Cycling to work – an update

Posted on February 3, 2010 by Adem

The other week I wrote about how I’d been cycling to work as part of my Targets for 2010 and I thought I’d give you an update.  Last week I didn’t cycle at all, but this week I have so far cycled in twice, which I think makes up for missing out on last week as my aim was to ‘Cycle to work at least once a week’.

Here are dates so far that I’ve cycled to work:

  • 18th January 2010 (4.8 miles)
  • 19th January 2010 (6.3 miles)
  • 20th January 2010 (4.8 miles)
  • 2nd February 2010 (6.3 miles)
  • 3rd February 2010 (4.8 miles)

n.b. The days with 6.3 miles are when I cycle to 5-aside football after work which takes me on a detour.

Posted in Health & Fitness, Sport & Recreation | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Is this the new ship for Euroferries?

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Adem

Following the news a couple of weeks ago that Fred Olsen had decided not to lease the Bonanza Express to Euroferries it has left them without a vessel for their Ramsgate/Boulogne service which is still taking bookings for 1st March 2010.

There has been some chatter on the bfenthusiasts forum with regard to the old Speed One ferry now called Sea Leopard and you can follow the whereabouts of the Sea Leopard by using this handy link: http://www.shipais.com/showship.php?refresh=2&count=2&map=-1&mmsi=235007470

Of course this is all speculation, but now that we can’t talk about the Bonanza Express anymore it’s good to talk about something! If you want to know more about the Sea Leopard (including photos) then click here.

Don’t forget that on Monday 8th Feb Euroferries are featured on BBC1′s  ‘Inside Out’ programme at 7:30pm. For those of you not in the South-East region you can also see the programme on SKY channel 983.

Posted in Local News, Ramsgate | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What music are you into?

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Adem

This weekend I was asked twice about what music I liked and I am always stumped when it comes to this question and it always seems like a cop-out when I say “I like all types of music” and usually my mind goes blank when I try to think of specifics.

Of course there are exceptances to my “all types of music” rule but the fact is that there are so many different genres of music that I can’t simply say I like Indie/DnB/Rock (delete as appropriate). Generally I will give anything a listen and will decide there and then what I like without having too many preconceptions.

I don’t go out and buy albums anymore and usually get my fix from Spotify or Zane Lowe/Annie Mac on BBC Radio1 and I make my music choices from there. Currently I’m quite enjoying the track ‘Wile Out’ by DJ Zinc feat. Ms. Dynamite:

I know it may not be to everyone’s tastes but I like it, and I’ll probably like it just as much as some pop-pap that I’ll hear on the radio tomorrow.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Becoming an AdSense millionaire?

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Adem

I got my first AdSense payment this month which totalled £62.85, my earnings for having Google Adsense adverts on my site for the past 6 months. It’s not that much really is it? But then again I guess it’s money for nothing and it will come in handy.

When I was putting AdSense on the site I did a fair bit of reading from so-called experts who allegedly made a living from AdSense but it looks like they’re probably making a living because of all the people who visit their site trying to find how to become rich via AdSense! In short the only way off making a useful amount from Adsense is to have a lot of visitors and write about topics which bring in big-paying advertisers who will pay more for people clicking on their adverts (insurers, etc). This is not what my blog does so I guess I can give up on that idea, but I think that I will keep the adverts as long as they are unobtrusive and still earn me a little money.

Posted in Blog, Money | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Poor business PR from Duncan Bannatyne

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Adem

Following on from Jane Wenham-Jones’ article about poor companany PR I thought it might be worth pointing you in the direction of “Twitter, shower gel and the art of terrible PR” where Duncan Bannatyne, Dragon’s Den star and owner of a chain of gyms shows us how not to conduct good PR when confronted by a gym customer, Matt Egan (also editor of PC Advisor), who was apparently ‘slagging him off’ on Twitter. Read the article to find out what he said. (We all know the trouble people can get into for quoted someone else. *Nod to ECR*)

For this he had Duncan Bannatyne calling his workplace to ask why he had been ‘slagging him off’ in public and mentioned the thinly veiled threat of what he thought of ‘UK libel laws and Twitter’. Was this really the best way to go? Surely it’s yet another example of heavy-handed businesses taking things personally when in fact they should be doing their utmost to please their customers and accept that not everything they do is 100% perfect and that there is always room for improvement.

The result of this encounter is a lot of negative PR and Matt finishes off his article with this:

As it is, an opportunity to generate some good PR has been wasted.

A suitable outcome would’ve been to get back a reply from Duncan Bannatyne saying that the situation was getting sorted and that Bannatyne’s Gyms were sorry for any inconvenience caused. That would’ve been a great bit of PR in actually getting a tweet from a multi-millionairre, who takes the time to listen to his customers, and does something about it.

If businesses want to succeed then they should take things less personally, be a little less trigger-happy in threatening lawsuits, and instead look at where the real problems lie, and improve their customer service.

Posted in Politics, Work | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lost and Forgotten Sweets

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Adem

I appealed on Twitter for any subjects I could blog about as I wanted to write something, but alas had no inspiration, but luckily Kevin replied with this:

skinofstars @Adem lost & forgotten sweets, make sure you include Nerds

So here I am writing a post about lost and forgotten sweets of my childhood.

I think the types of sweets you buy do vary upon your age and whilst at primary school I was always a sucker for penny sweets or the sweets that they kept in big jars on the back shelf. It was always “one of those… one of those.. one of those” when picking penny sweets which most likely used to infuriate the shopkeeper who would put the sweets in a small white paper bag, clinging onto their sanity, although they would sometimes get pushed over the edge when a snotty-nosed kid jabbed a grubby finger against the glass and shouted at with “not that one…THAT ONE!” , whilst still pointing unhelpfully to what could be any of a variety of different sweets.

Fizzy cola bottles, pink mushrooms, foam strawberries, and white chocolate mice were my favourites from the penny sweets, but when it came to the jars of sweets I would either opt for a quarter of strawberry bonbons or a quarter of lemon sherbets. These weren’t maybe as exciting as getting a whole selection of penny sweets but they certainly lasted longer although I don’t think the cloying toffee or the 100% sugar really helped with my teeth.

In junior school that all changed and it seemed to be that the most toxic sweets were the ones to be savoured. Pah to penny sweets, now it was Refresher bars, Nerds, gobstoppers, Dip Dabs, and whatever else I could get my hands on. They were full of E-numbers, artificial colourings, and artificial flavourings, just what any growing boy needs, and this was where my pocket money went. This must have been what it’s like for junkies.

Once I moved on to secondary school then I think my tastes turned to the more savoury spectrum associated with getting to choose my choice of lunch at the school canteen, and although I still like sweets, I will never have the same sweet-tooth like I had up until the age of eleven.

I’m sure there were plenty more sweets that I’ve forgotten to mention, so feel free to leave a comment and let me know what your favourite sweets were when you were young.

n.b. Sherbet Flying Saucers should get a notable mention although they were always more fun in theory than in actual taste.

Posted in Life | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Euroferries on BBC – Inside Out

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Adem

Euroferries will be the subject of an ‘Inside Out’ report to be broadcast on BBC1 on Monday 8th February @ 7:30pm and it will have a contribution from local author Jane Wenham-Jones, who you will remember wrote the article ‘Ferry blog threat not exactly a PR triumph’ (online article here originally published 20/11/09).

Jane wrote this article after another delay to the proposed Ramsgate-Boulogne ferry service along with legal threats to local bloggers (myself and ECR) so if you haven’t read the article then I’d recommend it to you, and also make sure you tune in to ‘Inside Out’.

Useful Links

Posted in Local News, Ramsgate | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments