Alan Sugar :What you see is what you get

I didn't know what to expect when I bought a copy of Sugar's autobiography in Oban to read at the end of a disrupted pilgrimage.

But this is one of the best, honest and fast moving personal stories which I have read for a very long time.

You can hear Lord Sugar speaking every word. We hear of the humble beginnings, his frustration and being employed rather than working for himself; and then of the formidable and quite remarkable rise of his small electronics empire into Amstrad and all that follows.

"You can't buy entrepreneurial juice" Sugar keeps on saying: you either have it or you don't. That is classic Sugar throughout this book.

But apart from the rise and rise of his Empire there are two other stories which dominate this narrative. The first is his buying of Spurs Football Club. The shocking revelations of the pain and frustration at being involved in the commercial world of football makes you wonder why anyone would ever want to get involved in the first place?

The other is the advent of The Apprentice. The way Sugar tells this story - with such honesty (again) and clarity - you realise that he never expected the programme to change his life in the way that it did and also gain some insight into the magical editing job which is done on the programme to ensure that it turns out as good as it does.

Other bits of Sugar wisdom include "I'd discovered that as soon as any new business idea is born, up springs the competition" and his less than sympathetic description of a Daily Mail journalist: "a pathetic loser who does nothing in life other than engage in spiteful sniping to cover his own lack of achievement."

I strongly recommend this book. It's a great read and, whilst I might have had reservations about Alan Sugar prior to reading it - I finished the book with a sense of gratitude that I had taken time out to read it in the first place.