The day before tomorrow

Snow in November. In this part of the world we rarely get snow even in January and February, so the scenes we have been looking at lately are a bit of a novelty. The strangest thing, though, is autumn leaves scattered on fresh snow. Never seen that before.

A world of their own

Not knowing much about business, one had always assumed that a large part of commercial success derived from looking at what went on in the world and adapting the principles to your advantage.

The ‘business’ people on The Apprentice, though, seem to steer well clear of this sort of approach.

In last night’s show their assignment was to package and promote a cleaning product.

When it comes to packaging and marketing, a few minutes’ observation in a store will confirm that the right psychology for presenting cleaning products involves a large amount of white with some bright blue and green thrown in. A black package with a red label, on the other hand, conveys to the average human being that the contents are likely to be rat poison or cheap motor oil.

It seems safe to assume that the sort of people selected as candidates for The Apprentice will have been avid watchers of it in the past, so it was surprising that none of those involved this time seemed to have learned anything from the previous series in which a bunch of goons packaged a breakfast cereal in a green box apparently designed to make it look like weedkiller.

The show seems to be peopled by characters who are so convinced that the right answer will always come straight off the top of their head that they don’t see any need to observe what happens in the real world. This leads them into one folly after another, until they get their come-uppance.

Pure panto, in other words. It ought to be on just after Christmas.

Gasping

Who would have thought, before the indoor smoking ban, that smokers were potentially such fresh air enthusiasts, ready to get outdoors at every opportunity, whatever the weather?

It occurs to one with regularity these days that smokers now get much more fresh air during the average working day than the rest of us.

I now realise that smoking has inflicted a double blow to my human rights. I have spent most of my working life in environments where it was difficult at times to see across the room (in fact I have done so much passive smoking that I can’t believe I’m not dead). And now, because I don’t smoke, I don’t get as much fresh air as those who do.

It's a funny old world. Makes me laugh anyhow.

That's entertainment

An online guide to organising a safe firework display prompted me to dredge, from my childhood memories, the very model of how not to do it safely.

It dates from a time when every kid used to spend six weeks or so before Bonfire Night spending all his/her pocket money (plus whatever cash could be accumulated from penny-for-the-guy activity) on fireworks, amassing them in a big cardboard carton. So it may be difficult to exactly replicate today. But here's how you do it:

1 Arrange Bonfire Night get-together of four or five families in one reasonable- size back garden;

2 Consolidate the various collections of fireworks in cardboard boxes in the garage (don’t worry too much about lids);

3 Light bonfire, while leaving garage door open to provide easy access for any children who might be running around with sparklers;

4 Call fire brigade to admire your colourful in-garage display.

My memory in general is pretty bad, and not many recollections from early childhood seem to have survived. One that has, however, is of the vivid spectacle provided by hundreds of catherine wheels, rockets, roman candles etc going off all at once in one confined space (fortunately one of asbestos construction).

Font's and apos's: who cares anyway?

I wish it didn't irritate me that people use the word font when they mean typeface (for which Microsoft is probably largely to blame). But it's as pointless as getting worked up about apostrophes.

(On a stall in Dorchester yesterday there were some flowers which it appeared had been reserved for Big Lily.)

(A current roadworks sign in Weymouth has LORRYS TURNING. Presume they mean LORRY'S.)

Some people think all the apostrophe stuff represents a recent slide in education. Back in the Sixties, though, I remember admiring the new signs on the premises of C CHAPLIN MOTOR’S in Southend.

C Chaplin Motor… a funny name for someone in the used car trade.

All over before it started

After that England-Montenegro game, there is time now for some sober reflection on the issues, the most pressing of which is:

The national anthems.

Montenegro's... a belter! It sounded like the soundtrack to a Hollywood thriller about espionage. A shame, of course that it couldn't have been played by Hugo Montenegro and his Orchestra. (That reference may not mean much to the younger reader, whoever he or she might be.)

And what did we have?  As usual, the dirge about God saving our gracious queen. What a bunch of crap. No wonder our gallant boys sometimes struggle a bit for inspiration.

Found in translation

I'm sure we all derive some interest from reading the tributes paid to people in the press after they've gone.

They do often need some interpretation. I think I might start compiling a guide to the terms used.

The phrase a free spirit, for instance, usually signals the passing of an individual without any sense of social or personal obligation, on whom no one could ever rely for anything.

Lived life to the full can often usefully be translated as rarely sober.

Thanks to John Medd (below) for identifying that close relation of the free spirit, the maverick. John's definition: someone who didn't give a flying f**k about anything or anybody.

And to Will Birch for he never married - the interpretation of which requires no great imaginative leap on the part of any reader.

Does anyone else have any contributions? It'll take me years to remember them all myself...