Should you trust someone that insists on being addressed as "SIR"??????

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cressida100

05-06-2008

Originally Posted by Sara Webb:
“You know when they chorus "good morning Sir Alan!" Does that take anyone else right back to morning assembly at primary school?

"Good morning, Miss Whatsyername, good morning everyone".”

So true!

cressida100

05-06-2008

Originally Posted by Minky_Bum:
“Sir Alan Sugar just has a classic case of SHORT MAN SYNDROME.

Money can't buy you height ”

But it can buy you "built-up" shoes!!:

Ignazio

06-06-2008

Originally Posted by Minky_Bum:
“Sir Alan Sugar just has a classic case of SHORT MAN SYNDROME.

Money can't buy you height ”

But money, it seems, can buy a knighthood.

Take your pick - height or money+knighthood

CTUaholic

06-06-2008

Originally Posted by Aleksis:
“I know he seems like a sweetie when he appears in interviews with Jonathan Ross, but I've heard he's quite the bastard when the camera's off and he's outside the television environment...”

A friend worked for BT and had to go to his "house" to do some work, he was pointed to a lift and got in with SAS who told him to get out as it was his "private" lift..

Dub1

06-06-2008

Is it only royalists who have to call him Sir Alan,or do us republicans have to bow and scrape also?

sebright

06-06-2008

That's correct.

Amrywiol

06-06-2008

Originally Posted by Dub1:
“Is it only royalists who have to call him Sir Alan,or do us republicans have to bow and scrape also?”

It's not bowing and scraping, it's simple good manners. "Sir" is simply part of his name, in the way "Mr" would have been before he was knighted. Nobody will bang you up in the Tower if you decide to be rude, but it's absurd to claim that simply using the correct form of address to the man is a betrayal of any sort of principle.

Citing republicanism as a reason for taking offence at this would make about as much sense as somebody on a calorie-controlled diet asking "Can I call him Sir Alan Aspartame instead?"...

I love Ellie

06-06-2008

Originally Posted by realitybyte2:
“Sir Alan is a man of many contradictions - his inverted snobbery yet insistence of being called 'sir', being one.

After watching this series, I think he's a bit of a pillock. In fact, isn't he more of a failed businessman, rather than a success? (relatively speaking that is)...wasn't his Amstrad business worth over a billion in 80s, but he ended up flogging it for millions?

Knighted in 2000, donated money to Labour in 2001 (hmmm).”

He's little more than a spiv.

GerriP

06-06-2008

Originally Posted by Amrywiol:
“"Can I call him Sir Alan Aspartame instead?"...”

*snort*

lesleyanne

06-06-2008

Originally Posted by Harry Barry:
“I think its the BBC who makes the "sir" so important!!”

Yes I believe you're right - they make they apprentice wannabes call him 'Sir Alan' but that doesn't happen in real life.

The interviewers from this week didn't use the 'Sir'.

nagging

06-06-2008

I can't remember ever hearing him saying you must called me Sir Alan?

I think the programme makers just tell the candidates to do so for added prominense.

Vicar2win

07-06-2008

Originally Posted by CloughOfFife:
“Is it really true that he insists on being called 'Sir' Alan???

I wouldn't instantly distrust someone just because they make this stipulation - however, I do find it rather odd. It's surely a sign of arrogance or conceit of some kind, and I say this not as a dig at Sir Alan, but simply because were I to be knighted I would be too embarrased to insist on people using the 'Sir' (although to be honest, it isn't something that would even cross my mind in the first place!).

I suspect Sir Alan does have a touch of arrogance about him - I recall in an earlier episode, when the candidates were having some kind of do in a department store, SA arrived and was milling around, and someone had the effrontery to walk up to him and say Hello - SA looked at him like he had just farted very loudly, and turned away from the peasant in question very slowly, with squinted eyes! I found this episode rather amusing, and obviously quite strange.

However I suppose he has every right to have a bit of arrogance and conceit about him, considering where he started in life and what he has done since then - building successful companies and earning hundreds of millions of pounds etc.

Maybe if I had done what he has done I would feel I had earned the right to be addressed as Sir; until then you can all keep calling me 'your greatness', as usual”

Yes he is successful, however I know several very rich and successful people that are very down to earth, kind and not at all arrogant.
I think if you get that successful in life but can still treat people from cleaners, waiters or anyone else with politeness then you really are a gem.

nevada

07-06-2008

Yes, it's Sir Nevada if you will.

rolergirl

07-06-2008

i remember when i think simon(?) forgot the sir when addressing him and you could hear a pin drop and the poor lad gulped,i think he thought he was gonna be fired on the spot,
alan

did give him a dirty look but nodded as if to carry on

ForeverBeret

07-06-2008

In a formal situation, the correct way to address a knight is as "Sir [whatever his first name is]", as it has been for hundreds of years before Siralan was born. It's hardly like he invented the idea.

vidalia

07-06-2008

Originally Posted by Vicar2win:
“Yes he is successful, however I know several very rich and successful people that are very down to earth, kind and not at all arrogant.
I think if you get that successful in life but can still treat people from cleaners, waiters or anyone else with politeness then you really are a gem.”

Do any of us actually know if he really is arrogant outside of this programme or is it just what we have read or heard from a friend of a friend who once knew someone who worked for him?

abercrombie

07-06-2008

This is a silly thread if you don't mind my being so familiar!

1. I think it is probably the programme makers

(or do you think he meets them all before hand and instructs them all how to address him?)

2. Do you go into hospital and call your doctor/consultant by their first names?

3. Would you go into court and call the judge by his first name?

If someone is a doctor, you call them doctor etc, if someone is married, you call them Mrs. whatever and if someone is a knight of the realm, you make snide comments about how they are not actually that great after all

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