October 2008 - Guru Blog

'Kebabs made as corpse lay nearby' is a headline bound to grab anyone's attention, but it made Guru almost choke on his chicken shish. In what must be the most blatant disregard for an employee's wellbeing, a fast food shop owner was found preparing kebabs while a staff member's corpse lay nearby. Police called to the shop owned...

While on hold to his gas provider this morning to explain that a personal government bailout was needed to fund his latest bill, Yours Truly started browsing the internet. Loudly berating a scantily clad Mrs Guru for her penchant for having the radiators so hot you have to wear sunscreen just to watch TV, Guru came across an interesting news item. Apparently...

Fresh from his success in demanding that the US Senate pass President Bush's $700bn financial bail-out package, CIPD chief beancounter John Philpott now has the Bank of England in his sights. A jump in calls to the CIPD's legal helpline prompted Philpott to demand a big cut in interest rates to cushion the blow of rising unemployment. Trouble...

As jobs become scarce, news from Japan that Monkeys are being employed to carry out menial tasks in a restaurant comes as no surprise to Guru. Apparently the monkeys are acting as waiters - delivering drinks and hot towels to enlightened customers . Being imbued with the wisdom of the East, Yours Truly has always understood that our hairy relatives...

Never a huge fan of cabinet reshuffles - except the type that sees empty whisky bottles replaced by full ones - Guru was nonetheless delighted to see that Sion Simon was the new skills minister. Sion who? I hear you ask. Well, watch this video of Simon mimicking David Cameron and you may well remember him. The post-Leitch skills debate may be about...

Things have been looking pretty bad of late, what with Northern Rock, Lehman Brothers and HBOS all falling victim to the knee-jerk boys working down in the stock market panic station. And as that sweaty monkey over the pond tries to juggle the half-eaten bag beans that are the American fiscal system - while simultaneously eating a banana - as the world's...

Guru was abruptly woken at 11:30am this morning to be told of the care worker in North Wales who is entitled by law to be woken after six hours' sleep to take a rest break. Yours Truly drifted back off for a couple of hours then got up to write this blog. Even after three extra-strong coffees and two Danish pastries, however, he was unable to fully...