Sr'Alan interview C+ ......

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ChrisKH

Guru
Location
Essex
darkstar said:
I'd really love to know how many people on these boards have met Lord Alan. But yet people continue to insult him. He may be fairly tough on the contestants of the Apprentice (which i'm presuming the majority of you lot are basing your opinion) but he needs to be, it's business at a hugely competitive level. It also adds to the TV program, especially when he comes out with some classic one liners. His story is also quite remarkable, especially when you hear about him making his own bike when he was 12 due to not being able to afford one.Seriously i hate it when nobodies believe they can insult a great man without even meeting him...

Oh, no that's right, no one else on here has done that. Pfffffff
 

darkstar

New Member
Delftse Post said:
I thought it was just mildy diverting, lightweight TV?
The actual program is, absolutely. The job the contestants (whom are big and confident enough to cope with Sugars tough attitude) are competing for however, is not.
 

darkstar

New Member
ChrisKH said:
Oh, no that's right, no one else on here has done that. Pfffffff
Out of the whole post you select that quote? What difference does it make that bike fanatics have done the same anyway? Ridiculous comment.
 
U

User169

Guest
ChrisKH said:
Oh, no that's right, no one else on here has done that. Pfffffff

Yebbut Sugar's was made from balsa wood and semolina.
 

CharlieB

Junior Walker and the Allstars
Whether the guy's a k##b or not, I don't know, but I think this little story may say something about his work ethic that has got him where he is.

In the early Amstrad days (1971-2) their products were stereo amps at the bottom end of the market in terms of price. Hence they had appeal to hard up schoolkids like me wanting a stereo set-up.
I had one of those early Amstrad amps. When it failed under warranty, I contacted their factory in Dalston (NE London), who told me to bring it straight into them for a fix. This was a small problem for me, as when you're at school, you can't just book a day's leave, but they said, no problem, bring it in on a Saturday.
This I did, and the door to this tiny warehouse type building was opened by AS himself, in shirtsleeves and (literally) a soldering iron in hand.
Invited me in, made me a cuppa, and fixed the problem personally there and then.
I got the impression at the time that he had a hand in some of the ongoing assembly of his products, although I didn't know at that moment that the guy was AS.
 

darkstar

New Member
CharlieB said:
Whether the guy's a k##b or not, I don't know, but I think this little story may say something about his work ethic that has got him where he is.

In the early Amstrad days (1971-2) their products were stereo amps at the bottom end of the market in terms of price. Hence they had appeal to hard up schoolkids like me wanting a stereo set-up.
I had one of those early Amstrad amps. When it failed under warranty, I contacted their factory in Dalston (NE London), who told me to bring it straight into them for a fix. This was a small problem for me, as when you're at school, you can't just book a day's leave, but they said, no problem, bring it in on a Saturday.
This I did, and the door to this tiny warehouse type building was opened by AS himself, in shirtsleeves and (literally) a soldering iron in hand.
Invited me in, made me a cuppa, and fixed the problem personally there and then.
I actually got the impression at the time that he had a hand in some of the ongoing assembly of his products, although I didn't know at that moment that the guy was AS.
Fantastic insight, nice one.
 

Norm

Guest
Will1985 said:
Have I gone back in time a year? I can't find it in June or July (which arrived 2 days ago). It was in the Daily Mail last year though...

ianrauk said:
*thinks the same thing*...
I remember seeing the Daily Mail piece... but not in the current issue of C+ which was delivered earlier this week.. unless I glossed over it.
That's because it's not in C+ but in Cycling Active.

As is a piece on cycling round Windsor Great Park, which was great as their route pretty much mirrors a frequent ride of mine. I haven't read Cycling Active before but it seems to be quite good, and far, far, less "Active" than C+, which is ironic. :biggrin:

I only bought it for its £500 bike test (the Allez wins) but have read it cover to cover.
 

darkstar

New Member
slowmotion said:
...into the quality of Amstrad electronics...?
Think it's fairly obvious what I meant.
 

ChrisKH

Guru
Location
Essex
darkstar said:
Out of the whole post you select that quote? What difference does it make that bike fanatics have done the same anyway? Ridiculous comment.

You were the one who brought this to our attention. My point is that a good proportion of us were maintaining and building bikes in our teens. He just wants credit for being a 'man of the people'. Which he is not.
 

darkstar

New Member
ChrisKH said:
You were the one who brought this to our attention. My point is that a good proportion of us were maintaining and building bikes in our teens. He just wants credit for being a 'man of the people'. Which he is not.
He's not anymore, i agree. He was though, poor background etc. Worked extremely hard and succeeded. Can't see a problem myself.
 

Smokin Joe

Legendary Member
Amstrad gear was generally quite good. The music systems were aimed at the truck driver and his wife and was never pretended to be anything else. Of course the Hi Fi snobs couldn't abide the thought of people other than temselves actually listening to music so the sneer campaign started. It all got rather like the Skoda jokes where even people who couldn't tell a spark plug from a tap washer were telling everyone how bad they were, and then going out and wasting their own money on real shoot like Metros.

Amstrad's PCW computers were ground breaking when they first came out and the early PC's were well speced and cheap, let down by dodgy third party hard drives which eventually caused their demise. Amstrad eventually won a sustantial amout in compensation from manufacturers.

Sugars biggest crime is that he did not go to university and went on to earn more than most people who did. The chattering classes like their working class brothers to know their place and stay there where they can be patronised. Someone mentioned Clive Sinclair earlier as being on a higher plane than Sugar, which nearly had me spewing tea over my keyboard. A man who had some good ideas but couldn't run a paper stall, taking money off people for products that didn't exist and never worked when they eventually did appear up to a year after they were promised, and who ended up virtually giving away the tattered remains of his business (to Sugar).

AS is also the man who saved Tottenham Hotspurs from financial meltdown, volunteered to the Inland Revenue that the club had been cooking the books and owed a considerable sum to them, and when the Premier league was formed predicted the mess the clubs would get themselves into by pissing all the TV money up the wall in wages. A few more Alan Sugars in the world and a few less Gordon Browns and we would be sitting pretty today.
 

ianrauk

Tattooed Beat Messiah
Location
Rides Ti2
We must thank AS for bringing out the first mass produced sub £300 VHS recorder/player, hence introducing the wonderful world of pornography on your tv to the masses :rofl::rofl:
 

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
Smokin Joe said:
Amstrad's PCW computers were ground breaking when they first came out and the early PC's were well speced and cheap

+1. 'Lord' Sugar singlehandedly brought computing to the masses. Before the PCW, home computers cost the kind of money that ruled them out for all but the significantly well-off. Suddenly you could get a robust and reliable computer for the kind of money a student could get together.

I produced our business plan on one. And the first thing we bought after we started up was one of the first Amstrad PCs. Did us proud for three or four years. Here's to you 'Lord' Sugar!
 
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