No, it's not my new mantra, it's letting you know that I've added another blog to my list of those you should be keeping track of. Yeah, I know some of them haven't been updated in a long time, but hey - not all my friends can type more than once per month. Apparently.
Anyhow, please take a look at Mind Made of Wool. And thanks to Casual Friday for turning me on to it.
purplesimon out...
By this I mean that it's raining here in London - a proper British summer. We love nothing more than wet weather, as it gives us something to focus on, to complain about, to fit the stereotype of the Briton.
That's rubbish.
Personally, I don't care any more about the weather than I do seagulls, or plain flour. I only worry about it if I am not dressed for it.
It's the last day of June and the rain is here. The temperature hasn't dropped, so it's still a sweaty experience on the underground. Here's some advice for my fellow travellers: it might be raining but that doesn't mean you can leave the deodorant off.
Just telling it like it is.
Tonight I am off out to meet Dr. Blog. Who's he? He is a PhD student at the London School of Economics and is working on a thesis about blogging. He got in touch back when I had just started my own blog and now he wants to interview me.
Of course, I will be blogging the experience, letting you know more about it, as I learn more myself. It could be infinitely dull; on the other hand it could be very interesting.
That's a decision I will have to leave up to you all, dear readers. I've got cigarettes to smoke, God dammit!
purplesimon out...
If there is a picture of a sunset here, I finally got this image upload to work. I don't know about copyright on this image, it's from the ugly ones available to Windows users. I couldn't get this to work yesterday because I was on my Mac. Of course, it should have been obvious to me that it wouldn't work on anything that Bill hadn't had a hand in.
It's about as creative as I can be today, I've had most of my creativity worn away in the past month and all I want now is to sleep and get in to a new job, somewhere I can give my ideas space to breathe and not have to continually worry about politics, etc.
Peace to all. More news soon, probably after my holiday, which ends on 10 July.
purplesimon out...
Just something I did on my day off.
It's here. This link has been removed by the blog administrator.
purplesimon out...
So, now we can have images on our blogs, thanks to this wonderful invention: image uploader. Okay, so it's not a wonderful invention, but it is great if you don't happen to have your own server.
I wanted to try it out, see what it's like. So this is my test.
What, I don't see anything? Is this because the service ain't working? Yep.
Oh well, back to the old way of doing things.
purplesimon out...
I have time to kill this morning. Strangely, nothing is coming to me work-wise, so I am using my time to write some more stories. Just short ones, nothing special. I don't want to kill people, not in real life, but I like to kill them in my stories. It's boredom, nothing more. No weird tendencies; I don't live with my parents, I don't own a gun. There's nothing to be scared of.
The one below was an effort I wrote in about 5 minutes. It shows. However, that's not why I write it (for perfection); I write it so that I have something to do and don't go stir crazy sitting here.
I've only four days left of this job, so it could mean the end of my short stories as you know it. Then again, it could mean that I am simply in a new job at another office and I have time there to fill.
I hope that they relieve your boredom as much as they did mine.
purplesimon out...
There was a view over the top of the city from Malcolm’s vantage point. Not that he was taking in the view; he had work to do on the chimney stack – a little bit of painting and some minor repairs to the pointing. It was not an exciting job, but one at which Malcolm was adept, a job he could be left to do without someone looking over his shoulder. This was probably for the best, as he was hanging by a rope and there was only just enough room for him, let alone having someone else 200 feet up constantly yakking away.
Malcolm liked the feeling of isolation, liked the feeling of being his own boss, prioritising his work. Most of all he loved the fact that his boss didn’t like climbing and therefore never came up to check on things, like the boss of other jobs Malcolm had done tended to like doing.
He liked to dream of what he’d prefer to be doing instead of mending chimneys. While surveying the city skyline, he’d imagine that he was witness to some gruesome murder, or a bank robbery; sometimes he’d just spot someone, milling around on the ground like an ant, and take on their life, imagining what this particular person did for a living, where they went after work, with whom. And so on, and so forth.
It was while Malcolm was eating his jam sandwich, fending off the sea gulls that congregated around him hoping for a scrap or two, perhaps just a crumb, that he spent time thinking. Occasionally, he’d pull off a large piece of bread and drop it straight down and watch as the birds hurtled towards the earth, fighting each other for that piece of bread. Sometimes one of the birds would successfully grasp it, swallowing the bread down before it hit the ground. Other times they’d fail, giving up as the ground came up to greet them. The bread was then left for the pigeons to squabble over.
Today he wanted his sandwich all to himself. Today, Malcolm didn’t feel like sharing.
Often, when finding himself up so high, Malcolm didn’t like to look down at the ground. Whenever he did, a wave of vertigo would overtake him, a wash of nausea coming over him, suffocating and claustrophobic. However, this particular day he found himself looking at a glinting object the two hundred or so feet below him. He couldn’t tell what or who might be below him, what the frantic waving of arms meant. So, he ignored it and turned his attention back to digging out the old cement between the bricks and sliding his trowel over the gap and filling it with fresh cement.
The glinting was still there, though, and he found it too difficult to ignore. He knew it would take him at least ten minutes to climb down and a further twenty minutes to get back up to the top again. Glancing at his watch he decided he could afford some time; that he could do with putting his feet on the ground and experiencing the feeling of safety that this always gave him.
He hoisted himself around and began his slow descent. He could hear a voice shouting to him, but he wasn’t able to clearly make out what was being said. Something about soap, cope… rope. It was about his rope.
Fear suddenly overtook Malcolm and he clung to the chimney as best he could. For the first time since he had been climbing high buildings, making repairs and suchlike, he was experiencing some doubt as to his personal safety. Sweat broke out on his forehead. The voice was still shouting. It was getting louder and louder, although the whistling of the wind was still making it hard to discern the nuances of the message.
When he finally reached the ground the voice became clear enough: Your rope is frayed, your rope is frayed.
By then, of course, Malcolm could no longer hear the words. Malcolm was never going to hear anymore words. The broken end of the rope made a slapping sound as it smacked against the harness around Malcolm’s chest, strangely louder than the noise of his body hitting the floor.
In the twisted world of blogging there are many gems to be found.
I found this:
The Casual Friday
I thought this was brilliantly subversive and it made me laugh.
It just has to added to my Blogs list on the right-hand side of the page. It deserves two links.
purplesimon out...
I had some spare time (I will probably have lots of it today, as my schedule looks quiet to say the least) and I decided that I should write something creative that's not about selling cars or financial services to the public.
It's below this post, as is the way of the blog.
Read, think and comment, if you want to, of course. If you don't, fair enough, I won't hold it against you.
purplesimon out...
It was a cold night, bitter winds driving the rain straight through my clothes. My shirt clung to my chest like a second skin, one I would shed as soon as I was able. I hunkered down next to an overflowing bin, the skin of a banana spreading a sickly fume that made me retch. I needed to hide away for now; to be a watcher and make decisions based upon what I managed to witness. All I needed to do was to stay awake, to be alert.
The minutes dragged on but at least the rain had stopped and I had a clear view of the alleyway. I wiped the rain and sweat from my forehead and blinked quickly, trying to fight off the feeling of sleep that was creeping up behind me like a killer, stealthily. I knew there could only be a couple of hours left until dawn; it had to happen soon.
Lights from a car swept past me, focusing their beams on a slatted iron door. For a second nothing happened and then the door began to churn, to lift from the floor. The car drove in; it’s red brake lights illuminating the edges of the opening through which it had entered. I stole across the road, keeping in the shadows. I hunched against the wall outside, holding in my breath and prayed I wouldn’t be noticed. I heard the door of the car open.
“Let’s get this shit done and dusted, shut the fucking door before the world sees in.”
The slatted door began its slow descent. Moments before it reached the bottom I rolled under until my body was wedged under the exhaust of the car. I could feel its heat against my jacket, a small stream of vapour rising from me wet clothes. I glanced to my right, saw a pair of highly-polished shoes standing inches from my face. For the second time that night I held my breath as tight as I could, until I thought my lungs would explode.
There was more mumbling, the speech muffled by the exertion of the person in front of me.
Suddenly, a new pair of feet dangled by my head, just off the floor: they didn’t move. A drip, which I thought was oil, splattered on the concrete, followed by another and then another. The door finally clanged shut and I was in darkness. I heard the shuffle of feet and the dragging of leather against concrete. I reached out and placed my finger in the pool of oil.
I brought my finger to my face and sniffed. It wasn’t oil, it was blood.
A question ran through my head, over and over: Marston, what the fuck have you set me up with here?
No, not a reference to the David Bowie song, but to the change of venue for my wedding, which has now been booked for late March 2006.
Originally, it was to be in Kew Gardens, but due to them having incorrect prices advertised, we can no longer have it there. The difference of £1700 was a bridge too far.
Now, we are holding our ceremony in The Royal Pavilion in Brighton.
So, that's it sorted. It's all booked and there is no going back. Not that I want to back out, anyway.
I'll keep you posted on the stress, etc, that always accompanies this kind of event, but with only 5 guests it shouldn't be too bad.
Well, I'd better do some work now. Mercedes-Benz cars don't sell themselves you know.
purplesimon out...
I have come to the conclusion that the recently updated link on the dashboard of Blogger.com is telling lies. How do I know this?
Well, for the past three days the same list of blogs has been up. Now, you can't tell me that only those ten blogs are being updated. I mean, come on, I've added lots of posts in the past three days, so how can this be so?
I hope that the list will change soon - yes, I've refreshed the page, cleared my cache, etc and it's still saying the same - so that I might, for once, see my own page listed, bringing me more readers and encouraging me to post more often.
Come on Blogger, sort it out.
purplesimon out...
When it's an economic model.
This news story from The Guardian is extremely interesting.
You might not agree with the views represented in it, but it does shed some light on things, palatable or not. I haven't read the book this article is based upon, but I will.
Read, think, comment.
purplesimon out...
One has to wonder at this news story.
I, for one, am scared. What next, the removal of all punctuation so that we simply write as if we're in a chatroom or on a mobile phone?
To give you some kind of idea of a world without punctuation, let's look at that sentence again:
I for one am scared. What next the removal of all punctuation so that we simply write as if were in a chatroom or on a mobile phone.
Yeah, great idea.
purplesimon out...
Just a thought on banning socks.
We should do it, but only for those men out there that think they look good wearing them with shorts and sandals.
No, no, no, no. NO!
Should be shot on sight!
purplesimon out...
I see that the government has decided not to invoke the wrath of the British smoker by implementing a complete ban on smoking everywhere that isn’t your own home or the street.
Whether or not you agree with this is entirely your own opinion. I don’t really care either way as I’ve already pointed out in this blog.
However, what struck me was that only 600 people die each year from the effects of passive smoking. Not many, in the grand scheme of things.
Am I being mean? Probably. However, here is the reasoning behind this comment:
Someone sent me a lovely message about my blog over the weekend; a nice man from California. I hope he reads this and knows who I am talking about. I don’t want to publish his name without consent.
I’ve not replied to his email, though, as I wanted to answer his questions in this blog as many other readers may also be interested in the answers. Again, I hope he doesn’t mind.
In reference to whether British English is superior to American English, I would beg to differ. Historically, American English is closest to the original dialects that existed in the UK way back when King Alfred was on the throne. A long time ago.
English is also a bastardised language. We borrow words from other languages and make them our own. We’ve done this for thousands of years and there is no sign of stopping as far as I can see. There are a number of books you might like to read about this, such as The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg or for those looking for something much more in-depth, try Steven Pinker’s, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language.
I can attest that both of these books are a good read, even though you may feel the subject matter quite dry.
The second question I want to answer today is the cost of living in London.
In short, it’s expensive. If you’re an American wanting to move over here, the first thing to consider is the exchange rate. Good old George has not done well with the American economy; consequently, the dollar sucks on the world markets and is worth next to nothing in the UK. Sorry, but that’s the truth of it.
I’d say that, if you weren’t working and needed to live at a fairly good standard of living, you’d probably need at least £25,000 per year, which equates to about $45,000. Per year. If you don’t want to work, that’s a tidy sum to have saved for your retirement years. Certainly more than I’ll have at that stage of my life.
I’d recommend living outside of London, but within striking distance. That way it’s cheaper, but you get the nightlife of London on your doorstep. Sort of. Even so, the cost of living in the UK is high, generally. So, unless you have a big pot of cash to bring over with you, that you don’t mind seeing dwindle as soon as you change it to our currency, come on over. Even if you don’t have that amount of cash, why not visit, do some research while you’re here and take it from there.
I hope that this advice helps. The man from CA, get in touch if you want more info. The rest of you, well, you can ask, too.
purplesimon out...
In London there are a number of decent independent record shops. So, why is it that most people I seem to see still shop at HMV when on Oxford Street?
May I suggest that you take a trip down Berwick Street where you will find everything that's stocked in the larger stores but at much lower prices.
For example: I paid only £6.99 for a couple of recently-released albums today. That's over half the price of the chains such as HMV.
Makes you wonder what kind of profit they're making on these deals, let alone back catalogue.
I know that not everyone lives in London or can make it to Berwick Street. So, why not visit Sister Ray online. They are a shop in Berwick Street and are fairly cheap. You might also want to try Reckless Records or SelectADisc, a company that also exists in Nottingham.
If you know of any other independent record stores that you think should be listed, please let me know and I will post up links to those that offer a good service at prices that don't require a mortgage broker's help to afford.
purplesimon out...
Once upon a time (I’ve always wanted to start a post with that disgusting phrase) I used to get so pissed off at work I would sound off about it to anyone prepared to listen. Then, to save the sanity of my friends I finally got around to quitting.
Happiness, if not financial security, followed. That was three years ago.
You can imagine how chagrined I was to find myself in the same situation, this time as a freelancer. Now, normally, being a freelancer means that politics at work tend to be ignored easily and the undertow of crap that floats through most companies can be avoided.
So, why did I find myself close to quitting this week?
Well, it was a combination of people who can’t do their jobs and an office that is so hot you could roast a chicken in it.
The upshot is that I don’t intend on staying here any longer than necessary, which means the end of this month. Nine more work days and it’ll be over, the invoice will be in and I can look forward to something new and exciting.
To that end I have been working with someone that inspires me on a regular basis. This person is the wife of the Creative Director where I find myself. She wants to get back to work after having kids and has a list of contacts that I want to get my greasy little mitts on.
Better still, her sister is also a copywriter and works for another agency. With the kind of reference that I’m getting she is also interested in hiring me as a freelancer. In the world of London media it’s not what you know it’s who. I guess it’s the same in business all over the globe.
So, I could find myself in Brighton or somewhere else in London.
The only thing I know for sure is that I’m bound to post it up here for you all to read.
purplesimon out...
I can only assume that this is satire. I hope I'm not wrong.
What do you think? Opinion on the site is divided: some think this is racist, some get the joke (if there is one, of course).
Me? Well, having got quite a few black friends myself, I saw this as a parody of the middle-class white people trying to be something they are not in order to appear to be "down with the kids".
Take a look here and see what you think.
I will surely get lots of complaints about posting this, but I reckon it has a point to make, whatever it might mean to you.
purplesimon out...
Well, of course, I will be soon! However, what I won’t be doing is having a wedding at which no one speaks to one another, people don’t mingle and mix, the service lasts for hours and there are not enough seats for all the guests to sit inside.
These are just some of the things that went wrong at the wedding I attended this weekend just gone. But, it doesn’t stop there.
The hotel (if it can really be called that) was just awful. When we arrived the bar was quiet with only a few locals sitting supping their pints of ale. Soon, though, this man appeared and began to set up a small screen and a loud amplifier. He then proceeded to shout at us to place bets (he had an Irish accent I think was put on) while making misogynistic comments and generally being annoying.
We were then played this awful video of pig racing and the winner received 50% of the bets, while the other 50% went to a local charity. It cost one pound per bet. The most anyone could have won was their stake: one single, solitary quid. Consequently, not many people were interested in playing and the event took off like a lead balloon.
So, up to our room. This had cost us £60. Yes, it was stocked well with tea and coffee, but that was about it. It didn’t appear that anyone had vacuumed the room for at least a decade, there were pubic hairs on the loo (I’m not ginger, they definitely weren’t mine) and the noise from the bar was so loud that I thought the window was open.
Anyway, we thought that it would all be quiet by the time we came back from the evening session at the wedding. How wrong we were.
No one – and I mean no one – bothered to speak to us; if we spoke to them they just stared at us blankly. I reckoned this was because I wasn’t in black tie (I hadn’t seen the invite), but mostly it was because we came from London (a city) and the man getting married was a farmer (as were his friends). They called us townies.
Idiots.
I grew up in the country; my best friend was a farmer’s son; I lived one hundred yards from a farm for 15 years; I could go on with this list, but I won’t bore you with it. I just want to highlight how people have perceptions of others and are completely wrong. I tried to get in with people, but I can only be stared at blankly for so long before I can’t take anymore.
There was this particular woman, with six chins, that just couldn’t stop staring. When asked why she was staring, she wobbled her chins and looked at the floor. Not a single word escaped her lips!
This meant that we left shortly after the meal and returned to the hotel.
It was there that we discovered the room underneath ours was the site of a disco and karaoke night. It went on until 2am. This in a sleepy village in Wiltshire, near Stonehenge.
After little sleep we got up and went for our breakfast. Now, I don’t eat much in the morning, it doesn’t agree with me until at least an hour after I’ve woken up. I decided that toast was a safe option. However, the toast was cold and like cardboard. In short, it was disgusting.
If you’re ever in Amesbury, don’t, whatever you do, stay at the St George Hotel. It’s abysmal and should be shut down. Basil Fawlty ran a successful business compared to this.
It was singularly the worst wedding and weekend away I’ve had in a long time. One I never want to repeat.
If someone you know from way back is getting married, ask yourself this: do they know me and my life and do I know theirs? If the answer is no, politely decline the invitation and stay at home. I’ve learned my lesson.
purplesimon out...
So, here (if you look hard enough) is the answer.
I don’t want to go on about Billy Idol, but it is Hot in the City.
I bet there are a lot of people out there scratching their heads and wondering what on earth I am rambling on about. I guess that the dehydration from this morning and the heat of the sun have made my head go to mush. Not quite, but I don’t think it’s far off!
There will be some people that are going to find this news amazing; I fully expect some of my friends to get upset that they are going to find this out in a blog, but that’s the risk I am prepared to take.
If some of these people phoned or emailed a lot more they might be entitled to find out straight from the horse’s mouth (oh, how I love a cliché!).
So, here it is: I’m engaged.
There, I’ve said it.
If finding out this news upsets you in any way, please don’t tell me because I really don’t care.
This is not me being nasty (for a change); this is about the personal nature of doing something like this. There will not be a wedding to which anyone except immediate family is invited – our guest list will be five people and no more. The wedding will not take place in a church (we’re not religious and I won’t pretend just for the sake of paying lots of money to an organisation that has plenty of it already) but will instead be at Kew Gardens.
The date? Well, if I told you that, we’d probably get gatecrashers.
The good news for those people that might want to witness something close to a wedding is that we are planning to have a hand fasting (which is a Pagan wedding). This, with luck, will take place at Stonehenge, Wiltshire. More details will follow on this.
So, now that I’ve stunned many of you, feel free to leave your comments.
purplesimon out...
The hang over for Hell is currently residing in my head.
I know that I should have eaten, not drunk as much beer as I did, etc, etc. I’ve made the promise to myself that I won’t ever drink again. Tonight I will probably break that promise, but for now I am adamant that I’m sticking to it.
The office is like a sauna already this morning and it’s only half past nine. I walked in about an hour ago and discovered that people were working and yet no one had thought about opening a window to release the suffocating heat that’s built up over the early part of the morning. Do these people not realise how stifling it is? Maybe they all live in greenhouses and are used to this.
Water, water; give me more water.
purplesimon out...
While I welcome the idea of punishing those that fly-tip around the country, spare a thought for Londoners.
We have no bins. If dropping a cigarette butt is now an offence punishable by a £50 fine, so be it. However, we need somewhere we can deposit this 'street flotsam' otherwise it becomes another joke from the Government.
Personally, I say leave the rubbish, let it pile up. If people complain, tell them to get a plastic bag, put on some gloves and pick the damn stuff up themselves.
If people are lazy enough to throw their rubbish on the floor, they are also too lazy to actually pick it up. This could be a way of getting people fit and cleaning up our environment.
Or, should the legislative ideas simply be binned?
What do you think? Read, think and comment.
purplesimon out...
After having spent most of my day doing very little, suddenly I am inundated with work.
A resourcing cock-up has meant that those supposed to be briefing me thought I was working on something else and so I was left to my own devices. At least I will be getting paid. Some good will come out of it.
It comes down to good communication. This is something I have sensed is lacking in the majority of agencies whose job is, well, communication.
I hope that lessons can be learned here. I don’t want to be sitting here again with nothing to do.
purplesimon out...
Tell me this: if you were paying someone hundreds of pounds per day, would you leave them with nothing to do?
I know I wouldn’t.
So, why is it that for the past four hours I have sat here at this computer and done nothing except post on this blog and have a look at record shop websites to see what I want to purchase today?
With nothing else to do, I really don’t have many choices. The time has to be booked somewhere, so I did fill as much of my time as I could with research on Mercedes-Benz, but even that doesn’t take all morning.
The worrying thing for me is that I don’t have anything to do this afternoon either. Expect more posting on the blog, more drivel about what fills my day and anything else I care to blah about on here.
I can tell you that I purchased the new album from The White Stripes.
I also got myself a copy of Sons & Daughters’ new album, Repulsion Box.
I haven’t had time to listen to either of them yet, but they were playing The White Stripes album in the shop and it sounded brilliant. I have already heard the single from Sons & Daughters (Dance Me In) and if that is anything to go by the album will be massive.
Oh, and the Coldplay album was sold out everywhere, even in HMV on Oxford Street. Still, no accounting for taste.
purplesimon out...
Many of your readers may have noticed over the past months that I have added a list of blogs to the right-hand side of my page. These are titled: Keep track of some blogs I like.
Imaginative, that's what I was feeling that particular day.
Anyway, this is a list of blogs that belong to friends, except for one of two.
I'd like to grow this list of blogs. So, do you have a blog that you think I'd like? If so, send me the link (email address is at the bottom of the page) and I will see if it's good enough to add. Which it probably will be, unless it's one of those blogs that Blogger.com lists as worth viewing and it's simply a method of search engine optimisation whereby the author simply posts a load of keywords over and over again.
Some may say that these are more interesting than my own blog. So be it.
purplesimon out...
Normally, when I go to see a film that has been hyped out of all proportions, I am disappointed. So, it was with some trepidation that I ventured out on Saturday to see Sin City.
However, I was not as disappointed as I had been the times I went to see Star Wars (Episode I and II) and The Matrix. In fact, Sin City lived up to all my expectations, even if there were parts of it that didn’t match the hype.
Overall, this film is fantastic. It’s so different to other films from the comic/graphic novel genre that it deserves to be seen. Yes, it’s violent; yes, it’s all about nasty people and women with most of their flesh on show; however, it makes for great viewing.
It certainly beats Spiderman, The Hulk, Batman, From Hell, et al into the submission. It’s not perfect (some of the stories just aren’t long enough and Mickey Rourke’s part should have been twice as long), but then films of books rarely are.
Have you seen it? What did you think?
Read, think, comment. The usual stuff.
purplesimon out...
Yes, I am going to tease you all. Feel free to comment on this post with your ideas as to what the news is I can’t tell you about!
As soon as things are finalised, I will be posting this personal news up on my blog.
For now, I open the competition to see if you can guess what that news is.
purplesimon out...
Smoking in public places, that is.
Well, I smoke. However, I don't mind not being able to smoke; if I visit a friend's house and they don't smoke then I go outside to have my cigarette; I can't smoke in the cinema, in some restaurants. Therefore, I would support a ban (in principal).
The only thing that annoys me though is this: we can't smoke in certain places but it is acceptable to use a mobile phone in areas that are smoke-free.
I say, what's the difference between a stupid ringtone going off in a restaurant, or someone shouting into their phone because they are holding it too close to their ear and someone smoking a cigar in the same room?
Little, that's what. Secondary smoke does not kill instantly, it takes time. Diesel fumes are just as bad; pollution from industry also kills. I don't see anyone calling for a blanket ban on these and other social ills.
It's simple: pubs are for drinking (and not to excess - I'd like to see people being fined for puking in the street or public drunkenness), restaurants are for eating. Phone booths are for talking.
Okay, so that might be slightly silly. However, on a serious note: alcohol kills more people each year than smoking does and some of those are through indirect methods (drink driving, fighting, abusing children, etc). Are we going to stop drinking in public places next?
I propose a pub dedicated to smokers. It would be interesting to see how busy that would be. So busy in fact it could be the next big pub chain.
Just an idea.
purplesimon out...
Is there anyone out there that can definitely say they fully understand the EU Constitution? I mean, not someone that has studied it or is a politician, but the person in the street.
Right now, how would you vote if we were given the chance of a referendum?
Personally, I would say no.
Why? Well, for a variety of different reasons. The biggest reason for me is the loss of our legal system, taxation, asylum and immigration and many other things that would suffer enormously were they to be given over to the European Union.
Yes, I agree there are benefits to adopting a constitution that meets the objectives of all Member States. However, as long as we are free from the Euro, will accepting the constitution really make any difference to our lives?
Economically, we are not able to sign up to the Euro. That’s a simple fact.
There are many arguments for and against acceptance and I’m not about to list them all here. However, if you feel you need further information on which to base your own decision (rather than that of some bloke on his blog), you might wish to look here.
Alternatively, searching on Google UK will provide you with a plethora of links.
Happy reading.
purplesimon out...
The purpose of this post is simple: work has gone live and I want to tell you all about it.
Oh, for the purposes of this, I should tell you that you'll need to have the Flash Plugin.
First up is the new Citroën C1 microsite. One day of hard work and a couple of amends late in the day. Lovely little site.
The other piece of work that went live is the Mazda MX-5 Community Website. I wrote the updates to all the news stories and a few odds and sods around the site.
Add to this a huge amount of work for Mercedes-Benz and you can see what I've been up to for the past two weeks.
purplesimon out...
It’s mid-week, the 1st June. We’re almost half way through the year, which is almost too hard to believe. Thankfully, there are calendars to remind me that there is more than a grain of truth in that statement.
Where does the time go?
Of course, time being a man-made concept, I could actually believe it’s January and technically I would be correct, just different from everyone else in the world. I would also be late for meetings and tax returns, etc. My life would be a mess. More than it already is.
I didn’t think that I’d have time to blog this month, as I start a new job today. Well, I say a new job; it’s at the agency I was working at for the last two weeks in May.
After six days off, a bank holiday weekend in amongst it all and some hard drinking and smoking happening, I am quite glad to be back in normality, if London can ever be called that.
Shortly, I expect someone to come and tell me what I am doing today. I fully expect it to be GE Money and Mercedes-Benz again: a follow on from the last pieces of work that I was doing here. I thought someone else might have stepped in to complete what I didn’t, but that was not to be.
Exciting times are supposed to be ahead, but right now I’m simply left to my own devices.
Hence the reason for this post.
purplesimon out...
