Where do I get my news from?

Where do I get my news from? That's the question I've answered today.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm a fan of reality TV show The Apprentice (the UK version). I missed last night's episode but plan to watch it tonight via Tiscali TV's catch-up service; so as not to spoil the surprise I've spent the entire day trying not to find out which candidate was 'fired' by Sir Alan.

It's been harder than you might imagine. I couldn't watch breakfast TV this morning; I couldn't read the free papers on the train to and from work; and I had to ask three of my colleagues (all Apprentice fans) not to discuss the programme with me.

I've also had to avoid using Twitter and turn off the Firefox add-on Twitterfox just in case one of the people I follow tweeted about the show. Over lunch I couldn't read the BBC News website. I can't even link this post to the official Apprentice website for fear of finding something out.

So there you have it: I get my (Apprentice-related) news from a mixture of new media, old media, and good old-fashioned talking to people. It's been an interesting experiment, but not one I'd like to repeat in a hurry. And no, I still don't know which candidate got the sack. Ask me again in an hour!


Here are a couple of my other Apprentice-related posts:

• The Apprentice and Lorraine Tighe's eyes

• The Apprentice and the apostrophe

The Apprentice and Lorraine Tighe's eyes

As you probably know if you read this blog regularly, I love the reality TV show The Apprentice. What I don't love is when one of the contestants candidates wears glasses and a columnist for a national paper writes tosh such as this:

The rival team's amazing Body Rocka - a slab of plastic with no discernible purpose - romped to victory thanks to four-eyed Lorraine Tighe's impressive business pitch.

Kevin O'Sullivan of the Mirror: describing bespectacled individuals as 'four-eyed' is hackneyed, lazy writing. It's also insulting without being clever. Just stop it.

Lorraine 'two eyes' Tighe

On a brighter note, if you're a Twitter-using Apprentice fan, then I recommend you follow @NotSirAlanSugar. That's how I came across O'Sullivan's piece in the first place.

The Apprentice and the apostrophe

I know that I blogged about The Apprentice only very recently, but today I'm going to do so again – after all, it's not often that you see a debate over the positioning of an apostrophe on prime-time television.

For those who had the misfortune not to see yesterday's episode, the teams' task was to design greetings cards based around a new 'special occasion' of their choice. One of the teams decided to designate February 13 as a national day for single people, but had trouble deciding on the correct punctuation to use (see poll on the right).

At one point during the three or four hours of apostrophe-related debate (which, fortunately, was edited down for the benefit of viewers), team leader Michael Sophocles even attempted to phone the editor of national paper the Telegraph to ask his opinion. The nice lady at the British Library was a little more helpful but not too authoritative.

I've embedded some of the footage here (thanks, YouTube), so you can see what Sophocles finally decides. Enjoy!



BBC Apprentice website entry for week 6

UPDATE: Our friends at GrammarBlog have also been discussing this...

Friday roundup: Apprentice, blogs, limos, Croydon

Time for this week's Friday roundup:

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I'm a fan of The Apprentice, which is in its third series here in the UK, and watching it this week I was amused to hear one of the contestants referred to (by Voiceover Man) as a "trained barrister". I didn't know that you could become a barrister without training. What's that – you can't? Then surely just 'barrister' would have done. Or maybe he meant "trained as a barrister but not practising as one..."

Alan Sugar, silver fox

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A couple of additions to our blogroll, both worth checking out: Copy-Editing Corner and Headup: the blog. Seems there are more blogging subs/copy editors than I realised... Talking of which, it might be time that I subdivided my blogroll as it's getting a little unwieldy.

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Earlier in the week Apus wrote a post mentioning the origin of the word limousine, and the photo I downloaded from image library Morguefile to accompany the post turned out to have been taken by the author Emily Roesly. I thought it only fair that I gave her a plug...

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A story in free paper Metro about a teenager who had difficulty ordering a taxi because of the slang she used made me laugh this morning.

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And lastly, I had an email from my mum saying: "I know Posh and Becks called their son Brooklyn, but I've just come across a child called Croydon!"

It's not as unlikely as you might think, oh mother of mine – after all, Croydon has often been referred to as the "Manhattan of South London". On the other hand, David Bowie called it "complete concrete hell" and he's not often wrong...