Monday 17 November 2008

Friday night

It was the end of a tough week and Friday night was a home alone affair.

A certain amount of channel surfing took place prior to chancing upon pro-celebrity darts and my word what an absolutely fine choice it transpired to be.

A smattering of individuals who make a living out of the arrows were joined with 'celebrities' that included Razor Ruddock, a flat nosed rugby international, Tuffers, some weird looking bloke who was a top notch poker player, and get this, the brilliantly thought through, Olympic javelin chucker and eventual winner, whose name temporarily escapes me.

Naturally Stoke-on Trent's very own Phil Taylor was present

Darts has got to be the last bastion of a truly working class 'sport'. The audience was a heady mixture of larger consuming, peroxide supporting, tattoo displaying, chubsters. Not of course that the aforementioned list is exclusive to the dirty hand brigade, just that they are more likely to possess a full-house. Without doubt the greatest disappointment surrounded the absence of Zara Philips, fiancee of aforementioned rugger bugger, apparently she had a previous engagement.

Tuffers entrance was most impressive and only surpassed by being introduced as winner of 'I'm a celebrity....' with some latter acknowledgement that he used to represent his country at some sport or other. These announcers know their audience.

There followed some wonderfully inept dart throwing from the celebs, the ocassional fluke, (Razor hit double-top to close the first game and fell to pieces thereafter) fantastically patrionising comments aimed at the sole lady pro, and much frivolity amongst the
lager swilling classes.

You read it here first, darts, it's the future, book your corporate box for next year, now.

Friday 14 November 2008

Stoke City Nil

Well you only to have a peek at the http://whydelilah.co.uk website to see it's all gone quiet over there. Supposed destination website for any self-respecting Potter, it is baffling to see the lack of activity, bearing in mind this week-end sees their biggest footballing contest of the campaign to date.

I've had a natter with a couple of Stoke City supporters and the reason appears to be two-fold;

i) Tickets to the game are an astounding £50, that is more than the average monthly mortgage payment for Mr Stokie. (Source: http://rightmove.co.uk)

ii) They firmly believe that the early season bubble will well any truly burst against Man U for two reasons. Firstly Man U are on the back of a spanking from their title rivals and secondly all of this seasons luck was spent during a crazy 90 minutes at Anfield.

Score prediction is a 6 - zip trouncing, (hat-trick to the baldy fat-boy playing up-front) stay at home Potters and follow the progress on http://thisisstaffordshire.co.uk

JCB

Just been looking at http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/ and somewhat bemused by the vitriol expended by a host of JCB workers facing redundancy, toward Bamford et al.
Now don't get me wrong, I've a great deal of empathy for these individuals, who face an uncertain future in the run up to the festive season, however what is with this blame game?
Here's the facts;
i) Bamford and his band of merry man have overseen a huge expansion in the JCB workforce in recent years.
ii) The management team are a significant employer in the region, as a direct consequence of their strategy and investment then lots of individuals have benefited by way of a monthly pay-packet. In their capacity as executives they are a rare commodity.
iii) The 'workforce' is far from unique.

Along comes the 'credit crunch', demand contracts, and the management need to make tough decisions to safeguard the future of the business, i.e. lay people off.

And the workforce reaction is predictably moan and blame.

Here's the thing, JCB are not responsible nor can control the global economy, so just be grateful for the fact that Bamford has subsidised your cost of living for so long.

Oh and another thing, if you think that it is so easy to create a global conglomerate, ever thought about creating one yourself and employing all your mates?