stuff

unlike iraq i have started a new regime today, like iraq the future of it is uncertain.
yup i am back at the gym - and judging by my reflection in the mirror i need to be there as well!!

one of the things about going to the gym is that i have to get up early as i like to do the session in the morning as it sets me up for the rest of the day. this also means i get to listen to early morning radio. the 5.30 am slot on radio 5 is devoted to the business news, and occasionally has digby jones, the director of the CBI, he gets me good and mad - he is the sort of bloke you want to punch on the nose (to be fair though i wanted to do the same to his predecessor and she was a woman - perhaps it's just the position of being director of the CBI that makes them toads...)

luckily he wasn't on today.
they did have a bloke on from credit suisse (i think that is how it is spelt) he was grumbling about the fact that employment law now means that british employers may have to go through 13 steps to sack a person. this is bad says the credit suisse guy, it means we are too much like europe. just look at germany it has 10% unemployment.
now i am not the smartest business person in the draw (ask kenny he'll tell you) but i just can't see the connection.
see i always thought that there was unemployment because there were no jobs, not because you couldn't sack people. (and besides sack one person and employ another person in their place .... mmmm thats still one person out of a job). unless of course you can sack (for no real reason) person a and then employ person b & c for less money to do the job a did?
perhaps it falls under the heading of voodoo economics.

then later in the show they were talking about russian businesses and how 15 of the biggest companies were attending a conference in the uk about corporate governance (hopefully none of the speakers were from the old arthur andersen) and the chap who was organising it and explaining to the listeners what is was about went on about how this would teach russians how to set up the right and proper practices in their businesses. as he was saying that they would have to establish their own models he said "they don't want a second rate british version" i am sure he meant second hand - or at least i hope he did.

oddly on both occasions no one challenged the speakers to clarify what they were saying.

the session in the gym was not as much fun.