Nothing going on

Saturday's mini-blizzard in South-East London was pretty impressive. I had togged-up and gone for a walk down to the shops at Peninsula Park looking for some Christmas inspiration. I must have spent half-an-hour in HMV browsing DVD's because the wind had got up and was blowing snow heavily by the time I left. I wandered down to W H Smith's, a shop I love to look around but rarely buy anything because the queue is hardly ever worth it for whatever I might be holding in my hands. A couple of Christmas cards were returned to whence they had come and I was off out into the Call of the Wild. 


The snow was thudding onto me as I headed east along the Lower Road. By the time I reached the Rose of Denmark, there really wasn't anything else to do but shelter from the storm. Safely inside, I joined the gaggle of early regulars and settled down to the first-half of the Sunderland game. Amazingly, the Stadium of Light was lit by bright sunshine and no sign of any snow. Global Warming has a lot to answer for.


As soon as the snow let-up, I was off home and that was it for the day. An afternoon indoors amusing the kids and an evening spent in front of the fire with The Prophet, one my earlier purchases. If you haven't seen it, it gets a rare 9 out of 10 from me.


The whole family made the trek up the hill to my Mum's yesterday where we enjoyed an impromtu lunch before slithering back down Sherrington Road and across via Floyd Road. Like Charlton Casual, I witnessed an accident in Hassendean Road as, ironically, a four-by-four slid on turning at the top of the road and nestled gently into the bodywork of a VW. The owner had the decency to get out and leave a note having knocked at the nearest couple of houses to try and identify the owner. 


That left the Apprentice last night and I was really pleased to see Thamesmead's own Stella English win the job with Alan Sugar. There was a laugh-out-loud moment when she was asked during the final task about whether her new alcoholic drink, "Urbon" might not appeal so much to country folk. Her response was that if she won the Apprentice, she hoped to shortly be moving to the countryside and that she would continue to appreciate the Bourbon drink. She's been the best candidate throughout the programme and overcame the obstacles of being  a bit older than many of the other participants as well as being accused of being "corporate" at every turn just because she's spent ten years working for a Japanese Bank. I dread to think what they would make of me, thirty years at the same institution. Sugar knows he's got a pair of safe hands. I suspect he needs another Apprentice as much as we need Dennis Wise involved with our football club.