Sweet Nothings

[NOTE: Grr... Blogger went down on Thursday evening and I lost half of this post. What you see below is partly re-written from memory, so if it's rubbish then clearly that's the reason.] I've not really blogged about The Apprentice before, but after checking the whole internet it appears that nobody else has ever written about it, so here we go! We're into series 7 now and the format has passed the well-established stage and is lurching perilously close to "tired". It's nobody's fault, for this is just the way of TV shows in general and reality shows in particular. These tend to peak in their first series when the format is new and fresh, any cynicism about possible match-fixing hasn't had time to set in, and the contestants aren't all hyper-aware thanks to viewings of previous series. This rule certainly applies to the majority of UK reality shows from the last decade or so - Big Brother , Pop Idol , I'm A Celeb ... The exception is T

They do say that the best way to see Venice is not to plan a proper route and just explore the maze of narrow streets, canals and alleyways not knowing what you're about to stumble upon. My problem is that I'm not very good at aimless wandering. For example, upon exiting the station on day 1, I resolved to follow the Grand Canal as it looped around to the Rialto bridge before heading down to the main Piazza San Marco (St Mark's Square to you); within 10 minutes I was frantically breaking out the guidebook after following the wrong canal. On day 2, after a few minutes of making my casual way through the sidestreets towards the Accademia gallery, I got antsy that I didn't know exactly where I was and ended up following the ubiquitous signs down to the Rialto instead. Even though going via there was a much longer route. Sigh. Still, you're never entirely sure what's what in Venice, wherein lies its charm. Away from San Marco and the obvious tourist traps (and t