The Week's Best Tips!

Don Woods

I spent the weekend in Wales in wonderful Caernarfon....hence the song this week which is entitled "The Magic Of Wales" which I composed back in the day for my best pal Paul Damian.....it extolls the virtues of this great country and was the follow up single to my "How To Say Llanfair P.G." song and at the time sold equally as well to the tourists....I have since included both songs on an album I composed and produced with songs and legends of the country which is available from my website www.donwoods.co.uk There has been a discussion in the media regarding tipping in restaurants with very mixed opinions...personally I feel you should know exactly what a meal is going to cost you and waiters should be paid properly by their employers not by the customers....all we seem to hear is "If you get good service you should show it by tipping...etc".....but isn't good service what you expect?...we don't tip the NHS or public services..........and to add on a percentage service charge is nonsense.....they play to peoples consciences ....and another thing that annoys me is the use of pence in todays marketing...e.g. £199.99......It'S 200 quid !!!!....but to the gullible it sounds less....it's an insult to my intelligence.......bit like the old 99 guineas....which was effectively £105 !!! We are always being informed that we must save the planet by driving electric cars....and the wonderful Government have announced that by 2040 ALL cars will be electric.....I can imagine how well this has gone down with the petrol companies who have been ripping everyone off for decades....so all of a sudden we are told by "researchers" that children as young as 4 years old are having to work down the mines to provide the electric for the cars....I don't believe for one minute that said petrol companies have anything to do with this rumour?....not much.....but the rumours MUST be true......it's in the papers....and as we know most people believe the tripe they read. I was unfortunate enough to watch a programme about the inside story of a Spanish holiday complex....apart from the fact that it featured one family with two instantly dislikable children there was nothing of any interest.....plus the discussing of placing towels on sunbeds at five in the morning made this programme as bad as television gets....plus the fact that 75% of the clientele were overweight Brits.....which made this possibly the last place I would go on holiday.......................and I also started watching the world championship athletics....I now know I am getting old....I was bored out of my tree....the marathon is like watching paint dry...not helped by the constant inane yapping from the commentators particularly Colin Jackson....the actual track and field events are O.K. when they happen (some of which lasting 10 seconds)....and this was on ALL DAY at the weekend....nice to know where my licence fee goes.....I now feel the athletics are in the same category as horse racing and formula one.....BORING BORING!!!! After all the hype I watched "Diana in her own words" on Channel 4......It was a 15 minute programme padded out to nearly two hours....it told us nothing that we didn't already know with repetitive short clips of Diana with the same expression....it was badly edited and whoever composed the background music (which was far too loud) should be thrown in the tower....it was dreadful ....the attempt to dramatise the whole situation failed miserably....the shots of her with the children and Charles playing polo we have seen a hundred times before....the whole thing was totally pointless....that's two hours I won't get back