Some thought it would never happen, but Times columnist Calverley has moved into the 21st century and come online. Here are his thoughts from this week’s edition.
Has our esteemed TW Council Leader David Jukes finally flipped? Has he spent even more of our precious money creating his own personal logo to show which developments he personally favours, such as the Civic Complex? That was Calverley’s first thought when he spotted this stamp of approval. Sadly, or happily, depending on your point of view, that is not the case. Imagine the uproar if it were true! No, this logo belongs to wine expert Matthew Jukes and appears in a Sunday newspaper. Mind you, Cllr Jukes is also something of an ‘expert’ when it comes to wines, especially reds.
SPARE a thought for this particular young man. Being a keen football fan, he is often tempted to place bets on the outcome of matches. The other day he placed £5 on the outcome of eight games. Apparently this is where each win adds to the value of the bet, so by the end of the seventh game he had a lot of money resting on the final tussle. He had worked out that if the last team won he would collect £19,500 for his £5 bet. All was well until two minutes before the final whistle, when the wrong side scored a winning goal. It was not a pleasant sight seeing a chap sob.
One of the biggest problems for bosses in hospitality is keeping staff. Pubs, hotels and restaurants are all finding it hard to attract and retain people. Sometimes, though, those bosses bring it upon themselves. Take the case of this particular owner, who runs a string of gastro pubs (and no it is not Whiting & Hammond, my all-time favourites). He encourages staff to run up bar tabs, even when they are working, which seems like an understanding boss. The surprise comes when staff collect their pay cheques and find out he is charging them 20 per cent interest on those tabs. And he’s surprised he can’t keep his staff.
Hats off to this housing association that provides low-cost accommodation. They refused to be cajoled into relocating a tenant of theirs even though he kept ‘accidentally’ leaving taps running in the bathroom and flooding the floors below. Their solution? Moving him to a ground-floor flat. Result.
