One of them yes, the other was Training for Trainers course which I did for six months back in 1991 based in a hospital. I've got AMITD(Associate Member of the Institute of Training and Development) after my name officially.
When I started at the hospital I was an ordinary nervous student-type but I ended up befriending the Admin Officer and she then let me write some exercises out for typing and much later I actually went on to take some of the lessons. It was through that participation that I was considered for the above-which was a great move and showed their faith in me. The 90's was a bit of a wilderness decade because no matter how many letters I typed out I just couldn't get a job which became demoralising-without the computer I'd have gone mad. I did set about writing a children's book but that was rejected by a publishing company as being "too Enid Blyton" I say!!
I've just remembered something else which you could almost compare to the hysteria surrounding BREXIT today. The Millennium Bug. Cast your minds back to around 1998 or so and there were lots of reports that it was found that, not affecting anything before the 1990's, that all computers would need to their dates to be changed or horror of horrors they would crash on you and all that stuff you had stashed on it would be impossible to get to. I remember reading loads of things in the newspapers who stirred up this hysteria and the television wheeled out experts and other clever boffin-types who said yes, we would have to do something otherwise it could cause a catastrophe - one leading newspaper even said it was possible that machines that relied on computers like aircraft could fail and eek! fall out of the sky! possble nuclear meltdown or anarchy on the streets and looting...CALAMITY!! APOCOLYPSE NOW! END OF THE WORLD!!! screamed the tabloids(or words to that effect) and we would all be in real trouble.
Come one year to go 1999-and that night of the 31st December(but of course the historians argued that the Millennium should be 2001 not 2000 because there is no Year Zero!) and mostly people were determined to party like it was 1986(when the song by Prince came out of course) and have a bloody good time. As it crept closer throughout Christmas again we were warned to either put back your computer to 1984(apparently this was a good year) or get a new one and not worry about the consequences. On that night my parents decided to have a party and invited a load of friends over -unfortunately, as mentioned earlier somewhere here I was in bed with a rotten cold and couldn't attend-probably just as well because I might have worried about the computers in the house. Next morning the Year 2000-wow! who'd have thought it a brand new Millennium of sorts begins, a chance to assess the old years, decades etc and thank goodness we'd made it to another New Year.
So did anything actually happen? Well yes and no. Somewhere a few computers went a bit weird but luckily none of the doom-merchants who had said we would be plunged into darkness, possibly anarchy in the streets got it right-in fact NOTHING happened. No aeroplanes fell from the sky, no rioting in the streets, no looting from shops, nuclear power plants didn't go into meltdown, but more importantly OUR computers were fine - well they would be had you taken the advice and put it back to a date like 1984 or spent money forking out for a new one - everything was fine (unless of course you remember something happening).
Be interested to hear if you have a story about Millennium Night OR whether your computer played up at all.
The CD was gaining popularity even though they weren't always as reliable as we were told they would be. Remember a demonstration shown on Tomorrow's World when it was spread with jam, put on the floor near a magnet etc and then it still played-yet a small speck of dust on it in your player rendered it useless!
I've mentioned James Bond before but I was really hoping that the new James Bond film of the 1990's(1995 to be precise) GOLDENEYE. Everyone was worried because True Lies had come out beforehand and proved to be a massive hit. Licence to Kill had been slammed as being too harsh and gory for the first time, the Bond people had to have a rethink. Timothy Dalton had been very good in 'The Living Daylights' but some thought he lacked the humour and sex appeal of Roger, Sean or George. Rather harsh I think. Anyway I remember going to see Goldeneye and being pleasantly surprised by Pierce Brosnan(who should have played him years before but wasn't released from his role in Remington Steele) The opening sequence of Wayne Michaels bungee-jumping of the dam was amazing. BOND was BACK.
^^
Goldeneye is amazing its a proper bond film its got 2 great villians i mean how hot is famke janssen? Its got an amazing theme song and its got the best bond video game aswell
Got that game on Wii and played it several times. Yes Izabella Scorupco and Famke Janssen are very tasty-fancy being throttled by Xenia Onatopp's thighs-ouch! Song by Gladys Knight.
Television was pretty good back in the 1990's but the biggest error by whoever owned it was getting rid of THAMES Television which had produced some great series over the decades from The Sweeney to Minder and even comedies like On the Buses and Rising Damp-it was actually worth watching BUT someone changed it and near the end of the 90's we got(here in London at least) CARLTON tv; never a patch on THAMES. Instantly boring, nothing worth watching and the end of some favourites saw it go in a completely different way. Other companies that had been around for years disappeared, like London Weekend TV who shortened it to LWT or some changed name such as Southern Television became Meridian, a Birmingham based channel became CENTRAL TV and others. Still we had the good old BBC!
When Carlton TV was created they began to make their own programmes including a new take on The Return of the Saint starring Simon Dutton. He was okay but it didn't last very long even though they spent a lot of money on it. There was also a cookery programme starring a very young James Martin(Chef) and his flat mate one Paul Hollywood(now known for Great British Bake Off) and they would make food for each other and a special guest. They would be like lads talking about beer, girls and usual laddish stuff. Later ITV decided to scrap it and re-brand itself with a new logo.