The tomato stain on my shirt today is a stark reminder that I am getting old. Stains of various size, shape and colour are the hallmark of the old person and seem to be turning up on my clothes with increasing regularity. I suppose that it's life turning a whole cycle with stained clothes being a symbol of both childhood and senility. Whatever it is, it's a bit embarrassing and I haven't even got a tie to cover it and rubbing it with soap and water only made it worse. Never mind. When Nick and I were conducting interviews for the new Southern Sales Manager job, a candidate turned up with an enormous coffee stain on his shirt but didn't even mention it even though it was so big that it was difficult to concentrate on anything else and we went through the interview with a Basil Fawlty like "don't mention the coffee stain" running through our heads.
Young Craig Buckley has been throwing himself into the new job that Nick has created for him in the office. Craig has to co-ordinate the sales team's activities and act as a back up to Nick, Peter and Rob. One of his jobs is to provide Nick with a huge variety of charts from which Nick can judge his team members' performance and I have asked Craig to let me have a copy. I'm not going to give the results away here but they are very interesting and should provide a real insight into how our sales are broken down by region, model, price, discount and profit margin. It's new to Instanta and I hope it proves useful.
I felt like a laugh last night so I watched Mitchell and Webb and then Shooting Stars on BBC2 back to back. Did I get a laugh? Well, much as I love David Mitchell and Robert Webb, I am sorry to say that they didn't crack me up and their show managed to raise just the briefest glimmer of a smile in their "Gift Shop" sketch and I was disappointed. As for Vic and Bob? I was a huge fan of their "Big Night Out" (younger readers won't remember that) with catch phrases such as "What's on the stick Vic?" and I hoped that "Shooting Stars" would recapture some of that mad humour. It did in parts and I did laugh out loud quite a few times but far too few times for a thirty minute show and it was another that won't be on the Skyplus series link. It reminded me of an early edition of "Monty Python" and , whilst that was hailed as brilliant, it was brilliant because it was original.
Hark at me banging on like an old man. They don't make them like they used to. I'll have stains on my shirt next. What! I already have. Oh dear, I'd forgotten that already. Just like an old man. Which reminds me. What does it remind me of? I don't know I've forgotten. No. I know. When I was going to the bank at lunch time I spotted a few local tradesmen going about their jobs. There was a window cleaner, a gardener and a painter and decorator (no this isn't some sort of Englishman, Irishman, Scotsman joke). They were all working hard in the summer sunshine and I thought that when we retire in the next few months, it might be quite nice doing an outdoor job like that to keep the grey cells ticking over. But then I put my foot on the brake and the bad hip kicked in and I realised that my outdoor working days are numbered.I've got an appointment at the hospital on 8th September so maybe I will have a new hip by the end of the year. And that really is old person territory.
I'll finish today with a choice of videos. Which is better - flying donkeys or dancing cows? I'll let you decide.
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