Premier Foods
Because of the reports like this one on the BBC, I have just crossed Premier Foods off my list of preferred suppliers for my kitchen.
I didn’t like Marmite anyway!
Who’d Be A Clothes Retailer?
According to the Daily Mail, winter clothes aren’t selling as it’s still warm. Here’s the first paragraph.
Indian summer hits M&S and Next clothes sales: Stores unable to shift winter boots and coats because of warm October temperatures.
It doesn’t bother me, as I wear almost the same clothes all year round. I’m always in a short-sleeved shirt, with or without a cashmere jumper from M & S. I do swap cords for chinos if it gets too hot, but I rarely wear shorts. And for nearly eight months now, I’ve worn the same lightweight bomber jacket, as it keeps me dry and has the right format of pockets.
If I’m going somewhere smart, I might wear a 25-year-old sports jacket, which is so unstylish that it gets admired all the time. I wore it at CERN.
I am finding that I’m spending less and less money on clothes. I did think that I might get some new expensive Daks cords for the winter, but when I went to try them on, I found that trendy designers had ruined the design. The fastenings were so complicated, if you had got taken short, you wouldn’t have been able to get your trousers down quick enough. So I decided to buy another pair from M & S.
Because of this inability to buy clothes, I now tend to be ruthless in taking unwanted ones to Oxfam and then buy a replacement in probably M & S.
The only thing I spend money on are belts and bags. I’m still searching for a perfect one of the latter. The trouble is they’re not designed by real people.
Is Vince Cable Pitching For Luddite Of The Year?
I’ve just heard Vince Cable on the radio saying that he will endeavour to get Lloyds to not close the last branch in a town.
I’ve afraid traditional banking is dead. For most people and companies, cheques are no more, branches have no purpose and everything is on the Internet.
If people don’t want to go that way, then I suspect that someone will accommodate them At a price!
People always go on about how would small shops bank their cash. Here in London, they banned cash on buses and although the usual Luddites had their say, nobody seems to bother now!
Praise For Marks And Spencer In An Unlikely Place
Marks and Spencer may not be in the best of health these days, with even their boss saying the results aren’t good enough in this report on the BBC.
He might like this story.
I have a small waist, which needs a thirty-inch-belt. They are hard to find and for the last ten years or so, I’ve always bought them from Paul Smith. Usually at their flagship store in Covent Garden.
Yesterday, I went to get a new one and I found a nice one in brown. I got to talking to the stylish assistant, who came from Bordeaux. He felt I was wearing a very nice pair of chinos.
They were only from Marks and Spencer.
I did buy one of the three pairs I have in a store, but the others were from their web site and delivered to my local store at the Angel.
Their web site worked for me!
A Disastrous Year
Not my words, but those of the the Chief Executive of the Co-Operative Group, Richard Pennycock, as reported on the BBC after the groups £2.5billion loss. He went on to add this.
These results should serve as a wake-up call to anyone who doubts just how serious the challenges we face are.
“The scale of this disaster will rightly shock our members, our customers and our colleagues,
The Co-Operative Group of 2015, will be a totally different organisation to what it is now! If it still exists! \which I seriously doubt!
There is one truism in any business that always applies. Unless you are totally professional in all things, then your venture will not succeed, as those that stick to professional principles will put you out of business.
The Lack Of Left-Luggage Facilities
On the 26th of April, Ipswich are playing in Burnley, and I shall be going.
Unfortunately, the match is on Sky and starts at 12:15, which means taking the 08:30 train to Preston out of Euston, where I change for Burnley.
It is not a difficult journey and I’ve done it before.
However, this time, I think it might be a good idea to go on holiday the next week and there is an ideal flight out of Liverpool to Gdansk on the Saturday evening.
So as it is easy to get to Liverpool Airport from Burnley, via Preston, it would be ideal.
But what do I do with my case for the holiday?
Preston is a major train interchange, but in common with most mid-sized stations in the UK, it doesn’t have any left luggage facilities.
So if I do decide to go on holiday that week, I’ll have to come home to get my case and use a more expensive flight, than the good value one out of Liverpool.
It strikes me that there is an opportunity for someone to create a nationwide system to handle left luggage.
Was This What Really Annoyed The Board At The Co-op?
Prufrock in The Sunday Times looks into the trouble at the Co-op and has this interesting paragraph.
Apparently, certain senior members of the Co-op movement first decided Sutherland had to be stopped after he cut a long-standing entitlement to first class travel for the 20 board members, whose number includes a farmer, a university lecturer and a nurse. Free travel is a perk that disappeared years ago from all but the most lavish plc boards.
So I conclude that to really live well as a socialist, it has to be at the expense of others.
Will Lord Myners Get Co-Operation?
The BBC has reported on Lord Myners review of the Co-Operative Group. Here’s the start of the BBC report.
The Co-operative Group spent too much time on takeover deals that proved “breathtakingly value-destructive,” an initial review has found.
Lord Myners’ review is highly critical of the group’s takeovers of Britannia building society and supermarket chain, Somerfield.
Just up the road from me is a new Co-Operative convenience store at Dalston Junction.
The Co-Operative Store At Dalston Junction
From the outside it looks good.
I regularly come home via Dalston Junction station, from where I catch the bus home to avoid a walk, so you’d think I’d be one of their target customers.
But when I did and I was wanting a bottle of wine for dinner at my son’s, there was only one person on the tills, no self-service ones and several people in the queue.
At another time, I went in looking for a Genius loaf. They did have one, but it was like a plastic bag full of dog biscuits.
The management obviously couldn’t possibly organise a piss-up in the brewery.
I have three convenience stores from the main chains and several independent ones too, all within a short walk from my house. And if pushed, I can walk to the much bigger Sainsbury’s on Kingsland High Street!
I doubt, I’ll buy anything in that Co-Operative store in the next few years.
If that is the best they can do in a thriving retail area, no wonder they’re going down the drain.
I do hope that when they finally decide to jack it in at Dalston Junction, that this store becomes a littleWaitrose. After all, in the next couple of years, the nearby Sainsbury’s will be getting a makeover, which will put more pressure on this Co-op store.
Do I Pass The Branson Test?
Richard Branson is being quoted on the BBC about his ten tips for success in business.
So as someone, who likes to think he’s been successful at times, how do I think I stack up?
1. Follow your dreams and just do it!
Guilty as charged!
2. Make a positive difference and do some good
I argue, that I was part of the movement, which of course included the mighty Artemis, had a lot to do with transforming project management, so that important projects are now more likely to be implemented on time and on budget.
Unfortunately, some people, who tend to be mainly politicians and government employees, don’t abide by the principles we laid down.
But it did deliver the London Olympics and it looks like it’s going to deliver Crossrail in the next few years.
3. Believe in your ideas and be the best
Guilty as charged!
4. Have fun and look after your team.
I certainly had fun and it is not for me to say, if I looked after my team.
But I will say that many people, who I worked with in the past, are still friends. Some also looked after me, through my troubles of the last few years.
5. Don’t give up
Many people after what I had been through with the loss of my wife and youngest son to cancer and a serious stroke, would have taken the easy way out.
But then London mongrels have more fight, than a whole kennel-full of pit bulls.
6. Make lots of lists and keep setting yourself new challenges
I managed bugs in Artemis with lists and I still use them extensively on a card for each day. But then my father was the master of creating paper-based management systems, so it must be in the genes.
7. Spend time with your family and learn to delegate
Not sure about this one, but I’ve always organised my work from home since 1971. I can’t understand those who commute!
I don’t know about delegating, but if I have a problem that needs solving, I usually delegate by finding the best and getting them to do it.
8. Try turning off the TV and get out there and do things
I always have the TV on and have done for years, as I created Artemis, whilst watching the box.
But I’ve always been open to distraction by a pretty woman, who wants to take me somewhere to enjoy ourselves. C was a master, at coming in and saying that we perhaps go out to see a play in a Cambridge College.
I am obsessive about completing major tasks, but very easily distracted.
9. When people say bad things about you, just prove them wrong
I use criticism as a motivating tool and generally go on to prove people wrong.
10. Do what you love and have a sofa in the kitchen
C and myself, generally did what we loved and lived in the kitchen. We had a sofa there since we moved to Debach about 1980.
Even today, I live in a large living room, with a bedroom behind and a kitchen in the corner.
I can’t understand why people want to live in houses with masses of rooms and an eight figure price tag.
I certainly do what I love, too!
So I think I followed Branson’s principles pretty well!
Would I add any of my own? Yes!
1. Experience as much as you can of life
So if someone offers you a trip in the sewers of East London, don’t turn it down!
Branson is certainly not short on experience.
2. Never forget anything
I have an elephantine memory, but there are successful people, who make sure everything they have read, written or said is archived.
You never know, when you might need that information.
As an example, I went on a Health and Safety course at ICI. Some of what I learned has been invaluable since my stroke, when navigating my way around streets with impaired vision.
3. Don’t get divorced.
Branson hasn’t! But I suspect, he’s not always been a Saint, where the ladies are concerned.
4. Steal ideas from the public domain or experience
Two things in the design of Artemis come to mind.
The report writer of the original Artemis broke new ground, but I stole the template from a dead IBM program called 360-CSMP, that I’d used at ICI.
The other was perhaps more trivial. When I developed the PC version of Artemis, I needed a strong well-designed interface. So I mimicked the keyboard and the function keys on the old IBM-PC and used the bright colours from a BBC Television program called Three of a Kind, which used jokes on the screen in a system they called Gagfax.
One of my colleagues disagreed with my choice and said we’d employ an expert to choose them. But we didn’t and I won the argument by default.
5.Don’t trust lawyers, accountants, bankers and patent agents
I could add a caveat here, in that if they have a stake in the success of the venture, then in many cases it turns out for the better.
I’ve only met one accountant and one banker that I would ever trust. Sadly both, are sorting out God’s problems!
As to lawyers, I got to screw my own for forty years and luckily we bred a good one. So if I need a good one, I can generally get a good recommendation.
On the other hand, the biggest mistake, I made in life, was when after C’s death, I didn’t sell everything and move to something like a two-bedroom flat in Docklands or the Barbican!
I’d love to hear Branson’s view on what I call Professional Theft
But
The Anonymous Widower 