Brian Jones - the visionary founder of the Rolling Stones - will we see his like again?

Brian Jones at left with Gretsch 6118 guitar, Rolling Stones 1964

Its a sad thing to reflect on, but will we see the like of ground breaking bands from the 1960's who are now all but retired from the scene?

In those days, these musicians did an apprenticeship of sorts, playing along to records, learning new material and playing techniques. The post war late 1950's had seen American Rock n Roll come in and the British youth wanted a piece of that.

The half-arsed musical art form of skiffle, a sort of acceptable cod attempt at trad American music, was acceptable to a largely square older generation. The young Elvis, gyrating movements et al, were not, nor were leather jacketed creatures aping Gene Vincent.

To the old guard, they were a temptation, a route to trouble. The scenario would repeat itself 20 years later when Punk Rock erupted.

Turn on the radio these days and you get a studio perfect manufactured pop act, the days of the group that evolved and morphed into a credible musical ensemble, often via the pub circuit are pretty much over.

YouTube and the Internet have killed it off with wall to wall mediocrity. In the old days, a band played in a pub, if they chose the right pub where the record company scouts, the A&R men trawled, they might get somewhere, get signed or get good advice.

From that process, the most marketable would get a studio tryout and perhaps a recording contract. Now, it is likely  that a viral youtube performance gets them a deal. The problem often comes with the 'difficult' second album, 'difficult' because the act has little talent.

Once the crowd stops screaming and the mayhem subsides, the reality is that even autotune vocals can't hide the one dimensionality. And they're gone in moments.

Television shows finding 'new talent' expose it and a year or so later, the new talent is gone, never to be heard of again.

Back to the early 60's and people like Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton for example were all trawling the obscure records bins for obscure records, in their case, real old down home American blues, recorded by the original artists.

It is ironic that the 'British Invasion' of the USA in the early 1960's actually raised awareness of the largely 'forgotten' black music performers of the Blues genre.

Without the British Invasion, who would have created the Monkees? A sort of Americanised version of the Dave Clark 5 or the Beatles but with a television scripted kids TV series?

But moving on from the Blues, the Rolling Stones explored multi-instrumentalism. Brian Jones was at the vanguard of this evolution, introducing Harpsicord, Sitar, Recorder and Marimba into the music.

One wonders what he could have gone onto achieve had not drugs and an early death ended the promise of his abilities?

Having Mick Jagger freed up to be a main vocalist gave the band a freedom that the others in the music scene, bar Cliff Richard could not enjoy, his Shadows as backing band and band in their own right gave Cliff the option of backing music.

The arrangements of the early pop even to the 1980's was well thought out, nowadays it is mostly musical wallpaper, delivering a sausage factory lyric that the performer never had a hand on nor did their band mates, who may not even be playing on the record.

Today is all about image. The music is not the most important thing, money is the driver, but with the traditional avenues of music play feeling the demand of demand media, what you want, when you want it, then we may slowly drown in manufactured, musical mediocrity. Sadly.

Even the pubs with music licences are dwindling, the pub clientele has changed and a modern media rich world with content vies for our attention.

At least we have through the internet, the videos of the old bands, a reminder of how it was in the heady days of the 60's.

Electric cars - you're going about it the wrong way...

Small, electric car by Renault

So, you might think an electric car is 'greener' but is it and are the main builders going about building the electric cars the right way?

Firstly, unless you're going to harvest the sun power for later use in a non-hazardous storage system, then the 'green' argument for powering a car is fatuous. That's because your juice is going to come from either burning fossil fuel or from nuclear. Oh, and the battery is its own little eco hazard area where it's made. But there is hope...

Its the way manufacturers go about the design that may be in need of change. Like the forklift and the milk float, they tend to harness the linking of heavy batteries to get the amps for motive power. Which means you end up dragging a ton of lead about which gets more of a problem the more your battery potential energy is used up. 

Maybe they're missing a trick. They should use a small battery to drive a small rotor over a stator coil and get high amp but low voltage power to drive something else and step up to real cooking volts. Just like and ATV stator does.

With high capacity capacitors and solar panels, you could charge up an underfloor power cell during the day and start your drive on free energy. Then, with rotor units in the wheels, you can start to generate more power as you drive, so that hopefully at 30mph you could be making your own volts in excess of what you need to get forward motion. 4 wheels, 4 rotors, no real drag, free power.

I've seen how an ATV stator can kick out over a hundred volts at idle, so scale it and drop all the heavy batteries with their eco disaster problems. Less weight to move and less weight to drag the thing down.

Many electric cars are made just far too heavy, they are over engineered to accommodate heavy assemblies. So lighten it all by using aluminium, more strength for less weight.

Think different, think light, think power and rectification of power.

Look at trains, they are diesel powering generators to provide the power, not direct drive to the wheels.

Meeting Human Aliens - Real Close Encounters of the Third kind

Human clones have been among us for many years

It has been the staple of many science fiction works over the years that non-humans in human form can walk amongst us often unnoticed. Truth or fiction? Here's my experiences.

Real human or not?

This lady has much larger eyes than normally found in our species

So lets start with our picture above. Many reports of human encounters with off-planet but human looking life forms often report that the creatures are human looking, Scandinavian or Nordic looking, blue eyes and blond hair, around 5feet 8 to over 6 feet, slim, some have slightly larger eyes and 'sharper' defined features than most humans.

Our lady above would fit the classic 'Nordic' reported figure. This picture has appeared in a number of videos and on websites and there is no confirmation of her status or identity.

So what have I encountered?

I have encountered a couple of Nordic types, there are classic giveaway signs, usually they just look too good, too perfect.

Often the hair looks too uniform, almost artificial. The eyes are very vivid and attract you to them. The colour is vivid and seem to have infinite depth. The skin is often flawless. The woman I saw just looked too good to be true. She was not outstandingly attractive, she was attractive but did not stand out overtly in a 'look at me' way.

This lady served me in a bank where I was paying in a cheque, now here's the weird thing. Some years before I had looked into getting a credit card but was not successful, anyway this day, the lady asked me as I hadn't got a card would I consider one, I said I thought it was useful and in a few minutes I had filled out a few basic details on a form.

I wasn't that hopeful about getting a card and in truth I didn't really need it, but a few days later one arrived through the post. It all seemed too easy. I picked up a feeling in the bank that made me think that the person I was dealing with looked too good and I thought about this for sometime afterwards. It is said that these hybrids are psychic and can pick up things you are thinking. I can see her face now, she just looked 'too good', if you know what I mean.

Second one more recently was someone collecting waste oil products. He was a male about my height and had perfect skin, the 'right' hair and vivid blue eyes. I got the feeling he was 'reading me' as I have psychic abilities.

I didn't feel uneasy, perhaps they are part of a greater monitoring plan and looking to identify people for some future plan. I guess we must give off some psychic 'key code' like a frame number that they have in their system? Like they know who to look for, maybe pick up the psychic signals that people like me have the ability? Perhaps they detect the psychics and sometimes avoid them, but sometimes may seek to identify them.

These were two Nordic types, Bridget Neilson has talked about Hybrids and Insectoids in true form in some of her videos, here are some instances of a couple of hybrid Insectoids I encountered in the last 6 months.

Most recently I have had two 'Insectoid' hybrid encounters. So how do you tell these? In both cases and this is spooky, they almost looked identical humans, the first was older by about 10-12 years I would say but here's the comparative list:

Both were:

Women, the second one aged 40's, the first one around 60 but early decade and did not look her age, both wore red dresses, were incredibly slim, were attractive and looked younger than their apparent years, had short dark hair, slight frames and were slim with no fat on, nice personality, friendly, welcoming dark eyes (brown), seemed interested in me professionally and not just superficially. Neither wore a watch or rings. Skin was very good and showed no age signs.

Encounter one was in a music venue I was playing at in April. This hybrid was with a Nordic looking lady a bit older but not a hybrid, or a Nordic in ET terms. My mother had come to see the group I was in playing at the venue and these two had joined her at a table.

I sat down during the interval and the hybrid one I felt was interested in me, was talking a lot and I had a feeling of some connection as if there was an invisible bridge between us. It sounds strange but sometimes you meet people you instantly connect with. Others can be just bland. The Nordic didn't speak much.

This hybrid lady seemed very chatty and I stayed there for about ten minutes until I was called back on stage. By the time I had finished playing, the pair had left and I did not see them again.

Encounter two was at a recruitment agency.

I had been for a job interview and in the meantime waiting for news on this, had been asked to go and see an agency I had applied for a job with. Just in case the job fell through I thought I'd go and see them.

The lady I met there was an almost carbon copy of the first hybrid as above. She was taller, the first was just over 5 foot, this one was about 5 foot 9. My immediate thought on seeing this one was 'Insectoid' that just came into my head from nowhere.

I had the meeting with this lady and it was all fine, the thing about both these encounters was that on both occasions, the entities seemed switched on, attentive, not 'tired' or indifferent. They both had very slight build frames, insect like you might say.

I have this ability to pick up the vibe in the air and often can see a person and know I won't like them or get on with them, I am almost never wrong. These did not give off a negative vibe. Quite the opposite.

Meanwhile, I recall another Insectoid build female I met that was right in the mould with the other two, it was in 2015 and I had been asked to play at a wedding and the bride was pretty much a carbon copy of the second recent insectoid hybrid at the agency.

In a video interview with the American author and ET experiencer Barbara Lamb, she spoke of her encounters with Insectoid creatures, but they were in their 'true' insect like form and not in a 'human' looking version. They were she reported friendly and highly intelligent.

Obviously a human looking version would not arouse suspicion down here, but Barbara said that the beings she encountered were friendly and highly intelligent. The same impression I got from both my encounters in this section.

One other off-Earth being encounter was from a distance some years ago. I was on my mountain bike and taking in the view from an old Bronze age hill fort mound when I noticed three figures in fluorescent green next to an electricity pylon, this did not seem out of the ordinary as I thought they could be line engineers doing inspection or repair work.

I noted for some reason, their height against the pylon structure, looked away and in a few seconds looked back and they had gone. I stayed watching the location and a few minutes later a woman on a horse rode by, I noted her head height and thought I had made an error, those figures were according to my estimate 8 feet tall. Surely I was wrong. No, I wasn't it would turn out.

Some weeks later, I found a book on Russian UFO sightings by Philip Mantle and in it was a sighting of 3 green glowing human shaped entities in a park in a place called Voronezh. They were reported as 8 feet tall. Perhaps from the same origins?

A patch I had in around 1972 when I saw a similar figure in some woods

But we go much further back in time to my first sighting which was around 1972. I was with my grandparents walking through some woods and I had two strange sightings in this same location.

The first one was a Wolf. Now these have been extinct in the wild where this happened, for hundreds of years. It was walking away from me and went into some undergrowth, it was not an Alsation dog of that I am sure.

(Around this time, there were people who were permitted to own wild animals without a licence, this changed in 1976 under the Wild Animals act. This sighting predated that by 4 years. Some animals had escaped before that time into the wild and were often unreported as they did not carry ID or microchips back then and people probably didn't want the problem if they had attacked something and the matter was reported to the Police.)

The second sighting in this location was a human type figure, seen only from the back. It was wearing a brown suit (like in the above picture on the patch) that is called in the US Army Air Forces equipment book by Sweeting, a 'Tomato worm' suit because the segments look like a Tomato Worm caterpillar. Another equivalent of this is the 'Bibendum' figure used to advertise Michelin tyres you may be more familiar with.

The suit looked like light brown canvas covered innertubes and the figure was seen as it walked into some foliage and out of view, from about 30 feet away from the back only. It had a matching colour helmet on. Both were a flat and non-reflective type of material. To me it looked like flat canvas material. There were no clothing designs like that in fashion at the time.

I did not mention the figure to my grandparents, but I did mention the Wolf, although I was told it must have been a dog as Wolves were not in the countryside then. I know that was no dog. So I kept quiet about the figure I had seen in case that was rubbished too.

About 6 years later, I had my first and most amazing daylight UFO sighting, about 6 miles from that wooded location. Like all these encounters listed here, I can see all of them as clear as day if I think back to them.

Craft near identical to the one I saw, this rendering from a 1950's USAF Airman's sighting

The nuts and bolts of this story is we are not alone in my opinion. Check out a book called Encounters with Star People by an American Indian author Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, there is one story in there where an Indian man encountered a car load of human looking creatures dropped off from a craft on his land. They got a flat and he changed their tyre. I have been doing some work with one of the Indian tribes and have read much about the people, their beliefs and their wisdom which is amazing. Check this out for yourself.

Return to Vagenda - because you've gone too far - 40 years of equality

Well, I think this says it all...

Just that as a man I would be criticised for saying it

So 40 years after the Equality act came into being, how have we fared? There is some debate that women are still under represented in some situations, less well paid than men in the same jobs and discrimination seems to still exist, sometimes.

But, as Barbara Ehrenreich has stated above, some women have just gone 'too far' and have become like men. The late American Indian activist of the Lakota people Russell Means stated something along the same lines as Barbara Ehrenreich, that women had just 'become like men.'

In the American Indian society there was always a reverence for the female, the Earth was described as Mother Earth. The Indians had a greater understanding through their spiritual based belief of the role of things. I think they had it right.

Organised religion belief systems have done much damage by their dogma, take those that deny the use of contraception, they not only condemn women to years of childbirth and child care, they create in often poor areas of the world more poverty by extra mouths to feed where this is completely unnecessary.

The American Indians did use natural family planning and as such maintained more viable communities which did not suffer because of lack of resources.

The American Indians had an appreciation of the man and woman relationship

This was how their society was able to function so well for all, for centuries

It served them well enough

You don't have to be anything that you are not

A mere 3 years after the Equality act, Britain got its first female Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher. She was the right person at the right time to sort out a country that had just about become beyond repair thanks to strikes and the previous government.

Mrs Thatcher was the person who showed the rest of the world that Britain was open for business and with the success of the Falklands campaign, that Britain could not be messed with. This was one opportunity where a woman could behave robustly because it was the right thing for the right occasion.

Margaret Thatcher may have made some unpopular decisions

but then again, Medicine doesn't always taste nice

I had a lot of respect for her in her heyday

Snowflake generation upstarts do just this, sadly...

They should stop hitting easy targets like Western men

and direct their efforts to furthering women's rights in the Middle East

It is now time for a re evaluation, the balance seems to have swung too far the other way. Do you know I was pushed out of a job recently because a female Director wanted 'an all girl office.' Well she got that and her sales dived back downwards I have heard.

She announced she was taking over Sales and Marketing of which she had no experience and which was quickly apparent, I had 20 years experience. So she engaged a female friend of hers to advise them on this area.

Feminism at work? Well if that's how it is, you can keep it. I have worked with women for over 30 years and have never had any experience like this in any other job, thankfully. This included service in the Police where I worked with women at Senior rank with no issues.

We are approaching a time where things in our world will have to change for the future if we are to survive as a species. This means we are also going to have to revise our way of operating as a species and as men and women and to re-evaluate where we are going.

One thing I have noted in mostly female offices is sometimes a woman saying 'I'll have to get a man to do that.'

So I guess until someone invents a vibrator that can also put up shelves, men still have some relevancy.

Amazing American Indian Navajo Turquoise Jewellry and pieces from other American Indian makers

North American Turquoise has long been revered by the Indian peoples

The Navajo Indians were taught silver smithing by the Spanish and have made a good industry from their great skills.

A very fine inlaid pendant by Clayton Tom, this is truly outstanding quality

Combining Silver with precious stones and attractive mineral and shell, they are creating some outstanding traditional and modern pieces. The good news is that many are still affordable and the pieces that the artists that created them may become collected and recognised, which they certainly should be.

Calvin Begay inlaid Horse head, using Lapis, Turquoise, Onyx and Oyster shell into Silver

The Navajo are not the only people producing these fine items, many other peoples are also producing some great artworks in metal.

Dina Huntinghorse an Apache taught by her Navajo husband to make jewelry

An outstanding 'story' bracelet which is pierced and set with a Turquoise centrepiece

The Navajo were using Turquoise as decorative wear and in crafts before the combination with silver and learning the skills with silver, the Turquoise stone was associated with the sky and also with good fortune. It occurs in Nevada and Arizona, adjoining states and there is a strata of quality and desirability in the stones. 

Beautiful variations and colours often caused by mineral inclusions

The stone varies in hardness and quality and the harder and more attractive, so is the level of price. Sleeping Beauty is the most prized, Kingman, Bisbee and Nevada Creek are also highly regarded.

The Thunderbird is a highly regarded symbol by many American Indian people

Here is a 'shadow box' ring by Mike Arviso, the Turquoise is Kingman and set in a clasp over fixing.

Nevada Creek Turquoise ring

A fine piece of inlay by Ella Cowboy onto a ring base made by Richard E.Hoskie, The Nevada Creek stone has iron inclusions which give a vein effect to the stone.

A fine Thunderbird inlaid ring by Ella Cowboy

The fine work of inlay artist Ella Cowboy, a Navajo is top quality and her abilities to use the materials with the design should make these pieces very collectable.

Sterling Silver plain Thunderbird next to inlaid version

The inlaid ring at right has Meteorite crystal in which I did

Ella Cowboy inlaid Turquoise chips into silver ring

Large Indian Chief Head, Turquoise and Red Coral

Turquoise, Lapis, Red Coral and White Pearl

Fire Opal Thunderbird ring

By Richard E. Hoskie and Herman Tom

Ella Cowboy and Richard E. Hoskie Gemset Navajo ring

Covellite Thunderbird Ring by Richard E. Hoskie and Herman Tom

Zuni design Inlay, red Coral, Onyx, Turquoise and Pearl

Royston Turquoise Thunderbird ring

Thunderbird Gemstone ring by Richard E.Hoskie and Herman Tom

Silver Fox Thunderbird ring with Turquoise Chip inlay

Ring by Dina Huntinghorse, Turquoise and Lapis

Thunderbird Lapis inlay onto Silver by Silver Fox
These rings are available at

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Little-Silver-works?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

Dina Huntinghorse pierced Silver bracelet with Turquoise centre stone

I hope that you have enjoyed seeing these magnificent pieces of jewelry which are all made by American Indian people, they are just so much better to own than something soulless and mas produced, each one has the artist's own stamp making them truly exclusive.

MGF and MG TF an underrated great buy if you know what to look for! Scare stories explained.

You may have seen an MGF or MG TF and liked the look so here's a closer look...

The TF (left) and the F (Right)

History

The last days of MG production under British Leyland were sad for those of us who thought that the MG brand would die and just be another badge to put on a tired BL base unit to try and prop up sales.

For many of us then, the MGB and the MG Midget had been the stalwart sports car offering from the factory, cars going back at least 18 years. Indeed, many of the old Midgeteers and Bee-ers were the sort of people to sit up and take notice of the new MGF.

With the Rover group acquisition and no competition from the Triumph marque as in the BL days with the Spitfire and TR7, the road was open for a new MG model and not some bodge engineered, badge changed upgraded car.

My TF in Trophy Blue one of the colours that really suits the car

The new MG - The MGF

The new MGF was a car that had been carefully developed, yes it did use some parts from the Metro parts bins, but it was a totally new body tub.

Much care had been taken to style the new car and it does have a similar look to the then production Lotus side on.

The 1.8 Twin Cam engine had been used in the BMW Z3 no less and mated to a 5 speed gearbox gives great performance and economy.

However, much of the car was new, but MG Rover sensibly used some components of the MGF which were already standard fitment on the Metro, because they were available and not expensive. For later years this made great sense, common parts availability is no bad thing.

(The Phoenix 4 debacle did however really cause problems for MG. If the factory had not closed, the cars would have enjoyed longer in production and new models may have come along.)

The MGF Trophy 160 a special edition with bigger brakes and yellow paint 

The TF in yellow with optional colour coded hard top

The MGF came with Hydragas suspension inherited from the Metro, the old MG 1100 and original 1959 Mini, the TF was changed to coils, which gave a slightly harder ride.

An aftermarket coil conversion is available at around £700 for the MGF. The MGF Trophy 160 uses different sized Hydragas spheres which can cause a problem spares wise.
 

Essentially, the TF was a facelifted MGF but with a few upgrade changes, as happened when in 1953 the then MG TD was updated and became the TF. The modern TF had a new front, restyled side panels and a lip put on the boot lid. It gained ABS which is good and some TF's had larger disks and brake callipers. The scuttle was braced on the TF to reduce shake.

The cars both came with a hood as standard and an after market hard top could be had, colour coded to your paintwork. Hard tops are interchangeable between F and TF.

So what was not to like?

The 'problems'

So what are the problems of a by now 20 year old car?

As with any car, its how it was looked after, but the main 'issue' has been the head gasket and here's why.

The MGF and TF have a radiator at front and a mid engine, behind the seats. Therefore the water pipes have to go from front to back, here was one of the problems, unfairly blamed on the head gasket.

When changing the coolant, all the air must be gotten out of the system, I fill the system, raise the front of the car about 12 inches off the ground and then squeeze the rubber hoses and tap with a plastic hammer lightly on the metal ones to displace any air bubbles that are trapped. Bleed the heater matrix to by undoing the small bleed screw. Also leaving the radiator cap bolt off allows the air to escape upwards, when this is achieved screw the plug back in and the heater bleed screw.

Run the car and check the heater, as soon as you get warm air from the vents, you know the system is ok. Let the coolant cool and top up. Let the car down onto the flat and check at the rear expansion tank. It is worth running the car for a few minutes and adding coolant as required, it should not take much. Allow to cool, then check and refill if required, the level is for the fluid to be level with the seam on the see through expansion tank.

The MG TF had a PRT Water system, many F's have been upgraded and I did mine, also fitting new Stainless water pipes at the same time which was a good upgrade. The PRT improves the waterflow and does away with the in-line thermostat. It can be tricky to fit but is well worth it.

If a car has had a new head gasket it should also have had fitted a new bolt rail, which the head bolts go into. Essentially, this improves the strength of the assembly.

Most head gaskets have been upgraded to the multi layer type. If you see bubbles in the expansion tank when the engine is running, you may have a start of a head gasket failure, the car should not be run as water becoming steam, can erode pistons, I have seen this on a water cooled ATV.

Bodywork corrosion is not a common problem on most F and TF's but a car should be kept washed off as much as possible to stop any salt getting to work, the sub frames can rust if not cleaned off. Also make sure you can get the wheels off, alloys can 'grow' onto steel hubs. Better to ensure you can get the wheel off rather than be stranded!

Essentially the F and TF are quite simple cars to own and maintain and you can work on them, although the engine being where it is can make some jobs tricky! It is better if you have access to a ramp or a pit as the cars are low.

The clutch shaft can stick in the bushing in the gearbox which is an inherited fault of the Rover era gearbox, but a greasable shaft can be purchased and at this stage a new clutch is worth fitting too as the gearbox has to come out to do the job.

Really, they are very easy to keep on the road as a daily or weekend car.

So buying one?

I think the car still looks modern and people often comment on the look of the car, it looks more expensive than it is. Prices are starting to rise so they are a good investment, up to a thousand might get you a car on the road and of course low mileage, service history book cars and more recent cars are more expensive.

Driving, they are a delight, light and stick to the road. Ensure tyres are to the correct pressure and the wheels can be set up on a laser tracker to get the best angle to the road.

If you have owned an MG Midget then this is like the next generation and gives over 40mpg on a run if driven carefully. The fuel injection and engine management give better economy than on the old A and B series engine cars of the Longbridge BL days.

I have an F and a TF and they are nice cars, insurance is cheap and can be had as classic policy limited mileage, tax is a bit over £200  a year which is a shame but maybe the threshold will change in the future because these are 'clean' cars.

As someone who has owned an M type from 1930 and a 04 TF I have had both ends of the scale, I often think as I drive my cars that this is the last British made MG Sports car, but we may find that the Chinese owners introduce a new convertible MG in the future.

Value for money, these cars are cheap and will rise in value, they are almost worth buying and putting away for later as they will never be as cheap again. The spares too are cheap at the moment. An alternative may be the Mazda MX5 but I like the MG name!

My other car is a 1930 MG Special

Being successful, just exploit opportunity and being interested in other people's crap.... Seriously

So, how did someone like Lord Alan Sugar make his money?
Hard work and seeing opportunities.

Lord Alan Sugar and Rolls Royce

Did he go to University?  No, only the University of life.

So how did he get successful? Well, in the start by observing two key drivers for success, he saw opportunity and he was interested in other people's crap.

He saw someone throwing away rag and asked them why, so he then saw an opportunity to take their crap away and sell it. Opportunity and crap = money. Like they say in Yorkshire, 'Where there's muck, there's brass.'

But beyond that, he got successful by being in the right place at the right time, namely building products that fed consumer need.

The Amstrad Music centre with obligatory ABBA Album, both 1970's icons

In the 1970's, the new upwardly mobile class of people was forming, successful in post-war Britain (strikes allowing), an age when television was in a golden age and business was changing. The old fogeys who were in charge were retiring and giving way to the younger generation who had new ideas.

A prediction of what the home computer could look like....

How wrong could they get it!

The real game changer was the possibility that a computer could be built small and be something that you could have at home. Electronics was shrinking the size of devices and also increasing functionality in the opposite direction.

The AMSTRAD CPC64, the face of early home computing

What Alan Sugar could forsee with the shrinking of electronic machines was that the computer could be made small enough to be a home use product.

His vision was for a computer that could be used for practical work use, as an educational tool and as a tool to learn to program on.

The beauty was that this product was affordable and worked. Although the machine may be very primitive by today's standards, we can see that thirty some years on how technology has advanced greatly looking back.

Success is all about making the right connections to the right opportunities. And seeing the right opportunities. And that extends to seeing how you can profit from other people's crap!