Tuesday 27 March 2012

Printing is obviously too difficult!

Well, I was wrong. (See previous post)

As I surmised, printing is self-evidently too difficult for Lord Sugar's apprentices.  I didn't see the actual program but I now understand that unlike in the trail I heard, they weren't actually getting their hands dirty themselves.

What they had to do was simply get some mugs and t-shirts screenprinted, and then try to flog them to the public.

In other words they weren't doing or supplying anything useful, unlike the poor benighted printing fraternity, but paying a printer to produce something which nobody had asked for or wanted, and then trying to create a market for it.  Well, I suppose it gave work to a hungry printer, and taught the apprentices about selling stuff in the market, so it can't be all bad.

I can't help wondering whether it wouldn't be more interesting to get them to do something useful for a change?

It's a mad world, my masters!

Wednesday 21 March 2012

The Apprentice?

I heard on the radio today about the latest new series of 'The Apprentice' (to non-Brits out there that's a UK television program putting would-be entrepreneurs through their paces).  Apparently it's going to start with Lord Sugar's latest victims being given the task of ...

Yes, you guessed it. Starting a printing company.

Well, after I stopped laughing, I thought a bit about it.  As we all know, any fool can start a print company.  And also, as we all know, the problem is keeping it going.

It does illustrate the fact that the cost of entry to the trade is lower than ever.  If they had to start by buying a GTO, or signing a year's contract on some serious kit, I reckon the BBC might be less enthusiastic.  I can only presume they are just going to buy some cheap and cheerful laser printer from PC World and take it from there.

We've all seen hopeful startups. They tend to burn their money very quickly, and by under-pricing they take the work away from real print companies.  To think that they will make a go of it is more than a bit unrealistic, especially in the time frame of a television series.

It should be very entertaining. And after all they are bright kids, most of them, so maybe, just maybe, they might come up with some good ideas.  Or maybe not

Maybe someone should suggest something easy for the next series - how about being a brain surgeon for a week?