What is the connection between the Italian Prime Minister and Tiger Woods? A disparate pair if ever there were one. On one hand we have the stubby but energetic, 73 year old politician who is surrounded by scandal and rumours of miscreance, bribery and infidelity and on the other hand the clean cut, 34 year old athletic mega rich champion golfer. Yet the news of their nemesis comes as a delicious piece of schadenfreud for many of us.
The great golfer having to try and remember all his misdeeds to recount them to his lovely wife and mother in law so they can ratchet up the matrimonial stakes to something prohibitive, should he go off the rails again and the Italian head of state being royally clonked with a cast metal statuette of the Milan Duomo, presumably with the madonnina to the fore, hence the broken teeth.
Do we feel that destiny played a part or is it all due to our speed of light communication systems nowadays that eventually all naughty boys will be discovered and shamed? I think most red-blooded males would have done a lot more screwing around than the Tiger if they could wield a nib lick in similar fashion and I think most 70 year old brethren would be pleased to have enough libido to feel arousal at the intimacy of some budding female politician without going through the laborious stages of of having to remove one's shoes and socks.
The Italian macho cult lives on and even the Italian women admire Berlusconi because he is predictably venal and fallible and does not have to show off his upper-body muscularity like Mr Putin to impress his subjects. With Berlusconi you got no surprises except perhaps that the alleged attacker was not all compos mentis when one would expect some sane and rational bloke would have done what half the nation expected some time ago.
On the other hand the gradually unfolding saga of Tiger Wood's indiscretions is to be savoured deliciously especially by those of us who go round in over 100 and have never had a hole in one. We never thought that the buttoned up Yank would be linked to a porn star ( blimey, I wonder if she had a camera rigged up?) and all the ladies are in a quandary as to whether they should keep silent now and reap praise and comfort later or to join the list of seductresses who lay in wait for the brilliant young player who may have felt he missed his chance of having a few profligate years before wedlock because his Dad kept making him practice putting the ball instead of poking the pudding.
One way or another the Berlusconi attack and the Woods revelations have cheered us all up whilst our masters are in Copenhagen pretending we can all do without our family car and annual flight to Benidorm. If the world has got to end soon Berlusconi has more chance of getting out of it than Tiger who now will have to actually consider the value of the prizes he needs to earn while his loving and understanding family chip away at the considerable residue.
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I wonder if you are subjected to exposure issuing from the idiot-box early on Saturday nights? I am talking about the X-factor on the telly. It's compulsive compelling viewing and must have a tremendous audience judging by the rich array of adverts that occur every 5 minutes and last an eternity. Plenty of advertisers leaping on the band-wagon. It occurred to me that the programme panders to our sadistic delight in humiliating the poor untalented nonentities who think they are possessed with the lungs of a nightingale.
Certain contestants have improved their chances by recounting tales of hardship, disease and bad luck through which they have battled courageously to fling themselves on the mercy of 4 overpaid judges sitting in the middle of a baying crowd of music lovers. Yes we love a trier but even more so we love a loser who sings worse than us. Like the viewers in an art gallery standing bewildered before a Jackson Pollock, they know that little Tommy paints better than him, and he's only 6 yrs old and as for the black square by Rothko, how can you call it art? Unlike the mausoleum atmosphere of an art gallery, the X- factor is conducted in utter chaos with no shortage of loud opinion issuing from the orifices of the cultured multitude.
But what is not revealed to the viewers, but seems pretty obvious when you consider the masses of applicants, is that a team of pre-judges sift through the applicants before they get selected to go onto the stage in front of the cameras. Such pre-judges are tasked with looking out for contestants who think they are marvelous but in fact are possessed of the musical talent of a sewer drain in Calcutta. Hence when they start performing it feeds our sadism and humiliates the poor bugger who can't keep time, has no rhythm, forgets the words and croaks like a wounded bull frog.
We love it but is it good television or simply a Roman amphitheater with Cowell sitting there like a replete Nero with his thumb down, passing the death sentence of the very contestant who is enriching his coffers?
So I now know how to get that precious 3 minutes of glory. I will be unbelievably self confident, outrageously dressed and utterly failing the first interview as so to be sure of getting exposure. Then, when it is my turn, I will sing like an angel, make my relatives cry with schmaltz induced joy, wow the audience into stunned silence followed by explosive applause. Definitely off to boot camp and a decent meal at last.
Who cares about selling furniture - Simon's a good egg.
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Why has everybody suddenly become an expert in this noble game? People who never played or attended a match are suddenly praising Jonathan Trott for his dogged occupation of the crease or criticising Paul Collingwood for throwing away his vital wicket and dropping searing catches coming at him at 90 miles an hour! How all of a sudden the mighty Austrailian Cricket Team has been laid low after the hiding they gave England two years ago on their own soil is still a mystery. Flintoff, that lovely jovial giant from Preston who was expected, in this ultimate test
match, to perform miracles with the ball, did hardly anything until he ran out Ponting with amazing agility and this stroke of genius sounded the death knell on Australia's dogged and resilient defence of that precious vase of ashes.
So much happier did the nation feel after the horrors of Headingley where we got whopped for an innings and many runs. How did it turn round in the final test so dramatically especially when so few of our players seemed absent from the party?
Well cricket mirrors life. Sometimes you lose when you shouldn't have done and sometimes you win when you don't deserve it. Sometimes the umpire makes an amazing gaffe and compounds it with another by leaning the other way to compensate for the original sin. I find business is also unpredictable. When we are supposed to be ploughing through a trough of slough, customers keep ordering more furniture. Are people re-furbing their homes because they cannot sell them and have decided to improve the environment for their own benefit or are they investing into a sensational makeover expressly because they want to sell their property for a higher price? One reads that the housing market has improved but I really think it is because the estate agents are placing a lower figure on people's expectations. After all, the street-wise agent
knows they might as well get a small slice of something rather than a big slice of nothing. Moreover, the snatched back properties are filtering on to the market and people with inside knowledge are buying them, not from the worthy occupiers but from the bank or institution who has lent rather too much on them. Very little is heard these days of the dreaded HIPs or Home Information Pack. Has it been swept under the carpet as too much of a bother for the average seller or are buyers skipping the requirement in order to do the deal?
Whatever the figures are, we seem to be incredibly busy and are having trouble keeping up with production. A far cry from the state of play earlier in the year and I put it all down to the England Teams resistance at Cardiff.
Long live the Burnley lad, Anderson and his team mate Monty! (Pic Right)
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As the recession goes on and deepens and widens like a gloomy lake of tears filling up from the well of gloom, I reflect on the fashions that might emerge at this taxing time. I supposed that most buyers would go for a minimalistic look, no frills, no flamboyant colour, no fancy details, just a monastic brown look, exuding poverty and chastity - verging on the dull. However the opposite effect is blossoming.
People under pressure seem to have opted for vibrant colours like fuchsia purple and in-your-face white. Textures have been exotic, much animal print, crocodile and shiny faux leathers, wood finishes have been requested that would be outrageous even in rich and decadent times. Lots of silver leaf, oodles of Svarowski crystal addenda, even fur trimmings! Not only are we getting orders for OTT pieces but also if customers order multiples of the same chair or sofa they want a lot of variety so no two pieces are the same.
Normally as a sensible supplier you would spurn these orders or persuade the client that they ought to make the selection more uniform - but let's face it, it is a buyer's market. Cash is king and the days when you turn down an eccentric order are long gone. The books are full again and we are doing overtime in this mad world because we have grasped the nettle having decided the customer is always right.
So long may this ''recession'' sustain itself. It looks pretty likely as the government gives away the family jewels in the knowledge they won't be in charge for long and some other team will have to wear the yoke of power and we will be impoverished but highly decorated as once we were with blue woad.
By the way - blue is not a great furnishing colour.
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If you turn the 'b' round, then blog is an anagram of gold. Similarly glob is an anagram of blog. Glob is less valuable than gold but in my present pronouncements you will get a rich harvest of glob. Gentle reader, wondering why the hell you are reading this, I can only say I was assured by my junior staff members that blogging is an essential way of making a web site cosy and cuddly. This gives rise to the question 'why does it have to be?' Not to fall into the Rattner Trap, I think our web site stands up for itself with or without said blogarooney. Is it essential to read the rantings of some crazed and aged director to fall in love with a beautiful chair? Does the design, the fabric, the colour and the aura it exudes alter because you know the intimate details of my musings or how we got to this state of being?
I suppose they are right anyway, as usual, because sales are certainly going up, not meteorically so to speak, but steadily and on-line sales are definitely playing a bigger part in the overall spectrum of our sales campaign. Going against the grain, swimming against the tide, bucking the trend are phrases which spring to mind but you cannot ignore the power of the little communicating device we all seem to schlep around with us and I am now afraid to stop bogging in case it turns off a magic tap that brings a flow of orders every day, correction, Tuesday is usually awful for some reason. Maybe I should write my autobiography and serialise it right here. Say every Tuesday?
That said, it's a damn sight better than the old days when you went round from shop to shop in a van with samples, mainly in the drizzle and fog and waited in line to be seen by crusty old store buyers who permanently told you how tough business was. Those were the golden days? Had we known what was ahead we would have bought those booming properties, or that E-type jag, or that early Hockney painting. It's easy to be wise after the event but events happen all the time so buy my lovely furniture and lighting, and let all masochists have a fair crack of the whip.
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