the job. Melissa wants the job. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Melissa tells them she has all the right skills for the job. It's a task about food manufacturing. "That's my bag" she says. There will be some selling. "That's my bag" she says. Everything is her bag. Melissa has a lot of bags. This task, she says, "speaks to her bag". Just like the hampers they won't be making. The team vote Melissa in as team leader, and Jamie turns into the incredible sulk. On the other team, Shibby decides he wants to be team leader and no one else puts themself forward. Bo-ring.
(I think Melisssa and Stuart Baggss the Brand should get together. Then, when she looks at him she can say "that's my Ba...." - oh no, wait. That doesn't quite work. "THOSE are my Ba....." - no, never mind. They probably wouldn't get on, anyway.)
The first job is to pick what they're going to bake; Shibby's team decide nice and quickly giving us more time to watch Melissa flap about indecisively. Jamie, who has been taking lessons from Nick in the face pulling department, pushes her for a decision and she finally mutters something about bagels. That nice Lord Sugar has found each team a bakery to use, and they split into two groups, with one group doing the manufacturing and the other pitching for orders from some commercial clients.
Shibby's team seem to think this means they are now competing against each other, and not against the other team. On team Shibby, Chris, Liz and Sandeesh are the bakers; they are making muffins and bread. Or more accurately, that's what Chris is making. Liz is making some sort of bright purple stuff and Sandeesh is whining.
Meanwhile Mel is still flapping about, and starting to look more and more like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights of a large lorry. Jamie is driving the lorry. (There is no actual lorry.) She still doesn't seem to know what they are going to make, let alone what to charge for it. They go off to pitch for business at a hotel. "What would you like?" Melissa asks the customer. "Bread rolls," he says. "A thousand please. What can you do?"
Melissa giggles nervously. "We can do many things," she says. Except, as it transpires, some basic maths. We see an excruciating sequence of shots of Melissa tapping away at a calculator and scribbling numbers in a notepad, the customer looking irate, Melissa doing some more scribbling, and the rest of the team shuffling about nervously behind her. Eventually she comes up with a price of 1.82 per bread roll. Not surprisingly, the hotel declines. They're not Fortnum and Mason, you know.
Shibby and Paloma are pitching for the other team and accept an order for a million (or thereabout) muffins and croissants. Then Paloma pushes to customer to order a few more muffins.
Sandeesh has a hissy fit when the order is phoned through. She doesn't want to make stupid little rolls and stupid muffins and everything is STUPID. At the other bakery, Melissa's team get all sarcasatic about the amount of orders they have received (none) and Stuart Baggs the Brand moans about being stuck doing the cooking and not selling because he's an AMAZING salesman in case we had forgotten.
Melissa, meanwhile, is in the car on the way to the next meeting, and asks the others if one of them could do the calculations for her next time. I couldn't POSSIBLY learn this half way through the process, says Jamie, from behind the wheel of his imaginary lorry. Alex finally volunteers and in the next meeting, at a cafe chain, he steps in and actually manages to get an order. Yay for Alex.
Shibby and Paloma are also offered another order at their next pitch but Shibby turns it down, worried aboout them taking on more work than they can handle. Which is probably just as well, since Sandeesh is about to spontaneously combust from the amount of baking she is being expected to do. "All that WEIGHING!" she moans.
The next day sees them delivering the goods which have been ordered, and no one is impressed. Not the hotel owner, who only gets 16 of the thousand rolls he ordered, or the coffee shop who think the other team's cherry muffins look cheap and nasty. Shibby is wearing the world's most stripey jumper, which I can only assume he has chosen deliberately to distract the hotel owner's attention away from the missing bread rolls. It doesn't work. Shibby offers to pay him compensation money.
The rest of the day is spent selling to the general public in various locations across London. Shibby impersonates the child-catcher, Chris is dressed like an oven, Sandeesh does bugger all and Melissa still fails to make a decision about anything. Did you know, by the way, that Alex tells has 11 A* GCSEs? No, I don't know why it's relevant either.
In the boardroom, Lord Sugar makes some more bread jokes. We are reminded about Melissa's background in food retailing, and she admits she messed up the hotel pitch. The conversation about Shibby's team is more positive; could this mean his team have won?
Of course not. Lord Sugar reminds Melissa AGAIN that she was a rubbish team leader even though her team won. Their prize is dinner at a Moroccan restuarant where there are snakes, belly-dancers and a nice display of two-faced-ness (is that a word? I'm sure it's not a word. Oh well.) from Jamie, who talks smugly to the cameras about how awful Melissa was, and how she'd definitely be leaving it their team had lost, and how she needs to learn from this; before proposing a toast to her on behalf of the rest of the group.
Meanwhile, the other team are in the boardroom and we meet someone who I expect we'll see a bit more of in the coming weeks: EVIL PALOMA. After bread jokes AND doctor jokes from Lord Sugar, there's a bun-fight (ha! see what I did there? That wasn't even one of his) between the whole team, and Shibby decides to bring Paloma and Sandeesh back with him.
Evil Paloma comes out fighting; she attacks Shibby, clearly isn't scared to talk to Lord Sugar and then blatantly lies to save her own skin. I liked her up until this week; I'm not quite so sure now. Sandeesh, who has been accused of sitting on the sidelines pulls out a classic Apprentice get-out-of-jail-free card and explains that she hasn't had a chance to show Lord Sugar her best side yet, and if he keeps her in next week she can be team leader and show him what she's made of.
Lord Sugar's having none of that though - I'LL pick when you are the team leader, he says, not you. But Sandeesh lives to fight another day; Lord Sugar squeezes in one last joke about doctors before telling Shibby he's fired. Then back at the house Paloma squeezes in one more BIG FAT LIE about what hapened in the boardroom.
Will we see Evil Paloma unleashed again next episode? Who knows. My money, for what it's worth, is still on Sensible Stella to win.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Sunday Night Music club
This is ridiculously late, as is this week's Apprentice round-up, which is still on the way (be still your beating hearts.) In the meantime, here's something quite lovely.
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
Some people are just plain clever.
Abraham Wald is one of them. He was a Hungarian mathematician who helped out the British Air Ministry in WWII after they comissioned a study to help them provide better protection for the bombers which were flying over enemy territory. This involved mapping the bullet holes on returning planes, to find out where they took the most damage from enemy fire.
Planes were inspected, the analysis was done and it became apparent that most of the damage was on the extremities - rather than to the main fusulage or engine areas. So the Air Ministry prepared to add extra reinforcement to these areas of the planes, to offer pilots greater protection.
It took Abraham Wald to point out that they were missing the obvious: it was only the planes which came back which could be mapped. The other planes, the ones which didn't survive, had also been hit by bullets; and the fact that no damage was recorded in certain areas suggested that these were the areas where a single bullet could do the most damage. It would be a much better idea, he argued, to add extra armour to the parts of the planes which the data suggested were hit the least, becuase the planes which had been hit there were were the ones which didn't make it back.
There's a better explanation here; it's an old story, but one which popped up on Twitter today, via the brilliant-as-always Graham Linehan.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
R.I.P, Mr C.
Sad news indeed. Tom Bosley - Howard Cunningham in Happy Days, and Father Dowling in the Father Dowling mysteries - died today. He was 83 years old, and died of natural causes so there is nothing unusual or out of the ordinary about his passing. Even so, it still makes me feel incredibly sad.
I loved Happy Days as a kid; my Mum, my brother and I used to watch it on Friday nights - the one weeeknight we were allowed to watch TV - and for a long time that familiar theme song marked the start of the weekend for me. I vividly remember laughing along with the canned studio audience, desperately hoping Joannie and Chachi would get together, and being more than a little scared of the Fonz.
The thing I liked the most, in hindsight, was the innocence of it all. Until I was far older than I care to admit, I was firmly convinced that "sit on it" was just about the worst thing you could say to anyone. EVER. At the centre of this moral safe-ground was Tom Bosley, as the gruff but loving Mr C; patriach, devoted husband and father and wearer of terrible cardigans. He was also, you may remember, the Grand Poobah of the mysterious Leopard Lodge, a Freemasons spoof which confused me endlessly at the time. (A fez? Why is he wearing a leopardskin fez? And what the hell is a poobah?)
Tom Bosley was one of only three actors to appear in all 255 episodes of Happy Days; along with Marion Ross, his on-screen wife and Henry "The Fonz" Winkler. Something I didn't know was that he was also a Broadway veteran, winning a Tony award in 1959 for his role in the musical Fiorello.
The show always felt timeless; the characters and actors immortal. Although it is over twenty years since I've watched an episode, I still get a shock when I see clips of Henry Winkler looking like the middle-aged man he now is; and there is still a tiny part of me which refuses to believe that it's little Richie Cunningham directing those Hollywood blockbusters.
But of course, no one is immortal. Life moves on, and today feels like the end of an era. Celebrity deaths are a strange thing. I had no idea how much of an impact Tom Bosley had had on me until I he had gone. Here are a couple of clips; one of Mr C at his finest, and the other of those iconic opening titles.
I loved Happy Days as a kid; my Mum, my brother and I used to watch it on Friday nights - the one weeeknight we were allowed to watch TV - and for a long time that familiar theme song marked the start of the weekend for me. I vividly remember laughing along with the canned studio audience, desperately hoping Joannie and Chachi would get together, and being more than a little scared of the Fonz.
The thing I liked the most, in hindsight, was the innocence of it all. Until I was far older than I care to admit, I was firmly convinced that "sit on it" was just about the worst thing you could say to anyone. EVER. At the centre of this moral safe-ground was Tom Bosley, as the gruff but loving Mr C; patriach, devoted husband and father and wearer of terrible cardigans. He was also, you may remember, the Grand Poobah of the mysterious Leopard Lodge, a Freemasons spoof which confused me endlessly at the time. (A fez? Why is he wearing a leopardskin fez? And what the hell is a poobah?)
Tom Bosley was one of only three actors to appear in all 255 episodes of Happy Days; along with Marion Ross, his on-screen wife and Henry "The Fonz" Winkler. Something I didn't know was that he was also a Broadway veteran, winning a Tony award in 1959 for his role in the musical Fiorello.
The show always felt timeless; the characters and actors immortal. Although it is over twenty years since I've watched an episode, I still get a shock when I see clips of Henry Winkler looking like the middle-aged man he now is; and there is still a tiny part of me which refuses to believe that it's little Richie Cunningham directing those Hollywood blockbusters.
But of course, no one is immortal. Life moves on, and today feels like the end of an era. Celebrity deaths are a strange thing. I had no idea how much of an impact Tom Bosley had had on me until I he had gone. Here are a couple of clips; one of Mr C at his finest, and the other of those iconic opening titles.
Monday, 18 October 2010
“You can’t do better than go away from home and get a draw.”
What do I know about football? Not a lot, but even I know there's something not quite right with the above. Still, God bless Kevin Keegan; ex-international player and England manager with a propensity for putting his foot in his mouth. Here are some other gems from Big Kev:
"Argentina are the second best team in the world and there is no higher praise than that."
"I'll never play at Wembley again, unless I play at Wembley again. "
“I don’t think there’s anyone bigger or smaller than Maradona.”
“The 33 or 34-year-olds will be 36 or 37 by the time the next World Cup comes around, if they’re not careful.”
“They compare Steve McManaman to Steve Heighway and he’s nothing like him, but I can see why – it’s because he’s a bit different.”
“Goalkeepers aren’t born today until they’re in their late twenties or thirties.”
“There’ll be no siestas in Madrid tonight.”
“Gary always weighed up his options, especially when he had no choice.”
Just occasionally though, he talks some sense. My favourite line of his is this:
I know what is around the corner – I just don’t know where the corner is.
My life, more or less, in a nut-shell.
Maybe his other comments aren't quite so silly after all (yes they are.) I mean, with so much uncertainty in the world, “it's understandable that people are keeping one eye on the pot and another up the chimney". Isn't it?
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Sunday Night Music club
I bought a book of Sondheim lyrics yesterday, for reasons I don't fully understand or remember, but it is a lovely hardback volume with notes and annotations and things.
I thought I knew more Sondheim than I actually do, but it turns out I didn't. I do now, though. He's great. Almost as great as Andrew Lloyd Webber, who I know it is completely unfashionable to enjoy, but I don't care. I like him.*
And look! Here they are together.
My favourite of the comments about this clip:
I thought I knew more Sondheim than I actually do, but it turns out I didn't. I do now, though. He's great. Almost as great as Andrew Lloyd Webber, who I know it is completely unfashionable to enjoy, but I don't care. I like him.*
And look! Here they are together.
My favourite of the comments about this clip:
Loving the look on ALW's face at 1:23. It's the exact expression a cat makes when you put reindeer antlers on its head* His songs, I mean. I don't know him personally.
The Apprentice Week 2: Girls will be Girls
So I expect that like me, you knew even before last week’s Apprentice started that Raleigh had left the building. I first heard on Twitter, first thing in the morning, but it was also all over various websites and newspapers during the day. This irritated me no end. I’m over it now, but with the ire still fresh in mind now seems as good a time as any to mention my spoiler policy in regards to these blog posts. Here’s the deal: I won’t put anything in the titles which gives the game away, but I’m going to assume, if you’re reading these posts, that you’ve already seen the episode. Can’t say fairer than that, right?
Anyway, on to this week. It starts with the early morning phone call - an Apprentice classic -summoning them to Heathrow Terminal 5. On the way the boys conjecture about where they might be going. The Bahamas, suggests someone. Seriously – have they not SEEN this program before? Everyone knows they don’t get to go anywhere exotic until near the very end. Between making redundant travel plans, the boys talk about how they’re definitely not going to let the girlies (their word, not mine) win this time.
Nick and Karrrrrrrrrren are waiting at the airport, but where is SirAlun? I mean, Lord Sugar? ( Is it just me, or does that name still not sound right?) Oh, there he is on the telly. Not our telly, the Terminal 5 telly. Which we can see on our telly. He’s coming to them via video link because he’s far too busy doing business to drop in to Terminal 5. Besides, he probably doesn’t know where it is, given that he has a private jet (I think.) He explains the task - creating a new beach accessory – and tells them Raleigh has gone home because of a family emergency . Then he shifts Sensible Stella over to the boys’ team to even up the numbers.
She is quite excited about the prospect – she’s worked with proper men for years, she says, and this lot are just babies. She’ll soon whip them into shape. So Stella is project manager for the boys, while Laura, who is only 22, volunteers to lead the girls. She says she’ll only do it if they all tell her that they think she is marvellous and the best person for the job. They don’t. Nick pulls a face, the girls begin to squabble. This is not the last time during the episode we will see either of these things happen.
Meanwhile, over on the boys’ team they’ve decided on their product; a towel which rolls up (innovative, no?) and can be used to store drinks and things. Alex, who you may remember as the mastermind behind “Boozy Bangers” last week, is coming up with names again. I’m starting to think Alex is a one-trick pony. His suggestion is Küüli. Note the umlauts, which is what you or I might call the things Alex prefers to think of as little smiley faces.
Next it’s time for some market research on a real actual beach. They boys are off to Bognor Regis, and the girls get to go to Brighton. No one gets to go to the Bahamas. Everyone in Bognor Regis hates the name Küüli, and even the smiley faces do very little to sway them. It also becomes clear that the boys haven’t really thought their product through. What happens when you try and use it as a towel, flinging your drinks everywhere, asks one punter. You could cut the silence with a sea urchin.
In Brighton, where the girls are still trying to choose a product, Joanna is banging on (and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on) about not being able to read books properly on the beach and how it would be wonderful to have a little stand to rest them on. No one agrees. But then, no one suggests an alternative, either.
Some of the girls hit the beach to pitch various concepts to members of the public, including “foot gloves” to stop your feet burning when you walk on the sand. One bloke points out that they might find themselves in competition with lots of other similar products. Well, quite. Shoes, for instance. Eventually Laura, with minutes to spare, decides to go with Joanna’s book stand idea after all. Joanna is very pleased; the other girls not so much.
Meanwhile the boys conspire to put Stella in a bikini for their ad campaign. She isn’t happy with the idea; she doesn’t have time to be a model AND a business woman, she says. Stuart Baggs the Brand thinks the real reason she doesn’t want to “take one for the team” is that she is worried about not looking good in the outfit. Yes, Stuart, that must be the reason. Welcome to 1920. The boys choose an outfit, still convinced Stella will wear it.
Back in London, the prototypes arrive. The Küüli looks great, while the girls have taken delivery of what appears to be a Meccano set. The teams start to practice their sales pitches; Sensible Stella isn’t at all impressed with Chris’s attempts and asks Jamie to have a go instead. Chris is NOT happy. Meanwhile, Melissa is going to be the spokesperson for the girls, and Joanna is not impressed. Cue more arguing, which Laura soon realises she can’t control with her “but I’m the project manager, they are supposed to listen to me” management style. So she walks out of the room. I can't remember if Nick was there, but if he was, he probably pulled a face.
We see a few shots of the photo shoots and oh, look! Stella is modelling after all. At least they didn’t put her in a bikini with tassels. Meanwhile the the girls are busy lugging bags of sand up four flights of stairs to where Paloma is directing the photo shoot, Sandeesh has a gold old bitch about everyone, and they get the fittest girl, whose name I haven’t worked out yet, to be the model.
Oooh! It’s time to pitch!
The boys go to Boots to begin with, facing a very serious looking panel indeed. Chris tells them how stylish and cool the Küüli looks. One of the Boots ladies points out that it looks more like a rolled up towel. I can see her point.
Meanwhile, the girls are at World Duty Free, and one of the panel ask who came up with the idea of the book stand. Joanna claims the credit, and there's another argument because everyone thinks she shouldn't have. Joanna might be a bit of a pain, but seriously – have they all forgotten that NO ONE liked the idea originally? There’s more arguing. Nick pulls some faces.
World Duty free get to meet Stella and the boys next. Things seem to go down well, until they boys try and sell the idea that the Küüli would be an excellent place to store a baby.
The next pitch for the girls is Kit to Fit, and online travel retailer I’ve never heard of. And I travel quite a lot. Just saying. The girls take so long to construct their simple, innovative book stand that Nick almost falls asleep. We don’t see much of this pitch; but the panel seem interested. Maybe they are just being polite.
The girls’ last pitch is to Boots, and Melissa pulls out all the stops, telling the panel all about the book stand’s finest qualities: it’s slick (ooh!) unique (aah!), and bendy (er...what?) In what would be a dramatic twist if it wasn’t for the fact that it happens EVERY SINGLE YEAR in this task, Boots are interested but they want exclusive selling rights. Laura turns them down. Some of the girls think she’s made the wrong decision, and surprise, surprise, everyone argues again. You can probably guess what Nick does.
Now they all have to wait for the boardroom to find out who ordered what. Cue lots of nice shots of London looking pretty. (I think London is very pretty. I love these shots. If I didn’t live in London, though, they would get on my nerves, I think.)
In the boardroom, Lord Sugar tells us all he knows what umlauts are. At least the boys are smart enough not to tell him they were meant to look like smiley faces. The boys all say Stella was a great team leader. The girls aren’t quite as complementary about Laura, or about each other, or about their own product. Nor is Lord Sugar.
The numbers are revealed, and World Duty Free don’t want anything, Kit to Fit order 100 units from the boys and nothing from the girls, and Boots don’t order anything from the boys. Time for some dramatic tension; it looks like the girls might pull this one back after all. After all, Boots seemed to like their product quite a lot. Can they snatch victory from the hands of Stella and the boys?
Of course they can’t, because they TURNED DOWN THE EXCLUSIVITY DEAL, remember? So it’s no sales at all for the girls, which is the worst result ever on this task for anyone ever, we are told. So the boys have won. Their prize is golf lessons and Stella tries to look excited. Maybe they will let her caddy.
Next there’s a quick boardroom wash-up, and Nick points out how well Stella kept the boys in line. Clearly it has nothing to do with her actual management ability; SirAlun (sorry, Lord Sugar) decides it must all be down to her magical and wondrous Woman Power. Karen agrees, and points out that she’s been telling him about magical and wondrous Woman Power for as long as she’s known him. Of course you have, he says! Silly me! They all laugh a lot. The women's movement steps backwards by about 100 years.
We see a few jaunty shots of the boys and Sensible Stella on the golf club, hitting golf balls into the lake, and drinking tea and being slightly patronised but still looking like winners. Then, ooh, look, it's the grotty cafe! Inside, the girls are arguing. Joanna blames Laura for losing the Boots deal, and everyone else joins in. Laura, who from this point onwards permanently looks like she’s about to cry, tells them all they were horrible to manage. Someone blames Joanna for coming up with a rubbish product. There is a lot of shouting.
Back in the boardroom the next day, Joy takes centre stage. I haven’t mentioned Joy yet, because she has done absolutely nothing up until this point. Except apologise a lot. Boardroom Joy is a different kettle of bananas. Their idea was rubbish, she says. They should have spent more time brainstorming ideas, she says. She gets into a huge row with Laura, and then into a huge row with Joanna, and then she whines a bit.
Eventually it’s time for Laura to decide who she’s bringing back to the boardroom, and she chooses Joanna and Sandesh. Both girls say they shouldn’t have been chosen, and Lord Sugar makes the mistake of asking them who should have been brought in instead. Cue more arguing.
Sandesh says she has always given 150%, proving nothing except that she can’t do maths. There’s more arguing. Joanna tries to remind everyone that hers was the only idea on the table. There’s more arguing. Nick slips into a coma. (Not really; but he does look a bit shell-shocked. “I’m numb”, he says.)
Finally Karrrrrrrrren has had enough, and steps in. Stop screaming like a bunch of girls, she tells them. You are BUSINESSWOMEN. You are representing ALL WOMEN ON THE PLANET. You have a RESPONSIBILITY. (I disagree with her on this. I’m a woman and I’d rather not be represented by this lot if it’s all the same, thanks very much. But more to the point, the boys were just as ridiculous last week. No one told them off for not being very good at being men, did they?)
Laura eventually decides to bring Joanna and Joy back into the boardroom with her, and Sir Sugar (no, wait, that’s still not right, is it?) finally fires Joy for not doing anything, but not before reminding Laura yet again that she is the WORST EVER at this task and telling Joanna she had better watch herself, missy. (He doesn’t actually call her ‘missy’.)
So what have we learned from this week's episode? People don't mind if they get sand in their book when they read at the beach. Don't mess with Boots. And girls shouldn't argue, but they are good at sorting out squabbling boys.
Anyway, on to this week. It starts with the early morning phone call - an Apprentice classic -summoning them to Heathrow Terminal 5. On the way the boys conjecture about where they might be going. The Bahamas, suggests someone. Seriously – have they not SEEN this program before? Everyone knows they don’t get to go anywhere exotic until near the very end. Between making redundant travel plans, the boys talk about how they’re definitely not going to let the girlies (their word, not mine) win this time.
Nick and Karrrrrrrrrren are waiting at the airport, but where is SirAlun? I mean, Lord Sugar? ( Is it just me, or does that name still not sound right?) Oh, there he is on the telly. Not our telly, the Terminal 5 telly. Which we can see on our telly. He’s coming to them via video link because he’s far too busy doing business to drop in to Terminal 5. Besides, he probably doesn’t know where it is, given that he has a private jet (I think.) He explains the task - creating a new beach accessory – and tells them Raleigh has gone home because of a family emergency . Then he shifts Sensible Stella over to the boys’ team to even up the numbers.
She is quite excited about the prospect – she’s worked with proper men for years, she says, and this lot are just babies. She’ll soon whip them into shape. So Stella is project manager for the boys, while Laura, who is only 22, volunteers to lead the girls. She says she’ll only do it if they all tell her that they think she is marvellous and the best person for the job. They don’t. Nick pulls a face, the girls begin to squabble. This is not the last time during the episode we will see either of these things happen.
Meanwhile, over on the boys’ team they’ve decided on their product; a towel which rolls up (innovative, no?) and can be used to store drinks and things. Alex, who you may remember as the mastermind behind “Boozy Bangers” last week, is coming up with names again. I’m starting to think Alex is a one-trick pony. His suggestion is Küüli. Note the umlauts, which is what you or I might call the things Alex prefers to think of as little smiley faces.
Next it’s time for some market research on a real actual beach. They boys are off to Bognor Regis, and the girls get to go to Brighton. No one gets to go to the Bahamas. Everyone in Bognor Regis hates the name Küüli, and even the smiley faces do very little to sway them. It also becomes clear that the boys haven’t really thought their product through. What happens when you try and use it as a towel, flinging your drinks everywhere, asks one punter. You could cut the silence with a sea urchin.
In Brighton, where the girls are still trying to choose a product, Joanna is banging on (and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on) about not being able to read books properly on the beach and how it would be wonderful to have a little stand to rest them on. No one agrees. But then, no one suggests an alternative, either.
Some of the girls hit the beach to pitch various concepts to members of the public, including “foot gloves” to stop your feet burning when you walk on the sand. One bloke points out that they might find themselves in competition with lots of other similar products. Well, quite. Shoes, for instance. Eventually Laura, with minutes to spare, decides to go with Joanna’s book stand idea after all. Joanna is very pleased; the other girls not so much.
Meanwhile the boys conspire to put Stella in a bikini for their ad campaign. She isn’t happy with the idea; she doesn’t have time to be a model AND a business woman, she says. Stuart Baggs the Brand thinks the real reason she doesn’t want to “take one for the team” is that she is worried about not looking good in the outfit. Yes, Stuart, that must be the reason. Welcome to 1920. The boys choose an outfit, still convinced Stella will wear it.
Back in London, the prototypes arrive. The Küüli looks great, while the girls have taken delivery of what appears to be a Meccano set. The teams start to practice their sales pitches; Sensible Stella isn’t at all impressed with Chris’s attempts and asks Jamie to have a go instead. Chris is NOT happy. Meanwhile, Melissa is going to be the spokesperson for the girls, and Joanna is not impressed. Cue more arguing, which Laura soon realises she can’t control with her “but I’m the project manager, they are supposed to listen to me” management style. So she walks out of the room. I can't remember if Nick was there, but if he was, he probably pulled a face.
We see a few shots of the photo shoots and oh, look! Stella is modelling after all. At least they didn’t put her in a bikini with tassels. Meanwhile the the girls are busy lugging bags of sand up four flights of stairs to where Paloma is directing the photo shoot, Sandeesh has a gold old bitch about everyone, and they get the fittest girl, whose name I haven’t worked out yet, to be the model.
Oooh! It’s time to pitch!
The boys go to Boots to begin with, facing a very serious looking panel indeed. Chris tells them how stylish and cool the Küüli looks. One of the Boots ladies points out that it looks more like a rolled up towel. I can see her point.
Meanwhile, the girls are at World Duty Free, and one of the panel ask who came up with the idea of the book stand. Joanna claims the credit, and there's another argument because everyone thinks she shouldn't have. Joanna might be a bit of a pain, but seriously – have they all forgotten that NO ONE liked the idea originally? There’s more arguing. Nick pulls some faces.
World Duty free get to meet Stella and the boys next. Things seem to go down well, until they boys try and sell the idea that the Küüli would be an excellent place to store a baby.
The next pitch for the girls is Kit to Fit, and online travel retailer I’ve never heard of. And I travel quite a lot. Just saying. The girls take so long to construct their simple, innovative book stand that Nick almost falls asleep. We don’t see much of this pitch; but the panel seem interested. Maybe they are just being polite.
The girls’ last pitch is to Boots, and Melissa pulls out all the stops, telling the panel all about the book stand’s finest qualities: it’s slick (ooh!) unique (aah!), and bendy (er...what?) In what would be a dramatic twist if it wasn’t for the fact that it happens EVERY SINGLE YEAR in this task, Boots are interested but they want exclusive selling rights. Laura turns them down. Some of the girls think she’s made the wrong decision, and surprise, surprise, everyone argues again. You can probably guess what Nick does.
Now they all have to wait for the boardroom to find out who ordered what. Cue lots of nice shots of London looking pretty. (I think London is very pretty. I love these shots. If I didn’t live in London, though, they would get on my nerves, I think.)
In the boardroom, Lord Sugar tells us all he knows what umlauts are. At least the boys are smart enough not to tell him they were meant to look like smiley faces. The boys all say Stella was a great team leader. The girls aren’t quite as complementary about Laura, or about each other, or about their own product. Nor is Lord Sugar.
The numbers are revealed, and World Duty Free don’t want anything, Kit to Fit order 100 units from the boys and nothing from the girls, and Boots don’t order anything from the boys. Time for some dramatic tension; it looks like the girls might pull this one back after all. After all, Boots seemed to like their product quite a lot. Can they snatch victory from the hands of Stella and the boys?
Of course they can’t, because they TURNED DOWN THE EXCLUSIVITY DEAL, remember? So it’s no sales at all for the girls, which is the worst result ever on this task for anyone ever, we are told. So the boys have won. Their prize is golf lessons and Stella tries to look excited. Maybe they will let her caddy.
Next there’s a quick boardroom wash-up, and Nick points out how well Stella kept the boys in line. Clearly it has nothing to do with her actual management ability; SirAlun (sorry, Lord Sugar) decides it must all be down to her magical and wondrous Woman Power. Karen agrees, and points out that she’s been telling him about magical and wondrous Woman Power for as long as she’s known him. Of course you have, he says! Silly me! They all laugh a lot. The women's movement steps backwards by about 100 years.
We see a few jaunty shots of the boys and Sensible Stella on the golf club, hitting golf balls into the lake, and drinking tea and being slightly patronised but still looking like winners. Then, ooh, look, it's the grotty cafe! Inside, the girls are arguing. Joanna blames Laura for losing the Boots deal, and everyone else joins in. Laura, who from this point onwards permanently looks like she’s about to cry, tells them all they were horrible to manage. Someone blames Joanna for coming up with a rubbish product. There is a lot of shouting.
Back in the boardroom the next day, Joy takes centre stage. I haven’t mentioned Joy yet, because she has done absolutely nothing up until this point. Except apologise a lot. Boardroom Joy is a different kettle of bananas. Their idea was rubbish, she says. They should have spent more time brainstorming ideas, she says. She gets into a huge row with Laura, and then into a huge row with Joanna, and then she whines a bit.
Eventually it’s time for Laura to decide who she’s bringing back to the boardroom, and she chooses Joanna and Sandesh. Both girls say they shouldn’t have been chosen, and Lord Sugar makes the mistake of asking them who should have been brought in instead. Cue more arguing.
Sandesh says she has always given 150%, proving nothing except that she can’t do maths. There’s more arguing. Joanna tries to remind everyone that hers was the only idea on the table. There’s more arguing. Nick slips into a coma. (Not really; but he does look a bit shell-shocked. “I’m numb”, he says.)
Finally Karrrrrrrrren has had enough, and steps in. Stop screaming like a bunch of girls, she tells them. You are BUSINESSWOMEN. You are representing ALL WOMEN ON THE PLANET. You have a RESPONSIBILITY. (I disagree with her on this. I’m a woman and I’d rather not be represented by this lot if it’s all the same, thanks very much. But more to the point, the boys were just as ridiculous last week. No one told them off for not being very good at being men, did they?)
Laura eventually decides to bring Joanna and Joy back into the boardroom with her, and Sir Sugar (no, wait, that’s still not right, is it?) finally fires Joy for not doing anything, but not before reminding Laura yet again that she is the WORST EVER at this task and telling Joanna she had better watch herself, missy. (He doesn’t actually call her ‘missy’.)
So what have we learned from this week's episode? People don't mind if they get sand in their book when they read at the beach. Don't mess with Boots. And girls shouldn't argue, but they are good at sorting out squabbling boys.
Friday, 15 October 2010
Boats, Butlers and Old Beans
It's his birthday today, so what better excuse for some Wodehouse?
Most people, when they think of P G Wodhouse (Plum to his friends) immediately conjure up an image of Jeeves and Wooster, or perhaps the Beans and Eggs of the Drones Club. But there is so much more to him than that:
The above all comes from The Girl on the Boat (or Three Men and a Maid, if you're an American) which was my first, and still is my favourite, Wodehouse novel. It's utterly glorious - silly, convoluted, and a huge amount of fun. And not a butler, or an egg, in sight.
Most people, when they think of P G Wodhouse (Plum to his friends) immediately conjure up an image of Jeeves and Wooster, or perhaps the Beans and Eggs of the Drones Club. But there is so much more to him than that:
Bream Mortimer was tall and thin. He had small, bright eyes and a sharply curving nose. He looked much more like a parrot than most parrots do. It gave strangers a momentary shock of surprise when they saw Bream Mortimer in restaurants eating roast beef. They had the feeling that he would have preferred sun-flower seeds.
Staterooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on the chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing rings round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over to do a bit of entertaining—possibly an informal dance or something. When you go on board you find that the place has shrunk to the dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands again. For one reason or another the necessity for swinging cats does not arise and you find yourself quite comfortable.
Of all the leisured pursuits, there are few less attractive to the thinking man than sitting in a dark cupboard waiting for a house-party to go to bed: and Sam, who had established himself in the one behind the piano at a quarter to eight, soon began to feel as if he had been there for an eternity. He could dimly remember a previous existence in which he had not been sitting in his present position, but it seemed so long ago that it was shadowy and unreal to him. The ordeal of spending the evening in this retreat had not appeared formidable when he had contemplated it that afternoon in the lane: but, now that he was actually undergoing it, it was extraordinary how many disadvantages it had. Cupboards, as a class, are badly ventilated, and this one seemed to contain no air at all: and the warmth of the night, combined with the cupboard's natural stuffiness, had soon begun to reduce Sam to a condition of pulp. He seemed to himself to be sagging like an ice-cream in front of a fire. The darkness, too, weighed upon him. He was abominably thirsty. Also he wanted to smoke. In addition to this, the small of his back tickled, and he more than suspected the cupboard of harboring mice. Not once nor twice but many hundred times he wished that the ingenious Webster had thought of something simpler.
The offices of the old-established firm of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow and Appleby are in Ridgeway's Inn, not far from Fleet Street. If you are a millionaire beset by blackmailers or anyone else to whose comfort the best legal advice is essential, and have decided to put your affairs in the hands of the ablest and discreetest firm in London, you proceed through a dark and grimy entry and up a dark and grimy flight of stairs; and, having felt your way along a dark and grimy passage, you come at length to a dark and grimy door. There is plenty of dirt in other parts of Ridgeway's Inn, but nowhere is it so plentiful, so rich in alluvial deposits, as on the exterior of the offices of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow and Appleby. As you tap on the topmost of the geological strata concealing the ground-glass of the door, a sense of relief and security floods your being. For in London grubbiness is the gauge of a lawyer's respectability.
The brass plate, let into the woodwork of this door, is misleading. Reading it, you get the impression that on the other side quite a covey of lawyers await your arrival. The name of the firm leads you to suppose that there will be barely standing-room in the office. You picture Thorpe jostling you aside as he makes for Prescott to discuss with him the latest case of demurrer, and Winslow and Appleby treading on your toes, deep in conversation on replevin. But these legal firms dwindle. The years go by and take their toll, snatching away here a Prescott, there an Appleby, till before you know where you are, you are down to your last lawyer. The only surviving member of the firm of Marlowe, Thorpe—what I said before—was, at the time with which this story deals, Sir Mallaby Marlowe, son of the original founder of the firm and father of the celebrated black-faced comedian, Samuel of that ilk; and the outer office, where callers were received and parked till Sir Mallaby could find time for them, was occupied by a single clerk.
The above all comes from The Girl on the Boat (or Three Men and a Maid, if you're an American) which was my first, and still is my favourite, Wodehouse novel. It's utterly glorious - silly, convoluted, and a huge amount of fun. And not a butler, or an egg, in sight.
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
It's the quiet ones you have to watch
I was at my writing class last night. I don't think I've mentioned that I've started a new creative writing course; it's the same introductory-level course I did last time except it's being run by a different person. Because the course brief is a fairly general one (is there any phrase more open to interpretation than the phrase "ways into creative writing"?), and everyone approaches writing differently, it seemed to make sense to do it again with a different teacher. At least, that's what my last teacher told me when I asked her about follow-up courses.
She's right; it's been a completely different experience, and I haven't been enjoying it nearly as much this time around. There's a few reasons for that. For a start, things seem a bit more serious this time; the content has been more academic and the discussions we have as a group are a lot more literary and high brow. Which is nice, and is perfectly fine; it's just..... different.
There are other things, too. The environment feels slightly less supportive than in my previous class. Not hostile, or even *un*-supportive; just lacking the same sense of all-in-this-togetherness. It is getting better, marginally, week by week, and it might just be that it's still early days. But it also has something to do with this particular teacher. She still scares me a bit, if I'm honest.
The thing I took away in bucket loads the first time around, was confidence. I learnt some good writing tips and techniques as well, but those are things you can read in books or on the internet. The belief that there might be something vaguely worthwhile in what you've put on the page, or even the stuff which is still in your head and you're struggling to get down on the page, is a lot harder to develop, and our first teacher's softly softly approach really helped with this. Sharing work is a big hurdle and last time we built up to it slowly, swapping stories first in pairs and then in small groups, before having the option to read to the whole group.
There was none of that pussy-footing around this time; in our first lesson, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US was expected to read to the whole class, and it was a paragraph we'd been given less than five minutes to write. Scary stuff. It was fine, of course; none of us died, or caught on fire or suffered any other great tragedy but I'm very glad that this wasn't the first course I took. I think I might have been put off.
A lot of people on the course are really quite good at this writing business, which makes the sharing work thing even more nerve-wracking. Last night, for instance, I was in hysterics over one classmate's brilliantly comic description of a cocaine-fuelled yoga instructor packing for a holiday the morning after a party. At one point this guy was flinging silk boxer shorts across the room and into his suitcase, while stepping over the comatose body of a supermodel who was still passed out on his bedroom floor. The classmate in question is the most innocent and serious looking of anyone in the class, and writes government legislation for a living. And people say civil servants lack imagination......
The other big difference, I think, is simply that the novely value has worn off. Last time around, I came out of every lesson buzzing with excitement. This time, it's been interesting, and challenging, but has been lacking that same sense of fun and wonder. Still, things are going to get better, I think. I hope. Last night was actually quite fun. I'm vaguely happy with the work I produced, and got some nice feedback from people, and know what I want to work on next. All good. Good good good.
Something else which is good: I'll be catching up with some of my old classmates this week for our monthly Friday Night Writers' Club. As usual my story (a modern Cinderella tale with a twist) isn't quite finished, and certainly won't be as polished as I'd like it to be before showing it to people, but they won't mind that. And the nicest part is, I know I won't mind either.
She's right; it's been a completely different experience, and I haven't been enjoying it nearly as much this time around. There's a few reasons for that. For a start, things seem a bit more serious this time; the content has been more academic and the discussions we have as a group are a lot more literary and high brow. Which is nice, and is perfectly fine; it's just..... different.
There are other things, too. The environment feels slightly less supportive than in my previous class. Not hostile, or even *un*-supportive; just lacking the same sense of all-in-this-togetherness. It is getting better, marginally, week by week, and it might just be that it's still early days. But it also has something to do with this particular teacher. She still scares me a bit, if I'm honest.
The thing I took away in bucket loads the first time around, was confidence. I learnt some good writing tips and techniques as well, but those are things you can read in books or on the internet. The belief that there might be something vaguely worthwhile in what you've put on the page, or even the stuff which is still in your head and you're struggling to get down on the page, is a lot harder to develop, and our first teacher's softly softly approach really helped with this. Sharing work is a big hurdle and last time we built up to it slowly, swapping stories first in pairs and then in small groups, before having the option to read to the whole group.
There was none of that pussy-footing around this time; in our first lesson, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US was expected to read to the whole class, and it was a paragraph we'd been given less than five minutes to write. Scary stuff. It was fine, of course; none of us died, or caught on fire or suffered any other great tragedy but I'm very glad that this wasn't the first course I took. I think I might have been put off.
A lot of people on the course are really quite good at this writing business, which makes the sharing work thing even more nerve-wracking. Last night, for instance, I was in hysterics over one classmate's brilliantly comic description of a cocaine-fuelled yoga instructor packing for a holiday the morning after a party. At one point this guy was flinging silk boxer shorts across the room and into his suitcase, while stepping over the comatose body of a supermodel who was still passed out on his bedroom floor. The classmate in question is the most innocent and serious looking of anyone in the class, and writes government legislation for a living. And people say civil servants lack imagination......
The other big difference, I think, is simply that the novely value has worn off. Last time around, I came out of every lesson buzzing with excitement. This time, it's been interesting, and challenging, but has been lacking that same sense of fun and wonder. Still, things are going to get better, I think. I hope. Last night was actually quite fun. I'm vaguely happy with the work I produced, and got some nice feedback from people, and know what I want to work on next. All good. Good good good.
Something else which is good: I'll be catching up with some of my old classmates this week for our monthly Friday Night Writers' Club. As usual my story (a modern Cinderella tale with a twist) isn't quite finished, and certainly won't be as polished as I'd like it to be before showing it to people, but they won't mind that. And the nicest part is, I know I won't mind either.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
The Apprentice Week 1: Starting with a Bang
There are a lot of things I miss about my old office. If I was going to write a list (and don't panic, I'm not) somewhere near the top of that list would be our post-match analysis after each episode of The Apprentice.
The delusional candidates, disastrous business decisions and those golden moments of general incompetence - the great koscher chicken debacle, selling cheese to the French, assembling a mini-tramp on live television - provided endless fodder for conversation, speculation and debate. We had an office sweepstake running and everything.**
And now, here it is, back on telly again, but this time around I have NO ONE to discuss it with. Except...... wait, hang on.......of course I do! (I think you can see what's coming, can't you?)
You lucky people.
There's not actually that much to say about the first episode of the new series of the Apprentice. There never is. The task is usually a fairly straightforward sales job, and is secondary to the main event of getting to know the contestants and trying to work out which ones are going to be the real nutters (Melissa-with-the-blonde-hair-and-glasses is too obvious a choice this year, surely?).
Cue the horrifying sound-bites; cringeworthy quotes from candidates which will come back to haunt them time and time again, or at least until they something even worse. Frontrunners this year include ex-surgeon Shibbi, with "my first word wasn't 'Mummy', it was 'money'" (of course it wasn't, you muppet)and Stuart Baggs (The Brand) claiming everything he touches to gold, although I suspect the thing we actually all end up remembering him for is the invisible calculator he brought into the boardroom. That, or him describing himself as Stuart Baggs (The Brand).
But I'm getting ahead of myself; in the boardroom already, before they've even started the task. As is usual at this stage in the competition it was boys against girls, and they had to make and sell sausages. At midnight, just to make it more dramatic. (And also because that's when suasages are made, probably. I don't know all that much about the sausage manufacturing process.)
But as the night rolled on into dawn, this turned from a simple business task into a text-book introduction to gender stereotypes.
Over in girl-world, Crazy Melissa began by telling everyone how she was perfectly suited to project manage the task, seeing as she works in the food industry and all. Then, after convincing them all how AMAZING she would be, she refused to project manage the task. Joanna stepped in, and Melissa proceeded to argue with every decision she made.
Apart from Melissa, the girls all played nicely (just like girls are supposed to), sold lots of gourmet sausages, and won the task.
Meanwhile the loser boys are being project managed by Dan who, if my hearing serves me well, refers to himself as 'Dan the Man' on at least one occasion. Dan has adopted a somewhat aggressive management style, in the same way that Hitler adopted a somewhat aggressive approach to world domination. No one likes him much, not even posh Raleigh who looks like a harmless sheep and clearly has never had a bad word to say about anyone. Except, as it turns out, Dan.
In between everyone shouting and swearing and throwing testosterone at each other, because that's what boys do, they make not-so-gourmet sausages and Stuart Baggs The Brand tries very hard to sell them. He does this without much success (except in his own head) and they lose the task.
The girls win their prize, which is the same prize they always win in the first week, namely the first chance to see the swanky pad they'll be staying in for the duration, and
Dan takes Stuart Baggs The Brand and Alex into the boardroom with him.
Stuart Baggs The Brand was an obvious choice, but I'm not sure what Alex was doing back there; his only crime against meat during the entire episode was to come up with some quite catchy names for sausages which no one else liked because they hadn't thought of them first. Personally, I'd be first in line to buy a boozy banger; I'm keeping a close eye on Alex.
Sir Alan shouts at the boys for, er, shouting at each other, and fires Dan, but only after telling him off for not sitting up straight. It's that kind of valuable business advice which is the bedrock of this show.
There are some other candidates I haven't mentioned, obviously, but they've not really done anything of note yet. So let me finish by telling you about the board, as if you needed reminding:
YesSirAlunNoSirAlunThreeBagsFullSirAlun Lord Sir Alan Sugar (to give him his full title):
Head honcho, big boss man, all round irritable grump. Of course I'd be much too scared to say that to him in person; and I don't even want a job with him.
Nick Hewer:
The one who isn't Margaret. Worth keeping an eye on if only for the incredible range of facial expressions he employs whenever one of the candidates does something particularly stupid, most of which make him look like a constipated goat.
Karren Brady:
The other one who isn't Margaret. Manages football clubs and is the new kid on the block. The jury is still out, but I think she might be OK, even though she spells her name wrong.
* (As an aside, I was enormously touched earlier this year to hear there were plans to name this year's sweepstake prize the C.H.A.T., in my honour. A little less touched when the same ex-colleague told me a month or so later that he couldn't remember what the initials C.H.A.T. were supposed to stand for. Given it was an A.pprentice T.rophy, and the initials of my name are C.H. it's not that hard to do the maths, or the spelling for that matter. But no mind.)
The delusional candidates, disastrous business decisions and those golden moments of general incompetence - the great koscher chicken debacle, selling cheese to the French, assembling a mini-tramp on live television - provided endless fodder for conversation, speculation and debate. We had an office sweepstake running and everything.**
And now, here it is, back on telly again, but this time around I have NO ONE to discuss it with. Except...... wait, hang on.......of course I do! (I think you can see what's coming, can't you?)
You lucky people.
There's not actually that much to say about the first episode of the new series of the Apprentice. There never is. The task is usually a fairly straightforward sales job, and is secondary to the main event of getting to know the contestants and trying to work out which ones are going to be the real nutters (Melissa-with-the-blonde-hair-and-glasses is too obvious a choice this year, surely?).
Cue the horrifying sound-bites; cringeworthy quotes from candidates which will come back to haunt them time and time again, or at least until they something even worse. Frontrunners this year include ex-surgeon Shibbi, with "my first word wasn't 'Mummy', it was 'money'" (of course it wasn't, you muppet)and Stuart Baggs (The Brand) claiming everything he touches to gold, although I suspect the thing we actually all end up remembering him for is the invisible calculator he brought into the boardroom. That, or him describing himself as Stuart Baggs (The Brand).
But I'm getting ahead of myself; in the boardroom already, before they've even started the task. As is usual at this stage in the competition it was boys against girls, and they had to make and sell sausages. At midnight, just to make it more dramatic. (And also because that's when suasages are made, probably. I don't know all that much about the sausage manufacturing process.)
But as the night rolled on into dawn, this turned from a simple business task into a text-book introduction to gender stereotypes.
Over in girl-world, Crazy Melissa began by telling everyone how she was perfectly suited to project manage the task, seeing as she works in the food industry and all. Then, after convincing them all how AMAZING she would be, she refused to project manage the task. Joanna stepped in, and Melissa proceeded to argue with every decision she made.
Apart from Melissa, the girls all played nicely (just like girls are supposed to), sold lots of gourmet sausages, and won the task.
Meanwhile the loser boys are being project managed by Dan who, if my hearing serves me well, refers to himself as 'Dan the Man' on at least one occasion. Dan has adopted a somewhat aggressive management style, in the same way that Hitler adopted a somewhat aggressive approach to world domination. No one likes him much, not even posh Raleigh who looks like a harmless sheep and clearly has never had a bad word to say about anyone. Except, as it turns out, Dan.
In between everyone shouting and swearing and throwing testosterone at each other, because that's what boys do, they make not-so-gourmet sausages and Stuart Baggs The Brand tries very hard to sell them. He does this without much success (except in his own head) and they lose the task.
The girls win their prize, which is the same prize they always win in the first week, namely the first chance to see the swanky pad they'll be staying in for the duration, and
Dan takes Stuart Baggs The Brand and Alex into the boardroom with him.
Stuart Baggs The Brand was an obvious choice, but I'm not sure what Alex was doing back there; his only crime against meat during the entire episode was to come up with some quite catchy names for sausages which no one else liked because they hadn't thought of them first. Personally, I'd be first in line to buy a boozy banger; I'm keeping a close eye on Alex.
Sir Alan shouts at the boys for, er, shouting at each other, and fires Dan, but only after telling him off for not sitting up straight. It's that kind of valuable business advice which is the bedrock of this show.
There are some other candidates I haven't mentioned, obviously, but they've not really done anything of note yet. So let me finish by telling you about the board, as if you needed reminding:
YesSirAlunNoSirAlunThreeBagsFullSirAlun Lord Sir Alan Sugar (to give him his full title):
Head honcho, big boss man, all round irritable grump. Of course I'd be much too scared to say that to him in person; and I don't even want a job with him.
Nick Hewer:
The one who isn't Margaret. Worth keeping an eye on if only for the incredible range of facial expressions he employs whenever one of the candidates does something particularly stupid, most of which make him look like a constipated goat.
Karren Brady:
The other one who isn't Margaret. Manages football clubs and is the new kid on the block. The jury is still out, but I think she might be OK, even though she spells her name wrong.
* (As an aside, I was enormously touched earlier this year to hear there were plans to name this year's sweepstake prize the C.H.A.T., in my honour. A little less touched when the same ex-colleague told me a month or so later that he couldn't remember what the initials C.H.A.T. were supposed to stand for. Given it was an A.pprentice T.rophy, and the initials of my name are C.H. it's not that hard to do the maths, or the spelling for that matter. But no mind.)
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Checking in
I'm not being very good at regular blogging this month. Or last month. Or the one before, or..... well, you get the point. June was quite good, though, wasn't it?
Today I have mainly been tasting wine. And then I bought some of the wine I tasted. When I say "some" , I mean "quite a lot". Then I lost my tasting notes, which means I have NO IDEA which wine I bought, or why I bought it.
I got a free bottle of prosecco for placing an order, and also a discount, which basically paid for my entry ticket to the tasting, but even taking that into consideration: I have had more successful days than this one. It was good fun, though.
Today I have mainly been tasting wine. And then I bought some of the wine I tasted. When I say "some" , I mean "quite a lot". Then I lost my tasting notes, which means I have NO IDEA which wine I bought, or why I bought it.
I got a free bottle of prosecco for placing an order, and also a discount, which basically paid for my entry ticket to the tasting, but even taking that into consideration: I have had more successful days than this one. It was good fun, though.
Friday, 8 October 2010
Birthdays
Today's birthdays: Sigourney Weaver (real name Susan; she pinched the name Sigourney from a list of dinner guests in The Great Gatsby), Matt Damon, Kool from Kool and the Gang, one of the Ramones, Chevy Chase, R.L. Stine who wrote the Goosebumps books (go and ask a ten year old), Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan, Dr Christian Barnard, World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, and Steve Perry of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies.
Also one of my oldest friends on the planet, who is none of the above.
"The Cherry Poppin' who now?" I expect you are asking. The Cherry Poppin' Daddies. They are ace.
See?
Also one of my oldest friends on the planet, who is none of the above.
"The Cherry Poppin' who now?" I expect you are asking. The Cherry Poppin' Daddies. They are ace.
See?
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Gauguin*, king of the one night stand
I am in one of the reading rooms of the British Library at the moment. I've hung out in the BL before, but never used the actual library part, so this afternoon has been quite exciting in a geeky kind of way. I went and registered for a library card, requested some books, put my worldly belongings (except pens, which aren't allowed) into a library-issued plastic bag and now here I am, at desk 2071, engrosssed (sort of) in the history of primary schools in in Britain since 1944. I feel all proper.
Or at least I was until about twenty minutes ago; now I am trying very hard to look all clever and serious, when in fact I am having silent hysterics and trying desperately not to collapse in a fit of giggles.
If you are just in the market for an alpaca, or just want to read some quite brilliant advertising copy, may I suggest a quick visit to http://www.alpacastation.com/. Since the main buyers of alpacas are people who want to breed them with other alpacas (I am guessing) the advertisments read a bit like dodgy personal adverts.
For instance, meet Ivano.
He is a "pillar in the Canadian alpaca industry", having been handpicked by renowned alpaca screener Cameron Holt, from literally hundreds of alpacas taking part in the last Peruvian importation. (Those Canada-Peru alpaca trade ties weren't on my international economics radar before now. I will be keeping a close eye.)
In case you can't tell from the photo, he has " a perfect conformation, head, ultra dense and fine fiber with large testicles." You probably spotted the head. May have missed the enormous testicles.
Also, and you definitely can't tell this from the photo, "at 12 he still breeds like a true macho, breeding multiple females in a day. We have recorded multiple conceptions in a day as well."
What sorts of alpacas might these multiple conceptions produce, you are probably wondering? Well, numerous show winners, ranging in colour from black to white (read: mostly grey.) Ivano's kids are also being pimped out on the website:
Then there's Gauguin who is, as canny readers may already have realised, the reason I stumbled across the website in the first place, and is far too clever for his own good:
I know it is ridiculously childish to find all this so funny, but I do; and I haven't even mentioned studs (*snort*) or the fact that William Wallace will be a corner stone in their breeding program next year.
*not the artist
Or at least I was until about twenty minutes ago; now I am trying very hard to look all clever and serious, when in fact I am having silent hysterics and trying desperately not to collapse in a fit of giggles.
If you are just in the market for an alpaca, or just want to read some quite brilliant advertising copy, may I suggest a quick visit to http://www.alpacastation.com/. Since the main buyers of alpacas are people who want to breed them with other alpacas (I am guessing) the advertisments read a bit like dodgy personal adverts.
For instance, meet Ivano.
In case you can't tell from the photo, he has " a perfect conformation, head, ultra dense and fine fiber with large testicles." You probably spotted the head. May have missed the enormous testicles.
Also, and you definitely can't tell this from the photo, "at 12 he still breeds like a true macho, breeding multiple females in a day. We have recorded multiple conceptions in a day as well."
What sorts of alpacas might these multiple conceptions produce, you are probably wondering? Well, numerous show winners, ranging in colour from black to white (read: mostly grey.) Ivano's kids are also being pimped out on the website:
Pepano has a merino-type fleece, which is "one of those fleeces that just becomes enormous when you get it off the alpaca - it hardly fits into any size bag!Oh, one of THOSE fleeces......
I bet you're thinking what I'm thinking. Especially if you are thinking "alapcas have handles??". Also, there is nothing worse than mudullated fleece.
Turk is a dark chocolate brown with perfect confirmation and a proud stature. His fleece displays great lustre with crimp and character from skin to tip and consistency from his front shoulder to rear hip. As well, he does not display any medullated fleece even on his chest area and has a very soft handle.
Then there's Gauguin who is, as canny readers may already have realised, the reason I stumbled across the website in the first place, and is far too clever for his own good:
Gauguin was kept busy during the 2003 breeding season with his first progeny now due during the summer of 2004. He has proven himself to be an excellent breeder with no repeat services required on our females throughout the seasonMy guess is Gauguin wishes sometmes he wasn't quite so excellent, especially when the female in question was quite pretty.
I know it is ridiculously childish to find all this so funny, but I do; and I haven't even mentioned studs (*snort*) or the fact that William Wallace will be a corner stone in their breeding program next year.
*not the artist
Uncultured, or just fussy?
There is a new Gauguin exhibition at the Tate Modern. The people at Tate Modern are pretty excited about it, if their website is anything to go by. So, it would seem are lots of other arty and important people, some of whom have described the exhibition as 'brilliant' (in the Guardian); ‘the show of the season – in fact of the whole year’ (in the Times) and '* * * * *' . That last one was in the Telegraph, and because it's the Telegraph, but also because I can't think of any 5-letter swear words, I'm pretty sure they mean they are giving it a five star review and not being all rude and sweary.
Something I foud out today : I am not a Gauguin fan. It took me about 20 minutes to get around the entire exhibition, and for at least 18 of those minutes, the main thought in my head was "meh." Call me uncultured, and please note that I'm not saying for a blind minute I could do any better, and to be fair there *was* a still-life in one room which made my heart skip a beat (which is where the other two minutes went), but mainly: I don't quite get what the fuss is all about. Is it just me?
Something I foud out today : I am not a Gauguin fan. It took me about 20 minutes to get around the entire exhibition, and for at least 18 of those minutes, the main thought in my head was "meh." Call me uncultured, and please note that I'm not saying for a blind minute I could do any better, and to be fair there *was* a still-life in one room which made my heart skip a beat (which is where the other two minutes went), but mainly: I don't quite get what the fuss is all about. Is it just me?
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
A Snail is Vanquished
Stand down, Team Barnacle. Your work here is done. Meet Australia's Top New Species*:
You will have noticed, it's not my Mum's barnacle. It is a fish with hands, and fair play to it. After all, I expect it gets quite a hard time from the other fish in the playground for being a bit different. And just imagine what it must be like to be a boy handfish; as if coping with those weird hand-like fins wasn't bad enough, there's also the small matter of being bright pink to deal with.
But what of the epic battle between my Mum's barnacle and that ridiculous tree-dwelling snail named after Steve Irwin? Well, on that front I have good news. The Opera House barnacle, discovered by my Mum, came third with 14% of the vote. Crikey steveirwini, meanwhile, came in fourth, with only 13.5%. Full results, if you are interested, can be found here.
So it's official: My Mum is better than Steve Irwin. And, let's face it, that's the contest which really mattered. The result couldn't have been closer, which means every single voted counted. If yours was one of them, thank you from the very bottom of my heart. My mum says thanks too.
*Some context for newer readers: my Mum discovered a barnacle a while ago which was nominated for this title. Other contenders included a tree-dwelling snail named after Steve Irwin.
You will have noticed, it's not my Mum's barnacle. It is a fish with hands, and fair play to it. After all, I expect it gets quite a hard time from the other fish in the playground for being a bit different. And just imagine what it must be like to be a boy handfish; as if coping with those weird hand-like fins wasn't bad enough, there's also the small matter of being bright pink to deal with.
But what of the epic battle between my Mum's barnacle and that ridiculous tree-dwelling snail named after Steve Irwin? Well, on that front I have good news. The Opera House barnacle, discovered by my Mum, came third with 14% of the vote. Crikey steveirwini, meanwhile, came in fourth, with only 13.5%. Full results, if you are interested, can be found here.
So it's official: My Mum is better than Steve Irwin. And, let's face it, that's the contest which really mattered. The result couldn't have been closer, which means every single voted counted. If yours was one of them, thank you from the very bottom of my heart. My mum says thanks too.
*Some context for newer readers: my Mum discovered a barnacle a while ago which was nominated for this title. Other contenders included a tree-dwelling snail named after Steve Irwin.
Monday, 4 October 2010
Those Crazy Russians
Sputnik I launched today. I mean today in 1957, obviously. I just thought I'd mention it, because no one else seems to have, and that surprises me a bit. After all, it was a pretty big deal; first man-made object in space, start of the space race, contribution to rising cold-war tensions and all that. Given that today has been a pretty slow news day* I thought someone might have picked up on it.
That's a picture. It's a lot smaller (the size of a beach-ball, not counting those pointy bits) and faster than I realised; it took about an hour and a half to orbit the earth which, when you think about the maths, is crazy fast.
*So far. If something really really important** turns out to have happened today, and you are reading this post with that knowledge, please assume it hasn't happened yet.
** Really important (in this context) = more important than public outrage over choice of X-factor finalists, nasty tube-strike, and child-benefit cuts. Just to set some parameters.
That's a picture. It's a lot smaller (the size of a beach-ball, not counting those pointy bits) and faster than I realised; it took about an hour and a half to orbit the earth which, when you think about the maths, is crazy fast.
*So far. If something really really important** turns out to have happened today, and you are reading this post with that knowledge, please assume it hasn't happened yet.
** Really important (in this context) = more important than public outrage over choice of X-factor finalists, nasty tube-strike, and child-benefit cuts. Just to set some parameters.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Sunday Night Music Club
Been a bit quiet round here lately, I know. Sorry and etcetera. I haven't had a great week, but am just about done with wallowing in a pit of gloom, I think, which is what I've mainly been doing instead of blogging, so normal service should resume tomorrow or thereabouts.
In the meantime, I've had this in mind for SNMC for a while, and tonight seems as good a Sunday as any to get around to it.
In the meantime, I've had this in mind for SNMC for a while, and tonight seems as good a Sunday as any to get around to it.
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