Category: UK
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The UK version of The Apprentice gave the impression that Amstrad (run by Sir Alan Sugar) was a large successful company. It was once, but not any more. Now Sugar has sold the company to BSkyB for £125m (of which he will personally get £34.5m). Not bad, but at one time the company was supposed…
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Phiz is having a few problems getting some sort of visa to live in the UK: Went to British Consulate today to apply for visa as Returning Resident. Gave them letter from work showing that I have worked for them since 1994, have been on secondment since 1999, and am now returning to the UK…
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Yesterday London was hit by a tornado! The Sun has photographs of what it did to houses in a suburban street. Scary stuff. The Guardian’s picture is rubbish, but their story may be more informative: Wild weather: floods, gales and the terrifying sight of a tornado in London Just before 11am in a fashionable part…
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Today is expected to be the hottest day ever in the UK (beating the record set 3 years ago). Not only is it likely to be several degrees hotter than last week’s hot weather here, but air conditioning is far less common. I spent one summer working in an office in the centre of London…
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An intriguing quote from a union official, as reported in The Guardian: John Nolan, national leader of Amicus, said the use of the vegetables was a totally unacceptable way of getting staff to perform. "It is demeaning to staff and it is demoralising to staff and it does not send a good message to customers…
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Here’s a story that combines food and weather. Perfect. Tornado wreaks havoc in suburbs of Birmingham Roofs were ripped off houses, cars hurled across roads and trees uprooted after a tornado struck high street shops and suburban streets in Birmingham yesterday, injuring at least 12 people. Rows of houses were left with gaping windows as…
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I guess I have to say something about what happened in London yesterday. The British government have been saying for a long time that it was a matter of "when" rather than "if" there was a major terrorist incident in London, and sadly they have been proved right. Anyone who lived or worked in London…
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Well, London won. We can now look forward to seven years of stories about construction delays as they struggle to build all the facilities they have promised. Then many more years of paying the bills for all those facilities that really aren’t required, as residents of Sydney, Athens, etc., now realize that perhaps it wasn’t…
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The Economist reports (subscription required) that what Chinese visitors to the UK want most of all…is to go to factory outlets. And the first choice of of 2,000 door-to-door salespeople from Amway is…Clarks shoes: The trip took 700 of them to Bicester Village, a collection of designer-outlet stores near Oxford. Though many of the most…
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Well, I’m still not quite sure whether the British General Election was as dull as it seemed – a national swing from Labour to Conservative of 3% was obviously not enough to change the government, but underneath that there were more interesting things going on. Mainly, as far as I could see, the unwinding of…
Ordinary Gweilo 