TG’s
WEBlog (Known as a BLOG or Blogging)
Wanna
discuss the WEBlog content? Email TGtips@topica.com
or link to TGtips Discussion Place
for an open discussion group.
January’s
Blogs:
Actions Speak Louder than Words, Wordy Bullshit, Branding, Links Today, TV
Heaven, Enemies Bring Gifts, Debate on Dave Weinberger’s New Book, Change Now,
Rant, What I did on my Holidays, Fame and Immortality (Me and Bill
Gates),e-business failures, Parallels with my Father, Micropayments-The Future
of the Internet, My First Day at School, Football Memories and a Chance in
Life, Rivers Link People, Links, Design and Creativity, The Other Faces, 7UP,
What is Voice?-Vision and Action, Writing in Progress, Latest Virus Alerts, When
is a Weblog a Weblog, Hello 2002, Happy New Year, 2002 New Year’s Resolutions.
Blogs
so far this month: Spike Milligan Dies, Camp It Up!, Cluetrain Savaged (and the
Nevilles), Goods Luck Elliot!, Monkey Brains, Busy and
Thanks, MindMaps and Walter
Winterbottom, Radio 8 Blog and
Micropayments, Morning Pages, Women!, Jackson Browne
Lyrics – Lives in the Balance, Let the Consumer
and Employee Revolution Begin, Life
and Death, Corporate Rant, Wilful Georgia!, Celebrity
Blogs, United Internet, Friends Reunited at Work, Immunisation?, Good Business
Leadership, No Logo,
Definitely No Logo, Missing in
Action, Paolo Di Canio.
Thursday 28th Feb 2002
Spike Milligan one of my heroes has died.
(Interesting about
news reporting even on the Internet, I can’t find one article that says when he
died!!)
They say that two
people shaped British (and to an extent world comedy) after the war.
Spike Milligan and
Peter Cook.
They were the
founding fathers of a new form of surreal and sometimes satirical comedy.
In fact I don’t
remember The Goons, and I didn’t get it with The Goons when I heard it. Very 50s, very radio.
I was never a big
radio fan, my brain doesn’t work that way with words. I need visual as well.
What influenced me
about Spike Milligan and shaped my humour from my early teens, was his books.
As an early teen I
used to carry these books around with me at school.
For me a lot of
his stuff is now dated and his Q series whilst ground breaking wasn’t always
that funny.
But like Chuck
Berry, it’s the influence they had on others that mark them out as genius.
I love people who
are at a tangent to what is accepted as the norm and change things.
They swim against
the tide sometimes, and history proves them right.
Actually when you
think about it Harry Hill is the nearest
to Spike Milligan in this generation.
His TV show is a
remarkable similarity to Spike Milligan’s stuff.
And this swimming
against the tide reminds me of others currently doing that in the face of
corporate and government “corruption”.
And I don’t just
mean financial corruption, I mean corruption of thought, thinking and common
sense.
Check these guys
out. In their own way they are to their
fields what Spike Milligan has been to comedy and life.
John Gofman (Threat
from X-rays, and check out his life story, Amazing)
Mark Purdey (BSE
CJD and organophosphates. This guy will
prove the whole medical establishment wrong)
T J Sprott
(SIDS and Cot Death. Again, completely
at odds with the medical establishment and probably right)
Dr Mercola (He
gathers together what is wrong with the medical establishment. A gatherer of other people’s thoughts)
We praise and laud
the Spike Milligans of this world, especially when old or dead, but do we allow
them to thrive when they tell us things we don’t/won’t hear.
Listen to them.
Thank You Spike,
you shaped part of my life.
My Humour
(although there’s none of it in this piece!).
Wednesday 27th Feb 2002
My favourite voice
on the Internet is Camp.
It’s funny, it’s
witty, it’s honest, it’s intelligent.
I was bored today
on the Internet, so where did I go?
To Bradlands
of course.
And where did
Bradlands link me to?
Make a Cootie Catcher!
And Joe Phillips, amazing
graphics and design and sexual.
Also check out RuPaul.
When I’m getting
too white and serious and heterosexual, like 99% of large corporates, I realise
it’s time to camp it up.
Tuesday 26th Feb 2002
John Dvorak in his
Cult of Cluetrain Manifesto article savages Cluetrain, its
followers and Bloggers, and links it somehow to dot-com and the crash.
End of story.
I’d like to shove
his article up his ass, but until there is proof of Cluetrain coming true then
I will have to wait a while.
And of course our
cult leader has replied.
Any attempt to
make Cluetrain come true does seem to be met with intellectual high brow “let’s
keep it as theory” type stuff.
Wouldn’t want to
get our hands dirty, or prove that it is a load of shit.
Of course you
can’t “make Cluetrain come true”. I
disagree. Cluetrain caught what I was
feeling about business and people.
Gave me a
voice. Validated my voice.
I don’t see why it
can’t progress from there.
Examples of
Cluetrain type voice and business?
www.ciao.com is a good example of community at
so many different levels. It’s
commercial, it’s about commercials, it’s humans communicating sometimes for
reward and sometime for community and contribution.
www.friendsreunited.co.uk is the
greatest example of potential on the Internet.
4 million plus UK
people have registered at the school classes or workplace they were at.
That’s 10% of the
population and growing.
These are the once
a week emailers and not just the keen netheads that have a louder voice than
actual population.
Friends reunited
is a social transaction and not a commercial one. I think that an important phenomenon
here. I’m making contact with people
even beyond the face to face, in that I’m connecting with people who if I saw
in the street of my home town I wouldn’t necessarily talk to. This internet thing is really breaking down
barriers, and for me I’ve just tracked down my earliest school friend.
Now some people
wouldn’t want to track down colleagues at school, but for me it has invoked a
deep connection across the world.
I really want to
do something that changes a corporation, this year. Big ambition but already proving fruitful.
Just trained a
group last week with Sales Skills.
What’s the follow up? They’re
going to make 5 new contacts this month and we’re going to review it next month.
How can I support
this initiative? One dream of mine is to
use the technology to create “conversations” a la Cluetrain.
So I’m aiming to
have the course members voluntarily connect to an email discussion group or
chat group.
Let’s see what
happens. Maybe it will work and grow for
the next few groups.
On a completely
different note. If you are into, follow, and play English football, then this
link is for you! The Nevilles
Monday 25th Feb 2002
Elliot won’t be
reading this because he doesn’t use the Internet.
Elliot hardly uses
email.
I met up with him
tonight.
He’s in the middle
of writing his third novel. Almost there
but not quite. The novelist’s struggle.
So good luck
Elliot, even though you don’t use the Internet you’d be quite heartened to read
the Amazon reviews of your last book, Three Dollars.
In spite of your 4
sleepless nights, thank you for coming out tonight.
And finally, thank
you for introducing me to Carlton FC, who you described with the same passion I
feel for Man Utd, so it was a no brainer which team I was going to follow when
I moved to Melbourne.
Good Luck Ell,
hang in there.
And the twist in
the tail? At the beginning of the
evening Elliot asked if he could ask me a technical question about the
Internet.
At the end of the
evening after I’d spent most of time talking about my writing (and he’s the
novelist!!) I asked him what his technical question was.
“Tony, what’s a
Blog? I read about it recently.”
“It’s what I’ve
been spending the whole evening talking about!!”
So I must be on
the right track if the Internet novelist heretic is asking me what a blog is
and I’ve been talking about it for the evening.
Sunday 24th Feb 2002
Damn it, I can’t
find the link, but I read over the last few days that scientists trained a
monkey to use a mouse (that’s PC mouse!) to direct a cursor to quadrants on a
PC screen. They then found the part of
the brain that transferred the signal to move the hand so that the cursor
moves.
They then took the
mouse away and set the feedback systems up, so that the monkey could move the
cursor on the screen just by thought!!!!!
Holy Shit! The implication is that humans paralysed or
disabled will be able to move robotic parts or even their own limbs by tapping
into the brain motor connections.
Found a link by
searching for “monkey cursor mouse brain”
Isn’t Google wonderful.
Monkey Moves Computer Cursor by Thoughts Alone
Saturday 23rd Feb 2002
Oh No! I’ve been busy this week so I’ve missed a few
days. Not written my morning pages (see Artist’s Way), not written my Web
Log for a few days, and not written my Lazy Salesman, Little Book of Less=More
and Rimmer Shit! Although I have been
training people to be Lazy Salesmen this week which is why I’ve been so busy.
Back to writing
again tomorrow, especially as I now have an audience of one. Thank you Dane Carlson whoever you are for being the first person
that I’ve found, linked to my pages, even though I’ve not set my Weblog up
properly to link to easily!
Now I know I have
at least an audience of 1! Now that’s an
incentive.
Monday 18th Feb 2002
I’ve been
preparing for a training course today.
PowerPoint slides and MindMaps (using MindManager). Love the
MindManager software, it really works the way I work, though I haven’t had time
today to illustrate the content with more colour and pictures, to make it more
interesting and memorable. I must put a
few of my Mindmaps on my website, when I can work out how to do it!
Actually when I
have more time, I’ll write some more about Mindmaps. That can be on of my Little Book of Less=More
pieces.
Walter Winterbottom the longest serving England manger,
died on Saturday, but he was before my time.
The one before Alf
Ramsey, who of course I do remember.
I’m really tired
and I hope tomorrow’s training goes well.
Three days of it,
back on stage performing and hopefully inspiring them.
Sunday 17th Feb 2002
I finally tried
out an on-line Blogging system which enables you to write a Web Log (easier in
theory).
As opposed to the
Word 20002, conversion to HTML by saving it as a Web Page and then FTPing it to
my ISP server.
I still can't quite get my head round exactly what Radio 8 is.
I get that it seems to be a client blog writer that
appears to come up in my browser on my desktop.
I get that the files reside on my PC, I get that when
I post it goes somewhere into the ether and my Weblog then sits on some server
somewhere.
That's it. I haven't had time to work the rest of it
out.
What the URL address is (actually here it is), can I
have permalinks so that people link to date or article, and lots of other
things like how I’m going to incorporate it into my website and change the look
and feel.
Step One completed.
I couldn’t get Blogger
to work and FTP to my website and I can’t remember why I gave up on BlogSpot to host my Blogger
account.
Spell Checker.
That’s one of the things I can’t find and I don’t think is there. That’s a big omission because I’m a crap
speller and if I have to write in Word first to spell check it then it’s a
waste of time.
Micropayments and PayPal floatation.
This is a link to a story about PayPal which has just floated big time and handles transactions on the web by acting as a third party for say credit card transactions.
Set me thinking about the idea of Micropayments. What if a company like this, used its technology to take 1 cent transactions and charged 1 cent for the privilege (by the way, how do you spell check with Radio 8?). Mmm interesting, I wonder if that's what people who've invested are betting on. Can you imagine the company that comes up with a Micropayments system and doesn't charge too much per transaction. Say 1 cent.
That means that people could charge 2 cents per page or per view. Maybe it already exists. I can see how it works. You go to this Micropayment company and buy say $20 worth of Micropayments, you get an account number which you then use on Internet sites that are charging 2 cents per day or whatever, (2 cents per cartoon for Dilbert). The Dilbert company then registers with the Micropayment company and is credited back with 1 cent.
Security to stop the supplier company from faking customer accounts may be a problem to overcome. Maybe the customer just pays into the suppliers account without the supplier seeing site of the customer account number. I'll think about this one. I'm sure I'm not the first.
Saturday 16th Feb 2002
I’ve
copied this from my Little
Book of Less=More entry for today
You
want to change the world? Then I suggest
you read Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron and get down to those morning pages.
What
are morning pages?
3
pages of handwritten A4 first thing when you wake up in the morning!
Holy
Shit you might say.
But it
works. Mind you the reason I’m writing
this today is because I missed writing mine for the first time in over a month,
yesterday so this is my punishment.
It
really works. Firstly, it gets you into
the discipline of making time for yourself.
What
else do you think you’re going to do with the half hour to hour it takes, that
is as productive as 3 pages of A4?
And
believe me, the writing builds up substantially very quickly as no sooner do
you know it than you have that book you always thought you’d write.
So
firstly it’s about discipline with time, and just as important it helps you
gather your thoughts.
Review
what you did yesterday, look further into the past, look deep into the past.
Come
back and see how you are right now writing this, and then on to today, tomorrow
and the future.
You’d
be amazed at how many successful people, and not just Artist’s, journal in the
morning.
Every
time I come back to doing it, amazing things happen.
I
started again at the beginning of Jan 2002 as a New Years resolution and to
make 2002 the year of writing,
so it sets
me up at the beginning of the day for the rest of my work.
Ok so
I don’t absolutely do it first thing every morning.
Given
that Georgia wakes up at 6-45 and I have to change her and keep an eye on her,
it’s not the easiest thing to do.
And
besides, I download my emails from overnight, and have a quick look at the BBC
news and Football news.
Then I
write.
When
you first read The Artist’s Way, it can be difficult to handwrite 3 pages.
But
after a while you know what’s possible and the tricks to fill the page when
you’re not in the mood.
I also
have an affirmation which I write down every day. Ok I’ll say it here.
“Who I
am is the possibility of INTEGRITY CREATIVITY
INSPIRATION LOVE FUN
This is who I am.”
You
can also add other affirmations on.
Right
that pads it out for a few lines.
If
you’re really struggling then write down “I am really struggling” as many times
as you like.
Occasionally
I will just write a string of words one after the other, I’ll do it now,
“Carlton,
Cigarettes, Marlboro, Red, Man Utd, Ruud, Dirty, Mud, Claire Jones, Tri-cycle,
Bonfire, Nov 5th, Feb 6th, Ronald Reagan, Spitting Image,
Steve Davis, Snooker, David Vine, Monopoly, Cluedo, Prof Plum, Lilac, Georgia,
Annie, Merv, Joan, Melbourne, Sea, Boat, Sail.”
Interesting
because it’s taken me to Sail and sailing, and made me wonder about learning to
sail and other dreams.
Writing
has been one of the most difficult things all my life.
I’m
dyslexic. My English has always been
appalling. I failed my English ‘O’ Level
first time.
I was
always on report at school for low grades in English.
Sciences
were my best subject. I’ve never been
able to physically write. Ask my friends
and family what my handwriting is like.
A 7
year olds.
And
yet a few years ago whilst training, I needed to write some written work.
The
witting was whatever I wanted in what ever style I wanted. And I’ve never looked back. I love writing now.
Correction. I love writing for me. If I have to write my CV or a proposal or a
business letter, I hate it because I’m trying to conform to what I think people
want to hear.
This
though is easy.
The
best way I can describe it is to imaging you’re sending emails to friends. Use your email style and voice.
After
my written work I started the Artist’s Way, and I’ve never looked back.
Morning
Pages.
If
there’s one thing you do in life, buy the book, read the book, and write the
morning pages.
Friday 15th Feb 2002
Annie is in the
kitchen sighing about the things I haven’t put in the dishwasher. At least I have this translation to
understand what is going on. A Woman’s
Vocabulary
Georgia has been
asleep for 3 hours now, which anything past 2 hours sleep for this 4 month old
is a miracle.
Goodnight.
Thursday 14th Feb 2002
Valentines Day
today of course. Bought the flowers,
bought the cards, received the cards.
Following on from
yesterday, I was playing The
Best of Jackson Browne.
I found these
lyrics written in 1986 and it just goes to show that nothing has changed from
16 years ago.
Jackson Browne - "Lives In
The Balance"
LIVES IN THE
BALANCE (Written 1986)
”I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war
And there's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs
On the radio talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends--
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
There's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even say the names
They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire”
Wednesday 13th Feb 2002
Check this link to
The Ideal Employee.
At first I thought good idea, but then I thought what a load of shit. The order from research of what an employer
is looking for in “The Ideal Employee” is;
I think it’s time
for the revolution to begin. I reckon
there are about 100 million people out there dissatisfied with being an employee
and a consumer.
And let’s not
forget just as there are bad companies out there, there are also bad customers,
your worst nightmare to deal with.
So here’s an
idea. Let’s marry up the good customers
with the good companies and the bad companies with the bad customers. Let the bad companies fight it out with the
bad customers and the rest of us can get on with having a great life.
And it goes deeper
than this, we the good customers are sick to death of the bad companies. The privatised utilities (Phone, Water,
Electricity), the Oil companies, the Airlines, Pharmaceutical companies, Car
manufacturers, the Banks, Politicians.
All the companies which seem to be a cartel or oligopoly but aren’t
breaking any rules by secretly talking to each other, but seem to have some
agreement to not rock the boat and compete on price, just confuse us instead.
We pick on
companies like Nike, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Disney, News Corp. But with those companies we have a
choice. You don’t have to buy Nike
shoes. But there’s very little real
choice who you fly with, which mobile operator, who you buy your petrol
from. They have the markets carved up
and no-one is going to rock the boat.
Here in Australia,
The Banks, The Mobile and Phone companies, The Airlines stink.
All we want is
fairness. Fair wages and treatment for
employees. Good service and value to
customers. Fat-Cat salaries to those
Fat-Cats who deserve it.
What I think
really screws the whole economic system is share price and the stock
market. I can’t really explain it
intellectually, but my gut feel says that something is seriously wrong with the
world being dependent upon what goes on in the stockmarket. Share holders. That’s where the greed and corruption really
comes in.
What it needs is a
loose alliance of 100 million people to say enough is enough to Bush Blair
Howard and the rest. To say this to the
Airlines, Telcos, Oil, Pharmaceutical, Car manufacturers, Banks. To gather together and form something which
works, to use our buying power to dictate to these unsavoury organisations.
Telstra the Aussie
Telco share price has been falling recently.
They made $3 Billion profit last year.
So they’ve cut their free email users, they’ve taken away subsidies on
handsets to the franchise owners and customers, and they’ve put up the price on
Broadband users like myself in mid-contract.
I called Optus, their competitor yesterday and I couldn’t get through
and their website is shit. No Real
Choice.
I’ve calculated
that at the current rate with 1 home phone, 1 business phone, 2 mobiles, 1
internet, 1 Broadband, I will be spending $6,000 a year with Telstra. And let’s not forget Cable TV from
Foxtel. You think for that amount of
money I could get good service or choice.
No. I have to say Foxtel is good. I pay $40 per month I get a service that
works and delivers.
We are divided and
ruled. Complacent. It doesn’t have to be this way but nobody
around seems to be able to do anything about it.
An alternative
vote in the USA gets you Gore, the UK gets you Ian Duncan Smith, Australia gets
you Kim Beasley. Holy Shit, that’s not a
vote at all and is a reflection of no choice cartels we buy from.
Who want to join
the 100 Million New Way?
Tuesday 12th Feb 2002
Check out this quiz
to see if you’ll survive Staying Alive.
I got the link
from David
Weinberger who’s on form today with this,
“It reminds of a
thought experiment I used to present to students. (I don't remember where I
read it.) Suppose a genie tells you that you can become the emperor of China,
with all the luxury and riches you could ever want, just by drinking a potion.
You think this would be great and you're all set to do it when the genie says,
"Oh, there's just one small catch. When you drink this potion, you'll fall
asleep and a few hours later you'll wake up as the emperor ... but you'll have
no memory of ever having been you." Most students say they would drink the
potion anyway. But then, demonstrating how much smarter you are than your poor
little students, you ask: "Ok, then tell me the difference between (1)
waking up as the emperor of China with no recollection of who you are today and
(2) you dying and someone else very much like you becoming emperor."
And on a different
subject. Corporate Speak at Microsoft.
Monday 11th Feb 2002
I am so pissed of
with many corporates and the business world.
Where to
start? I’m fuming, I’m raging.
Telstra have put
my Cable Internet bill up for the same service, in the middle of our 1 year
agreement. Why? Because they can!
Whilst this
happened last week, I also read that Telstra are stopping a free email service they offered to many users a
few years ago, and that they’re doing away with subsidies for mobile handsets for the franchisees of
Telstra shops, some of whom have only recently signed a six year agreement
based on a cost model for subsidised handsets.
What’s going on?
“The shutdown comes as Telstra tries to resurrect a flagging
share price through price hikes and new fees across all its product lines of
mobile, fixed line phones and the internet.”
The Australian Feb 7th 2002
Telstra I think made $3 Billion dollars profit last year.
And I tried to contact the competition today to see if I
could move my Cable Internet business.
Optus seem even worse. There’s
not information on their internet site about download levels and internet
speed, just patronising shit about how much faster cable internet is, and I
couldn’t get through on the phone having tried twice for ten minutes. It doesn’t bode well if I moved to Optus.
So two things occur to me here. Firstly, what the fuck is share price all
about? I really don’t get it. A company exists, its aim I assume is to make
revenue and profit. But what has the
share price got to do with a functioning company? It’s not as though the share price directly
reflect a company’s performance. If you
drive the share price up temporarily and piss all the customers off then you
won’t have a company. Not only that but
you piss all the employees off who have to deal with the angry customers. I feel really sorry for the Telstra staff on
the ground, facing the angry customers, and having both hands tied by the
Marketing idiots and senior management who don’t give a shit because they’re on
fat salaries.
Secondly, I’m still reading No
Logo by Naomi Klein – “Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies” I’ve not read all of it yet but so far (p192)
it’s an excellent and well researched book.
But I was looking around the house this morning and I can’t
find one product yet that we’ve bought for the brand. Now maybe we’re the perfect anti-brand couple
but actually most of our products are bought on function. Honestly.
The only brand I can find which maybe I couldn’t justify on function is
Gillette shaving foam and Mach III razors!
I’m really struggling to find a brand assisted purchase.
And my point is that with The Coca-Colas, The Nikes, The
Disneys of this world, at least I have a choice. Even with Microsoft there is some
choice. But with telephones and water,
trains, air flight, petrol, banks and things there really is no choice. Sure there’s appears to be competition but
they seem to be acting like a cartel or oligopoly (I don’t know the difference)
where they’re not in collusion, but they seem to be saying,
“Listen guys, if we don’t rock the boat on price here we can
carve this market up by confusing the consumer with offers that are so
confusing they can’t be compared.”
But beneath it all there really isn’t any competition.
This is worse than the publicly owned utilities who at least
didn’t have a profit or share motive.
And finally, check out these links on Arsdigita. A successful start-up company with a great philosophy,
run into the ground by Venture Capitalists (Allegedly!!).
Admittedly, the links tell one side of a story and I’m sure
the Venture Capitalists have something to say but I know who I believe.
CoFounder/Girlfriend's view of Arsdigita Diary of a Start-Up. Very Interesting
The Founder and boyfriend Philip
Greenspun
Another Employee
less in love with Philip Greenspun.
What does it say about business? What does it say about life?
Greed. Dishonesty.
Perspective – Two people can have a different perspective of
the same object, it doesn’t mean that one of them is lying.
I’m going to write about this more another time. But I think it’s time for a revolution. Not necessarily a left-wing let’s attack
everything type revolution, but a group of consumers, say 100 million people
who come together and say,
“This is what we want corporates, stop ripping us off,
Enough is Enough.”
"And
I really don't know who sent me,
To
raise my voice and say:
May
the lights in the Land of Plenty
Shine
on the truth some day."
Sunday 10th Feb 2002
Georgia, my
daughter is 4½ months old.
She’s coming along
well, doing a lot of the coordination things very well.
She’s almost
sitting up. I was playing with her today,
surrounded by cushions and she was sitting up and leaning forward.
Sleep though is a
very different matter. She just will not
sleep for longer than 2 hours at a time, sometimes for just 30-40 minutes.
Of course her favourite
place is sleeping on us.
Put her down on
her back to sleep and she squawks.
And not just
immediately but as long as we leave her.
Admittedly we
don’t leave her for longer than 15 mins if she’s crying (It would be
interesting to see just how long she would cry for!)
If she’s anything
like my sister was, hours!!!
We’re at our wits
end, especially Annie, with all the feeding.
Is it hunger or is it her sleep pattern?
We’re looking at
Baby Formula now to fill her up at night to see if she sleeps longer, but so
far she won’t let the bottle anywhere near her.
I’m dead against
formula, breast is best and I see too many snotty and unhealthy formula fed
kids.
But I was
reassured by a knowledgeable health person who has a 14 month old, to
experiment and see what works.
Not all kids react
badly to formula. Some love it and
thrive. Just to be aware if it does
affect Georgia and keep switching until we find what works for her.
Good advice.
During the day she
wants to be awake for as much of the time as she can. She might miss out on something.
That would be ok
if she slept at night, but she doesn’t for long enough.
Ah,
parenthood. The first few months we
sailed along, only now is it getting a bit exhausting.
Wouldn’t have it
any other way though.
Love her!
Saturday 9th Feb 2002
More and more
people are getting into Blogging. Web
Logging.
There’s a lot of
conversation about why blogging and genuine voice blah blah blah yadda yadda
yadda etc etc.
But there are some
things happening.
Celebrity
Blogs. If you search for a star you
normally get some shit issued by the film company, or recording company, which
tells you a whole lot about nothing. Not
that I’m into the cult of the celebrity (my wife is though with her weekly
trash magazines which of course I never look at over her shoulder!)
But when you hear
a genuine voice, a real voice it does make you sit up and realise how much crap
is out there.
Two Blogs which a lot
of people are linking to and are good not because of their celebrity status but
because of their voice, and there is a celebrity perspective are;
Wil Wheaton – Star Trek The Next
Generation (I enjoy reading it without ever having seen Star Trek “TNG” as I
believe they call it)
Ru Paul – Yes Ru Paul has a Blog
and I started reading it yesterday. It’s
excellent.
One link from Ru
Paul’s Web Log is this As the World
Turns. It’s a bit corny but a stark reminder of the Real World.
Friday 8th Feb 2002
I’ve been thinking
some more about Friends
Reunited at Work.
Now that people
can register for both school and work, that’s a lot of people and context.
Currently at 4.5
million registered, it could end up with at least 10% of the population.
What I’ve thought
about, is this the biggest voluntary database in the UK?
I’m sure some of
the shoppers’ loyalty cards have more people, but this one is open to the
public.
The other thing is
that it’s a real peer to peer thing.
No-one is trying to sell anyone anything (yet!).
I've
been thinking about this in Cluetrain/conversational terms and I think the
implications are massive. I don't know
about you but 30 years ago even on a modern housing estate, we knew everyone
and all their gossip and business. Like
a village/dwelling. We seem to have
dispersed across the world (I've just moved to Australia) over the centuries
especially the last 30 years. Nowadays,
you'd be lucky to even recognise your next door neighbour.
And
now Friends Reunited. I'm wondering just
how big this is going to be and if it may have a social impact. The kind Cluetrain talks of. And one of the big differences is that this
is including people beyond the "Netheads", the people who just use
email and buy the occasional thing. And
also it's not a financial transaction, it's a social transaction.
Of
course, there are the implications of those that have internet access and those
that don't, those that can type and those that can't, those who've "made
it" and those too embarrassed to register, but I think the more people who
register, the more people will register.
The
social implications are interesting. I
notice that you can now send a Valentine Card, sponsored by Rolo! So not only old friends, but old enemies and
old flames (or flames you’d wished for!).
It
will be interesting to see if this changes the social fabric of the UK in any
way.
It
has the potential to change things but I’m not sure.
I’m
now in contact with people I wouldn’t say hello to in the street, people I’ve
not spoken to for over 30 years, and yet suddenly we all have this common thing
of being registered on Friends Reunited, and of course being nosey and gossipy.
Just
like neighbourhoods and villages of old.
Thursday 7th Feb 2002
Oh no, a new sad addiction.
Friends
Reunited at Work!
So now you can
look for those weird people at work and not just at school.
Holy Shit.
Now I’ve got to
earn even more to prove I’ve made it.
Good Idea
though. I thought of it myself a few
months ago.
Good to see
they’ve implemented it, and I hope it works as well as the school version.
I can see there’s
going to be lots of teething problems and abuse but it’s a great idea.
Wednesday 6th Feb 2002
Happy Birthday
It’s my birthday
today.
Born 6th
Feb 1961 Monday 8-00am Whalley Range (Manchester, England)
Of course that
makes me 41.
With a 4 month old
daughter (who is screeching away, she won’t go to sleep), my birthdays don’t
seem so important. In fact I went out
before to buy myself some breakfast treats and ended up buying her a whole set
of small toys to cuddle and hang up.
And of course the
famous born on this day. Well, what a
list. I’ve not managed to add any names
since I last wrote about my birthday but I’m always on the look out to add to
this weird collection.
Ronald Reagan,
Jimmy Tarbuck, Leslie Crowther, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rip Torn, Babe Ruth, Patrick
McNee, Natalie Cole, Gayle Hunnicut, Axl Rose, Rick Astley, Lionel Blue, Keith
Waterhouse, Bob Marley, Billy Wright, Fred Trueman, Manuel Orantes, Mike Batt,
Eva Braun, Megan Gallagher.
Curious
bunch. There must be more. More sportspeople. More Footballers. I can’t find a list of English Premiership players
and their birthdays, I want to find which footballers have the same birthday as
me other than Billy Wright! Searching
the Web so far hasn’t come up with much, all roads seem to point to www.famousbirthdays.com. Mind you in searching I found one curiuous
fact. Over 50% of footballers that
played for England between 1986 and 2000, had their birthday in Sept Oct or
Nov, which suggests that sporting development and getting noticed is based
around being oldest in the School year.
Alas it was Rodney
Marsh’s website I found this on.
Going down to the
sea for lunch at my favourite Café at North Rd Pier Brighton.
The weather seems
good today so I’d like to Roller Blade.
Do some writing.
Out tonight with
Annie for dinner. A steakhouse by the sea (now that I’m back on meat with
vengeance).
Spoken to Mum
already.
Time to reflect on
birthdays gone by, today, and birthdays for the future.
I’ve always taken
the day off, but not many birthdays seem memorable. I usually play some kind of sport on my
birthday and lose.
Wishes Hopes and
Dreams
Good Health for
myself, all my family and friends, Wealth, Expression of my Creativity, Spirituality,
Peace (inner peace and of course the Miss World “World Peace), a home
overlooking the sea.
Happy Birthday to
me!
Tuesday 5th Feb 2002
My daughter is
having her 4 months old immunisation injections today, and I feel helpless.
I worry. It’s very difficult to weigh up the risks.
The risks of
immunization versus the risks from the diseases they’re immunised against.
Sure each
government has standard campaigns to explain how fantastically safe it all is
and how nothing ever goes wrong!
Chance in a
million! Check this article out from the
Dr Mercola website.
And yet you search
on the internet and every search for every disease brings up disaster after
disaster after disaster.
What is going on?
Firstly,
governments themselves can’t agree on a common policy, so why should we trust
any of them.
Here in Australia they don’t
even recognise any damage form immunisation.
In the UK and USA
they do recognise damage and pay compensation.
In Japan they
don’t immunise their children until 2 years of age.
Japan has one of
the healthiest child and aged populations.
Is it genetic, is it food, is it immunisation?
I look around me
and I see more and more unhealthy kids. They seem to have their vitality squeezed
out of them.
Am I imaging
it? If not, is it due to environment, is
it due to change in lifestyle and lack of exercise, is it the food we eat, is
it the drugs we take, is it the injections we give?
I really don’t
know. Georgia has gone off for her
injections and I’ve said to myself well what are the chances of permanent
damage?
Even if it’s as
poor as 1 in a 100 as long as I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 100 and
you don’t guess what it is I’m ok.
If 100 people read
this then I’m in trouble.
Mind you if 50
people read it I’m also in trouble.
So I hope and
pray. I think twice.
I read of the disasters with immunisation and wonder
if we just see the remnants and 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 1,000,000 bad cases which
shouldn’t worry us too much statistically.
And we don’t’ hear so much of the disaster from the diseases by not
immunising.
But it’s all well
and good a doctor being reassuring, they don’t have to look after the kid for
the rest if it’s and your life (whichever is the shorter), and as long as the
doctors ass is covered and they all fall in like sheep, who really cares.
Isn’t science and
research a wonderful thing?
Isn’t industry and
capitalism a wonderful thing?
Aren’t
pharmaceutical companies wonderful?
Just a word of
warning. The cigarette companies denied
denied denied denied and denied any health damage being caused by smoking, or
knowledge of any research from smoking.
And now look where we are with some of them paying our compensation left
right and centre.
Now with
cigarettes you can argue that people had a free choice to smoke and knew of the
risks for a long time.
What about
immunisation?
Do we have a
choice?
Are the
pharmaceutical companies more moral than the cigarette companies?
Big money is
involved here, be careful with your answer!
Monday 4th Feb 2002
Chris
Macrae asked for 4 eternal measurable rules of good business leadership, so
here are mine;
2 DOs
2 DON’Ts
Sunday 3rd Feb 2002
Just reading “No
Logo” Naomi Klein, I’m 100 pages in, and beginning to see these evil
Branders for what they are.
Actually I quite
like brands. I’m with the Tom Peters! school of branding.
Good Branding=Good
Design + Good Service (that’s my equation, not Tom Peters)
I don’t mind
brands per say, it’s the philosophy (or lack of philosophy) behind some of the
brands and companies that I hate.
And if people want
to buy products because of their branding then that’s up to them.
However, if
companies can’t see the revolution coming, and they think we’re stupid, and
they only cater for the Yoof market, then that’s their problem.
A couple of interesting links related to the
debate. Pay
to punish is about Swiss research that shows if you allow people to self
regulate and be able to punish those that step out of line, that there is a
strong communal moral fibre that exists in us humans, over and above
greed. Hard to believe, but maybe it’s
just The Swiss!
What Happened to
My Customers? is a more eloquent rant than I’ve written about the changing
marketplace and how companies that patronise and ignore the older (and I mean
30+ years old) customer at their peril.
The more I read
about the Enron
debacle the angrier I get. This is a
fantastically well researched and readable piece. I hope he’s got all his facts write otherwise
he may get his ass sued.
And what of Andersen’s
involvement. Check this one out and
here’s a short quote from it.
“Hardly
an impartial observer of the firm, Andersen had been Enron's auditor since its
inception in 1985. Over the years, dozens of Andersen employees had jumped to
Enron for reasons of higher pay and career advancement. And they had become
interchangeable with Enron workers, attending company fundraising events and
ski trips in Beaver Creek, Colorado. That practice, widespread between Big Five
firms and their clients, has a tendency to discourage accountants from
questioning a client's accounting practices too rigorously for fear of
alienating a potential future employer.”
I once asked a
Holocaust survivor what he learnt from his experience, surprisingly he said,
“Whenever I see the
outbreak of a war, I always ask myself this.
Who’s making the money?”
Greed and a Lust
for Power. Perhaps I don’t have enough
knowledge of these things, but Shares, I don’t get.
To me they don’t
reflect the value of anything other than themselves. They just seem to me to be a traded commodity
with an arbitrary price.
Do I have absolute
Integrity? No. Do I try to have
Integrity? Yes.
Saturday 2nd Feb 2002
I completely
forgot to write an entry for Saturday (it’s now Sunday!), so I’m cheating.
My excuse, forgive
me reader, is that I’m writing 4 Web log type entries per day.
My daily Web Log
which is this and I tend to write it later in the day when I’ve done a bit of
surfing so that I can put some good links in like a good Blogger.
But I’m also
writing the material for 3 potential books on-line, gathering what I write
after a year and see how it looks. So
yet another plug for;
I must have got
carried away with finishing the other 3 Weblogs and not noticed I hadn’t
written my TG Weblog.
Oops.
Friday 1st Feb 2002
Man Utd have
called off their chase for Paolo
Di Canio, from West
Ham.
The deadline for
submitting the squad to play in the European Champions League passed yesterday.
I don’t get
it. They may have passed on the new Eric
Cantona, the catalyst who could set them alight.
He’s a proven
player in the Premiership, and the chances are he’d have made the difference in
Europe.
And all because
Dwight Yorke won’t go to Middlesbrough (would you?)
Yorke’s wage
demands are too high, so he’s happy to sit it out at United.
I loved Yorke when
he arrived at United, and now I hate him.
I’m fickle. He lacks integrity
both on and off the pitch.
But what I don’t get
is that United claim to be the biggest club in the world and can’t afford to
cough up for Di Canio, which even with his wages is small beer.
What is going
on? If they pay so much for Veron, and
get rid of Cole and Sheringham why can’t they afford Di Canio? He’s not exactly going to break the bank.
I don’t believe in
overspending but, come on, this one isn’t exactly a big one, unless there’s
something I don’t know.
Passing on the
next Cantona?
Would you?