It’s been a while since I have written on this blog. I have been focused on work and not had time or inclination to make some personal commentary.

Right now it is 1:48 a.m., I am listening to Earth Wind and Fire (on Grooveshark) blast out ‘Reasons’ as I write.

I didn’t run this morning as my running partner called off. I was not put out too much as it was below zero and the weather forecast was for hailstones. Instead, I watched Andy Murray ultimately disappoint in the Tennis Australian Open Men’s Final due to his poor first serve. Five set points missed in the third set: close but no cigar. Actually not really that close at all. Maybe, when Roger Federer retires, we can have a British Tennis Champion.

The afternoon and evening was spent writing my first Wordpress plugin. I should finish it tomorrow morning. With good promotion it should be excellent linkbait for my wordpress site

Why the title of this post? Last night, the movie version of the Hitchhikers Guide To The Universe was on TV. Martin Freeman, Stephen Fry and Bill Nighy murdered an excellent script with gratuitous lack of irony and humour. It was completely flat, flatter than the whale. Zero out of five. All of it should have stayed on cutting room floor or somebody should have hit the delete button (followed by “Yes” to the “Are You Sure You want to cast this movie into the abyss?” prompt) . The movie is dingoes kidneys. If only an outsized dog from another universe would go back in time to 2005, appear for an instant, and swallow the entire movie set. Hitchhikers is a great series but my strong recommendation is to stick to the cassette tapes of the radio series or the TV series, it’s a thousand times better.

Now heading off to a bed, but first, a nightcap. Perhaps a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster?

• Take the juice from one bottle of that Ol’ Janx Spirit
• Add 1 measure of water from the seas of Santraginus V
• Melt 3 cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin into the mixture (it must be properly iced or the benzene is lost)
• Bubble 4 litres of Fallian marsh gas through it (in memory of all those happy Hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia)
• Over the back of a silver spoon float a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract, redolent of all the heady odours of the dark Qualactin Zones.
• Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve, spreading the fires of the Algolian suns deep into the heart of the drink.
• Sprinkle Zamphour
• Add an olive
• Drink…but very carefully.

My darling wife and I celebrated our 16th wedding at the Harris Arms ‘California Dreaming’ party. It was great. It opened my eyes and taste buds to a Californian take on Côtes du Rhône.

The evening started with a Mumm Napa Brut Prestige: a bright refreshing opening gambit, with a lingering strawberry after-taste.

With our starter of squid with risotto filling, our knowledgeable host, Andy, offered Qupé Marsanne. This fresh, rocky wine was a little cold on serving but on being warmed up revealed more tones including its 13% ‘contamination’ with Roussanne. There was a little bit of orangy smokiness in a glass that improved with drinking.

Next I put my nose in a Qupe Syrah Bien Nacido Vineyard 2003. I was reminded of Douglas Adams’ great line about “like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick”… except the lemon was missing. This was a powerful wine, seriously powerful. So powerful in fact that I ordered a taxi, and consigned my car keys to my jacket pocket. And all I had done was take a sniff. If I were to drink it I might be found days later, washed up on a deserted Cornish beach, with the hangover only slowly receding.

So I giddily put it to one side, and sampled the Mourvedre Old Telegram 2004. This was subtler (not difficult) but my taste buds had not fully recovered so I could not really taste it. I decided to recuperate by tucking in to the Duck with Mushroom Hash.

The Mourvedre was complex. One of the diners, Jim, suggested it was akin to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, more of the graveyard than of the vineyard. He was spot on, Morbidre might be a better name for this earthy wine with its musty, newly buried corpse tones.

Our host had by now sipped the Qupé Syrah and noted its power. He left. Not permanently but to visit the cellar to appropriate a better match to the pork. And he returned with an absolute gem; a Calera Ryan Pinot Noir. Although still a little cold, its mellow tones of cherry and strawberry beautifully complemented the pork. It was excellent choice and many thanks to Andy for raiding his cellar at this time of need.

The medley of desserts which included some amazingly delicious apricot bread pudding (amazing because I don’t like apricots and am not keen on bread pudding) was accompanied by Bonny Doon Vineyard Raspberry Framboise, the intense kick of raspberry was not too sweet and not too sour.

Sadly, at this point, we had to depart in a taxi to attend a conference call with a supplier in the USA so there was no leisurely end to the evening.

I am already looking forward to the next wine evening at the Harris Arms on 24th February 2010 when Aussie and Kiwi wines will feature.

The menu tonight was:

“California Dreaming”
Homage to Alice Waters of Chez Panisse
Wednesday 25th November 2009

On arrival
Napa Brut Prestige, Mumm

Stuffed squid with tomato and saffron risotto and basil foam
Qupé Marsanne

Duck leg braised in Zinfandel on sweet potato and mushroom hash
Mourvèdre ”Old Telegram” 2004, Bonny Doon Vineyard

Roast marinated pork loin with rosemary, fennel & garlic, roasted root vegetables and creamy mustard mash
Qupé Syrah Bien Nacido Vineyard, 2003

Vanilla pannacotta on chocolate almond cookie with apricot bread pudding
Framboise Bonny Doon Vineyard

Golf Lession Two: The Stance (again)

At the lesson today, Matt quickly identified the cause of my inconsistent chipping. He started by asking me to use a pitching wedge to chip onto a green about 75 yards away. I hit the green a few times but there was the odd pull to the left or a few thinned shots to the right. Only about 20% of shots were actually on target.

He then got me to try the sand wedge, each time I hit the green. Strange, I never use a sand wedge except when in a bunker so it was news to me that I could actually hit it reasonably well.

However I was playing the shot with my arms – not my legs. Once again I had little hip rotation. Also I had elevation but not much distance as the face of the club was too open an angle to the ball.

Matt helped me make some adjustments: put 60% of my weight on the front foot, closed the club face so it has less elevation and ensured the ball was slightly behind the middle of my stance. The result? Highly consistent, longer, straighter chips.

I reckon with that one lesson I can improve by six shots next time I play.

Golf Lesson One: The Stance

Don’t Stand With Your Legs Too Far Apart!

No, this is not from Debrett`s Book Of Etiquette it was the sound advice from Matt, my golf instructor, at Bovey Castle.

My tendency to slice drives, with the odd pulled shot left and infrequent shank was down to my addressing the ball with my legs too far apart. The wide stance prevents hips rotation so I unconsciously resorted to compensatory techniques with the arms to try and hit the ball further which resulted in my erratic swing with its erratic results.

With a narrower stance, the club does more of the work and the result was longer and straighter shots from driver through nine iron.

Although there still seems to a problem with the pitching and sand wedges – I am still hitting these all over the place. Something for Matt to work on next week.

Okay, I thought Nick Griffin would perform well on Question Time, under the normal round of day to day politics. But no, he tanked. The questions were all race-related and he obviously squirmed painfully under scrutiny of David Dimbleby, the chariman, the other guests and the audience.

One almost felt sorry for him, there was Nick, trying to make the British Nationalist Party (BNP) sound reasonable, having dragged it back from its Nazi past. But nobody on the panel or the audience was buying the idea that the BNP are no longer a racist party.

Step one in that direction is changing their constitution to allow non white members.

On Question Time tonight I would like Nick Griffin to comment on proposals in the BNP Policy Statement on Multi-culturism.

It reads:

Different groups can live side-by-side and at peace for generations. They can even enjoy each other’s cultures, but they must stick to their own, or ‘diversity’ will be but a short-lived stepping stone to nothingness.

…we also intend to develop a model of ‘multiculturalism’ which combines peaceful co-existence with the maintenance of cultural and biological separation. In parts of the world where mass immigration is irreversible, the only thing that can prevent human diversity vanishing into an antheap of rootless coffee-coloured consumerism is the celebration of difference.

Seems like the BNP want to end mixed race relationships. And there was me thinking that love making was a great way to celebrate difference.

Don’t they realize is that all humans are an end product of 200,000 years of evolution and it is 70,000 years since the black-later-to-become-white lot left East Africa and headed north to Europe and east to Asia.

What is so special about the gene pool that emerged out of caves in the South of France after the last Ice Age that makes it worth preserving?

This evening, Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, will appear on TV on Question Time. This will be a further step in his increasingly successful attempts to improve the electability of his party. Mr Griffin has been trying to rebrand the party – from a racist one to an ethnic one. Instead of the goal of creating a whites only UK it is now all about the preservation of an ethnic group and culture that arrived in the United Kingdom after the last Ice Age.

Is the BNP Still A Racist Party?

The BNP have had abhorrent views and practices in the past. Mr Griffin, once convicted of race hate crimes in 1998, says that he and the party have changed. Certainly, their press statements, and their propaganda on the more accessible pages on the website take a different tone – it is no longer talk of ‘blood in the streets’ but instead of immigration controls and voluntary repatriation.

Out With Swastika, In With The Spitfire

Also the imagery and symbols have changed, gone is the swastika, the admiration of Adolf Hitler and it replaced by Winston Churchill and the Spitfire, much to the recent chagrin of a group of British generals, Major-General Sir Patrick Cordingley, former Chief of Defence Staff Lord Guthrie, General Sir Mike Jackson and General Sir Richard Dannatt.

Why a Political Paedophile, not a Political Leper?

Racism is more akin to paedophilia than leprosy. While all these groups tend to cling to their own, preferring isolation, conformity and a mono-culture, the motives of racists are more similar to those of paedophiles than lepers: the lack of compassion or consideration for those they hurt, the absence of morality, and an illogical self-justification of their behaviour. Also racism and paedophilia involve free will and are both more of life-style choices while leprosy clearly isn’t.

Unfair Press Treatment

Are Nick Griffin and the BNP members being treated by the press and the other political parties like paedophiles? Is electing Nick Griffin as your Member Of Parliament like appointing a convicted paedophile as your local school’s headmaster? The press clearly believe that the BNP have not changed and cannot be trusted. Once a sinner, always a sinner.

Freedom Of Speech Should Prevail

We are in a free country that believes in free speech. Everyone has the right to express their views providing there is no incitement or encouragement to commit a crime. So providing no law is broken then he has the right to speak. And the BBC have been kind enough to give him a platform to speak from.

A Polished Performance on Question Time

Mr Griffin has polished his skills and knows exactly where the line is drawn. He will no doubt give a strong performance airing mostly sensible policies on local government, defence, education, health, finance, social services and industry. On immigration he will have a strong policy. He will come across a fairly normal, right of centre, politician, that gets a bad press. The likely outcome is that support for him and his Party will increase.

Questions for Nick Griffin That You Won’t Hear On Question Time

Like an ex-paedophile in an interview for the headmaster role he won’t say why he really wants the job. Nick Griffin is not going to be completely honest about what motivates him and what he would do if he was elected. He will not answer questions on the strategic points of BNP policy which are all about strengthening white/Ice Age descendant ethnicity:

1. How would you reduce the percentage of the civically British non whites (a.k.a. non descendants of the peoples that populated the UK after the last Ice Age) from the current 7% to the target of 2%?
2. Why would do you want to remove the right to political representation from the civically British non whites?
3. How would you remove the property rights of non whites? What impact do you think this would have on international relations and and inward investment?
4. How would you test people to find out if they fall into your preferred ethnic group? How would you establish what the gene pool of the Ice Age ethnic group was? What percentage match with the target gene pool would suffice? 50%? 60%? 70%? 80%? 90%?
5. How would you deal with the children of mixed ethnic group marriages? Potentially a 70% white male marries an only 10% white female and has 40% white children, would the children lose rights of inheritance and potentially be deported? Where would you deported them to? Or would mixed ethnic marriages be made illegal?
6. How do your goals to control the United Kingdom’s ethnic make-up differ from those of Nazi Germany in the 1930’s and 1940s?
7. How far are you willing to go to achieve those goals?

I think the above questions would give Mr Griffin the opportunity to show the public what motivates him, what his vision for the UK is, and how he would achieve it.

Moving an artist’s website onto Wordpress

Last month, I migrated my brother-in-law’s sculpture web site Ronald Rae Sculpture onto the Power Blog Service. Ronnie is a famous sculptor who hand carves enormous granite sculptures. They are awesome.

We have kept the way the site looks pretty much the same as the old site as this was one of the attractions of the original site design. Using the Thesis theme makes it pretty easy to duplicate how the old site looked. We moved the menu across to the right hand side for SEO reasons and moved the telephone number to a more prominent location. Spot the differences below.

Lots More Traffic To The Site

However, what is different is that my sister, Ronnie’s marketing administrator, has the ability to update the site herself and also visitors can make comments, bookmark the site or tweet about the sculptures. And of course, now the platform is Wordpress, we have syndication of content and pinging of blog directories.

The site now enjoys a tenfold increase in traffic over the original site and we have not even started taking any steps to promote the site or improve its SEO.

Innovations with Slideshows

The only real customization we needed was to handle slideshows of sculptures, which were previously created in flash. Each exhibition has it own slideshow of sculptures that are in that exhibition. There were also separate slideshows for ’sculptures for sale’ and ’sculptures in collections’. When sculptures are sold they move out of the exhibition and into a private collection and hence the slideshows are always having to be updated.

I wanted to create a mechanism where my sister could move sculptures between exhibitions herself using standard Wordpress tools. We solved this challenge using tags, the D13Slideshow plugin and a few lines of custom code in the custom_functions.php file.

The D13Slideshow can be inserted into a post using a PHP call. What the code below does is display a slideshow of images for all posts, (excluding the current post) that have a specific tag.

function show_slideshow($slideshowtag) {
if (($slideshowtag)
&& ($postids = pbs_get_posts_by_tag($slideshowtag))
&& (count($postids) >0)) {
d13slideshow($postids);
}
}
function pbs_get_posts_by_tag($tag) {
$thispostid = get_the_ID();
$postids = array();
$posts = get_posts('numberposts=50&tag='.$tag);
foreach ($posts as $post) {
if ($post->ID != $thispostid ) {
$postids[] = $post->ID;
}
}
return $postids;
}

So for example show_slideshow(‘for-sale’) will display a slideshow of all sculptures that are tagged as ‘for sale’. If the Lion Of Scotland sculpture is sold, my sister only needs to remove the ‘for-sale’ tag and add the ‘collections’ tag to make the sculpture disappear from the ‘Sculptures For Sale’ slideshow and appear in the ‘Sculptures In Collections’ slideshow. Zero work for me and an immediate result for her.

When it is a blog not a blog?

This case study goes to show that with Wordpress, Thesis and a few plugins you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by moving your site on a blogging platform such as Wordpress even if your site is not a blog. Wordpress is a really cost effective platform for building more visitors to your site and then starting a dialogue with them.

Sunday mornings used to to have an unique appeal.

Back then I spent the working week in London: Saturday was chores day, and Sunday only entailed a 6 mile run and a full English breakfast of orange juice, then local eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon, sausages and toast, and black coffee. Hence Sunday mornings were easy… ish.

Now I am self employed, Sundays remain the same. But the rest of week has changed.

Unusually this week, Monday was a day off, mainly due to exhaustion. My wife, Elizabeth, had worked on the internet to about 6 a.m., I had packed it in early at 2 a.m. (She’s says I am a part-timer). Having risen at 10 a.m. and checked email etc, we went into town at noon and spent three hours over lunch discussing our marketing strategies.

On a Stompernet call on Saturday our failing marketing strategies has been reasonably trashed by Paul L and John J!

Painful but pertinent.

Our business has five different types of clients and we had a single site with one marketing message that did not speak really effectively to any on them.

So today, at lunch, over a Devon cream tea, we defined our five sales funnels, powerbusinessblogging.com, smartersitedesign.com, simplefastsite.com, wordpresswarning.com, and diywebmastery.com; then we split out our back end hosting service as powerblogservice.com. We have just gone from two websites to six but at least now each site has a better defined audience and purpose.

Basically the ‘blog’ in the our Power Blog Service is now de-emphasised as the majority of our potential customers do not understand blogs. Why would a serious business want with a blog? After all, a blog is a celebrity indulgence, such as that of Paris Hilton (too slutty and depressing) or Lily Allen (too txty).

With our business re-engineered and Stompernet relaunched on 9/9/9 our lives are due to get busier over the next month. We have a Stompernet Local meeting on September 23rd at Bovey Castle. There are not many Stompers down in the South West of England so the meeting is open to the public, so, if anyone would like to find out a bit more about how to make a successful website then you are very welcome to attend the event.