The Grumpy Old Blog

I was contacted today by a Talent Acquisition Manager. My initial reaction was "Yippee". Someone has told someone about my prowess behind the otherwise amateur microphone that is community radio broadcasting. My hours spent in my little home office (the smallest bedroom in the house that I have been relegated to) producing the hour-long "Surreal Hour" - my AOR and totally politically incorrect radio programme - was about to pay off, and I was to walk into a £200,000 a year job on late-night BBC Radio 2. But sadly, I was mistaken. The "Talent Acquisition Manager" turned out to be a phishing recruitment consultant who had found my CV online. No national radio for me. Just the perfunctory "what am I doing" and "am I looking for a job as they might have something completely unsuitable in 2016?" scenario. I should have sussed it, as I haven't a speech impediment, I have never been in a "boy band" where an inability to wri...

I have finally worked out why the radical religionists of the world, especially in Arab lands, are so, er, radical, violent and downright murderous. With their quaintly named groups, such as Ali Baba, Ali Bongo, Ali Pally and Hummous, to name but a few, the moment they hear the slightest whisper that is in disagreement with their narrow-minded and often animalistic (sorry zoos everywhere) point of view, out come the guns, knapsack bombs and the book and flag burners. There is a double-fold reason for this. Connected by out-and-out brilliant Kodak-yellow jealousy. Firstly, they have a natural, built-in envy of the west, in particular of the one-time troubles ( Na Trioblóidí in Irish for those studying the language for A-Level) in Northern Ireland, not that they read of it in history books. Their bearded bystanders who get them to do all the dirty work don't allow them to read Western history books, because there  might be a picture of the half-naked infidel, Kate Moss, an adv...

I have great difficulty in getting my head around some of the outpourings on social websites from people towards total strangers. I have noticed a number of posters on Facebook, who have amended their names to include LUFC (Leeds United Football Club), call Chairman Ken Bates all the names under the sun, with several regularly baying "Die Bates die". They don't know the man.  They have more than likely never met him.  And they certainly fail to realise that the unpopular decisions (as far as the football fanatics are concerned) he might make are based purely the commercial ones any person in charge of the potential money machine that football in the UK has become would make. After all, he rightly wants to try a leverage a return on any investment he has made. The hoo-haa on Twitter, when some of the team GB sports people failed to live up to expectations during the Olympics was, frankly, deplorable. There is even less of a chance that those posting had even hea...

I confess to being somewhat amused. Remembering back to my youth, the music of the day, with albums (the vinyl type) toted around school under arms, tended to be by the untidy long-haired, wailing a set of completely nonsensical lyrics loudly into a microphone, with a couple of interruptions by a seemingly endless guitar solo. Names such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Yes, Genesis, Blodwyn Pig, Blind Faith, Cream, Traffic, Spencer Davis with the 4-minute wonders provided by the Rolling Stones and Status Quo. Strangely, these bands or their members are still going strong up to 50 years later! And yes, they mostly wrote all their own material and played their own instruments. And my dad hated most of them, thinking they all sounded the same (although, as a man in his mid 80's before his passing away a couple of years ago, he enjoyed the Electric Light Orchestra, Ian Dury and Queen. And unashamedly, the album of cover songs by Ozzy Osborne). Today, the wailing has now become ...

Check the queue at the main till, and weigh this up against the number of items you have in your hand (a litre of milk, a chocolate bar, a toothbrush and a small bag of salad). Make the decision that scanning these four items at the self-service check-out can't possibly take longer than waiting in the assistant-serviced queue, especially as the current customer, a fur coat-clad woman, is arguing about the supermarket running out of GM, gluten-free, diet, sugar-free, fat-less lettuce and having to pack her own bag. This despite the fact that the assistant, who, although half your age, is certainly worth you standing there and being mentally undressed by you as you wait. But you sensibly opt for speed over a very attractive young woman. Press “Begin”, and scan in your loyalty card so the machine can spit out some extremely “relevant” offers when you have completed your purchase, thus proving that the supermarket knows everything about you - your buying habits, your shirt size, whe...

Vodafone seem to be losing the plot. A little. Daughter had a total episode trying to pay her bill yesterday - she stopped direct debits due to Vodafone's mysteriously ever-changing bills causing havoc with her student part-time working income management.  The charming girl in India, or wherever the corporate tax dodgers base their call centres, had great difficulty in venturing even slightly off-script. VODAFONE: "What is your pin number?" DAUGHTER: "It's double zero blah blah" VODAFONE: "That''s not what we have here" DAUGHTER: "Well it's the one I've had for the past 5 years" VODAFONE: "Can you repeat it?" DAUGHTER: "Yes it's zero zero blah blah" VODAFONE: "That's not what you said first time" DAUGHTER: "Yes, I did" VODAFONE: "No, you said double zero blah blah" You couldn't really make it up! However, daughter, a bit outspoken at times,...

I'm really sorry, but whoever invented the term "supermodels" needs not only taken to court by Trading Standards, but shoved up against a brick wall and insulted by the utterly repulsively-natured Naomi Campbell. Why are they 'Supermodels'? Yes, they are good at being over-priced clothes horses at the beck and call of the stylishly-challenged. But that it is. They are about as Super, as Super is a five-letter word. And that is it. There really is absolutely nothing super about any, single one of them! And it's not as if what they do is vital to the world. To allow someone to operate on your brain, you need a brain-surgeon, trained for years, and an expert in their field. Shove some fashion that lacks total style on your body, act like a mannerless, witless, sultry moron, walk like you have an oversized suppository shoved up your behind, and hey presto, you're a model. Anyone could do it, despite what the basket-case, fashion-house Prima Donna s wou...

ORIGINAL LETTER FROM THE FRAUDSTER (my reply is below) From: mgrondman@optusnet.com.au (hitting “reply” reveals -   mrsem.68brw@live.com, a strangely different email address ) Subject: Best regards Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:32:36 -0700 Dear Friend I am Mrs. Emelia Brown, I am 68 years old born in U.S.A, and I am suffering from a long time cancer of the Lungs which also had affected my entire well being, from all indication my conditions is really deteriorating. According to my doctors they have advised me that I may not live for the next two months, this is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad level. I was brought up from an orphanage home, was married to my late husband for twenty years and we lived in London until my husband died in a fatal motor accident in London. Since his death I decided not to re-marry, I sold all my inherited belongings and deposited all the money with a bank in London. Presently, this money is still with the bank and I have n...

It's happened before. It happened today. And as safe a bet as me not winning £3million on the lottery, it will happen again. I got the bus lunatic sitting beside me. It being the weekend, I couldn't hide behind the free Metro. I quickly drew my phone up to my ear to pretend I was in conversation with someone, but that didn't work. I tried to scowl like I was a mass murderer on day release from the Armley Hilton on the way back to my cell before I committed another heinous axe-murder crime. But all to no avail. Two people plus myself spread out downstairs on the bus, and he sits beside me. "Shame about Jimmy Savile!" he says. Plainly into current affairs, with such knowledge about Sir Jimmy who had died nine months previously. I was so busy trying to find a way of avoiding getting into a conversation that I made the huge error of judgement by replying "Yes". "And Ralph Richardson. And Burt Lancaster. And Benny Goodman." Oh my giddy a...

It is often said - whether used as a lame excuse for a cop out, I'm not too sure - that to get a job you need experience, but to gain that experience you need a job. Perhaps it's just a conspiracy no one has yet tumbled to ensure a steady stream of "interns" prepared to work for nothing for the first three years after their graduation, and why solicitors, trained from an early age to immediately put their hands in their clients' pockets regardless of whether the weather is cold or not, remain unemployed rather than work for nothing. I'm not to sure whether it's just plain ignorance on the part of companies, lack of guidance by those who use recruitment consultants, or just the general dysfuctionality and uselessness of HR, but unless you are a bus driver being interviewed for a job as chief neurosurgeon of St Bart's Hospital, this business of "not having sector experience" doesn't really stack up in marketing. Imagine telling a highly...

The hip and with-it rubbish is expanding at a rate of knots. Exponentially in relation to a lack of understanding in some cases. Newsreaders tell us what's "trending" at the moment. Exactly. What IS trending? Aside from being a load of old "bolleaux" and a fancy, world wide web way of saying "what style-less fashion of the moment people are falling for". If you're especially worried, they'll tell you to "hashtag", whatever the hell that means. #. There. I've hashtagged! Piers Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror, and now for some reason is as equally qualified as a 22-year old singer is to dictate who has or hasn't singing talent in a nationwide talent contest. Meanwhile, what they don't tell us, is that the talent contest is solely designed to make Simon Cowell even more wealthy. Piers is busy twittering on about football, as if anyone really cares. 24 hours a day it seems. Talking a load of bolleaux t...

A columnist in the Independent said that he felt sorry for the public relations people of the Olympic sponsors. The games on BBC meant precious little advertising during the live games, the huge television audience therefore being hard to reach, blah, blah and etc. I don't feel sorry at all. I've had my own uphill struggles during my work in PR over the years. I took the knocks on the head, but got up and continued, without crying into the glove compartment of the BMW I've never owned, dressed in the designer suit I've never bought. However, I appreciate their difficulties, to a certain degree. They are only carrying out the requests of their rip-off Britain masters. Even the £10,000 a week Max Clifford (at least that was what he wanted some 12 years ago to manufacture me into the hottest radio presenter since the previous hottest radio presenter - I declined, only on the grounds of not having the money) could never defend the monopoly on cash machines that Visa...

Right. if I said Singapore, what would you think of? Yes, so would I. Raffles Hotel (no longer on the bay-edge I might add). Changi airport as a stopover on the way to Australia (although not for much longer if Quantas pull out - oops, perhaps not a good choice of words, given the context of this story - of the Oneworld Alliance). So many electronics products made there during the 70's and 80's. Now how about Mentos, those delicious soft sweets? Would you equate them with Singapore in any major way? No? Neither would I. Or at least that was until an acquaintance from Kindling Media, Chris Hardwick got in touch! His client is Mentos Singapore. And it seems the company are doing a really sweet thing (aargh! sorry) on the 9th August, at precisely 10.30pm, by helping to prove music is the language of love by promoting a "National Night" rap at the end of Singapore's National Day Celebrations. And what are they doing this for? To encourage an increase i...

A regular sight outside the more 'economical' end of the supermarket trade - Aldi, Lidl and no doubt the soon-to-be-resurrected Kwik Save - are the number of personally-numberplated executive cars parked there. It seems that continually paying over the odds for food basics is a hobby that people are giving up across the entire socio-economic divide, and if it means hiking your fur coat up over your behind and joining the great unwashed in order to reduce the price of your shopping basket, then so be it. The £ in your pocket is definitely better in your pocket. However, what I can't understand is how price-sensitivity totally disappears amongst the great British public the moment they enter an airport, train station, attend a conference/event venue or enter a motorway stopover. Instantaneously, the person who would normally travel 10 miles around six different supermarkets in order to save 3p on a tub of yoghurt, is suddenly quite at ease purchasing three bottles of 6...

Hotmail still steadfastly seems to refuse to do anything about the scam emails that perpetuate through their email system. It would be so  simple to bar emails that include the tired old phrases "Dear beneficiary", "Friend in Christ", "Nigerian oil minister", "viagra", "PPI", "tax refund", "bank notification", "account suspension" and "lottery win", to name but a few of the phrases these wastrels use. Just stop them even entering the system in the first place. So simple to even tag and reject the fake email addresses that these scammers use. It is rather incredible that these emails continue to circulate. And more so, that, as users become ever more adept, incorporating emails into their daily lives as a matter of course, that they can be taken in by these scams. That the chief executive of a bank, or the continental representative of the FBI would use a free Yahoo account, let alone write to ...