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Spams, Scams, data & the clicky tricks of E-vertisers

31 Friday Jan 2020

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It seems we are only ever one click away from digital heaven or hell – the chiaroscuro of polluted data bases, email hijacks, scams, dark trading and the ugly beauty of spam and click-bait either flinging us skyward or casting us down into the digital lava of e-hell.

Internet searches can get dicey even with the most innocent of search terms. So staying vigilant and being careful helps. 

God help you if you’re stupid enough to glaze over while scrolling emails [that’ll be me] or even staggeringly dumb enough to click on one that reads ‘Your Amazon Order Update & Competition Exclusive’ [that’ll be me again] especially if, on thinking about it, you weren’t actually expecting an Amazon or any other kind of order for that matter!! [And yes, still Me!] 

But Lordy lord does your gut know the minute you click on that icon that you’ll rue the day you ever did. Perviously this kind of stuff would really irritate me – my inbox suddenly filled to spilling with mindless and pointless pap – honking scams, over-promise and tat. But as life goes on, I’ve started to quietly enjoy the spillage and taint of the ridiculous and spurious missives that land in my box.

And I’ve even started taking to building out a sort of emotional logic around them just to amuse myself!

So here is my take on the most recent batch of e-joy that’s popped into my world. I’ve snatched the most important first few lines just to show flavour. Enjoy! 

Erase my Back Pain

1 weird stretch DESTROYS Back Pain & Sciatica 

Pain Free!!

Delicious! Free anything is good – but PAIN and FREE and two screamers? Wow. I just feel the need to use 13 ‘screamers’ in celebration!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And this one’s actually relevant to me.  I had a prolapse L1/L2 disc some years back, and the terrible sciatica from it destroyed me. So the chance to DESTROY it back with an obtuse physical gesture makes me very happy. 

Get perfect Little toes in as little as 3 days 

Nail Vitamin Deficiency 

Mother natures recipes

But not as happy as the idea of perfect little toes. Anyone that can save me from my Frodo feet gets a prize.  And there is a certain messianic thread to the 3 day promise. And on the third day my feet will effectively rise from their calloused, shoe-stuffed grave to throw light and beauty into the world. Who knew. And that it is Mother Nature doing the raising of my dead feet, all the better. 

ACADEMIA

You read the paper Genetic Risk and Reproductive Decision Making:

Read this paper too!

Punchy. And you are correct – yes I did. But that doesn’t mean I would subsequently like you to send me an update every time someone puts out a white paper with the words ‘genetic’, ‘reproductive’, ‘decision-making’ or ’Risk’ in the title or sub-head. Or for that matter any derivative of the above, words – e.g. gene, or risk – or associated key words, compounds, synonym/antonym comparatives – or any random fridge-magnet approach to key word search stuff you may choose to push at me. Come to think of it, perhaps a peer-reviewed White Paper on The Impact on Intellectual Discourse of the Vulgar Monetisation of Academic Mediocrity might be a whizz.  

Diabetes will kill you! 

Blood Sugar Formula – Mother nature’s recipes

No shit. Will it? I absolutely never, ever knew that. My mother was diabetic – late onset, in her 60s by the time it snuck into view with its thin-lipped, mean-spirited needling and blooding. But she managed it with remarkable elegance and aplomb. And no, it did not kill her. But its presence in her life did really, really irritate her for a while, much like the reoccurrence of all this scruffy E-vertising in my life. 

XPHONE 

One of the best smart phones in the world

Offers a true visual experience at a very cheap price

Lummey. An X phone. What, like an X Men phone? Incredible. No? Oh, or X-rated? Weird. But strangely modern. Anyway. None of this matters. As this is one of the best. But not the best though? I think your ambitions are a little frail at the end there, guys. Or are we worried about over selling – in email – spam? How can this matter when a phone offers a true visual experience. What does that even mean? Are the pictures and films true to the originals? Like they actually play them without creating untrue versions of them? Do phones do that? Play unreal films? Like, swapping out original content and playing a pirated or faux version of it – to avoid licensing fees? A sort of digital mobile BeKindRewind strategy. Hmmm. This X Phone is a conundrum.

Invest in bitcoin and the life of your dreams 

Earn 13,000 in exactly 24 hours riding the bitcoin wave

Only 3 free copies still available

But not as much of a conundrum as deciding what dream life I’m going to take a run at with the 9 bucks a minute I’m earning investing in bitcoin over the next 24 hours. Get In. And, note, it isn’t 23 hours and 49 minutes – or 24 hours and 32 minutes. Be very clear – this is ‘exactly 24 hours’. And it is 24 hours with attitude. This 24 hours is no slacker – no slouch. This 24 hours surfs! This 24 hours carves off the lip of the bitcoin WAVE! How cool is that! Every minute’s worth of that $13,000  – every 9 bucks of it – comes dripping with bitcoin spume. BUT hold on. There’s a sort of Stranger Things thing going on here, no? I could have SWORN that the only 3 free copies still available went weeks ago. So there must be a universal 3 somewhere. Like deities perhaps. Eternal. Invisible. A trinity of Bitcoin Divinity existing only in Upside Down world.

DRONE 4K Camera

Best affordable drone just hit the market

Adventure unfolds with the MACVAIR

Got it. I know how to find out whether the Trinity of Bitcoin Divinity exists in Upside Down world – send in the DRONE 4K camera. And not any old DRONE 4K. We’re talking the most affordable – which means cheap, right? As I really don’t want to be splurging even one cent more than I have to of my 13,000 bucks – no way. But MACVAIR gets that, right? They know that searching for a Trinity Divinity of Bitcoin in Upside Down internet world is an ADVENTURE, right? And that shit is going to UNFOLD. And let’s face it – if I pull this off, find the trinity of bitcoin divinity, convert the 13K in 24 hours [exactly], I am hot stuff. I am off the scale desirable. EVERYONE will be chasing me down. Wanting a piece of me…

Positions available – YOU’RE HIRED

2 position available GOOGLE & facebook

So let’s put it another way GOOGLE. Lets re-frame this facebook. I’ll decide whether YOU’RE HIRED. Hows about that? Not the other way around. Do you know who the actual f%&* I am? I am the wave-riding, drone-flying Bitcoin Trinity Divinity Slayer. I have the last 3 copies, purged from Upside Down World. I DECIDE who hires and fires. Not you. And just by-the-by, if you are going to even dare approach me, I suggest you make that 100 positions available – as I am now obviously worth a hundred of your usual talent quality. Just saying.

Lillian

This drink is the answer to becoming skinny

Your stomach will shrink fast 

Shark Tanks new product is a diet sensation!

Oh I see. So you’re implying that I not only carry the intellectual mettle and heroic weight of one hundred people but also the physical mass of them? Well, if the Shark Tank thinks it’s a diet sensation, how could I possibly refuse. These people are the leading, bleeding edge of entrepreneurship and business nous. Sharks, Dragons, Tigers. They are a menagerie of business brilliance. And if they say that this will indeed be the answer to becoming skinny, how could I question that – other than asking on which planet the originator of the delusional waffle lives? A dystopian one liberally scattered with Crystal Meth and freely available prescription opiates, punctuated with double-fronted fixed trailers lying unnervingly close to a breastaurant, a breakers yard and a penitentiary I’d wager. But hell – let’s try it! 

Track

Rest easy and never worry about your car being stolen again

Richard Berg says

It works like a charm! CAUTION  Make sure you really want to know what you might find out. This thing tracked my wife and her boyfriend into the middle of nowhere

If this push email trail is anything to go by I probably NEED to drink myself skinny, as my united-state-of-largesse has patently rather put off my other half, potentially to the degree that, much like Mr Berg here, if I were to track them to the middle of nowhere I might otherwise find my loved one in fiercely repeated receipt of someone else’s largesse. But hey, you know what? Knowing the exact GPS location of that rutting betrayal completely takes the sting out of it. In fact, it allows me to rise above it all through smartly applied technology. Track allows me to be the bigger person and take the bigger view. Thank you Track.

Stop Snoring device

The mist that stops you snoring

New invention gives hope to all of those suffering from chronic snoring 

And now that we’ve broached the issue of the fading and faltering nature of personal desirability, this email allows me to embrace the wider ambition. Why stop at just getting skinny quick to alleviate the possibility of philandering and betrayal. That over-carbureted nasal exhaust is hardly likely to get the lower engine running and the pheromones firing, unless one finds oneself lying furtively next to a member of the Sus Scrofa family. So the misty blue yonder of non-snoring hope is beckoning me.   

SMART WATCH

The smart watch that watches out for your health 

The smart watch that big tech companies don’t want you to know about

Have you been wanting a smart watch. Well now you can afford one!!

Now, fatuous, fat, snoring, dream-life-living greatness aside, I have never claimed to be smart enough for my phone. I am indeed a stupid man in charge of a smart device. At most recent reckoning I have estimated that I use, at best, about 3% of the functionality of my phone.

So IMAGINE what I felt when I saw that a watch, smarter than my phone even, will look after my health. And what’s more, it will do it TO SUCH DEGREE that Apple and Microsoft just won’t want me to know about it. Wowsers. Could it get any better?

XonePhone

Theres a new smart phone. You can’t ignore its performance and price

Wow-wheezers. It just did. Game change! I agree. It is night on impossible to ignore the words performance and price. Well, that’s what it says in Killing it in the Email Sales Dept 101 Guide to Successful product sales. Helluva key word focus. How do they do it? It would be so easy to stumble into mediocrity in this game, sliding down the greasy chute of indifference towards lowest common-denominator schtick and sleazy selling – but all these guys manage to keep that quality bar so high it makes me dizzy.

Drone X Pro 

Limited time sale on drones

Foldable quadcopter with wide angle batteries [US]

Speaking of which, the DRONE X Pro just feels like its going to take me up to a whole new level. Foldable! What the wahoo is that all about? But it sounds really exciting. But if I’m really brutally honest, the thing that hooked me through the lip like some digital grouper is the idea of ‘wide angle batteries.’ Frankly that is simply genius. Not only is the lens wide-angle but the batteries too. I’ve no idea of the technical nature or material build or the power engineering required to enable a battery to both power the unit AND expand the retinal capacity of the lens on the on-board camera. But that’s got to be worth stacks! Thats worth swag-money. 

KETO SLIM DIET

Shark Tank Investors LOVE miracle weight loss pill

50 lbs. in 61 days: No New Exercise Skinny Pill melts Belly fat

And swag money is the name of the game with these Shark Tank kids. KETO slim diet is feeling like my kind of miracle weight loss pill. And the Sharks LOVE it. That makes this one hot. So hot in fact, that it ‘melts’ belly fat. ‘Melts!’ How cool is that. A kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Nazi-Face-Melting moment…but for belly fat [national socialist or otherwise]. You’d need something pretty powerful if you’re going to lose 50lbs in 61 days so something akin to the power of the Christian faith’s Almighty God as vested in the Ark of The Covenant seems like a pretty sensible choice. I mean it could be a scam but there’s something so trustworthy in phrases like No New Exercise Skinny Pill. It just SMACKS of integrity and professional discretion. I’m in.

Ryan Oliver 

Get this new diagnostic Tool and Save Money 

Prevent car repair scams …as opposed too online ones…

Hang On. Ryan. You beauty you. Scams! You read my mind. And not just those of the car variety. Car scams. Diet scams. Technology scams. Bitcoin scams. Ryan you are the man of the moment. So, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to suggest something. Might you ever consider getting together with Sheila, MACVAIR, the Shark Tank guys, Richard Berg and Lillian and create one universal Diagnostic Tool that prevents all and every kind of scam? That would be thrilling.

Meet a Lovely Russian Woman Today

RussianWomenDate.com

International Russian And Ukranian dating

Free membership will close in 01:02:47 

Now this is fascinating on three levels. First of all I sense there may be a role for the Universal Diagnostic Tool here as the countdown clock seems to be stuck at 01:02:47 – so free may not be as free as you think anymore. Secondly, I find it remarkable that one needs a site to meet Russian ladies. There was a perfectly charming young Russian lady on the train the other day, travelling to the airport with her father I believe. [It demonstrates just how conservative and old fashioned the Russian culture is.  A young 20-something Western-European woman wouldn’t be seen dead going on holiday with her father!] And thirdly I am quietly surprised how blatant the Russian Annexation of the Ukraine has become. I mean land is one thing but appropriating the woman as yours seems rather arrogant and presumptive if you ask me, especially if you then flaunt them on a dating site.   

Sheila Andrews

Logo and Website design for my business

Attract more new customers …

But bless Sheila for being the absolute antithesis of all that arrogance and sleaze and complex Ponzi style selling schtick. Simple. Straight up. Honest. Logo and Website design for my business. Do you know what Sheila – if I had a slew of small, low-level, low-grade slightly shady, grubby businesses all scrabbling to make a good impression in an on-line world, before I let them send one email, I’d have them sitting in front of you talking logos and websites. And that’s a promise.

 Ergo Relax

Best travel pillow that ever hit the market

Rest even in difficult conditions

Phew. All of this typing on trains is making me rather sleepy. Can you imagine then how thrilled I was when I saw this. I am in a chair. I can sit back. It is possible to close my eyes – ergo, I can relax. But what really snagged my curiosity on the broken fence of promises is the fact that Ergo Relax tells me that I can rest even in difficult conditions. Holy Moly. So, though I may have made an inappropriate slur for which someone chose to press charges, I would still sleep like a baby! I could tuck in for 40 winks with flood water rising about me. And a good night’s sleep in the midst of a climate crisis beckons. Amazing. Ergo Relax is not to be sniffed at, either with or without Snoring mist.

3D Airplane games 

ProFlight Simulator 

Presenting the most realistic flight simulator ever created 

I can’t pretend to be anything other than a tiny weeny bit suspicious of this. I have a lot of love for simulation tech in all of its guises. And I know that the track records of the USAF and Boeing leave a lot of room for people who might create superior flight simulations and trainers that prepare people to a] not crash and b] not bomb the wrong people. But when I’m told that this is the most realistic flight simulator ever created I am stunned into humble silence. Perhaps this is the issue. The real geniuses are to be found not in Bomber Command or Boeing’s testing team but here, discreetly and humbly selling the most realistic flight simulator ever quietly in the furrows and margins of the internet and my inbox. No accolade chasers or plaudit junkies them. A small profitable stipend from an email campaign is more than enough.  

Herpes Simplex

Medical Mystery. How did their Herpes disappear

Hi If you or a loved person suffer from herpes simplex it is urgent that you do not go another day without the powerful information in the following lines

Didn’t you see the news? Its a revolt!

Perhaps this might explain the shyness of our majestic simulator designers. They may have been so busy creating the most realistic flight simulator EVER that they missed the revolt, the news passed them by and they continued to live another day and another day without this powerful information in the following lines [whatever that might mean.] Can you blame them for choosing to stay rather discretely out of the glare of fame and fortune.

Canvas Print Ads 

Add to your holiday collection

Hmmmn. I wonder whether our reclusive simplex flight engineers might just be a little down. Perhaps they might just need a lift of some sort. Something to jolly them up a bit. Digging out a picture of favourite holiday moments and suchlike can be a real tonic especially when rendered across the highest quality synthetic canvas. I know someone whom has two rather fetching canvas prints of themselves throwing what someone mistakenly referred to as a VOGUE shape at the Casino club, Guildford on MADONNA NIGHT, while sporting a wet-suit and a rather fetching fedora. An easy mistake to make but, for the record, they report that they were simply gesturing to the fire exit due to the fact that the person in front of them looked so HOT they thought they might well burst into flames. That the person happened to be both my associates boss and also their bed mate probably explains why said associate got a raise and was fired, all in one 24 hour period. But to be clear, it wasn’t EXACTLY 24 hours. No bitcoin investment there. Nor a professional Reference for that matter   

Professional Who’s Who

Nominated for inclusion

On the subject of professional credentials, imagine my surprise when the e-call came to join the rarified ranks of the professional aristocracy. But Who Knew Professional Who’s Who even existed? And a nomination for inclusion no less. I am always up for inclusive action. Diversity is a really strong suit at the moment in corporate circles so nominating people for inclusion strikes me as a very enlightened action on Who’s Who’s part. Thank God their email arrived frankly. I was starting to think ‘What? Is every email a scam or a prank?’ So here’s to your professional rigour and enlightened inclusivity programme Professional Who’s Who.  

Ultra Boost WiFi

No More Buffering! WiFi boost speeds up your internet 

Your cure for spotty internet

Buffering. I must confess I LOVE this word. [Note to self: beware excessive use of screamers, capitals and absence of punctuation induced by protracted periods of time looking at push emails from shite businesses, products, faux brands and personalities.] Buffering implies a fierce circular attention to something, involving friction and some form of rotation or animation. So I can imagine that once someone’s stopped buffering this liberates a massive cache of energy to apply in some other direction – to power the WiFi connection for instance. That we can give that surge of redirected energy a boost just fills me with utter joy. Currently my wi-fi wheezes along at barely a breath. If I was of a mind to take up contouring as a new face-forward make-up solution, I’d be stuffed. It would take an age to play even the smallest section of a 2 hr 32m Contouring Tutorial – to such degree that I would probably take to spending enormous tracts of time seemingly in a creeping state of tribalism – given that, at any point in the day, the marks on my face would have developed in some really slow flick-book animation of an abstracted patch pattern effect – a sort of snail’s pace Tyson-face tattoo – part Maori part Bobbi Brown part Shrigley.

But nonetheless, all’s well with Ultra Boost. And that it cures spotty internet is a matter for religious level celebration. Hallelulia. No more teenage internet angst. No more screen scrubbing. No more microbeaded bandwidth. Internet spots are gone forever!    

De Pigmentation

I am vitiligo free and so much healthier and confident overall.

Vitiligo Miracle

Cure Vitiligo holistically

Much it seems as will be the ones on my hands face and other extremities, very, very soon. As the words set out, I may well be Vitiligo free with this holistic miracle. I have had Vitiligo for a few years and it is spreading. Though I am aware of it, especially when I have been in the sun, it has always been a visual thing for me. So LORD, I never knew that I might be unhealthy because of it? Unhealthy? How? Herpes. But I’ve got news on a natural remedy revolt for that. Obesity? Screw that, as I’ve got two Shark Tank approved skinny making pills and something from a lady called Lillian for that baby. Diabetes? I can kill it before it kills me. Back Pain? Again, one ninja move and a weird stretch and that baby’s history – so not that. Which leaves me little to worry about. My anxiety seems to have ebbed away.

And how amazing – my confidence… has soared! It’s true. I am going to be absolutely fine!

As all of the wonder emails have told me. I am the answer. I only need act. Perfect.  

Seems simple enough to me. But hang on. Just got to read the 347 emails that have just popped up in my inbox.

But then I’m getting RIGHT to it.

 

er compromising on quality

Being  organised with time and resources

Utilising available learning

Taking care of EHL property

Making productive use of available technology

Being productive with time

Sharing knowledge

Living the 7 steps of service excellence every day

Ensuring processes are implemented and followed

Meet your deadlines

Understand our business

Be a champion of sustainability

Measure and evaluate the impact of your decisions

Never compromising on quality

Being  organised with time and resources

Utilising available learning

Taking care of EHL property

Making productive use of available technology

Being productive with time

Sharing knowledge

Living the 7 steps of service excellence every day

Ensuring processes are implemented and followed

Meet your deadlines

Understand our business

Be a champion of sustainability

Measure and evaluate the impact of your decisions

Life, lines, logos & the all-consuming art of consumption

15 Monday May 2017

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I’m on fire

I’ve Unboxed my phone. And I believe in better. Just do it. Tick.  Just did it.

But wait, can’t get my breath because I am – of – so – very – ON.

I’m a consumer consuming, a dumb man walking with a smart phone talking back at me.

I’m hyper consumptive and coughing up bloody Mary firmly goosed with Grey.

I’m For Living and licking the fingers of good with a chicken from Kentucky or any other such United State you care to mention, and I’m hanging with people who are As Good As Our Word, absurd but fiercely true.

My Snap Crack Popple Pipe went off in my face but I don’t care Cos I’m the ‘Eating Fresh’ Prince of Been There Done That but same-old, same-old doesn’t cut it anymore so I’m Thinking Different because I’m worth it, so Earth calling the Spaceman, Yes We Can.

And I’m feeling the Magic BUT am I Tasting the Rainbow? I may go to customer service and COMPLAIN because it definitely ain’t raining technicolour on me anytime now.

But I’m doing a lot so Every Little Helps and I’ve got welts from whipping myself senseless with spring greens sustainably sourced of course.

Smash. Boom. Crash.

Whatever works for you in the clattering noise of consumption land but don’t shirk on your Durch Technic mate or your spring will remain Vorsprung.

Pick a language any language I’m with the worlds local bank so I’m fluent in Yoplait yodelay hee hoo exotica and inter-continental catch phrases so I stay firmly ‘flame on’ across the channel to the E.U.nited States of Holiday with the sparkling surge of Orangina fo-fina at my lips Naturally

But shucks I’m brunching and crunching and I’m Living Well with kitchen dancing and prancing in pimpy pumps that pumppumppump me UP and the car in front, well, it’s behind the times ‘cos its hybrid and my bid’s for Accelerating the Future in an eco-super-green Mung-ready dream that I can snapchat attack about because Life’s more fun when you live in the moment, apparently – and my 2facedbook feed reads like Walter Mitty, more’s the pity if the truth ever got in the way of ME – but that’s why I have FRIENDS with a capital F*%# so I don’t get the bends when I de-acclimatise from my threads of marvellous invention.

The tension is killing me – might I pop out a truth just to see if anyone’s following me? – let’s see – stalk stalk – I can totally talk the walk if I just snort an Instagram of my glorious self.

Let’s face it, I’m preposterously prosperous and shining my crown but, wait – why am I feeling so down?

Quick boys quick check the follower rating – that does the trick cos joy stats are waiting – I’ve tweeted a storm and its thrown up a swarm of murmuring twitteratti, look who’s following my vapour and skyping my party of one, hell, I’m coming out windswept with twenty new following.

So all is good and calm and I’ll chance my arm with a hashtag blowback and fill my lungs with the honey sun of my digitally consuming gloriously connected self.

Phew. Who knew that eating so much life would make me phat. Isn’t a life well lived negatively calorific and cheap at half the price? (as smaller credit card bills would be nice).

Truth be told I’m choking on broke and my dreams are currently staying in a hotel so far beyond my means that it comes with a free car because, my friend, bullshit just can’t walk that far.

Time to do a runner. Needs must.

Trump, Trust, People Power & A New Social Contract

25 Wednesday Jan 2017

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I’m less concerned with the overt Trumpness of Donald. I am sure that I should be.

Weirdly, the idea that one certain mister ‘pussy grabber’ becomes the President Elect of the United States does not surprise or shock me.

The White House has had its fair share of mysoginists and philanderers – and of course the hawks (both the useful ones the world desperately needed and the assholes the world didn’t). Presidents have not all been shades of the wholesome, family-loving God bless America of Carter and Reagan.

Trump’s direct assaults on minorities, global warming groups, foreign aid, etc. are in no way a surprise. He claims that he is against radical Islam not Muslims, but seems to think beating up Muslims is a great strategy to that end.

And as for the Wall and the Mexican issue. Its teetering on high comedy.

I imagine Trump in the roll of the Norman Knight played by John Cleese in Monty Python & The Holy Grail, looking down from his high vantage on the castle wall.

As the people far below call up to him the Donald flicks his nose at them.

Whispers from off camera: What do they want?

Donald: They’re looking for the American Dream… (sniggers) I told them we already got one.

The cynics point to the fact that Trump can’t be a friend of Hollywood because Hollywood would never forgive him for sending back the people who do their gardens – as every lawn from Sunset to Malibu would scorch and die if it weren’t for the Mexican part time labourers who fill the pick-ups every morning on every principal corner of Sunset where the bus stops sit.

Global warming is cobblers of course  in Donaldland (my new name for the Disney-esque NeoCon Hoo Haa place we call the Disunited States of America).

We knew this was coming. His dinner party friends have all made a huge amounts of money from fossil fuels – Oh, and they think the science is cod. How remarkably convenient. Oh and they’d like to continue to make a whole lot of money from fossil fuels. (Apparently the quickest was to roll back environmental impact stuff and fluff is to roll forward one hell of a pipeline.)

And the new hawkish ‘build it up build it out’ approach will be making a whole lot of industrialists in the ordnance sector positively dribble in anticipation. Its like ’64 and Lyndon Johnson’s election all over again.

So shock horror probe.

Donald’s anti the soft lefty red types in the arts. He’s backing the Oil Men, the Military Industrial Complex, the dream of the self-made Millionaire, a two people America and defensive divisive Isolationism.

Damn right.

This is what made America great people. And that’s what Donald is gonna do again.

Look it. Whatta guy. Even his Campaign Officer is a helluva woman – comin’ out fig’tin an e’ry thing at that Inauguration Dinner. Hah.

We’re a hellzaapoppin, asskickin, red slappin’, say it the way it is, speak my mind raise my fists burn some rubber bomb some ragheads give no quarter US of Damn A – an’ don’t you forget it.

There is nothing surprising about Donald Trump at all. He is a very ordinary unsurprising old school alpha man. He is that man in that bar or pub. Foghorn Leghorn. His scrabble for money has given him bragging rights and a loudspeaker for whats right and wrong. And his politics are simply his genetic ‘assert & ascend’ survival strategy writ large and loud.

The greatest issue with Donald Trump is not his politics. It’s his integrity. That fuzzy golden grey periphery that seems to wrap itself around and about everything he touches.

And the minority of ordinary people who voted for him are potentially in for a rude awakening one day. There’s no guarantee he’ll screw it up of course. He may busk it. Survive the next 4 years and fate will smile on him.

It’s a little like functioning alcoholics: teetering on the edge of the abyss of their addiction but never quite falling into it. He may just glide across the bumps. Even more scary for some, there may even be some things that he does that are not necessarily welcome but actually might benefit a large number of people. The issue is can you trust him to do that but not at a punitive cost to others. Favouring one group or bloc or constituency over another is a politician’s remit. But not a President’s.

A substantially larger number of the thinking, living, earning, voting population of the country he runs don’t trust him to run the country in a manner they see fitting for an advanced and great First World bastion of Democracy and Liberalism (and I don’t just mean the fiscal kind).

They do have some fair reason.

A man who does not immediately and absolutely divest his business interests in the interest of running a country is like a man who turns an old pre wedding girlfriend into a post wedding mistress. A weighty dose of cake and Eating it.

A president who does not happily take a transparent line on his business and tax affairs is not to be trusted. This is where I will draw the Silvio Berlusconi parallel. It simply does not work. It leads to or exacerbates existing corruption, self interest runs riot, and toxic back room dealings and trades become the foundation of government decision making. Governments and Presidents do not need any more ‘obfuscation as policy’ – other than  that which already exists in the misty foggy worlds of GeoPolitics.

Regardless of whether he is playing games to reduce tax disproportionately or whether it is because Divestment might lead to full and open scrutiny of the financial health and integrity of those businesses – especially the degree of leverage he’s using and the source of that leverage (China anyone?), he is a man who fogs facts and doesn’t finish sentences – an obfuscator of the first order.

Policies are not the issue. Trust is, in regards to both his intentions and his actions.

And to be clear what I mean by ‘half the nation do not Trust Donald’ – I do not mean Trust as in their belief in his ability to undertake and do something he commits to doing. I wholly trust him to keep to his (vague) word and commitments:

“I trust DT to execute a mass of executive orders in his own and associates interest and to his own ends”

I wholly believe he will do that.

The Trust I mean is the one that defines the commitment to an action that is instilled with values and ethics – and of a clear sense of collective and not just selective good:

“I trust DT to set aside this own self-interest in pursuit of creating a better country for both the people who didn’t vote for him as for those who did.

As President, his role is to increase prosperity, and reduce division between the haves and the not haves, and between those for and against him.

Which leads me to venture a thought.

I wonder whether perhaps in our peer to peer world in the absence of a Trust coming down from on high, the new social contract needs to be drawn not between government and the people, but BETWEEN THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES.

Perhaps the new social contract – the contract of TRUST – needs to be drawn up between Trump voters and non Trump Voters. And to each the other is held accountable. Because if Donald is all about acting on the will of the people, then the people’s integrity and mutual trust and vision is everything and he should be in service to that.

Perhaps this is the new model to be forged – enshrined and acted upon in the interests of the American people.

The social contract of TRUST should become a respectful charter for mutuality that transcends party and individual politics:

I trust you to uphold your personal liberties without holding them above mine.

I trust you to raise and protect your family but not at the expense of mine or others

I trust you not to harm our communities in pursuit of making a better one of your own

I trust you to raise your hand in support of those less well off than you, not in suppression of them.

I trust you to protect the freedom of every American citizen, not just those like you.

I trust you to protect our great American wildlife and countryside for our grandchildren

I trust you not to be seduced by words but swayed by actions

I trust you to share equally the Greatness we collectively make.

Just a thought. A new peer to peer Social Contract for the American People.

If we could get both sides to agree that it is the people who Donald serves, and let the people shape the Social Contract that he is action, underwrite and secure using all of the instruments tools and machinery of his elected office, now that would be something.

Who knows: we might even have finally found a meaningful role for Facebook in a declining market.

A peer to peer social contract managed across face book’s 20 Million users – which to be fair even allowing for the teenage user profile and pre voting age bloc is still a hell of a lot closer to representing the future voice and desire of America.

It is certainly more broadly representative of the people of America than the 60% turnout of which Donald still did not secure the majority.

Just saying.

 

 

Accelerating History, Universal Rules & Tappist Conundrum

20 Monday Jun 2016

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The future is Now – or just a hop, swipe and a quark in front of the moment we’re in – apparently – and every leap forwards we experience just another masterful identification of yet another inflection in technology – another opportunity or possibility seized by one silicon valley giant or another (and at which they ferociously throw themselves like a clown-masked bank robber sprawled across the bonnet of Frank Cannon’s Mark IV Continental, money spilling from his pockets like confetti, killer app strapped to his oversized gloved hand, joker grimace mouth frothing with messianic fervour).

And as each Now is seized, another rush of them pop up in its wake. Not one. Many. Nows are like May Flies, their single short life, their moment in the sun though brief and bright, is followed by not one but many more, their job of expanding their universe efficiently and economically done. And like May Flies, those Nows and the wave of possibility and opportunity that accompany them are coming thicker and faster than ever as technology and the Moore’s Law slingshot applies.

But there’s the question (if you can be arsed to ask it).

These Nows, and the infinite relentless possibility that comes with them are coming thicker and faster BUT are they rushing towards us, and if so what’s pushing them? Or are we rushing towards them – and if so, what’s propelling us?

Are we in a delicious Pull relationship with that point somewhere between the far side of the Now and the leading edge of tomorrow? Is the mesmeric possibility and galloping expectation of ‘what might be’ seducing us to rush at ever greater speeds into that space, self-propelling ourselves on the accelerating nature of tech capability?

Or are we being pushed? – bullied and bumped by the expanding exploding mosh of what has momentarily just been…by history, its knee relentlessly in the small of our back: its open palms flat battering against our shoulder blades – oooffff – sharp shoves with vertebrae clicks as the metronome of our progress?

And if it is the latter, when did quaint, doleful, dusty history get so pushy?

Though providing a huge potential for sounding a little like David St Hubbins from Spinal Tap (how could we forget his musings on Infinity – “if the universe is indeed infinite, then how – what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it? So, what’s the end, you know, is my question to you.”), the question of whether we are being pushed towards the future (and if so by what) or whether the future is rushing towards us is a rather fun thing to ponder,

My interest lies in the two camps that seem to vie for attention in this Tappist space. On the one hand the Historians have always felt very strongly that the answer to every human question yet to be asked has already been answered somewhere in history so they would say that history reaches forward into the Now and the Near Future continuously, shaping, poking, and priming them as it goes, and, ultimately isn’t everything rather circular anyway in our Goes Around Comes Around world?

And on the other, the futurists have a tendency to simply view history as the collective debris strewn behind our relentless pursuit of that great big beautiful rush  of ‘Now’s – the past simply the rusting wreck of all that furious Doing and Being – the landfill of quadrillions of previous ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’s – and a fistful of ‘maybe’s’ – now old; spent; finished; past; dead.

It would be fair to say that in our tech-fuelled accelerating world one might be forgiven for believing that the Futurists are ahead

Bar the odd Simon Schama moment and the old farts watching Time Team re runs – and a small deep fetish for period dramas – it’s all i Robot, Future Shock, cyborg, Artificial Intelligence, the upcoming sensory smack addiction of VR, multiple Wireds by Will i am, and the ‘prism-meets-kaleidoscope-meets-mirage’ of social network identity.

But for my tuppence worth, I believe we are not being drawn towards the relentlessly multiplying possibilities of an accelerating life powered by accelerating tech.

We are being pushed towards them.

Life is not accelerating – history is. It is also expanding and deepening as it does so. Technology is not accelerating future opportunity; it is amplifying, multiplying expanding and accelerating the Past at an exponential rate, which in turn pushes the future. (I can hear the sound of a split hair readying itself for further splicing!)

The Past is throwing more and more data, options choices, threads and wormholes over our shoulder into the path ahead.

The old, odd, sloth-like and highly personal model of living history – a straggly tendril poking us along our merry way, or popping up for some reason every now and then – has transformed into a high, broad and deep wave of such staggering proportion that the sheer critical mass of it relentlessly rising up behind us presses us forward at ever greater speeds.

History has stopped being the inert supplicant to the edgy today and ever more glamorous tomorrow. History is no longer dusting off books and only getting noticed when the 120 pound muscled-up Now feels like kicking sand in its face.

History is now the big kid on the block. History has changed its diet. History is bulking up, doing free weights, and running faster and further than ever before. History’s arms are more ripped and wider than ever. History’s shoulders have expanded, laying on more muscle and width. History has binned the old singular enormo-head of massed experience, chronology and intelligence and now rears up like a hydra, multiple heads sparking, spitting and snapping in every direction at once.

History is so NOW. Alive. Vibrant. Ripped. (Ooohhh.)

And this History is no meathead. This History has taken up Humanities. Broadening its mind at the speed of light fibre. This history ‘listens’. And it learns.

The old, mean, sharp dry propagandas of the old History – mean, brittle, myopic, self interested, closed, elitist – have been supplanted with a broad minded, expansive all seeing History, fired by myriad reference points and concurrent history threads on any given subject – all of which can be viewed ‘in flow’, hyper linked to each other in a cats cradle of information, opinion, feeling, insight, record, and data. History is not only alive. Its groovy: switched on. Tuned in.

For example, lets take an era of historic record – The Cold War. In our new hyper connected world, at the touch of a screen I can explore the Cold War not only from the vantage point of general historic record; the standard expository account as set out in a geo political or military text book but also through ‘pulling up’ what’s out there (About 65, 100,000 results in 0,62 seconds according to GOOGLE) delivering everything from random Wikis to blogs to current affairs programmes and texts from the time, government papers subsequently released by interested 3rd parties (web platforms & activists): treatise on How and why – profiles on whom – the JFK lens? – the Khruschev lens? – the Castro Lens?  – suddenly Ive got Marilyn Monroe conspiracy films with my Bay Of Pigs and a recipe for Cuban Rum Bean Stew in front of me. There are personal biographical and autobiographical accounts of living memory (both politicians militarists, civic officers and everyday people) to swim in.

I can have a shufti at the confrontation through the 1st and 3rd person filmic, musical and artistic reminiscences of people who ‘lived it’. I can virtually experience Cold War happenings, using Google Street View to walk the streets and dark corners of the Eastern Block to bring a narrative reminiscence to life. I can listen to recordings, interviews; watch reams of old newsreel. I can even consider it through the lens of how the art direction of movies focused on the period have inspired new wave designers in a kind of New Wave Cold War Hot Looks Chic – with a range of soft furnishings furniture and wall papers that celebrate concrete block builds papered with the rural mirage of big florals rendered in a palette that cold best be described as ‘Bowie Low’ Orange

This sea of multi dimensional multi perspective references is universal.

Technology allows me to drown myself in my own historic tsunami on any given subject.

Now this new, expanding, deepening, towering hydra tsunami of history can be broadly separated into two forms.

Near History & Far History

Far History has nothing to do with timelines or chronology – Far History is the kind of history which is only occasionally drawn into our everyday consciousness – the type of history that is farthest away from our Now.

Far History is only drawn up for or by a particular reason. For example, I watch the film Book Of Life with my children; they ask me about The Day Of The Dead. I follow up with a little light research on Dia De Los Muertos and suddenly I can drown myself in an avalanche of semiotic, cultural, religious, geographic, artistic, musical rendition and reminiscence. And the odd street food recipe.

To put it another way, Far History is everything beyond the peripheral vision of a facebook timeline and a linked-in profile update.

Near History is the one to watch. Near History is the pushy one here. Near History is the type of history that is expanding to the greatest degree. Near History is the staggering funnel of information, data, reference, touch point, perspective that rushes outwards across multiple channels and platforms from any one moment, action, experience or occurrence to deliver social, cultural, economic and environmental context of staggering breadth, impact and effect.

Think of it in personal terms for a moment. Your ‘history’ was once something gentler, broadly of two parts – the highly personal – ‘Close to you’ version. Spoken memories. Photo albums. Diaries. Familial reminiscence. Shared experiences between neighbour and local. With a  nice and highly engineered ‘Part Of This’ national identity draped over the top for when bigger stuff came along – football, war, European Union, holidays, collective cultural rituals (Guy Fawkes Day).

But it was slow, intertwined, indistinct. Ambling.

Now every moment explodes with Near History – the old personal intimate ‘close to me ‘ stuff amplified to staggering proportion by the connections pictures films shares links likes revelations news sources contextual materials.

Near History doesn’t pop up eventually, a little way down the track. It goes off like a grenade – rising up and billowing around us so quickly that we are living in it – the Near History is now a part of the Now.

It is this expansive explosive Near History rising up behind every moment we live that is pushing us forwards.

Near History is not in service to Moore’s Law. It is what fuels Moore’s Law. The exponential multiplication of capability, capacity and functionality is forced forwards by the Near History of every innovating, applicable and expanding moment in technology that has just been in service to every expanding moment we’ve just lived and the legions of multiplying Nows lining up just in front of it.

I think.

Anyway, if you’re facing the future, throw away the rear view mirror, strap yourself in, pop on some flash goggles and turn that Kevlar round to face the back. And let History, especially the Near kind fire you forwards.

 

Homes, Castles, Connectivity & Living the Dream

12 Thursday May 2016

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The home bone’s connected to the bill bone. The bill bone’s connected to the sigh bone. The sigh bone’s connected to the…

The difference between our base line Cost of Living and our expanded Cost of Life depends mostly on the size of life we think we’re entitled to.

For most of us, the size of Life we choose seems to be a ‘larger-than-life’ one – regardless of whether we can actually afford it or not. We rarely seem to find meaning within our means these days. Living within our means feels so, well, small.

We’re all rock stars now; super consumers of gorgeous.

And as with many things – our Cost of Life aspirations both begin and end in the home.

Our home is a hub – a hub of Us. A hub that speaks of our aspirations, background, histories and values; the dolls house of our life’s journey, set out like a huge work-in-progress catalogue for the life we aspire to: a  life that looks so good we’d just have to buy it (if we hadn’t done so already, three times over).

The living catalogue of Glorious Me. We’re all on air, on screen and published now, love – our perfect lives played out on facebook and twitter ( “Great Barbecue babe! Rose! Rose! And OMG!…gorgeous new garden chairs! you old fashionista you! #barbietodiefor @barbiegurl” ). Perfect lives, perfect bound by that lovely little digital printing and photo shop down the road into a coffee table book of Us.

Our home is where the Art is. The art of a life lived increasingly on camera and social network (even some of the GoggleBox families seem to be suffering a creeping upgrade to their furnishings).

And in the UK that home reaches far beyond its more recent role as the backdrop and canvass to our gorgeous perfect lives.

Let’s not forget the home enjoys near mythical status.

Because it really is our castle. (Cue Mr. Crowe’s Robin of Loxley speech in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood)

The home enshrines the right of every man woman and child to self-determination and liberty – each of us the Lord of our own manor.

If I want to crazy pave it, paint it in stripes or put crash barriers on my front lawn, I will.

Our home is connected to our fundamental human right, our sense of belonging, our individual and collective identity, the signature of our citizenship and all that goes with that.

It is our own personal cornerstone in a fair decent and thriving nation.

When viewed through the lens of values ethics and identity, the connected Home for us is a far bigger idea than some tech fest junkies would suggest.

Yes the tech junkie view of the connected home is amazing.

But too often seem to ignore or miss the social and cultural infrastructure within which that home and its occupants exist. And therefore the most compelling of ways in which to connect it and to what.

Yes, the hyper connected home should represent the purest and most uncompromised version of our tech selves. But expansive tech needs meaning.

Connected homes in technological terms are amazing things – but I wish they’d speak of them in human terms – and imbue them with the power to elevate and enable the intrinsic values and aspirations of us, not just house the extrinsic ones.

A home inextricably and invisibly connected to our human needs and desires beyond having the latest something.

Imagine of all that tech was focused on serving one greater and more liberating purpose?

Imagine if the connected home was the killer app in a smarter lighter life for everyone of us?

Imagine if your home was hard wired directly to a smarter lighter model of prosperity – where the technology was put in charge of holisticity, thrift, and the inter-relatedness and integration of all things to do with your most precious retreat.

Imagine if your home sensed everything and watched all. Imagine if it was programmed to act in your best interests?

Imagine if it was the relentless scrutinizer of every opportunity to unburden you? Acting smartly on your behalf, mostly invisibly, with you only ever seeing the benefit of an increasingly improving life at decreasing cost?

Imagine if everything that you carried into your home had a bar code that registered it and simply recalculated your insurance accordingly?

Imagine if your fridge knew what needed to be eaten when – and also made suggestions to you for the left overs in the fridge – popping up with a recipe for the last two eggs, fennel head, three mushrooms and abstract cheese from the market?

Imagine if, having read the calorie counter off your i-watch, the same fridge suggested a meal from your own fridge or larder based upon the exercise you just did?

Imagine if your home knew what size the shoes and clothes were in your house and gave you the heads up if the kids needed new trainers – or those pants were past their sell by date?

Imagine if the shower knew when you’d had enough – timed to switch off after 3 minutes?

Imagine if the grey waste wandered down a pipe to be run through the lawn down through charcoal and into a aquifer, cleaning the water to within an inch of its 7 life cycles life – to pop out again in the washing machine, dish washer, and sink taps?

Imagine if the bioacoustics – sound imaging – in your home shifted the energy utilities to the area of the house you used the most? And the floor tiles generated the energy for the low wattage lighting in every room you walked into?

Imagine a house that gave you the nod when too much screen time had eaten your synapses?

Imagine a bed that kept a record of how much time you spent in REM sleep and re-calibrated your well being regime accordingly.

Imagine a house that could read the bar code on every book in it and give you a re-run suggestion from your own library – instead of just always buying another?

Imagine a home which delivered a change is as good as a rest plan each season – with a small suggestion for how to rearrange or re-see what you have – furniture, appliances, space –  to freshen up everyday life without unnecessary expense?

This suddenly transforms your home into a living evolving magazine concept – where your own home breathes in and out with you, informing and enriching your living experience by empirically understanding how you live and then helping you make the most of what you have. Apply the magazine retailing model and the connected self/connected home idea gets even more interesting.

If your home knew what reward and store cards you had and knew how many points you had accrued it could even suggest how you might use those points to best and most economic effect!

So what does this demand of us that isn’t already being done?

All of the above requires us to look at the Connected Home with Purpose and meaning – which requires us to look down through the lens of human desire and the expansive self – not up through the lens of relentless tech innovation and the optimized self.

If a smarter lighter life was predicated on super smart technologies applied invisibly to liberate the person to unburden themselves from the clutter of a ‘larger-than-life’ life and the confusion and contradiction that comes with it, starting with the bills, that would be an amazing thing.

Suddenly our ability to re-imagine prosperity in our everyday lives with meaning stops being the sole domain of finance houses and home retail stores seeking to expand their footprint in our lives.

Suddenly Tech businesses providing state of the art hyper fast connectivity move into pole position as the enablers and augmenters of a smarter lighter life – the deliverers of a new prosperity model.

And hey, every business category loves a new revenue stream and brand opportunity!!

“So,…yeah Ill take the THRIVE101 Hyper –fast, Invisible-Tech Connected Home Package please,

yup… yup…no…the one with the insurance/water/energy/credit card/retail bundle.

Yup.

Nice.

Nectar Card? Yes Ive got a nectar Card.

2 Million Bonus Points with the THRIVE101 UPGRADE?

errmm, OK, go on then…”

Love, labels, shopping & Living The Dream:

24 Sunday Apr 2016

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Shopping Labels: love ‘em. And I’ll have as many of them as I can get. And I don’t care what they’re pinned, popped, stapled, taped or tied to. Face creme. Hipsters. Phones. Washing Machines. Waiters. Sun-loungers. Crappafrappaccinolates.

Labels are the living proof that I’m living the dream. Or should I say shopping it. And loving it.

I’m perched on my individually reclining sofa, planning my buy now pay later holiday on an Oculus Rift. Got my very dramatic instagramatic liquid screen life looping on the SAMSUNG. Got my look-at-me-apple-i-watch playlist hooked into the Sonos. Even got my kids hooked on five hundred quid smart phones. Result.

Love my hyper connected super stylish self.

The more kit I have the better I feel. Because I’ve got kit. Shiny new smelling kit. Look at shiny me!  Shining is all I want to do as a stand-up living, loving human being. Shiny means my love is cutting the mustard in the world: I’m providing.

I’m buying like and love at a check out and it feels great. I’m buying branded hotness, smarts, and friends.Seriously, look at my slidy swipy interface app. I’m nailing it. I’m searching for love through an animated Gif. Nice. Add to Basket. Go to Checkout

Got stuff. Give stuff.

Sorry, hang on; let me just put you on speakerphone so every one can hear how on it we are. “Where? The British Virgin Islands? Surprised they let you in babe! Bahh ha ha ha. See you Friday. LOL. XOXOXOXOXO”

Stuff is how I spread the love. Christmas. Valentines. Mother’s Day. Birthdays. Love is a huge pink heart made up of bar codes with a matching card and wrapping paper.

Shop unto others as you would shop unto yourself!

Super Market Super Me. Veg isn’t just veg. 3 for 2 salad bags isn’t just 3 of their 5 a day – its a protestation of love. The cheese. Those breaded fish pieces. Olives with the little red things inside. The lot. The smell of the Ocado bags. Smell my love. The air is heavy with it.

That detergent, the super citrus one I use to wash their clothes, that’s liquid love in a tumble dryer. I could give a serial killer a run for their money in the detergents, bleaches and abrasive disinfectants department. Every one of them is an individual price marked gesture of my love for my family and the squeaky gorgeous life I want them to have. How could I not remove 99% of all germs? What kind of people are you? How could I allow my carpet not to smell of the perfume of a thousand roses. Those roses died for our home to smell like this! Have some respect.

Breakfast cereal? Its more than a bloody cereal. Check out the advert! It’s a highly nutritious hug is what it is. Just because I don’t have time to give one, at least the cereal can. Each one of those boxes is a proxy for my love. Snap crackle and hug that’s what I say. And while we’re at it: send my children out into the cold without a glowing defence shield of warm loving oats? Murderer.

My love is infinite. Resealable. Refillable. Recyclable.

And I can prove it. Look at the balance on my Nectar card and tell me I am not the most loving person around.

I’m a goes around comes around kind of person. Always happy to, you know, do our bit for the planet…just don’t charge me extra! Love the planet. And that Attenborough chap. He’s lovely.

Hang on… feels a little rubbish with everyone’s face stuck in a screen. And feeling a little lonely if the truth be told. Need to update my facebook status. But it means having to check out their third set of holiday pictures this year…I mean its only bloody May. Does he work for Thomsons or something?

Right. Family outing.

OOhh I feel a quick weekend turn around Westfield coming on! Come on every one, in the car, I want to check out that new home cinema set up and your mum wants to nip into Kurt Geiger to try on some post-modern, highly ironic stripper shoes (and I don’t mean the decorating kind!).

3DS? What d’you need your DS for? Oh go on then … quickly.

Westfield.

LOVE the screech of my low profile sports spec tyres as I one-finger-turn in their car park – the sheer weight of those oh so safe tyres turning on my lighter-than-air super-computed steering system. Hell, the car parks itself.

Tell you what though, think I must try harder, I’m slipping. Look at ‘em. Is it me or have all the kids permanently got a face like a slapped arse?

Not even sure if they like me. God, they must like me. We’re bezzy mates. Shopping together and everything. We even have the same face book friends.

You OK? School’s OK? Isn’t it? I’m sure they’re OK – aren’t they? I think I might buy them an education just like the one in Harry Potter – well, they loved the films and you know, always a little space on a credit card somewhere…!

Pricey? Yup, but you know, as the saying goes ‘Short time Living, Long time Debt’ – stick it on a card. Cant take it with you, it’s your credit, you’ve earned it.

Blimey, where was I – holiday – better not mess up the booking. I’ve so booking nailed it. See the love in their eyes when they enter the resort. That’s us that is.

Well I felt like a criminal – when she said that her mate at school didn’t just go to Disneyland – she was actually  IN the Disney holiday advert; in it; you know the one where all the children screech and scream when the parents reveal they’re going to Disneyland.

Well I couldn’t say no after that. OK, you’re going to drop three grand but look at their little faces – I couldn’t not. Where’s the Barclaycard? No, thats the VISA, the Barclaycard… it was with the MBNA one – I used them to get the sofa and those garden chairs.

Just got to face it – you spoil them, don’t you. And I quite like a few treats for myself. I’m worth it. Nan says we’re soft and need to get over ourselves. She gets a bit worked up about our spending. So we bought her one of those Tesco Finest Chocolate Mousse things to cheer her up. Not cheap. But it is Finest. Says it on the box there.

I’m a lover not a fighter

OK, so I’m a bit soft. I want them to have nice things (that bloody nursery paint cost a fortune but you know, first ever bedroom!!).

Sure, I could save up, but you never know what’s around the corner. Could be dead tomorrow. And Pensions! Don’t talk about pensions. Your pension’s just as likely to go down in value once that lot in the City have had their way with it.

House is our pension love. So best get yourself down to B&Q sharpish and get some power tools and fix all the stuff needs fixing then.

No, I want my lot to have the best. I don’t want to feel like some penny-pinching tightwad, especially with old ‘smug as you like’ over the road with his shiny new everything. Sure he nicks it all.

Mmmn. Not sure what to do with all those txt alerts from the bank though. Delete. Wait till the letter turns red. Then I’ll worry about it. Sunny. Haven’t used them. Look alright in the advert. Like that song. Wonder if they still send you a red final demand in the post if you’ve gone paperless?

Oh, well. Sure it must be about drink o clock by now.

 

Living The Dream – LTD Org – is dedicated to finding a new narrative and framework for an aspirational yet affordable UK lifestyle that doesn’t bankrupt us, our children and the planet we live on. Until then we’ll just have to put up and make do with the under-whelming, over-stretched, highly-conflicted muddle-along one we have now.