Marketing by Permission

December 1st, World AIDS Day 2009

2009-12-01T09:34:00.000Z

Even if all you do today is know about the day, then you have done something useful. If you are wearing a red ribbon then you are letting other people know that you know. You have done something useful. If you talk to someone about the day and HIV and AIDS then you have done something useful. Key people to talk to, if you are a parent, are your kids. Don't tell them what you know. Ask them what

Adam Lambert Kisses Keyboard Player

2009-11-30T09:20:00.005Z

Look, I have no real idea who Adam Lambert is, but the tone of Jennifer Vanasco's article making a guest appearance at Brody's Notes and Scribbles says that he is 'A Bad Thing'. He kissed another man, on the lips at a big awards do. And it was seen ~gasp~ on TV. And, according to Vanasco, this flamboyant act was wrong. To read the article you would think that Lambert had set the Black Power

Sometimes we need to be reminded

2009-11-30T00:17:00.002Z

Please note that this movie is specifically not covered by the creative commons licence. I have been given permission to reproduce it in specific places. To replay it simply refresh the article.

That "New Manager Moment"

2009-11-29T20:42:00.001Z

You know the day. You've been working happily away, being productive, didn't want the manager's job so never applied for it. And the new manager arrives and you work well with them. You're confident, competent and useful. And one day you make an error, probably minor, and it all goes horribly wrong. You go to the manager for help, after all that's what one should do when one makes an error, and

Let's End Child Poverty Now!

2009-11-28T11:49:00.002Z

Yes, let's all have a laudable aim, and let's have that now. "Let's Make Poverty History!" That's obviously good and important stuff, isn't it? After all, no child should ever go hungry in the world, no child should ever be uneducated... Now you've finished applauding, ask yourself whom you're applauding. Yes, it's you. You like the idea. But you have no concept of what it means. So let's

Thank you to Currys of Skimped Hill in Bracknell

2009-11-27T16:35:00.004Z

The store staff achieved Customer Service that could not be achieved from the Online people. Let me explain. Last March I bought a cooker using Currys online service to replace a dead cooker for one of my tenants who lives 100 miles away. It's a decent and functional item, and Currys own Matsui brand. Delivery worked like a dream, and I had a happy tenant until recently when it started to

There must be a law, like Boyle's Law, for the expansion of oldies

2009-11-27T10:50:00.002Z

Yes, they expand into all available spaces when walking ahead of you. It must be by intent, no-one could do it by accident so reliably!

Irish Catholic Clergy Damned by Child Abuse Report

2009-11-26T22:28:00.002Z

If you've been following the news of the back cloaked bastards in Ireland you will know already of the industrial scale institutionalised child abuse. You'll know about the production line physical and sexual abuse of girls and boys by priests and nuns. And you'll have wondered why it's taken so long for the alleged church in Ireland to offer an apology. And, at last, it's happened. Archbishop

Indefinite DNA retention by UK police unjustified, says UK legal expert

2009-11-26T21:45:00.003Z

The Human Genetics Commission Chair, Professor Jonathan Montgomery, has asked a simple question: "It is not clear how far holding DNA profiles on a central database improves police investigations?". The HGC has just published a report containing the damaging allegation that police were arresting individuals in order to populate the DNA database. Well I think I have found the answer to the

Uganda seeks DEATH PENALTY for Homosexuality

2009-11-26T20:08:00.001Z

This is like seeking the death penalty for being White, or Jewish, or Left Handed. It is inhumane and plain wrong. You don't need to be left handed or even to approve of lefthandedness to know how wrong it is. Please visit this link. Please sign this petition. Uganda wants to KILL homosexuals. This is one small act to seek to prevent that. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Uganda_Christians/

Daddy's takin' us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow...

2009-11-26T13:42:00.002Z

Just sometimes...

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T23:35:00.001Z

For my US friends: What I wonder is, why there have been no mass protests about the Iraq war, and the Afghanistan adventure. Happy thanksgiving. Spend 18 minutes 36 seconds listing to some history. You may have heard this before. I know I have.

The Terms and Conditions wrecked the sale

2009-11-25T14:01:00.001Z

I'm moving home. I have had five removal companies quote for my business. One said "Oh no, Sir, we don't do attics. It's health and safety you see," lost at once. Four others did attics that were boarded, lit and with fixed ladders. One came in at more than double the winner. He dropped £1,000 and still was the highest of the people who do attics. One was just way too much money. Two were

Is this good or bad?

2009-11-24T16:11:00.005Z

I was shown an article, today, on the USA's Family Research Council and their reaction to nominees for the Supreme Court of the United States. And this is, naturally, none of my business. So, always the nosy parker, I decided to take a look. I took a look at what the FRC is, too. This from their web site: Family Research Council (FRC) was founded in 1983 as an organization dedicated to the

And these people are allowed to drive? and Vote?

2009-11-24T00:02:00.000Z

Oh dear. How embarrassing and shameful

Patients' Data Imperfectly Shredded

2009-11-23T12:41:00.001Z

What would you think if your medical record escapes and was used as packaging material by a local jeweller? Me, I'd be livid! And that's what happend with records that originated at Papworth Hospital, though the hospital is quick and wise to explain that it cannot be at fault: "Protecting patient confidentiality is extremely important to us at Papworth Hospital and as such we ensure that any

A Day in Hand

2009-11-22T18:27:00.003Z

For a long time I've felt that something is very unfair. Two girls may hug, kiss, and simply walk hand in hand in public without attracting any adverse comment. Two boys may not. "A Day in Hand" is a campaign for people to take the hand of another person of the same sex, and to try to break this social inequality down. You don't have to be gay, you just have to be brave. And you should get

Musings on Open Office and Marketing

2009-11-22T16:01:00.003Z

Having run into a minor limitation of Open Office Writer, and one I am sure I could have solved given an infinite number of monkeys, I was discussing OOo (that's the insider abbreviation for the suite or the project or something) with a knowledgeable friend. Let's get one important thing out of the way. I like it, I can use it, and I support the Open Source-ness of it. I also support the

Pointless blog vanity fripperies

2009-11-22T12:46:00.001Z

I am almost too excited to speak. This blog no longer has only two readers! I have three followers now. Three! This is exciting and of such great moment and import that I've added the Blog Followers gadget. It's deep in the right hand margin. Easy to add, it was damned hard to drag into the place I wanted it. Blogger refused to let me. I must have offended it by daring to have a third reader!

The Large Typo Collider is back online

2009-11-21T22:22:00.001Z

Last time we all got hardons, a lot of editors got hardons, and those hardons failed to collide, obviously because it creates a time machine and hardons don't do time that well. Any guesses how many get their hardons right this time round? At least Hadrian's Wall worked well for a while. See the news. Or is that the nudes?

The Story of Open Office and the Avery Address Labels

2009-11-21T19:26:00.004Z

I know. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Open Office has zero cost, and M$ Office costs money. And if I don't like Open Office why don't I get M$ Office instead? Well I have M$ Office, too. I just thought that what I want to do as a label task is so pathetically simple that Open Office would handle it. What do I want to do? Oh that's easy. I have a stock of Avery 7651 labels, 65 to a

Well done The NHS Emergency Dental Service

2009-11-21T16:20:00.003Z

USA, you need a National Health Service.

What do the words "The Gay Community" mean to me?

2009-11-20T14:18:00.002Z

I'll tell you what the words mean to me. Almost nothing at all. When I discovered, or at least started to admit to myself, that I am gay, I hoped for a community which would embrace me and my many foibles. There was none. Instead I found hostility on a messageboard that I used to frequent because I "can't be gay because I married a woman and have a son." I wasn't looking for hostility, I was

What does it mean to me to be gay?

2009-11-20T14:09:00.004Z

I started out in life finding being gay to be totally negative. Some of the things that it meant when I was a teenager were: fear of my friends and how they might behave of losing my friends of my parents, and what they would do to me of losing the love I pretended I had from the boy I adored in secret loneliness. I knew no-one else like me isolation, subtly different from loneliness, a feeling

A curious case of leftness and rightness

2009-11-19T15:04:00.000Z

A group of friends and I are taking an online political quiz, to be found at Political Compass. I found the outcome somewhat surprising. Let me tell you why before I share my graph with you. I believe in the free market economy, but I believe in regulation to ensure fairness and true competition. I am a capitalist and always will be. I love the ideal of socialism. Everywhere I have seen it