Time for a change at The Town… and quick!!!

Let’s face it; we are in DEEP do-do at The Town. Paul Jewell simply hasn’t delivered and we are poised to drop into the obscurity of League One. Jewell, just like his predecessor was appointed by the guys at the top and perhaps it is high time that they too consider their position.

Paul Jewell needs to be replaced immediately and who better to take on the task of getting us back into the top-flight than Steve Bruce. He’s available, he’s a footballing genius and he’s a Geordie… and we have had a great deal of success with a Geordie at the helm.

C’mon Clegg, don’t hang about, get on the phone to Steve and get rid of Jewell right now!

Benefits culture

In the past month I have booked 30+ unemployed persons in for an interview for a job as a mobile cleaner. Only 12 turned up for an interview. Out of the 12, 11 were offered jobs and guess what, none of the 11 turned up on their first day at work!!

Now if you are dumb enough to believe the news, you’d think that they’d be queues of folk wanting to work…er… wrong!! The facts are that most folk on benefits are happy not working, watching daytime TV and claiming their money for doing nothing. Something is REALLY wrong here.

We keep the Job Centres informed around all no-shows for interviews and those that are offered work and never turn up. They tell us that this info is passed to the ‘decision makers upstairs’… whatever that means. I am yet to hear of anyone ever having their benefits stopped… have you?

 

Youth unemployment an issue? Don’t believe it!

One of my businesses has been trying for THREE months to recruit an apprentice to learn the ropes in our North Shields office. If you believe the news, you’d think that there’d be a queue a mile long of eager, bright eyed youths wanting to grasp this opportunity, but you’d be wrong… VERY wrong.

The facts speak for themself and are a very sad testament to not only the way our educators are failing those who they are paid to educate, but also to the lamentable attitude of many of the youth of today. Some eight months ago we recruited an apprentice who had theoretically been vetted and checked out by a satellite service of Newcastle City Council. On paper the young lad looked perfect and he interviewed extremely well. The problem was that he lied about his qualifications and he got his brother to complete his application form for him as he had severe literacy and numeracy issues. We kept him on, as he was a likeable lad and we liked his chutzpah… the deal was that we’d keep him in post provided he attended college without any absenteeism. This was a huge mistake, we should have fired him and started again, as he only managed to attend college for four weeks before bunking off and then lying about why he wasn’t at college when he should have been. Looking back at this experience, I now question my judgement as to why we tried to recruit another apprentice. I guess that I was just trying to give a kid a break, but did it work? Hmmmmmm. No!

Fast forward to September; we start the whole process again. And to cut a long and somewhat tedious story short, we had seven young  persons, all vetted and pre-interviewed and tested ready for interview today. And how many did we actually interview? That’d be one. Yes ONE. As all the others either dropped out or simply didn’t show for an interview. The sole applicant was far from perfect; her maths was appalling, even given a calculator she couldn’t work out what 3 ½ hours at £14.00 per hour worked out to. But hey, we thought we could sort her maths in a week. So we offered her a start. And yes, you’ve guessed, she didn’t want the job.

So, all you bleeding-heart liberals… take note, this is a true story. A very sad true story. The truth is many kids today simply don’t want to work… and why should they while someone else is paying for them to lounge about.

Will we be looking for another apprentice?… er… that’ll be a big fat NEVER!!!

Barnsley 3 Ipswich 5

Talk about a game of two halves… the first half was utter disaster for The Town, it was so bad I could hear Paul Jewel clearing his desk in preparation for his departure. The Town were two nil down and they looked every bit a Conference side. BUT, and it is a huge BUT… things all changed in the second half. They came out playing intelligent, stylish, entertaining and attacking football and put five past Barnsley. If they manage to keep this up we’ll be avoiding the drop, if they don’t… the abyss is lurking horribly nearby.

Ipswich 3 Coventry 0

Now this was more like it… entertaining, fluid, intelligent football from The Town. The new squad looks like it is gelling nicely and hopefully with this comprehensive win under their belts the nerves will be replaced by confidence and more great results. If I had to pick a single player who exceeded all expectations, it’d be Cresswell, but that said they all did a great job.

Now can they repeat this performance at The Riverside on Saturday??… hmmmmm, well I’d be chuffed with a draw. Fingers crossed!!!

Posh 7 Town 1

What a disaster!! A train wreck doesn’t go half way to describing what a dreadful performance this game was. How is to blame? Simple Paul Jewell and Simon Clegg… they both MUST go!!!!

Pure Sensia DAB and internet radio

It’s a rare event for me to get even slightly excited over electronic devices, but the Pure Sensia has proven to be the BIG exception. Not only does it look great, it also produces a clarity and depth of sound which, considering its size, is quite remarkable. The DAB radio is everything you’d expect but the icing and cherries on the cake for me was the Internet radio and the very useful ability to stream audio from any PC on the network directly to it.

One small criticism I have of it are the menus… they could be better named and laid out, but hey, I can live with this as the unit overall is such a little diamond. And, they are on offer at John Lewis at the moment!