Srallen’s pain

I used to have one of Alan Sugar’s old Amstrad computers; in fact I wrote two books on it. The great advantage it had over modern computers was its slowness; you could literally make a cup of tea while it saved a page of text, and prepare a three-course meal while it saved a chapter. Modern computers don’t provide that luxury. They’re like dogs after you’ve thrown the first stick; they just sit there panting eagerly, demanding more and more words.

Amstrad stood for A.M. Sugar Trading, though these days the company makes nothing except money, being devoted to property deals. The owner has become ‘Sir’ Alan, a fact of which he is clearly very proud, though frankly, looking at some of the riff-raff who get knighthoods these days, I wouldn’t be too thrilled myself. Either way, everyone calls him ‘Sir Alan’, or rather, ‘Srallen’. If he marketed a new computer it would presumably be called the Samstrad.