Rupert's World Of Blog!

The Tales of Beedle The Bard - Harry Potter Prequel?

2008-08-09T17:20:00.001Z

The Tales of Beadle the Bard are due to be released to the Public just in time for christmas. With a limited collectors edition and every harry potter fan wanting one for christmas, this is a guaranteed best seller!This review is a spoiler free page for fans to find out more about the different editions, with photo's and facts.

read more | digg story

Banksy or Not? - New Billboard Subvertisement In Bristol

2008-05-18T00:48:00.015Z

IS THIS BANKSY MAKING A TRIBUTE TO THE STUDENT RIOTS IN PARIS 40 YEARS AGO?

I saw this first on Wednesday morning, I didn't get a chance to photo it until Saturday Morning, and is likely to be still there until Monday! 7 Billboards on the Bath Road, over the railway, just before the Wells Road, on the south side of the river from Temple Meads station. Handy for those trainspotting Banksy spotters!

You can find it here on google maps.

Is this the work of world famous Bristol Graffiti Artist Banksy?
The text reads

IMAGINE A
WORLD WITHOUT
BILLBOARDS
BEAUTY IS IN THE STREET
PARIS MAY 1968
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVIZED
BORDERS = REPRESSION

IMAGINE A

WORLD WITHOUT

BILLBOARDS

BEAUTY IS IN THE STREET

PARIS MAY 1968

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVIZED

BORDERS = REPRESSION

So What Do You Think? Banksy Or Not?
Now whether it's Banksy, or not I can't be sure as it's not tagged or credited. Though judging By the scale of it and over 7 full size billboards it's certainly an audacious piece that would have taken some balls, some organisation and would be quite typical of Banksy. After all, he's probably back home in Bristol now after putting together the much publicised 'exhibition' in London entitled 'The Cans Festival'

On the other hand is it far too political and abstract for Banksy and not arty enough?

Also, when did it first appear?
Will the billboard company get it removed/replaced before the art collectors come along with a chainsaw and auction it on ebay?

Get this widget!

Boxers play chess in the ultimate sport

2008-04-12T00:00:00.002Z

There's already quite a few chess variants, this version must be the most physical though!

read more | digg story

Glastonbury Tickets!

2008-04-06T09:12:00.003Z

Yes! Yes! Yes!

We got our tickets!

After a tense 45minutes of reloading the seetickets page on 2 computers and costantly redialing the phone number we succeeded! Not only did we get our tickets, we got our campervan ticket as well!

There was a slight false alarm at one point, having entered the regestration details on the seetickets site, the page for payments refused to load, so after 15minutes of refreshing this page the correct page appeared for filling in payment details! Woooooooo Hoooooooooooooo!

We're going to Pilton!

Not sure about seeing Jay-Z, but am definitely looking forward to the Kings Of Leon!!

And for those of you who were also lucky enough to get tickets, No Peeing In the Hedges!!

What PC? explains why the PC Giants Won't Go Green!

2008-03-29T01:05:00.003Z

Real energy savings are available when buying a new pc, yet the Giants in computing are still fobbing people off by only making token gestures to energy saving. This is leaving the field open to niche companies to fulfill a very real demand!

read more | digg story

VeryPC are an award winning maker of high specification for business and home users, they typically use up to 20%, or less, of the electricity than a same spec PC would use built by any of the computer giants. The home user is as well catered for as the business user, and full networking and server systems can be designed and built to order.

Ebay Launches Own Affiliate Program - The Ebay Partner Network

2008-03-17T14:49:00.001Z

Ebay has announced it is ditching current affiliate providers Commission Junction, Mediaplex and Link Share, to set up their own affiliate program.Most programs will close, by april 30th, and as the program is not launched until 1st April, this leaves little time for webmasters to familiarise themselves with the new system and implement the changes.

read more | digg story

Ebay RSS Affiliate Feed Tutorial

2008-03-06T15:00:00.003Z

A simple seven step tutorial on how to create an RSS feed from ebay with your affiliate code embedded in it. This also explains how to get the feed to display some pretty highly refined search results too!Now I designed this tool for using on squidoo, but it can be a way of adding profitable RSS feeds to websites, blogs and other social networking sites that permit you to display an RSS feed.Any feedback leave either here, or on squidoo!

read more | digg story

No impact from Energy Saving Day - Surprising?

2008-02-29T00:10:00.003Z

I only heard about this about 2 hours into it so am not surprised that the impact of it wasn't noticeable, though even with plenty of media coverage for the next I imagine that it will have very little impact on energy consumption and CO2 emissions. One suggestion I would make is to legislate to stop shops having lights on at night say 11pm, maybe have a licensing law for those businesses that feel it's necessary and have a license fee based on usage of lighting. Another big area that would benefit is in offices and businesses that leave things powered like lights, pc's etc whilst no one is using them. I worked in an office regularly and unless I turned the 20+pc's and half dozen printers, water heaters and other stuff off they would remain on, even over the weekend! Some fellow employees would moan the next day as they had to boot up their workstation, wait 5minutes for the hot water, or a few minutes for the printer to fire up!

read more | digg story

Bounty Bay Online Pirate Roleplaying Game!

2008-02-06T23:01:00.003Z

Bounty Bay Online, is a new MMORPG which has taken to the longboats and washed up on Europe's sandy shores courtesy of Yusho Gmbh and Frogster Interactive. Further details available - http://www.squidoo.com/Pirate-MMOG

Squidoo Payday! My September Earnings are here!

2007-11-08T00:58:00.000Z

Slowly building up my earnings from squidoo!
This month I had 2 lenses in the top tier and these paid out at $4.67 each, these had spent some time in September in the top 500. The next tier paid 79cents and I think this was paid out to all mine that had spent most of the month in the top 10,000, I had quite a few in this so they added up! the third tier was where a lot of my partially finished lenses were and they earned 6cents each, The 4th tier is new to squidoo this month and I had very few in the 4th tier which was probably for all those that had never ranked very high, though have no idea where the cut off was on these and they each earned a cent.

I earned an extra couple of dollars here and there using the provided affiliate links through squidoo, but I'm switching over to mainly providing my own links so I don't have to give squidoo a cut of my referrals and this is bringing more money in than I'm actually earning from Squidoo!

It's like a win-win situation, squidoo provide an easy to use page template with lots of modules to choose from, a good google crawl rate and a cut of the adsense revenue! Add this to the affiliate sales this gains and if you get the right topic or subject, one good lens will pay you regularly!

Currently 2 of my lenses are Google PR4,
Perry Mason page
UK Cash Back Shopping

a number are PR3
Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds
Monty Python's Castle Anthrax

and I'm working on getting a PR5 by the next google ranking, squidoo is certainly helping me get traffic and turning it into money!

If you haven't signed up, here's my referral link -HERE - I earn $5 when you earn your first $15 and you also will get a $5 bonus too!

BBC Blunder hands out 800+ subscribers personal email details

2007-10-31T01:41:00.000Z

I have been a subscriber to the World Services - World Have Your Say (WHYS) programme newsletter for a number of months now. On weekdays they send out an email asking for responses on a number of topics they will be discussing in the days show. I like to keep up with world events and found this was a good way of doing so, occasionally contributing to their blog when the mood and topic suited.

There have been a few minor blunders with the daily email in the past asdifferentmember of the team send the emails out, it's fairly regular to get 2 emails both differing somewhat, whichisn't too much of a problem usually. I often don'thave the time or inclination to even read them as was the case with todays email (30th). Then I got a further email entitled 'Apology' .....

The earlier email 'mistakenly' contained the full list of subscribers email addresses - a list totaling 847 personal email addresses! A spammers dream! Although the apology was quite weak I was more incensed by it not going into detail of the risks posed to others from spam by not deleting it, all it would take for the full list to become the property of spam networks is one person to have their email compromised by a virus and everyone will then be getting spam, quite frankly I get enough without help from the BBC!

Squidoo payout! #2

2007-10-15T23:36:00.000Z

Well, this is my second month of receiving a squidoo payout and I thought it would be good to do a little update. The earnings were not as strong as in my first month when I had a lens in the top pay out tier for the adsense share-out. Also, as I hadn't fully realised what a goldmine squidoo has the potential of being I didn't really do much work on it in August which is what this weeks payout was for. I did get quite a few click-thru's to my amazon account and a few purchases there though. All in all the payout's I did receive were mainly for mid-ranking lenses (pages) , and a very small amount of commission from ebay/amazon/cafepress modules on those lenses.

I have put a lot more work into squidoo lately, creating at least 2-3 lenses a week since the payout at the start of September. Also, I have utilised more of my own affiliate links within lenses rather than use the ones they provide, except where it is easier to do so. If these lenses start to see good traffic, I will then often include my own affiliate links, this has been quite a winner in a big jump in my affiliate earnings through affiliate sales. My strategy is now to create a lens on a subject I am interested in,or think others will be, filling out a few basic modules, including some unique content then see how it is doing a week or 2 later. If it seems to be popular I will develop it further and include relevant affiliate links, if it's being a bit of a lame duck I will pop back and try make it more likely to succeed by doing some editing, though this does not always seem to work.

I'll list here a small selection of my successful and not so successful lenses to give some examples of what works -

Perry Mason - A very extensive list of the Perry Mason novels, this gets a good amount of regular traffic and click-thru's to amazon. Though the majority of visitors are looking for free downloads or ebooks.

Discworld Store - a moderately successful page with a large variety of unofficial discworld merchandise and links to official merchandise on ebay.

Shimshi - A lens reviewing this magicians tutorial DVD. Mainly to promote the surplus of these I have for sale. Get's lots of visits and click-thru's to youtube magic tutorials, as well as sales of magic tutorial dvd's on amazon.

UK Cash Back Sites - A lens highlighting the sites in the UK that you can join to receive cashback from purchasing online. Provides a voting system and invites visitors to review and share their experience. All links on this page are affiliate links and all though traffic could be better, I'm pleased with the click-thru rate and the percentage that convert to commission earned.

Jon Richardson - A fan page created using squidwho, which autofilled a lot of the lens for me, and I just added some bits and pieces. Jon is comedian who co-hosts a show on 6music. Quite popular with people to find his youtube videos, also as he does not have his own website it gets a reasonable amount of traffic for a relatively unknown celeb.

The Spacemen 3 - A lens about 80's Drone Rock band, supposedly with quite a cult following but traffic has been quite scarce despite having a lot of info on the band and it's spin-offs.

Psychometric Testing - A lens explaining what psychometric testing is and detailing books on how to prepare and to improve your score. Did well in it's first month or so, but now barely getting any traffic - possibly in need of a revamp!

So, hopefully having checked some of these out you'll be inspired to start writing articles about stuff on squidoo to earn some money! If so you may wish to use my referral link here as you will get a $5 bonus when you have earned your first $15, and I'll also get $5 then for introducing you. You will have to create a lens when you sign up for your registration to be successful, so pick a topic, or save the first one you create in draft. Also, fill out your profile and provide either a link to your blog or webpage, and consider making yourself available to be contacted through squidoo, as I may offer you assistance and advice if you sign up via my link!

Review of a new Coupon Site

2007-10-15T21:50:00.000Z

NcNatural Coupon site is very easy to navigate and provides coupon info giving discounts at hundreds of online merchants, giving thousands of up-to-date coupon codes to give you discounts and free offers. Merchants included in this coupon site include amazon.com, Disney & The Vitamin Shoppe. So you can see just from this small sample that they cover a wide variety of online merchants.
So, what's the site like? Fast, simple & vast in choice, the main site link, takes you to an alphabetical list of merchants that loads quickly. When you click on a merchant name the page that then loads is populated with all current coupons with info on what discount is achieved with each and the expiry date of that offer. When clicked on you will get a small pop-up with the coupon code you will need to enter during the checkout process, you will need to write this down, as clicking OK will then take you to the relevant page on the merchants site to select items applicable to that offer.
The Verdict - A great coupon site giving up-to-date codes in a well laid out and easy to follow site.
Coupon Savings at their best!

UK Paid Survey Sites

2007-10-03T23:29:00.000Z

There are literally dozens of UK paid survey sites, some good, some bad. The newest I have come across is a site which will pay you regularly for doing nothing! Well apart from downloading a small piece of software to you smartphone which will anonymously study and report your browsing habits. They pay £15 to install the software, then £5 a month after, as well as entering you into a competition to win a 40" LCD TV.

This is what they say on their website -

The Smart M:Panel is a targeted research panel comprised of Windows, Palm, and Symbian smartphone users who voluntarily install a software client on their mobile device that measures their real-world data usage. The software client, or M:Meter, captures activity around messaging, browsing, application usage and media consumption. Once installed the M:Meter operates with no user interaction. M:Metrics is focused on accurately capturing data usage and consumption while protecting our panellists privacy and ensuring our software does not adversely effect device performance.

For more UK Paid Survey Sites

£10 off at Amazon on Personal Care Products

2007-09-28T00:28:00.000Z

Spend £50 at Amazon on personal care products and get £10 Off!

Get those Christmas presents in early and save some money! This offer is running until the 7th October so Hurry! This Link will take you to the Amazon page where you getthe code for adding at checkout to get the money off your order. So get upto 20% off that electric shaver, straightening irons, manicure set etc.

Just have a look at some of the available items -

Buying Cars!

2007-09-26T19:06:00.000Z

Buying a car should be straight forward, well you'd think it was. Unfortunately my partner isn't very tall and her legs are pretty short, though they do reach the ground!

The problem was that very few cars have enough seat adjustment to enable her comfortably to reach the pedals. Having previously put her back out for 8months whilst driving a metro, which taught her that the driving position had to be perfect, not just almost comfortable. Previously she'd been driving a Fiat Cincequento (sp?), though wanted something a bit bigger and a bit more substantial.

Well we went around about a dozen garages locally on Saturday, we check the South Bristol Directory, to find the local ones, most didn't actually have websites but luckily the directory still listed them and gave a routemap to them. The first garage we went to was just down he road and they had a couple of cars in the price range that looked hopeful. After trying the Fiesta, 206, Seat and clio it was found only the 206 was actually comfortable. It was also a pretty tidy car for the money although being a 1.9deisel it was going to be a bit of a jump insurance wise. After driving round a few more garages trying similair cars, none others 'fitted' as well as the 206, not even a 106. Perhaps car makers should do a bit more to make their seats more adjustable! One car we were shown didn't even have a lever to slide the seat back, so we left that one quickly. Another had to have someone in the back to do the seat adjustment, so another sharp exit!

After umming and ahhhing we went back to the first garage and I took the 206 for a spin. I was pretty impressed with it driving wise, power steering, pretty nice acceleration for a diesel and good handling. We managed to negotiate the price down a bit and we're not sure wether we got a trade in for the Fiat or he was just being kind taking it off us!

Disclosure of interests

2007-09-20T18:39:00.000Z

This policy is valid from 20 September 2007

This blog is a sponsored blog created or supported by a company, organization or group of organizations. This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. Those advertisements will be identified as paid advertisements.

The owner(s) of this blog may be compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

This blog may contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content will always be identified by having a tag marked PPP.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

Amazon Widgets

2007-09-17T23:36:00.000Z

Well Amazon do it again! With a whole host of widgets released today they sure keep us associates on a learning curve!
How's this for a Cloud Widget?

Social Reveiw Site

2007-09-17T17:30:00.000Z

Anyone looking for independent reviews of places to eat, drink or visit might well want to check out Trustedplaces.com where they can read many independent reviews of places in London, or anywhere in the world. Also, if you have really enjoyed somewhere and want to tell the world about it you can submit your own review.

So whether you're looking for hot tips on London bars or just London in general, trustedplaces.com may well be a great place to start!

Drop me a line and let me know how you get on!

My New Blog!

2007-09-17T17:26:00.000Z

After spending a few months getting used to blogging and aimlessly blogging about anything that came along and inspired me, I've decided to create a specialist blog reviewing various gadgets and blogging about gadgets in general! I'm going to try and blog on it at least once a week, if not twice a week ideally! Feel free to check it out Here!

I Love Pay Per Post!

2007-09-14T09:11:00.000Z

I only joined pay per post the other month and already have earned money from writing only a couple of blogs here! I've probably missed more opportunities than I have taken as I keep forgetting to log in and see what are available. It seems that those people who blog based in the USA get a few more opportunities to blog than us UK bloggers, though we do get some opportunities that are unique to to Europe and the UK in compensation. Also blogger who have their blog hosted on a website get more opportunities as some specifically want blog posts that aren't on blogspot and similair blogging platforms. I'm considering moving or creating a blog on one of my websites in the near future. I may even consider purchasing a specific URL to host my blog as I'm confident that PPP will more than cover the costs of hosting in the long run!

Pay Per Post works as advertisers seek new forms of marketing to aid their traffic generation and web site presence. It works for bloggers as we get paid to do stuff we enjoy! I'm hoping to put my earnings from Pay-Per-Post into paying for a new laptop, and if it goes extremely well I'll even consider buying a much dreamed of Apple iBook!

My Squidoo Earnings Payout!

2007-09-08T15:23:00.000Z

I blogged about Squidoo a couple of months ago when I joined up. It's a pretty unique social networking site where you get to create pages on any subject that you want. Unlike myspace, facebook, etc it's unique in that it's main purpose is to earn you money! I received my first payout yesterday for $17.48 or a little over £8, first I knew of this was an email from paypal telling me the money had arrived!

I didn't think too much at first until I read more and did a few searches but not only can you earn cash from creating pages you can drive traffic to your website, make pages about gadgets and gizmos that you can place your affiliate links on, or even take the easy option if you don't want to have to manage an affiliate account as squidoo has over 1000 affiliates already and a very easy interface for you to advertise their products.

I only joined up at the very end of June so July was my first month on squidoo and I didn't spend to much time on it. The lens that I did spend a lot of time and effort on was my Perry Mason Lens, though I don't think I got it completed to my satisfaction until August and I'm still tweeking it occasionally.

Imagine my Surprise when this lens earned me over $15!!! $4 of this was for being a high ranked lens, though it never made the top 100 on squidoo, it did spend a few days inside the top 200 on occassion and does get about 40 hits a week. So this $4 was a payout for being in the top tier on squidoo as a share of the sites adsense revenue, but where did the rest come from? Well, squidoo don't do much to break down the sources of revenue as yet, though this could have been from referalls to ebay or cafepress as they were the only money making modules on the page apart from Amazon, and they do log your amazon referalls, though I only had one purchase via amazon, and that's a pre-order which won't ship until next week, so earnings from that won't come through for another couple of months. Visitors may have gone to ebay to look at Perry Mason items I was showing there, or they may have bought items off Cafepress I was highlighting. Other lenses earnings varied from 4cents each for the work in progress and minimal lenses that haven't had much traffic and I keep meaning to go back and finish these, and 73cents for other lenses that were getting reasonable traffic. Though I must mention that these other lenses have sent traffic to my site, and also earned me commission from people following links on them to products I was recommending so am very pleased with my first couple of months on squidoo!

Next month should be even better as squidoo traffic was considerably down in July due to getting a slap from google due to allowing the creation of 'spam' pages, this was something squidoo jumped on very quickly but it did have a huge impact on visitors to the site and rankings on search engines for google which didn't really recover until August

I know that at least one visitor did go to cafepress to buy an item, as it was an item I created in a Cafepress store I was inspired to open by squidoo's interface with them, so not only did I earn commission for sending a customer there, I earned money as they bought an item I had created. For more info on Cafepress and how to earn money selling stuff from coasters to coffee mugs, stickers to wall clocks and aprons to thongs all with your own designs on, just click on this banner - and sign-up, it's real easy!

So what are you waiting for? Sign up to squidoo now, if you use this link you will also get an extra $5 when you earn your first $15 and so will I!

My Online Earnings for August

2007-09-01T22:31:00.000Z

Well August was an OK month for me considering people were mainly on holiday and in search of the sun! My internet income is increasing steadily, not quite my best month on Amazon, though as I'm working on other affiliate schemes and increasing my adsense earnings in the time I'd usually be spending on amazon I'm pretty happy with the results so far.

One of the other new projects has been joining Pay Per Post, where I'm getting a chance to be paid to do a little blogging now and then. See this post for details.

I joined ClixGalore earlier this month, though have yet to implement many of their ads so have no income yet. Commission Junction is showing some nice earnings from referrals to some paid opinion sites where people get rewards for completing surveys like this one -

And I am also picking up some earnings from Affiliate Future too!

Though the main purpose of this post is to show a few of the wacky items people have either bought from amazon through my links or looked at! I'm also showing off my newly installed java script so I can show you the full details of these on my site! So here we go -

The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance

Hotel California: Singer-songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the L.A. Canyons 1967-1976

The White Island: The Extraordinary History of the Mediterranean's Capital of Hedonism

Aspire AS3694, Intel Celeron 440, 15.4" TFT with Acer CrystalBrite screen, 512MB memory, 80GB Hard Disk Drive, DVD Super-Multi, Shared graphics, WiFi, 5 in 1 Card Reader, Windows Vista Basic I would have been a very happy bunny if I'd sold one of these, though lots did look at it!

Bose Sounddock Digital Music System And one of these days I'd really like to buy one of these myself!

Chubb B-3G114E-PB-67 5 Lever Mortice Deadlock (British Standard) - Polished Brass Finish Security seems to have been popular too!

MTD001 Adjustable wall mount bracket for large Plasma and LCD screens. These wall mounts for plasma and LCD screens are in high demand!

JTS JS-1 Large Diaphragm Condensor Studio Mic + Shock Mount & Case Amazon are even moving into the market traditionaly coveted by Studio Spares for Pro-Audio gear!

And Finally, at the end of the day -

NEW VITAMIN C SHOWER 5 FUNCTION SHOWER WATER FILTER FOR PERFECT CHLORINE REMOVAL, MULTI FUNCTION, SHOWER, MASSAGE, SPRAY, SOFT SHOWER, STOP.ACTS AS IONISER WHILST SHOWERING GREAT FOR SKIN & HAIR, HELPS WITH SENSITIVE SKIN & SKIN ALLERGIES, IDEAL FOR INFANTS & CHILDREN - SUPPLIED WITH 2 FILTERS For those living in areas where the tap waters not too clever, makes a huge difference in hair condition.

Before climbing into -

Deluxe Raised Airbed Well it would normally be a proper bed, but these things inflate in minutes and pack away almost as fast. The other advantage being they do elevate you off the floor so ideal for guests and temporary visitors.

News! New Social Marketing Site Launches

2007-08-23T09:10:00.000Z

This new social marketing site is due to be unleashed late September / early October, members can play and earn money by winning games against other players, either one-on-one or in tournaments (where each player pays a small fee and the winner takes all), or, pay a membership fee and get paid a commission for each member they introduce and an instant bonus when they sign up another business builder

uVme is a flexible combination of social networking and direct marketing, often reffered to as Social Marketing. This is a growing phenomenon on the net and uVme are geared to take a leading position in this. After all why blog for nothing when you can earn from schemes such as this.

A universal-messenger interface that lists your contacts from MSN, AIM, Yahoo and GoogleTalk so you can challenge your friend to a game who would then be invited to join as a member, you would also earn comission from their earnigs as well as being able tostay in touch with people you and they sign up

The parent company has been involved with MLM for 5 years and has invested a 7 figure sum of money into promoting uVme.

A uvme pre-launch highlights movie has had over 23,000 views on YouTube in just 3 weeks.

uVme is set to be huge globally with the site already configured with various language options already available.

And until the launch, registration on is free, so you can start building your network now!

uVme is the creation of Andy Bailey, a veteran of, blogging and Social Marketing, read more on Andy Baileys blog

Want to be part of my network? Then sign up by using the banner below to enter the site or leave a comment and I'll send an invite!

Unusual Books!

2007-08-18T16:48:00.000Z

I don't often post about other blogs, but having come across this blog about some very unusual book bindings and book sculpture by Blogger Avi Abrams I feel compelled to promote such a fantastic collection of photographs of many different books. If you think I'm being a bit of a bibliophile or book geek, you may well change your mind when you see the vast range of creative binding and art crearted from books.

I signed up for Pay Per Post

2007-08-17T17:20:00.000Z

Pay Per Post is an opportunity to earn money writing blogs. It took a couple of weeks from applying to get approved though during the approval I had access to what sort of opportunities that would be available and what sort of subjects and products were wanting plugging on my blog for payment. It may be a long way from being a professional blogger, but it will certainly provide an incentive to post more regularly as well as an easy form of income that will help me pay for various web-hosting and other associated online fees. For those of a more charitable mind you have the choice of donating the income to a charity.

I'm hoping this opportunity will also help drive traffic to my my blog as well as earn me a nice cash bonus!

What to do with those old books, CD's, DVD's, Games?

2007-08-16T14:52:00.000Z

Just thought I'd let you know about a special deal Hitflip are running at the moment -

List your DVDs, books, games, audiobooks or CDs to swap on Hitflip
by September 1st 2007 (00:00GMT) making them immediately available to swap, they will credit accounts with a bonus:

10 items = £1 credit

25 items = £3 credit

100 items = £15 credit

This is a great way of clear stuff from your shelves where they are collecting dust, and replacing them with stuff you want! The only cost to yourself is 79p admin charge and the postage of sending an item to receive credits to get more items. With them giving away free credit at the moment, there's never been a better time to register with them!

Amazon Auctions Vs. Ebay

2007-07-22T22:00:00.000Z

Why Don't Amzon promote their Auctions? Amazon auctions don't cost anything to list, they have a secure payment system in place, they have a trusted name, yet amazon don't promote this service at all.
Well amazon don't promote Marketplace (third party sales) either, but there is little need to do this as the product searches show the prices from 3rd party sellers quite adequately. Yet Amazon don't take this opportunity and they are about the only internet company that are in a position to compete with Ebay and give the consumer some real choice.

The only draw back with amazon auctions are only one image is permitted and their is a limit to html available to use and only 3,700 characters allowed. Not that much of a drawback really!

Well, I'm going to be putting my money where my mouth is and list a few things on amazon auctions and see what happens as a result.

The only down side I can see is that I will not be able to see how many people actually view my auction. I suppose I could look for an image hoster that will provide impression counting if I wanted to get scientific, and perhaps I will as this experiment continues.

The 2 items I have listed on amazon tonight are shown below, with breif details and with links to the amazon auction. I'm going to attempt to add tracking id's to these links, so let me know if that causes them not to work.

proargi9

ProArgi-9 Mixed Berry Flavor uses an all-natural sweetening system to deliver its delicious fruity taste. Like regular ProArgi-9, it contains 5,000 mg (5 grams) of elemental pharmaceutical grade l-arginine. IT IS A LOW GLYCEMIC PRODUCT. It does not contain sucralose and only contains natural sweetening from the mixed berry fruits.

One of the previous problems with L-argine has been its taste - this product overcomes that problem with the natural berry flavour.

ProArgi-9 Mixed Berry Ingredients:L-arginine, L-leucine, L-isoleucine, L-valine, Gamma Oryzanol, Transferulic acid Trutina dulcem (fruit sugar, natural flavors, kiwi fruit), fruit acids, natural berry flavors, beet powder (for color), silicon dioxide (flow agent).

L-arginine has been in the forefront of medical interest for many years and is considered one of the most important nutraceuticals ever developed.

The L-arginine phenomenon is changing standard methodologies in circulatory health, immune function, adiposity-generated concerns, blood pressure, sexual function, and human aging.

L-arginine provides one of the building blocks necessary for the body to maintain its own growth hormone levels, which may help promote muscle mass, support muscle growth, and stimulate muscle development.

The exclusive patented ProArgi-9 formula was developed by leadingl-arginine researcher Dr. Ann de Wees Allen. It has been safely used in humans since 1983. Dr. Allen received the first glycemic patent ever awarded for her development of the low glycemic delivery system in ProArgi-9. The methodology developed exclusively for ProArgi-9 is proprietary, and involves a complex 32-step process to extract the non-competing properties from organic fruits.

ProArgi-9 is used and promoted by famous world-class athletes who use it to bolster their nutritional intake and enhance their athletic performance.

ultimate raw meal

Made from raw, wildcraft, mostly organic, properly sprouted and fresh-freeze dried ingredients, The Ultimate Meal replaces up to 20 products.

It is a complete food, has a great taste, has optimum fibre, satisfies hunger, has Kosher ingredients, is potent in anti-oxidants and essential fatty acids, and replenishes glycogen.

It is ABSOLUTELY FREE FROM: GMO, soy, whey, nuts, yeast, salt, matadextrin, dairy, egg, cholesterol, wheat, gluten, sugar, and fructose.

As the names suggest, THE ULTIMATE MEAL is the finest, most potent and complete sources of nourishment available anywhere at any price.
WHY ?
We believe that the optimum source of nourishment for the human body does NOT come in the form of synthetic vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, tablets, powders, pills, or for that matter, cooked or processed foods or any animal products. It DOES, however, come in the form of raw, properly sprouted, freeze-dried, cold-milled and preferably organic plant foods that have their enzymes and nutrients intact as nature intended, as well as natural, potent anti-oxidants in optimum, not trace amounts.
THE ULTIMATE MEAL® is the only products to fill this need. No gimmicks, just the ingredients which are the ultimate FOOD sources of each and every nutrient essential for optimum health, vitality and energy. In most cases this eliminates the need to take any supplements (vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, etc.) which normally pays for itself.
THE ULTIMATE MEAL® is totally free of yeast-based vitamins and minerals, soy protein, MSG, salt, wheat, corn, yeast, eggs, dairy products, sugar, honey, fructose, caffeine, ginseng, etc. as well as artificial preservatives, flavors, coloring, fillers and animal products.

WHEN?
At least TWO servings daily. THE ULTIMATE MEAL® is the most efficient and nutritious meal you can have. Ideal for BREAKFAST, LUNCH and/or DINNER. It also does wonders AFTER EXERCISING, as it revitalizes the whole body. And yes, most people tell us that it keeps their hunger satisfied and their body energized far longer than conventional meals (about 3-6 hrs).

DIRECTIONS
Prepared in a blender, usually with a whole fruit smoothie.

MrLinky

2007-07-16T22:55:00.000Z

A new way of creating linkbacks and recipiricol links I'm experimenting with - just a test to begin with!
This is the blog fodder one!

This is a meme I think called tackle it Tuesday!

Ashton Court Festival Rained Off!

2007-07-15T10:42:00.000Z

The 2nd day of the festival which would of been headlined by Damon Alburn's Good The Bad & The Queen, has been cancelled by organisers after Heavy Rain Began to fall on Saturday night and is forecast to remain Heavy for most of the Saturday.

Organiser Steve Hunt, has stated that Tickets will be refunded, which is a small compensation for the thousands that were planning to attend today, though their are no details on the official website as yet.

Financial implications for the organisers could mean that the future of the festival is in doubt. Last year the Festival Sponsor Orange, pulled out, meaning this years budget was to be covered buy donations and revenue from tickets. So it will be interesting to see any announcements over the festival future.

Over 80 bands were set to play today including Enter Shikari, The Nova Saints, Bad:Science & Blackout toname but a few of the artists that were set to rock the festival goers.

So another casualty of the wash-out of a summer that seems to be drowning the UK. Global Warming? More like Global Drowning from the UK's point of View this summer!

Amazon aStore Earnings Update

2007-07-15T00:31:00.000Z

I did originally intend to only update once a month on my amazon earnings from their affiliate scheme but traffic to my website has been up considerably this month and many more purchases have been from Amazon using the aStore as a result. The reason for this appears to be due to our stall at Glastonbury Festival and the website we set up to post reviews and pictures of the festival on.

In this post I'm going to be utilising a tool for amazon associates provided by www.freeaffiliatetools.com which is a very easy method of allowing me to show images of the products as well!
This is just a sample of some of the things ordered in no particular order.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows
Not sold as many of these as I'd like, though amazon are claiming pre-orders in the region of 1.6million!

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No Image available

Speak Right for a Call Centre Job: A Complete Training Guide for International Telephonic Interface
Wonder who it was that wanted a book on working in a call centre?

***

The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles -
The book takes the reader on an exciting journey of discovery and revelation, challenging long-held beliefs on certain aspects of Biology and Physics, to arrive at a radically new and different explanations for how our DNA - and ultimately our very being - happen to be.

***

The Ultimate Psychometric Test Book, this sale inspired me to write a squidoo lens on the subject of Psychometric testing as I didn't know a lot about it! You can view the Lens Here

***

This Business of Music Marketing & Promotion by Tad Lathrop - Bought by an upcoming star?

***

The Piano - classic film, starring Holly Hunter & Harvey Keitel!

***

Curtains - until this, I didn't realise you could buy these on Amazon, quite a few sizes and styles available too at reasonable prices!

***

A raised Airbed - caused a bit of a scuffle on the amazon sellers discussion board did this!

***

Belkin Universal UPS 1200VA with USB & Serial Interface Got one of these myself, and I'd highly recommend having one to protect your computer and data from power outages!

***

Bose Sound dock, the ultimate portable speaker system for your iPod, you can't buy better than this!

***

The Nutrition Solution: A Personalized Metabolic Approach to Optimal Health Essential reading for those interested in metabolic typing

So, as you can see, quite a varied selection of items in the first 2 weeks of the month.

Technorati is broken or just useless?

2007-07-14T21:50:00.000Z

Well, technorati seems to not like my blog, it claims I haven't published any new content in 176days! That's dispite me pinging them when I made new posts for the first few weeks of blogging. After that I gave up and moved on to other pinging services that seem to actually work! My favorites being Blog flux and ping-goat, I do alternate between each of these, but they ping all the major search engines and give a report over each ping and whether it was successful. Funny thing is, both respond saying that the ping to technorati was successful, yet they don't seem to update!

Play.com problem with sellers account

2007-07-12T12:33:00.000Z

Gibraltar is within the UK according to Play.com. So sellers who are taking part in play.com's 3rd party seller program will only receive the standard price set for UK customers if orders are placed by Customers in Gibraltar, or any other UK dependency, such as the Falkland Islands for example. This even applies to playtraders who specify they will only dispatch to the UK.

The Playtrade system of inviting 3rd party sellers to market their goods and products on play.com is still pretty much in it's infancy. Play invited me to sell on their platform in March 2007, when they opened up the playtrader system to all. Previous to this they had only been allowing a very selected number of retailers to use their program, these sellers were the heavyweights of internet selling of media and dispatch thousands of items a month.

This problem reared it's ugly head after receiving an order from Play for dispatch to Gibraltar even though I had not offered international delivery as available for the item in question. The advice I at first received was very poor and indicated I would have to ship and bear the additional cost myself. After objecting to this and demanding to speak to a supervisor it was then looked into and admitted that this definitely needs the policy and technical team to look at, as a seller who had made available a heavier item for UK delivery had an order from a country which Play class as in the UK but Royal Mail class as international, the seller could make quite a loss by doing so, even if they had stated they were not dispatching items outside of the UK.

I will update this when I hear more back from Play.com in relation to this, meanwhile I am being left to discuss the matter with the customer and hope that they accept that play are to blame here and not myself. If the customer decides to leave me negative feedback as a result play have stated that they will not be able to intervene. As play customers are not used to leaving feedback in regard to transactions the level of feedback on play is very low, about 1 in 20 have left feedback so far, so negative feedback could have a very bad effect on my selling there.

I have had a limited success selling on Play up until now, and their system is fairly simple, though it is not easy to see who you are competing against from your listings page, only if there are sellers that have cheaper prices. To compare your listings you have to actually go to the play.com site and search for the item to find out who the other sellers are, their feedback and conditions/comments. Not ideal really, but it is hoped that they will develop this system to be more user friendly in time.

Selling Your Art Online using Amazon

2007-07-03T00:27:00.000Z

Artists often have problems when it comes to marketing their work, but it appears that one artist has realised they could use Amazon as their shop window - gallery. It is a very cheap way of getting a massive amount of exposure, without the repeat fees of trying to do similar on ebay.

Have a look at this example of a sculptor, Julian P. Warren, selling their work on amazon with quite a sizeable, though realistic price tag! metalgnu
this peice has a nice price tag and would cost a few quid every 10day listing it was on sale on ebay. Yet this artist has several works for sale, priced upto £1500, and the only fee they would have paid is a one off monthly fee of £25 +VAT to be able to create as many listings as they can in that month, they then cancel the monthly subscription and await a sale. Ingenious or what?

My Amazon aStore earnings for June 07

2007-07-02T09:55:00.000Z

July Earnings from my Amazon Associates account has been pretty consistent for most of the month and I'll share here some of the weird and wacky items order that allowed me to earn some commission.
Most of these have been through either product links I have left in various forums and from people directly accessing the aStore through my web page and also through a review of Glastonbury 2007 which is actually still being constructed and I'll hopefully have a chance to finish once I have finished cleaning mud off all that I took!

Books order -
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) [Children's Edition]
I've had a few people pre-order the childrens edition, though have not yet had any orders for the adult edition yet. In fact word has got out that all physical bookshops have already pre-sold all their first consignment so the only way to ensure getting a copy on the day of publication is through pre-ordering and paying a premium for delivery on publication date via amazon. Even with the delivery premium the book will be cheaper than store prices due to amazon offering it at 50% of the RRP

The Ultimate Psychometric Test Book
A best selling well reviewed book on getting the most from psychometric tests.

The Cambridge Diet
There's usually one diet book sold a month, showing that Dieting is a big seller.

Human Motivation: Metaphors, Theories and Research
Quite a high-brow study book, showing that all sorts are buying through my website and links

The Cleaning Bible: Kim and Aggie's Complete Guide to Modern Household Management
I was a bit disturbed to see someone had bought this and just hope that no one was thinking of giving me it as a gift!

The Cookery Year
New cook books also tend to sell well, even though I do not provide any links or reviews of them
so am assuming a customer just used my website to search amazon for this one.

Monstrous Regiment (Discworld)
Strangely enough I sold this the day after finishing reading it! A great book tackling equality and the madness of war from the very prolific Terry Pratchett

Night Watch (Discworld)
2 Discworld novels, both sold the same day so fair to assume it was the same customer. Night watch is arguably one of the best Discworld novels introducing the City Watch and the great Characters of Sam Vime, Captain Carrot and all!

The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures
A travel book or an analysis of american subculture?

Round Ireland with a Fridge
Definetly a travel book, and a very humorous one at that!

There was also quite a few other books sold for varying prices that I don't know enough about to comment on.

Games
Guilty Gear Isuka (PC)
Guilty Gear X2 Reload (PC)
Don't know much about the games field and have never reviewed any, so nice to get a bit of income from their sales! Same date of sale, so assuming they went to the same customer, especially as they seem to be related titles.

DVD's
Midsomer Murders - Vixen's Run
My Neighbour Totoro
A couple of DVD's that I don't know much about, different sale dates so assuming different customers.

Pre-orders that shipped this month
The Traveling Wilburys: Deluxe Collector's Edition/+DVD
Very hot selling CD, in the amazon top ten currently

Def Con 4 [2007]
4 of these were pre-ordered and shipped

Items that were viewed but had no orders made
Sharp LC42XD1E - 42" Widescreen Full HD 1080P LCD TV - With Freeview
Nice TV, lots of clicks but no orders

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Penguin Modern Classics)
A book II would highly recommend people to read, though doesn't look like my reccomendations have been taken up this month!

Bose Sounddock Black
Bose Sounddock White
Bose Sounddock black Digital Music System
Probably the best sounddock for your ipod! Though I imagine people must be saving up for it as it costs about as much as an Ipod, though the sound they give is absolutely unrivalled!

Luxury Ludo
Nice to see old fashioned board games are getting hits, if not actual purchases!

MiEssence Organics Sunflower Body Wash
This is a product I have actually got listed on amazon at the moment, it seems to be getting traffic but so far no sales!

This is not a complete list, but just to give an idea of what is popular and/or selling through my Amazon Associate account.

Anyway, I hope you find this list of items useful and it gives you an idea of the earning potential of being an Amazon Associate.

I must also add that I have been increasing my placement of adsense ads on a few of my webpages and the income from this is now starting to make me think about adding an adsense ad to each page I create!

Squidoo - Earn money online by writing reviews and content

2007-06-30T22:30:00.000Z

Squidoo - Is a pretty unique community site allowing you to earn a share of the advertising revenue generated by people visiting the page you created. Whether it's a review of a book, restaraunt, night out or a rant, if it attracts visitors you'll get income! You can even use it to signpost your website and increase SEO (search engine optimisation).

For an example you can visit the page I made about Absinthe

If you sign up via my referral link you will also earn an extra $5 when you have earnt $15 revenue through visitors either just viewing your page and more if they click through from links on your lens (squidoo call each entry a lens)

There is no limit to the number or subjects you can create pages on and payouts are monthly via paypal. The minimum payout is actually a ridiculously low $1

I'll report back in a few weeks to let you know how I get on with it and what sort of earnings I have made. I don't expect to make bucket loads of cash, but I'll see if I can make some interesting content and what sort of things I have found worked!

Absinthe (Absinth) - The Green Fairy

2007-06-29T12:01:00.000Z

Absinth(e) (in the UK is spelt with an e) has one of the most mythical histories of any alcoholic drink. It was actually banned on a number of occasions due to the results of peoples reactions to it. The hallucinogenic properties of it are fabled and well documented as well as it being used by many artists and writers for inspiration.

Here I intend to review a number of books available on it's history and usage.

Absinthe: History in a Bottle by Barnaby Conrad

Maybe not the most definitive book on the history of absinthe but accessible, enjoyable and plenty of graphic images to delight the reader. The images range from wild portraits by Van Gogh, to anti-Absinthe propaganda published by the French Government. This book is well researched and provides a good backdrop on the 'absinthe-culture'. The research is quite extensive and the images plentiful, there are also mini-biographies and literary quotes from and about Verlaine, Rimbaud, Wilde and Baudelaire showing how Absinthe was said to influence the creative and artistic. This book is very readable and insightful and probably the current most popular tome on absinthe.

Absinthe: Sip of Seduction - A Contemporary Guide by Betina Wittels & Robert Hermesch

Edited by T.A. Breaux with a foreword by Marie-Claude Delahaye. This comprehensive guide has been lovingly compiled by two avid collectors of all things Absinthe. Included is a cultural and scientific history, a gallery of famous drinkers both past and present and a detailed analysis of what Absinthe is and its effects. In addition, there are extensive guides to where to find Absinthe around the world - where it's legal and where it's not - as well as techniques for drinking it and making absinthe cocktails. Illustrated throughout.

Absinthe - The Cocaine of the Nineteenth Century: A History of the Hallucinogenic Drug and Its Effect on Artists and Writers in Europe and the United States - by Doris Lanier

This work provides a history of "the green fairy", a study of its use and abuse, an exploration of the tremendous social problems (not unlike the cocaine problems of this century) it caused, and an examination of the extent to which the lives of talented young writers and artists of the period became caught up in the absinthe craze.

Absinthe produced a sense of euphoria and a heightening of the senses, similar to the effect of cocaine and opium, but was addictive and caused a rapid loss of mental and physical faculties. Despite that, Picasso, Manet, Rimbaud, Van Gogh, Degas and Wilde were among those devoted to its consumption and produced writings and art influenced by the drink.

There are still many debates as to whether Absinthe was a Hallucinogen and this book does tend to take it as fact that the 19th century process of making it ensured that it actually was an hallucigen. This book is more aimed at the reader of social history than the more casual reader

The Dedalus Book of Absinthe by Phil Baker

This well-researched history of Absinthe is an absolute joy to read. It chronicles the devotion, effect, and, in some cases, destruction experienced through this drink by not only the masses but influential writers and artists such as Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley, Baudelaire, Ernest Dowson, Verlaine & Rimbaud, Toulouse Lautrec, Van Gogh, et al. Also contains handy reviews of currently obtainable brands of the drink. Highly recommended!

Hideous Absinthe: A History of the "Devil in a Bottle" by Jad Adams

Hideous Absinthe boldly combines the art, literature, science, and social history of the nineteenth century to produce the story of a drink that came to symbolize both the high points of art and the depths of degeneration.
Jad Adams looks at the myths of absinthe and examines its influence on the artistic movements of the nineteenth century. He considers the work of Degas, Manet, and Picasso, who painted what are now considered masterpieces depicting absinthe drinkers. He examines the mystery of van Gogh’s absinthe addiction and asks whether absinthe truly did contribute to the poetic vision of Verlaine, Rimbaud, and other writers.
Adams looks back at absinthe’s contribution to the hedonistic culture of the French Second Empire and to Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris of the 1890s and details the outraged English reaction to absinthe in the context of resistance to French art. Absinthe was seen as a foreign poison undermining the national resolve just as the decadence of Oscar Wilde and his circle was seen to undermine national culture.
The story continues through thrill-seeking American and English absinthe drinkers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Banksy Creates Crap Art At Glastonbury Festival

2007-06-15T08:53:00.000Z

Our Banksy has done it again, the cheeky creative genius has created a henge at glastonbury from the famous portaloos!

I wonder how many festival punters are going to get so mashed up or desperate that they'll try and use them!

Original story appeared in the Guardian - 14-06-07

Thanks to towleroad for blogging about it first!

Glastonbury Tickets on eBay for £8,000+

2007-06-14T22:45:00.000Z

Michael Eavis is reported as being disappointed with the quality of the tickets printed for this years Glastonbury Festival (BBC Story). Tickets are now appearing on eBay, though it does look like there is some Auction Wrecking going on as this example shows -

Anyone wanting to risk the getting turned away on the gates as the photo part of the ID must be backed up by other forms of ID, so there's no real way around this added security level.

As for anyone fool enough to think the car park tickets will enable them to get close enough to try and sneak in better think again as there will be a check that car occupants have tickets before they actually leave the main road to drive the mile or 2 to the actual car-parks! Even if a 'fence-jumper' gets close enough to the fence they will be quite disappointed when faced by the impregnable 'Ring-of-Steel'. In the 2 previous years that this fence has been used there has been no reports of anyone successfully getting over it, and very few actual attempts at it either. The fence is 10ft of solid metal with a 3foot angled overhang, even the SAS would consider this impossible to scale without equipment. The other popular idea has always been tunneling under it, well as the same material that is used for the fence is also laid on the ground next to the fence and bolted to the uprights this is also making tunneling impossible to all but the most hardened miners. The enclosed road either side of the fence to allow security to drive quickly to any point of the fence with floodlights and a secondary 8 foot mesh 'Heras' fence, either side of this road means the tower lookouts will get plenty of time to get a patrol to you before you even touched the 'Ring-of-Steel'.

Basically, if you haven't got a ticket, forget about trying to get in and stock up at home to catch the web-cam, webcasts, TV coverage and Radio broadcasts courtesy of the BBC. You may also want to be thankful of clean porcelain and cold, reasonably priced beer without having to queue!

You can catch up with our adventures of the festival here on our glastonbury page which we hope to be updating the slideshow daily during the festival!

The Book Garden @ Glastonbury Festival 2007

2007-06-13T15:21:00.000Z

The Book Garden will be appearing at this years Glastonbury Festival alongside such acts as The Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, Iggy Pop, The Who, Bjork, Chemical Brothers and many more! Well, we won't actually be on stage as such, and selling books isn't exactly performance art, but we'll be there with a stock of approx 4,000 books. The majority will be general fiction, though we will be have a large selection of Travel Guides, Art Books, and Theatre Texts & Plays as well as sections on Health and Spirituality.

You will be able to find us on C market and this little map will hopefully be a guide to where we'll be. So pop in and see us, books will be available from 30p and very few will be priced more than a fiver. We also intend to offer a post home service for those who'd rather not carry a book around or want to send a gift to a friend/relative from the festival.

If we can get online we will be posting updates here and on this web page

Sold Dispatch Now: How to Make £6000 - £15000 pa. from Amazon, Sharon Fussell - Reviewed

2007-06-09T00:12:00.000Z

Unbelievable! That was my first reaction when I came across this book! The old saying - "If something looks to good to be true, it's probably because it is too good to be true". (this is the only instance in the English language where a double positive becomes a negative!)

Sharon Fussell makes some quite astounding promises in this book which is for sale at £37, quite a hefty sum for a book that only has 85pages. The claim that you can easily make that sort of money from only a couple of hours work a day and with only the need for a a couple of shelves of books, is far fetched. I know very few sellers who are able to source the kind of niche stock that would enable that performance.

These quotes from her website, canonbury publishing , are quite astounding!

How you can make 86p extra pure profit on each and every book by almost doing nothing! - It's called signing up and paying a monthly Pro-Merchant Fee!

If you have a spare room, you could be making £36,000 a year as an international bookseller! - You'd need a pretty big room! Say about 500-1000sq feet!

you can look forward to becoming an international book seller and earning at least £6,000-£15,000+ per year working about 1 hour a day from home - From the few people I know that got into selling on Amazon from buying this book, none have achieved what is claimed. And they have stated that the amazon seller boards provide much more valuable advice and assistance than this book did.

Sold Dispatch Now: How to Make 6, 000 -15, 000 Pounds or More in the Next Year from Amazon This is a link to the book on amazon where you can see some reviews, and note how many people have found the reviews useful! You may also wish to join in the discusion on the book listing page about this book!

The only people I know who can even approach the claims made on the amount of profit from such low amounts of stock and work are those who have expert knowledge of niche markets. For example, if you were an expert on, let's say, books about wheelbarrows, and could source stock from the wheelbarrow college weekly carboot sale very cheaply and resell quickly for a very good price, you may be able to make that sort of money easily. Though for most specialists there knowledge of book genres and where to source them is the result of years of experience and they do not pass this sort of experience on!

Yahoo Fantasy Football

2007-06-05T01:12:00.000Z

Yahoo NFL Fantasy Football Registration has already started, Hurry the NFL draft is already in session, so now is the perfect time to register and start selecting your winning team! Just use the link below, play for free or sign up for the premium services, the choice is yours!

Exclusive Expert Analysis at Yahoo! Fantasy Football

Click the link to sign up now!

Glastonbury Festival Shopping List!

2007-06-04T00:26:00.000Z

We're counting down the days to Glastonbury Festival 2007. We're taking a few thousand books along for our little stall, so if you're going to the greatest festival in europe, pop in and see us and browse our selection of travel guides, art books, theatre books and general fiction. We will also be offering to post your purchase home for a small fee to save you carrying it or it getting bashed about. The Book Garden will be on C market, not to far from the famous Cider Bus!

We thought we'd post some essential festival items that you have just about got time to get hold of before you go!

* Start Anticipating the Festival Fun!
A sample of books that will wet your appetite for the festival season!

I Was There. The Gigs that Changed the World (Paperback) ~ Mark Paytress

Jimi Hendrix – Live at Woodstock [1969]

Glastonbury: An Oral History of the Music, Mud and Magic

* Roughing it at the festival?
You don't need to if you get prepared!

Braun Oral B Advanced Power 400 battery toothbrush

Proteam 360/01 - All Weather Camping Light

HL-09 flash headlight/headband

Mini camping lantern

Wind up camping lantern

Proteam 360/07 - Quickseat Carver Chair

Three leg camping stool

Water Carrier - 5 litre

Inflatable camping pillow

Self inflating cushion

Portable Gas Stove

Backpackers camping stove

Cool Camping ~ Laura James

* Capture the festival Spirit
Some reasonable priced cameras to capture the festival moments

Fuji FinePix A500 Digital Camera

Samsung Digimax A503 - Silver [5MP 5 X Digital Zoom]

Vivicam 3720 Digital Camera - Black (3MP)

* Relive your festival memories
Do something special with the best photo's of the festival!

Canon iP1700 Home Printer with Borderless Photo Printer up to A4

Memox - 7 inch Digital Photo Frame

My Amazon aStore Earnings for May '07

2007-06-02T00:40:00.000Z

Being an Amazon Affiliate/Associate is still fairly new & exciting for me! I only discovered aStore's recently and have only been using them since April. In the last month I created my own tutorial on How To Build An Amazon aStore, which you can see here. It's getting a reasonable amount of traffic and a fairly decent page ranking in google too! Though am finding that most of my sales seem to be generated from traffic to my own website - The Book Garden.

I've also messed around a bit with google pages, a free and easy web site creation package from google. You can see some of the results of this by looking at my tutorial on aStores and my alternative book garden website, which has given me more scope in creating more pages than I get with my .co.uk site, this only came with a limited (very) sitebuilder set up. Google Pages have proven excellent for a person at my level of experience with building websites. Maybe in the next month or two I'll look into building a proper website!

Anyway, I wanted to share some of the weird and wonderful things that were bought via my aStore this month! My favorite first as I earned £7 commission on this! If you hover over each item you should get a nice little detail window show!

Cibox C2201 22" Wide Aspect TFT Monitor with 5m/s response time & integrated speakers

Sold 4 of these DVD's! But they haven't shipped, hopefully Amazon will ship them soon!
Def Con 4 [2007]

Another Item I'm waiting them shipping, as it isn't released until June
The Traveling Wilburys: Deluxe Collector's Edition/+DVD

This book on metabolic typing has been popular!
The Metabolic Typing Diet

And some more unusual purchases -
The Cleaning Bible: Kim and Aggie's Complete Guide to Modern Household Management

Excavations at Tepe Guran in Luristan: The Bronze Age and Iron Age Periods (Jutland Archaeological Society Publications)

This one I have for sale myself on Amazon, though it's nice to earn twice on it!
Call of Duty: United Offensive Expansion Pack(PC)

These products have had a few people look at them. I think the first 2 are controllers for a Flight Simulator Game

Saitek Cyborg EVO Joystick (PC)

Saitek X52 Hotas Flight Controller System Joystick (PC)

Might as well through in a link to the game they go with too!
Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Deluxe Edition (PC)

Hopefully that little lot will help inspire you to go an earn some money through Amazon aStores!

Glastonbury Festival 2007 Line Up Announced

2007-06-01T09:43:00.000Z

Pilton Pop Festival 2007

We're Going!
The Book Garden will be at this years Festival selling fiction, travel books, art books, theatre books and childrens books. We are offering to mail them to you so you don't have to carry them home. Though many will be wanting a book to read while lazing in the sun in front of the various stages whilst waiting for the band of their dreams to play. Come and see us, we're on C Market and would love it if you came and said hello! The stall will be shutting at a reasonable time each evening as we do want to see some bands!

The Line up is looking spectacular and we're already trying to work out how to be in several places at once. Do we see The Killers or Iggy Pop on the saturday night? Arrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhh! Friday night is easy as The Arctic Monkeys just can't be competed with!

We could go on but why not just show you the full Glastonbury line up! Here it is...

PYRAMID STAGE

Friday 22 June
Arctic Monkeys YES YES YES!
Kasabian
The Fratellis
Bloc Party
The Magic Numbers
Amy Winehouse
Gogol Bordello
The Earlies
The View
Adjagas

Saturday 23 June
The Killers YES - but we want to see Iggy too!
The Kooks
Paul Weller
Paolo Nutini
Lily Allen - Worth seeing, but whether we'll fit it in!
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Guillemots
The Pipettes
Seasick Steve
Liz Green

Sunday 24 June
The Who Well Who Wouldn't?
Kaiser Chiefs
Manic Street Preachers - Nooooooo! We wanna have fun, not get depressed!
Shirley Bassey
James Morrison
Damien Marley
Stephen Marley
The Waterboys
National Youth Orchestra (with Goldfrapp)
Glastonbury Town Band - The best way to start the Sunday!

OTHER STAGE

Friday 22 June
Bjork - Mad Mad Mad, but the Monkeys win!
Arcade Fire
Rufus Wainwright
The Coral
Super Furry Animals
Bright Eyes
The Automatic
The Cribs
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
Mr Hudson And The Library

Saturday 23 June
The Stooges - IGGY! IGGY! IGGY! And looks like a good line up here for the evening!
Editors
Maximo Park
Klaxons
Babyshambles
CSS
Biffy Clyro
The Twang
The Long Blondes
Brakes

Sunday 24 June
The Chemical Brothers
The Go! Team
The View
Mika
The Rakes
Modest Mouse
Cold War Kids
The Sunshine Underground
The Enemy

JAZZ WORLD

Friday 22 June
Damian Marley
Amy Winehouse
Toumani Diabate
AIM
Gus Gus
Nasio Fontaine
Soweto Kinch
Midival Punditz
Guilty Pleasures

Saturday 23 June
Rodrigo y Gabriela
John Fogerty
Guillemots
Mr. Hudson and the Library
K'Naan
Hiromi's Sonicbloom
The Bees
Soil and Pimp Sessions
Ganga Giri
Forty Thieves Orkestar

Sunday 24 June
Corinne Bailey Rae
Fat Freddy's Drop
Amp Fiddler
Beirut
Tinariwen
Seth Lakeman
Koop
Mahala Rai Banda
Babyhead
Feluka

JOHN PEEL STAGE

Friday 22 June
Hot Chip
The Maccabees
Mumm-Ra
Jack Penate
The Hold Steady
The New Pornographers
Tokyo Police Club
Good Shoes
The Annuals
Disco Ensemble
Fear of Music
Look See Proof

Saturday 23 June
The Twang
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
Patrick Wolf
Bat For Lashes
Pigeon Detectives
Calvin Harris
You Say Party We Say Die
Holy Fuck
The Heights
The Rushes
The Hours
Grim Northern Social
Blue Bullet

Sunday 24 June
Jamie T
Just Jack
Mark Ronson
Scott Matthews
Young Knives
Rumble Strips
The Horrors
Noisettes
Tiny Dancers
Aqualung
Shoot The Moon

ACOUSTIC STAGE

Friday 22 June
Damien Rice
Hothouse Flowers
Sandi Thom
Jack L
Lisa Hannigan
The Dylan Project
Pauline Scanlon
Emmy the Great
Newton Faulkner
Martha Tilston

Saturday 23 June
The Waterboys
Nick Lowe
Eric Bibb
Richie Havens
Men They Couldn't Hang
Liam O'Maonlai
The Storys
Catherine Feeny
Liz Green
Hayley Hutchinson

Sunday 24 June
Bootleg Beatles
KT Tunstall
Moya Brennan
London Community Gospel Choir
Steve Forbert
Songs of Nick Drake by Keith James
David Saw
Winding Stair
Hummingbirds
The Epstein

AVALON

Friday 22 June
The Waterboys
The Cat Empire
Seth Lakeman
Oi Va Voi
Chumbawamba Acoustic - Ooooh! Should be interesting!
Ben Waters Band
Flipron
Tarantism

Saturday 23 June
The Saw Doctors
Show of Hands
Gruff Rhys
Julie Fowlis
The Broken Family Band
Robin and Bena Williamson
3 Daft Monkeys
Big Strides
Sheela Na Gig

Sunday 24 June
Bellowhead
Kila
Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans
Rise Kagona and Champion Doug Veitch
Billy Bragg - It wouldn't be Glastonbury without Billy!
Tunng
Jeff Lang
Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo
Avalonian Free State Choir

THE PARK

Friday 22 June
Spiritualized - Acoustic Mainline - now this should be an interesting set! But the monkeys win!
Aliens
M.I.A
Shlomo
Cajun Dance Party
Martha Wainwright
Charlotte Hatherly
Chas & Dave
Amy Macdonald
Kate Nash
Los Campesionos!
Remi Nicole
The Ralfe Band
Peter and the Wolf

Saturday 23 June
Africa Express
Lou Rhodes
Ed Harcourt
Cherry Ghost
Piney Gear
Josh Pyke
Get Well Soon
The High Wire
Sargeant

Sunday 24 June
Gruff Rhys
Circulus
King Creosote
Adem
The Little Ones
Willy Mason
Micah P Hinson
Pete Doherty
Euros Childes
Fionn Regan
Richard Swift
Adele
Laura Marling
The Young Republic

STONEBRIDGE BAR

Thursday 21 June
Gerry’s Joint
Guilty Pleasures
Baggy Mondays

Friday 22 June
I'm With Stupid
Arthur Shearlaw
Joe and Nicky’s Sweet Charity
Sean Rowley (rock 'n' roll set)
Pablo Psychonaut
Soulsavers
Get Involved

Saturday 23 June
Butch Cassidy’s Reggae Pop Show
Four Tet with Eat Your Own Ears DJs
Broader Than Broadway And Bobby Champagne Jr
Hip Hop Karaoke
Guto (Super Furry Animals /Trojan Records)
Soul Jazz Sound System
Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve (Richard Norris and Erol Alkan)

Sunday 24 June
Butch Cassidy’s Reggae Pop Show
Baggy Mondays
Heavenly jukebox
Ben Swank (Fitzrovian Phonographic)
Pete Fowler (Monsterism)
Robin and Nick (heavenly jukebox/The Admiralty Club)
Broader Than Broadway Soundsystem

DANCE LOUNGE

Thursday 21 June
Andy Barlow (Lamb)
The Vees
Dive
Cakeboy & Doublethink
Uberzone
Suns of Mecha
Ctrl Z
Hybrid
Steve Lawler
Annie Nightingale's Dance Village Launch Party

Friday 22 June
Ghost
Breaking the Illusion
Urban Myth Club
Western Soul
The Nextmen feat. MC Wrec and Zarif
Western Soul
Hearin' Aid
Men in Masks
Hafdis Huld
Little Barrie
James Lavelle
Four Tet
Hexstatic
Sean Rowley's Guily Pleasures

Saturday 23 June
Filthy Dukes
Bimbo Jones
Para One
Husky Rescue
Cicada
Erol Alkan
Bonde Do Role
Annie Mac
Subsource
Die and Clipz
Andy Cato

Sunday 24 June
Quantic
Bugz In The Attic
Rob Da Bank and MC Beardyman
Dub Pistols
Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
Unklejam
J Mountain
Ben Westbeech
The Loose Cannons
Palladium
It's Bigger Than
Infinite Scale
DJ Finn

EAST DANCE VILLAGE

Friday 22 June
Fat Boy Slim
The Klaxons
Gus Gus
Simian Mobile Disco
Max Sedgley
Hyper
Cagedbaby
!!!
Buraka Som Sistema
Uncle Buck
XX Teens

Saturday 23 June
Mr Scruff
Mika
Mark Ronson
Yoda
Sugadaddy
Infadels
Tim Deluxe
Black Ghosts
Phil Kieran
Devils Gun

Sunday 24 June
Carl Cox
Pendulum Live
Dave Clarke
Vitalic
The Glimmers
Sh*tdisco
Kissy Sellout
Elektrons
Zero DB
Dragonette
Polichinelle

WEST DANCE VILLAGE

Friday 22 June
Trente Moller Live
Danny Howells
System 7
Surgeon A/V Show
Eatstatic
Jim Masters
A Guy Called Gerald
Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band
Alloy Mental
Subgiant
Kava Kava
Marc Vedo

Saturday 23 June
Sasha
Hybrid
Mr C
Meat Katie and VJ anyone
Uberzone
DJ Hal
The Bays
DJ Will Saul
The Neville Staple Band
Pama International
Kenji Williams
Breakfast with Howard Marks

Sunday 24 June
Krafty Kuts
Coldcut
Steve Lawler
Dreadzone - Worth trekking up to the dance village for!
Bitesize
Crazy P
Stanton Warriors
Phil Hartnoll Presents Long Range
Future Funk Squad
DJ Monkey Pilot
The Whip

G STAGE

Friday 22 June
The Plump DJ's
Rennie Pilgrem & MC Chickaboo
Adam Freeland
General Midi & MC Jakes
D. Rameriz
Dumb Blonde
Timo Maas
Tom Real V's The Rogue Element
Quest
Atomic Hooligan & Jay Cunning
The Breakfastaz
Ben & Lex
Plaza De Funk

Saturday 23 June
Andy C
Bong Ra
Freq Nasty
Radioactive Man Live
Adam F
Scotch Egg Band (Drumize)
Shitmatt

Sunday 24 June
Noisia
Mr Nice
Jungle Drummer DJ Fu and Rodney P
F**k Me USA
Vexd
Aural Imbalance
Allaby
Tristan
Tron
Beardy
Hydrophonic
Shpongle
Ott
Gaudi

PUSSY PARLOUR

Thursday 21 June
DJ Badly
Western Soul DJs
The John E Vistic Experience
P.R.O.D
Polichinelle
Niece & Unc
We Don't Play

Friday 22nd June
Detectives of Perspective
Circus Star Cabaret
Bourbon Warfare DJs
Discipulos de Otilia
We Don't Play
Sumaya
Leon Jean-Marie
Sancho Panza featuring the Twilight Players
Zen Hussies
Healer Selecta
Oojami Live

Saturday 23 June
P.R.O.D.
The Noisettes
Emporium featuring Bingo Karaoke
Salsa Class with Mo Flex
Sean Rowley Presents I'm Not In Love
Circus Star Cabaret
Jose Luis
Dr Meaker
Mr M
La Kinky Beat
DJ Zorro

Sunday 24 June
That Lazysunday DJ
The Kleptones
Sancho Panza
Kitty, Daisy and Lewis
Emporium featuring Bingo Karaoke
Forty Thieves Orkestar
DJ Tofowski
Destroyers
DJ Forty Thieves
Gipsy.CZ
Russ Jones 'The Hackney Globetrotter

ID SPIRAL

Thursday 21 June
Mayra
Wombat
Film
Dom Spiral
Film
Sheik Yarbooty

Friday 22 June
Mirror System
Aliji
Tom / Mira
Iain Dub vs Addsineon

Saturday 23 June
Tom / Mira
Liquid Djems
Sandra
Liquid Ross
Dan Spencer
Tall Will
Pete Ardron
4D
Cosmo

Sunday 24 June
Chesstar
Simon Pieman
Gaudi
Guy called Gerald
Naked Nick
Gandolfi
Mudra
Luna Lis

ROOTS STAGE

Friday 22 June
Swami
Bobby Friction
Asian Dub Foundation Sound System
Catch 22
Nerm
Bandish Projekt
Midival Punditz
T Bone
It's Bigger Than
Dhol Academy
Flynn and Flora
Jerona Fruits

Saturday 23 June
Steven Marley with guest Damian Marley
Iration Steppas
Fat Freddy's Drop
Daddy G
Mad Professor
Tayo
Nasio Fontaine
Smith and Mighty
Bobby Kray and Dennis Bovell
Die and Clipz
Dubdadda
Dubrovnik
Dub From Atlantis

Sunday 24 June
K'Naan
Klashnekoff
Hearin' Aid
Foreign Beggers
SuparNovar
Gettin Better Sound System
The Young Punx
Roullet Featuring Queen Bee and Parker

LEFT FIELD

Thursday 21 June - Thursday! Yes! Thursday kick off!
Left Field Anti-Slavery Night: With Unite Against Facism & SWTUC (hosted by Don Letts & Dub Cartel)
Don Letts & Dub Cartel
The King Blues
Damien Dempsey
Pama Inernational
The Beat
Beans on Toast
Gear
Soul Survivors
Kid Harpoon
3 Daft Monkeys
Neck
The Blood Arm
The Thirst

Friday 22 June looks like it's a 90's throw back party!
Virtual Festivals hosts...
Neds Atomic Dustbin
Back to the Planet
CUD
Republic of Loose
Slovo
Discipulos de Otilla
Very Be Careful
Tacto Latino
Movimientos

Saturday 23 June
Akala
The Noisettes
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly with Plan B
No Lay
Natty
The Mentalists
Ruarri Joseph
Mark Steel, Nick Wilty, Steve Gribben and MC Rosie Wilbey
Habakuk
The Poise Rite
The Deadbeats

Sunday 24 June
Billy Bragg - Billy!
Phil Jupitus
Jail Guitar Doors
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
Glenn Tilbrook
Soweto Kinch
Goldblade
Neville Staples
Mark Thomas - Fine Cutting Edge Comedy!
Shazia Mirza
Tony Benn - Probably the only honest politician in the 20th century! And a great speaker too!
Ed Byrne
Marcus Brigstocke

LEFT FIELD STAGE 2

Thursday 21 June
Left Field Anti-Slavery Night: With Unite Against Facism & SWTUC (hosted by Don Letts & Dub Cartel)
Don Letts
Anti Slavery Vox DJ
Holy Fuck
DJ
Nizlopi
DJ
Liz Green
Rodney Brannigan
Sean Taylor
Seasick Steve
Fortune Drive
Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man
Dan Donnelly
Emmy the Great
Charlene Jones
Open Mic

Friday 22 June
Fred and Benny
Goldierocks (DJ)
Duke Special
Black Rats with Peaches Geldof (DJ)
Jack Penate
Huw Stephens (DJ)
Glen Tilbrook
Jim Bob
Joe Driscoll
Kid Harpoon
Fionn Regan
Kate Nash
Jersey Budd
Movimientos
Daisy Sweet Hearts

Saturday 23 June
Brakes
The King Blues
Zzz
Rhoda Dakar
Dan Donnelly
Movimientos

Sunday 24 June
Night of Treason
Neck
Dan Donnelly
African Skies
Positively Testcard

BABYLON BAND STAGE

Thursday 21 June
Max Pashm
The Doubtful Guest
Shorn Rah
The Mandibles
The Electric Soup
Paris Motel
Hodmadoddery

Friday 22 June
Ash
Cortina Deluxx
Wizz & Simeon Jones
Bill Smarme
Rose Kemp
The Cedars
Biggles
Snortin' Dogs
Electric Bill
The Duckworths
Michael J Sheehy
John E Vistic
LaXula

Saturday 23 June
The Cloghoppers
Glistening Cogs of Greenland
The Mandrake Project
Jeremy Smoking Jacket
Joe Public
Argument About Yellow
Sgt Peppers
Vladimir Steamboat
The Cedar
The Blessing
Babel
Zen Hussies
Los Albertos

Sunday 24 June
Phil King
The Volt
The Clap
The Mighty Peas
SJ Esau
Cats & Cats & Cats & Cats
The Wurzels

GLADE STAGE

Friday 22 June
Mark Edwards Hard Rain Environmental Show
Squarepusher
Buraka Som Sistema
Kenji Williams
Iain Ballamy
Pee Wee Ellis with James Morton and The Rawness
CCQ
Simon Atkinson & The Ben Marcato Trio
Seth Lakeman
Chimanimani

Saturday 23 June
Ozric Tentacles - Expect them to play til 3 in the morning!
!!! (chk chk chk)
Dreadzone - Dubbing It Up
Nick Warren
Echo
Jamie Cato (1 Giant Leap)
Nigel Mazyln Jones
Mr Bojangles Moustache

Sunday 24 June
Ganga Giri
Greg Dread and Spee
Soothsayers
Husky Rescue
La Kinky Beat
Eatstatic
Rhythmites
Hedge Monkey
Vertigo

GLADE CAFE

Friday 22 June
Hexstatic
Mark Edwards Hard Rain Environmental Show
Buraka Som Sistema
Kenji Williams
Iain Ballamy
Pee Wee Ellis with James Morton and The Rawness
CCQ
Simon Atkinson and The Ben Marcato Trio
Seth Lakeman
Chimanimani

Saturday 23 June
Ozric Tentacles - See above - they aren't in 2 places at once!
!!!
Dreadzone - See above - they aren't in 2 places at once!
Nick Warren
Echo
Slovo
Jamie Cato
Nigel Mazyln Jones
Mr Bojangles Moustache

Sunday 24 June
Ganga Giri
Greg Dread and Spee
Soothsayers
Husky Rescue
La Kinky Beat
Eatstatic Chilled Set
Rhythmites
Hedge Monkey
Vertigo

LATE'N'LIVE

Thursday 21 June
The Deadbeats
Dr Meaker
Laymar
Smallwhitelight
The Maple State
Liz Green
Venus Bogardus
The John E Vistic Experience
Ed Cottam
Lewis Sleeman
Nine Bean Rows

Friday 22 June
The Whip
Gravenhurst
The 9000
The Loungs
Scouting For Girls
Pinstripe
Onions
Thirty Pounds of Bone
The Travelling Band
Haiki Loki

Saturday 23 June
Orphan Boy
Love Minus Zero
Neon Plastix
Heck
The Answering Machine
Durban Poison
The Epstein
Feluka
Cortina Deluxx

Sunday 24 June
Polytechnic
The Courteeners
Cherry Ghost
Liam Frost
It's A Buffalo
Pierre Hall & The Lead Balloons
Clarky Cat
Rob Sharples
The Grim Northern Social
Birdengine
Sam Hammond
Thursday 21st June
The Egg
Dubblehead

CROISSANT NEUF STAGE

Friday 22 June
Almeida Girl and Le grand Descarga
Mankala
Rodney Branigan
The Huckleberries
The Soundcarriers
Bad Science
Yoga Workshop Class

Saturday 23 June
Steve Hillage (System 7 Dj set)
Kangaroon Moon
Tanglefoot
Seize the Day - probably the best 'right-on' hippy band ever - Check them out!
Echo
Nizlopi
Yoga workshop class

Sunday 24 June
Baka Beyond and The G’Bine
The Big
The Harp Trio
F.O.S. Brothers
The Boat Band
Biggles Wartime Band

LOST VAGUENESS - seriously freaky area!

Friday 22 June
DJ Sophie Toes, Lorne
MC Dougie Invisible
Dreamstate Circus
Merlinski Spacelee
Divine Company
Grrrlesque
Empress Stah
DJ Lorngerie
Grrrlesque
Alexanderope
Ryan Styles
Empress Stah
Cous-cous Torture Company
DJ Desert Ivan Discs
Dynamo Rhythm Ace
DJ Bollox and DJ Drew
Dusty Sprinkles and the Hot Jazz Biscuits
DJ Bollox and DJ Drew

Saturday 23 June
DJ Sophie Toes
Luxury Condo
DJ Lorngerie
MC Mat Fraser
Dream State Circus
Merlinski Spacelee
Sumaya Flamenco Troupe
Perverted Turkeys
DJ Marsh Mellow Mike
Mat Fraser
Taylor Mac
Zudance Aerial
Martha and Arthur
Kitty Bang Bang
Grainne
Vicky McManus
Twighlight Players
DJ Sophie Toes
The Lovers
DJ Andy Wetherall
Bison
DJ Marsh Mellow Mike

Sunday 24 June
DJ Sophie Toes
MC Dave Chameleon
Divine Company
Kitty Bang Bang
Martha and Atthur
Vicky McManus
Paul Zenon
Bees Knees
Empress Stah
DJ Lorngerie and Sophie Toes
Cous Cous Torture Company
Deviant Aerial
Paul Zenon and Sleez
Empress Stah
Perverted Turkeys
Bees Knees
DJ Lorngerie and Sophie Toes
The Puppini Sisters
DJ Lorne Sophie Mike
The Fat 45s
DJ Marsh Mellow Mike

Line up culled from Virtual Festivals

should be some pics here! hover over to see!

should be some pics here! hover over to see!

should be some pics here! hover over to see!

Bloggers getting Fired!

2007-05-27T06:10:00.000Z

Makes Me Glad I'm Self Employed!
Here's a story I found on Bloggers getting into trouble for blogging from their Employers!

More than a third of UK bloggers risk the sack by posting derogatory or damaging details about their workplace, boss or colleagues, a survey claims.

Human resources company Croner, which commissioned the study, warned that such bloggers could be sacked from their job for gross misconduct.

Croner surveyed 2,000 people who keep a personal internet blog or diary and 39% said that they made harmful comments.

Bloggers should consider the potential impact of all postings, Croner said.

'False security'

Gillian Dowling, technical consultant at Croner, said the situation was similar to the widespread introduction of e-mail in the 1990s.

She said bloggers had to take care that they were not lulled into "a false sense of security" by the informality and ease of posting their thoughts and opinions.

"If there is a negative impact on the organisation's corporate image which is so serious that it breaches the implied term of mutual trust and confidence, the employee could be dismissed for gross misconduct," said Ms Dowling.

"The blog could also be evidence of other conduct issues or reveal workplace discrimination or bullying."

Ms Dowling added that bloggers could also get sacked for revealing confidential secrets or sensitive financial data.

"Employers need to ensure that they carefully consider the impact of blogging on their organisation and take appropriate steps to minimise any potential risk," she said.

The study was conducted for Croner by internet research group YouGov.

Amazon Unbox - Video Download On Demand!

2007-05-23T01:01:00.000Z

BYE BYE BLOCKBUSTERS!

Amazon have launched the download on demand on .com, You can now download the newest titles to rent or own from amazon.com

Awesome! Saves having to drive/walk/queue at Blockbusters just to find the film you want is out of stock!

Why Intel Sucks!

2007-05-22T09:54:00.000Z

Intel have often been criticised for dubious working practices. They were one of the first chip makers, in 1999, to build a chip with a digital identifier, known as a processor serial number, to every new Pentium III chip and threatened to remove the anonymity of web surfing and internet transactions.

Recently they have been colluding with IBM to build Copy Protection into Hard Drives as well as Chips.

But what takes the biscuit is their aggressive attack on the Not-For-Profit organisation One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) undercutting their $100 laptop project designed to make technology affordable and accessible in the developing world. To do this they launched a rival laptop aimed at the same market aiming to undercut OLPC and put them out of business! Obviously once they have achieved this they will then either cease to produce these cheap laptops or raise the price of them. Is this moral? Is this a responsible business practice?
Tell Intel where to stick it and avoid their products!

Recycling Books!

2007-05-16T20:44:00.000Z

There's some weird and wacky suggestions of what to do with books apart from read them on the web. Here are a few of them! Any additions to this more than welcome!

Make a Book Shelf from Books!

Classy Book Shelves from books!

Make Designer Purses & Clutch Bags!

Sit on them!

Destroy them in the name of Art!

Make Lamps from books!

More Bookshelves!

Many Thanks to Jayne & Jim for these fantastic Ideas!

Buy It Now with Google Checkout

2007-05-15T09:02:00.000Z

Over the weekend I got a little distracted from my main task of working on my Amazon aStore Tutorial. I was asked what other payment methods I used by an eBay customer who was having problems with using paypal to pay for an item he'd won on eBay. Until this point I'd relied on paypal, though not happily due to their high proportion of fees.

This enquiry prompted me to look at alternatives to paypal, in particular the recently launched Google Checkout. Well, as a google account holder I found it a breeze to set up compared with paypal and the big advantage they are currently promoting it with NO FEES UNTIL 2008! I'm not sure whether this offer will run for long, as it may just be an incentive to people to sign up and once they have the targetted take up they may then withdraw the offer I suspect, whilst of course honouring the offer to those who have already taken it up! The other thing Google are doing to promote this rival to paypal is working with some big retailers to offer £10 off orders of over £30!

I had a play with the buy it now buttons on my googlepages site, and found it quite easy to add buttons, so am just waiting to see if my customers find their way here to buy stuff that I have cheaper than on amazon & ebay as I don't have fees to pay!

Lastly, Apologies to those that were expecting me to be providing instructions on importing/ exporting category lists for aStores, I did some work on this and it wasn't quite so straightforward as I thought it would be. I'll try and spend some time working this out during the week, and will update here when it's live.

Bah!

2007-05-10T23:52:00.000Z

Had to shift my tutorial website to a different URL as I found out today that there was a rule about putting astores under URL's with the word amazon before the .com bit! I suppose it's to stop people trying to get higher search engine results from having amazon in the URL, just wish I'd know that before setting up the previous one and ~~spamming~~ plugging the link everywhere!
You can find the new one herea with slightly improved site mapping & indexing

Creating Text Links in an Amazon aStore

2007-05-09T09:31:00.000Z

Creating Text links is very useful and surprisingly easy using the aStore edit/create options.

To get a text link you need to select from your astore tool bar- >build links>build text links> Then choose one of the three options shown -

Link to Favorite Destination, whether it's Top Selling Books, Top Selling Horror DVD's, Top Selling Indie Music

Links to Search Results, Bruce Willis DVD's, Wilbur Smith Books or Harry Potter related items!

Link to Any Page at Amazon.co.uk - Seller Profile, Leave Feedback Link, basically any page that isn't actually a product or search page

Then Get the HTML, click the highlight button, copy and paste into the web page, blog, wherever, making sure you are pasting it using a html edit mode.

How To Build an Amazon aStore

2007-05-07T23:26:00.000Z

I'm currently working on a website to create a step-by-step guide on how to build an Amazon aStore. Any feedback on this would be gratefully recieved.

After signing up for your amazon associates/affliates account this is the first step in creating your own aStore.

The first category can be named using the custom title field. You then add products either by selecting an Amazon category. In this example the main category I have chosen is Music. This will then show the top selling items from Amazons music category. You could create a search filter for this Though it may be better to select a search filter under subcategories.

You can then choose a number of subcategories under the main category, by either using a search filter, adding items individually or using the provided sub categories to auto fill.

Be aware that this first category does not collapse when viewing other categories, so you may want to keep the number of subcategories under this limited.

You also have the ability to add text to the top of each category and subcategory by filling the box at the bottom.

You can also change the look of your aStore, very handy for matching the colour scheme of your blog, website, etc

You can select different theme's and colours for all apsoect of the aStore here, including fonts.

One thing I should flag here is that this is where you "Name" Your store, this is easily done by filling in the space for it at the bottom of the page. I have seen many aStores that still display "My Associate Store"

On the next screen you will see a number of options to add and position widgets on your aStore

The sidebar can be selected to show on the left or right of the page. If you select no widgets for the home page it will just show your categories and a search box.

Personally I don't like the Listmania options, though you may find them useful

the options for to show similair items, accessories and reviews I do find useful.

Getting your link!

You have 3 options here. The easiest is just to select the standalone site, which will display your aStore and you can use the link to it in emails, Blogs, etc.

The most popular use is for using "iFrames", this is a way of integrating the aStore into almost any website, web blog or similair. You just need to tick the iframes button, hit 'Highlight HTML' and copy. Then paste the code as HTML in any web presence that allows the input of HTML.

The final option of publishing to Frames is for the more experienced web master.

I will cover how to add individual items in the next tutorial.

Amazon aStore's - easy to create and very adaptable

2007-05-07T01:03:00.000Z

Amazon aStores rock and are so easy to build! They also have a lot of adaptability, you can just use the little amazon search button in your blog, add a link to a specific product, create a number of different banners, on various sizes, fill these by setting a particular search term. It’s amazing!

The Tracking is also pretty good too, as well as being a reputable online business the commission starting at 5% is OK too!

As you can set up 99 different tracking id’s the potential is pretty unlimited too!
I’ve created a little website giving tips on setting up an aStore and some examples of what you can do with one.

I used Google pages to create this aStore Tutorial.

How to build your own aStore (Link updated)

Weird Stuff & Art on Amazon!

2007-04-09T20:24:00.000Z

Now my blogging has lapsed a bit recently, but I just had to share this with anyone who might stumble across this blog.

Amazon are now selling art!

Well a sculptor has used amazons create a listing page to advertise their wares.

Unfortunately they haven't supplied a thumbnail image, but they have a number of images on the listing page, so you'll have to click on the link.
metalgnu

Banksy Mural For Sale (includes Free House!)

2007-02-11T18:01:00.001Z

He must be the most hyped modern artist in the UK since Tracey Emin. Banksy's roots are in Bristol and his artwork is found all around the city, on walls, buildings and even boats in the harbour!

Recently due to publicity around some high profile Gallery exhibitions his work has become very collectable, if not controversial! Rumours are that even Tom Cruise has been purchasing his work. Recent works have been sold in Sotheby's for as much as £102,000 for a canvas of his work!

Now £102,000 for a canvas might not be so great compared with the millions that are paid for the works of some artists, but you must admit it's a tidy sum! Well, it must have rang the cash registers for the owners of a house that Banksy had painted a 25ft x 6ft mural on quite early in his 'career'. This is a rare example of his freeform work, he moved into using stencils shortly after this work it's believed. The current owners are proposing to set up a street art gallery in an adjoining derelict print works with the proceeds of the sale.

Apparently they had looked at selling it a few times but decided to reject offers that were made when they found out the buyers wished to cover the work. Maybe they should be public funding for this sort of thing, maybe a blue plaque and a listed building status?

Here's a couple of pics of his other work in Bristol
Courtesy of Visit Bristol

On the side of the Thekla, bristols floating music venue

The Mild Mild West, Cheltenham Road.

For more details of the forthcoming sale and exhibition of his work check out the Red Pepper Gallery in Devon.

Please also check his own website for his comments about the prices his work is going for at auction.

Here's the BBC gallery of Banksy art work snapped by the public in London

My favorite all time Banksy Art has got to be the rat he installed in the natural history museum.

His latest book is definitely worth a look or two

Travel Tax Petition Madness

2007-02-10T16:23:00.000Z

Peter Roberts, from Telford, Shropshire, a member of the Association of British Drivers (ABD) since 2001. Created the largest ever e-petition yet on the Downing Street website. Ok, it's a short history as the No10 website only introduced e-petitons in November 06.

The petition has been backed by an almost viral email campaign verging on Spam. As of time of posting over 1million people have put their name to the petition as a result of emails such as this -

"Sarah Kennedy was on about this proposed car tax scheme on the radio,
apparently there is only one month left to register your objection to the
'Pay as you go' road tax.

The petition is on the 10 Downing St website but they didn't tell anybody
about it. Therefore at the time of Sarah's comments only 250,000 people had
signed it so far and 750,000 signatures are required to stop them introducing it.

This is legit... from 10 Downing Street 's website.

Once you've given your details (you don't have to give your full
address, just house number and postcode will do), they will send you an
email with a link in it. Once you click on that link, you'll have signed
the petition.

Democracy in action?
The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to
purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use
it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the
BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a
delivery driver. A non working mother who used the car to take the kids to
school paid £86 in one month.

On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will
know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been
going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit in time you can
probably expect a Notice of Intended Prosecution with your monthly bill.

If you care about our freedom and stopping the constant bashing of the car
driver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website (link below) and
pass this on to as many people as possible.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk Then click on view petitions.

So you see it has gained plenty of support, but is it democratic to only formulate the argument against and not the argument for, using scare tactics to get a knee-jerk response from the British Public?

The proposals aren't new, and have been discussed openly. This over reaction seems to be based upon the publication of the "Eddington Report" a study commissioned by the government in 2005. This report looked into the possibilities for road pricing, road building, rail and airport investment, as well as the planning system. This report was published in November 2006 and was widely reported on at the time.

The purpose of this petition organised by a minority using scare tactics is quite shameful as it does nothing to discuss or highlight the problems we face if we do nothing.

PROFESSOR DAVID BEGG, FORMER GOVERNMENT ADVISER
If we don't do national road pricing, and we want to keep congestion constant in Britain over the next 20 years, we'd have to build five times the amount of roads the government are planning.

EDMUND KING, RAC FOUNDATION
We believe road pricing on 10% of the network at certain times would help.

SIR PAITRCK BROWN, INDEPENDENT TRANSPORT COMMISSION
We ought to be saying the technology is available for road charging, let's get on with it. Politicians in every party are running scared.

JAMES HOOKHAM, DEPUTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE, FREIGHT TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION
Protecting freight flows along our key Trade Routes should be a priority for government that cannot wait for the introduction of road pricing or the other recommendations in the Eddington Transport Study.

No. 10
doing nothing would lead to a 25% increase in congestion "in less than a decade".

Here's a link to the petition which is in favour of taking action to stop uncontrolled traffic growth, just to provide a balance
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/TRACK-CARS/

Bear in mind that by choosing to do nothing is something you may regret in years to come, and that in doing so you will be condemning this country to traffic chaos. We are a small country with a very poor public transport infrastructure, economically we can't shy away from the difficult decisions that need to be made now, before it's too late! The Eddington study said charging could benefit the economy by £28bn a year.

Here's a couple of other links that are worth checking for a more balanced version of what road charging may involve and why it may be needed.

BBC 1st December - some good links to other reporting of the eddington report

The first news report of the petition as it reached the 230,000 mark on the 11th January

Roads petition breaks a million - BBC News on the story of the petition breaking the million

Added on Monday 12th Feb -
It looks like the weight of the petition has caused the government to admit "it was important to have a proper debate on the subject and consider a range of views"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6352957.stm

Also have been informed the Sunday Post did a rather good job of reportingand investigating the false claims around this petition using this headline-

More than one million sign “nonsense” petition

E-mail lies spark
road tax protest

Does Anything Work on Vista?

2007-01-31T02:14:00.000Z

I've just received a warning that a major piece of software I run to maintain my business will not run on Vista. There is a promise that this will be remedied within a month, but it also comes with a warning - "based on our experience with Vista so far, we would not recommend the upgrade without serious testing as it appears to break many applications that may impact your business."

Now, having looked about on the web it doesn't seem many of the smaller software designers were ready for Vista and were ready for this operating system.

Vista also isn't compatible with older pc's, requiring huge amounts of ram and blisteringly fast processors just to open a folder on the computer, nevermind having any ram left to process the data!

It will be interesting to see what the business community make of it, especially as many programs they have used successfully for years will no longer work and will need to be reprogrammed. I wonder if any one has ever counted the number of programs in use around the world that will have to be almost totally re-written for Vista? I'm not saying that reprogramming should be unnecessary, but having had no prior warning of the OS has meant many programmers having to start from scratch again with a OS that hasn't had all it's bugs knocked out of it. And we know they're still knocking bugs out of XP, so we're used to the fact that we've got to download patches for the lifetime of it's use until the next OS is designed!

C'mon Bill! Get your Sh*t Together!

The Hours - Thekla, Bristol January 28th 2007

2007-01-28T23:41:00.000Z

The night started very well! On arriving in the car park just outside the ol' tub that is the Thekler Social, discovered that the payment meter was out of order so - Free Parking! Now for those not familiar with Bristol premier floating venue, (is there another venue afloat?), it has recently had a bit of a refurb and a lick of paint. The white paint on the superstructure gives it a little class, though this illusion is shattered as you begin your journey down into the hull and your feet struggle with the stickiness of the floor. Maybe it's time they hired a few cabin boys to 'swab the decks' on occasion! The layout and decor is pretty minimal, with the stage at the for'ard end of the vessel, a bench down each side of the dancefloor. Further back is the bar, with a seating area opposite that could probably comfortably accommodate 20 people around tables. back fiurther still are the stairs to the exit/entrance and the toilets, or should they be called the heads? There is also a gallery level, with a little seating and a balcony to lean nonchalantly over or sit and dangle your feet over. Though beware, if you do dangle unshoed feet, the people underneath will be tempted to tickle them!

The first band, well they weren't quite a band, just a 2piece on guitar and bass who started by apologising for the absence of the other band members, and didn't stop apologising for this until they left the stage. In their defence they did state they were asked to do the gig at short notice and warbled on about living in London, but being currently homeless. It was delightful to listen to their apologetic ramblings, but only as it was a break in their tedious art-school music. I don't really know how how to further describe the brand of art house music they were playing and it wasn't exactly offensive or driving me to any emotional conclusion, just a pleasant kind of noise. Didn't exactly inspire me to find out more though.

The real support were called The Master Chaynjis a Bristol Based three piece, compromising of a Too-Tall Bass Player, suitably coupled with a double bass, a violinist looking like she's just stepped out of a parisian cafe circa 1957, and an elastic faced front man strumming along on guitar with a very rich, almost operatic in depth, voice. Now this band were impressive, I don't tend to seek out Avante Garde music, but this was a fine example of the genre, love/hate lyrics delivered powerfully and with humour. At points the band did remind me a little of Nick Cave in his Murder Ballads phase with their darkness in lyric and almost jingly jangly rhythm. Your certainly going to enjoy seeing them, I hope they do play a few of the smaller festivals this summer! I think they delivered the best description of their music themselves - B-Movies set to music.

Well, the night is wearing on, people are starting to get a little restless and the dancefloor is filling, the venue looks close to capacity and The Hours arrive on stage to a very warm applause from the eager audience. The first thing that grabs your attention in their blistering audio onslaught, is how tight they are and that they look, and sound, as if they have been playing together for years. They have been described as the old new band due to the fact that they are in their mid thirties but seem so new and fresh. The music was great, the banter light hearted and witty. At one point about 3numbers in the earlier observation of how light it was in the venue was repeated as the house lights were still on at pre-gig levels, he did keep it quite polite but it didn't get any response from whoever was responsible for lighting directions, and his bitterness about this didn't show until after a call from the audience of "house lights down, stage lights up", it was not until they started the next tune that the LD got back to the lighting board and complied with the request and was then applauded by the crowd. It was a great set and a good night out. The leaving the stage after 10 numbers meant the encore was predictable, especially due to them not having played their big hit - Ali In The Jungle, and their roadie resetting guitars on stands on stage.

The encore started with a little talk by about "serious stuff" but due to crowd muppets calling out "zombie" after it was mentioned about rising from the dead,but not in a zombie way, the little serious bit turned into a zombie jam, which just showed how easily these boys work together and can adapt to the situation. Finishing the set was a blistering rendition of Ali which gave everyone a good buzz to go home with. Tomorrow the members of the audience will remember "how quick can you get back up?", but will be wondering why their shoes are sticky.
I'm wondering if they'll ever play a venue so small again after their upcoming album release.

Here's the set list for tonights show, straight from the sweaty roadies hand!

Murder or Suicide

Moment

Love You More

Breathe

Need To Know

Icarus

Back When

Narcissus Road

People Say

Big Black Hole

Car Crash

My final thoughts on the night - How easy would it be to sort out the ballast on that rusty tub so it didn't list at such a crazy angle.

Their album is released in February, order yours from Amazon!

A Moan About Amazon.co.uk

2007-01-28T00:50:00.000Z

I've just spent hours creating listings on amazon for about a dozen or so audiobooks. Now when I try to actually search for them now I have done the hard work of adding them to the catalogue, complete with picture and all attributes such as running time, unabridged, etc, etc, they do not show in searches! Not only that I can't add them to my affiliate store to provide a nice easy link for customers to browse items I have in stock. Now I can comprehend that amazon sucks on occasion, but configuring a search engine should be one of the simpler tasks of managing a website, yet amazon just seem to get it spectacularly wrong on an irritatingly high number of occasions.

I'm now going to have to do lots of painstaking work to list these on ebay. If I did think it worthwhile creating listings on Amazon for them I would, but unless they can sort out their search engine, titles like these might as well go on ebay. After all, I don't work for amazon, even though as a seller I do contribute to their profits, and I am not going to create listings for items that will not show in their search. And it's quite annoying adding lots of attributes such as running time, format, number of tapes, if amazon aren't going to include this info in the newly created listing. Also, what's the point in uploading photo's for these new listings when I have yet to see an amazon listing for an audiobook that actually displays an image.

Here's a link to the ones on amazon (note no images) Amazon Audiobooks
And here's one to those I have put on ebay. Ebay Audio books

Audio Books - CD, Tape/cassette or Download?

2007-01-26T00:37:00.000Z

I've just taken delivery of a staggering number of Audio Books and am amazed at the prices these command and the lack of availability on Amazon. In over 90 editions I checked only 5 were offered secondhand and most were only available from Amazon on a 2-3week delivery, and a sourcing fee! Now most experienced Amazon users know that when they advertise a long delivery time like that their ability to actually source it are about nil, and they will just keep extending that deadline until you cancel the order.

The situation doesn't seem very different whether it's tape or CD, though it does seem to dominate the unabridged editions from Chivers, Isis, Soundings and BBC AudioBooks. But, what's the most popular way that people listen to audio books? My Girl Friend prefers tapes as it's much easier to keep the "page" your on. I know some cd players have a similair function but it's not a common one on most cd players. MP3 is something I prefer as I don't mind shuffling back and forth and it's quite easy if the recording is broken into handy chunks of chapters or 30minute blocks.

In an increasingly digital world the CD and Tape versions of the audiobook will certainly demise in popularity as more people get used to listening to mp3 players and more used to operating them. There will always be the people that have seemed stuck in the prehistoric technology era, the sort of person who'd be much happier with a horse and cart than a car. These people will probably ensure that the tape market survives but I predict a demise of the CD within the next few years.

On a different note, of the Tapes I checked I found about 1 in 5 didn't exist on the amazon uk database. What really surprised me was the half dozen i checked didn't exist on the .com site either. I expected to have practice some shifty practices to be able to list them as items that are listed on .com, and a similair listing cannot be created on the uk site. (There is a way round this though ;) It's long winded so I won't cover that here!)Imagine my surprise when they weren't listed anywhere on the internet, not even bookfinder, bookbutler or addall could find them! The big drawback to this is that creating a new listing is just as time consuming as listing an item on ebay! So have only done 2 so far! Results below!

Well they would be, but the links aren't showing the scans I uploaded yet! Maybe there's a timescale before the images can be syndicated?

Do you think I'm being a bit optimistic in charging that much?

Book Review - The Devil and Miss Prym , Paul Coehlo

2007-01-23T22:35:00.000Z

Paulo Coelho, is most widely known as author of The Alchemist, which I read at some point last year, but this is a review of a book I have just finished this year! The Devil and Miss Prym is the third novel in his trilogy And on the Seventh Day which began with By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept and Veronika Decides to Die

Synopsis

A stranger arrives in the small mountain village. He carries with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. Burying these in the vicinity, the stranger strikes up a curious friendship with a young woman from the village -- Miss Prym. His mission is to discover whether human beings are essentially good or evil. In this stunning new novel, Paulo Coelho's unusual protagonist sets the town a moral challenge from which they may never recover. A fascinating meditation on the human soul, The Devil and Miss Prym illuminates the reality of good and evil within us all, and our uniquely human capacity to choose between them.

It was very hard to put down being a very fast moving plot, albeit told in the very slow setting of a mountain village in some nameless country in Latin America. A classic tale of the fight of good against evil, simply told and portrayed. Plenty of twists and turns and lovely little side tales of the past add to it's rich content, simply put, the central question posed is "Are People Bad" which is explored at depth. Evil in the red corner with good in the blue corner slog it out through this slim volume. Although an ending with good triumphing is to be expected, the author makes it very plausible that this will not transpire, and the outcome is still quite unexpected.
Read & Enjoy! 8.5/10

Breaking up a set of Perry Mason Books

2007-01-21T03:12:00.000Z

I have decided to use this blog thingy to write a little on some of the more interesting books that I come across to sell.

Starting with a large collection of Perry Mason books by Erle Gardner Spencer. Almost everyone will be at least vaguely aware of Perry Mason due to the 30's films starring Warren William, Ricardo Cortez & Donald Woods and the TV adaptations, made in the 50's and 60's starring Raymond Burr as the legendary lawyer. In the late 80's early 90's a number of made for TV films were made, again starring Raymond Burr.

Over 80 books were written by Gardner Spencer based on the cases of Mason, making him the most famous fictional legal character ever created and one who is still as famous today in legal circles as he was in the fifties and sixties.

The collection I will be breaking up and making available includes original green penguins, pan paperbacks and american consul paperbacks.

There is still a reasonable demand for his books by fans new and old, some books being more sought after than others due to limited numbers of reprints and popularity of individual cases. This makes the job of valuing them quite difficult and not particularly suited to ebay. Though I have decided that I will start by listing a small number in my ebay shop and one or 2 in ebay auctions to hopefully attract buyers into the shop and see how demand is.

the following is a list of the titles I currently have in stock and you are welcome to contact me directly to discuss, condition, availability and make offers if not already listed for sale.

"The Case of the Lame Canary","Green penguin",
"The Case of the Careless Kitten","Green penguin",,,
"The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife","Green penguin",,
"The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse","Consul",,,
"The Case of the Lonely Heiress","Consul",,,
"The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Negligent Nymph","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Grinning Gorilla","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Glamourous Ghost","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Nervous Accomplice","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Demure Defendant","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Gilded Lily","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Daring Decoy","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Lucky Loser","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Screaming Woman","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Calendar Girl","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Foot-Loose Doll","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Long-Legged Models","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Deadly Toy","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Singing Skirt","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Waylaid Wolf","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Spurious Spinster","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Blonde Bonanza","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Ice-Cold Hands","Pan",,,
"The Case of the Amorous Aunt","Pan",,,

Amazon edit product info fiasco

2007-01-18T20:21:00.000Z

I'm currently fuming over some muppet who altered a product listing on amazon from a book to a VHS tape for some bizarre reason. The reason I'm fuming isn't bizarre, I've now got to contact the customer and hope they respond to my email so I can find out if they actually realised it was a book or a video. As they are using a hotmail account I don't hold out much hope for them replying. So if I send it there's a 50% chance of it not being what the customer required.
Also, the really stupid thing is that as it is classed as a video by amazon, I only received £1.44 for it instead of the usual £2.27 I would have received for selling a penny book due to the exorbitant fees that amazon charge on videos in relation to books! So am even more tempted to just refund and then demand amazon remove any neg feedback I receive as a result of refunding.
Guess I'll call amazon in the morning and find out what they have to say in regard to it!

ebay or not to ebay

2007-01-17T00:21:00.000Z

Well ebay is great in a lot of ways, though it's listing fees are often a bit crap, especially when it comes to enhancing listings with the gallery function, this extra fee can often more than double listing fees. As you can maybe see by the display in the right, images aren't usually shown, though if you scroll down to the bottom of the page you can see that almost all items that we have listed on ebay are shown with pictures, so mustt thank the guys at auctiva for that

Auctiva also is a great tool for multiple listings and is much easier than turbo lister, also providing an alternative store front to the ebay one. Have a look Here! The other advantage is that it allows you to schedule the listing of items. Though I must mention that I do find there service is slightly unstable and sometimes unavailable. But it's Free!
Also, I feel I must plug this book which is a great tool for anyone new to ebay as a buyer or seller with some really helpful and easily understood hints. We sold out of this quite quickly after ordering a small stock of them, but plenty more still on amazon!

Still Tinkering!

2007-01-17T00:10:00.000Z

Well, now that the blog is up and running (well maybe not running yet, more sort of taking a few tentative steps). I'm probably going to mumble about a few things at random.

Books I suppose are the easiest subject, being surronded by thousands of them makes it a fairly logical thing, but which book?

Well Currently I'm reading a collection of Philip K. Dick stories "we can remember it for you wholesale". And the man was a stark raving genius! Absolutely mind-blowing ideas and he's an author that everyone should read at least one of his stories. So, I'm going to see if i can link to a couple of must haves for you!

Makes you wonder -

2007-01-16T22:23:00.000Z

Sold a book today about cultivating cannabis. It started me thinking in a paranoid way, if amazon handed details over to the police at all, but that's just my latent paranoia. Anyway, am going to include a link to the book in question!

More from me in the near future about the wacky world of selling books!