Rob Bell's Notes from a Yorkshire Internet Megalomaniac

Like most of you, no doubt, I used to take little or no real interest in Politics – even though, everyday, politicians make decisions that affect my life, that of my family and friends – and that of everyone else in our country. As I got into my 30s and experienced much greater adversity than at any point previously, I started to take an interest.

Historically, I had one major political event that’s stuck in my memory from childhood. My Dad was a coalman – he had the biggest round in Wakefield. I used to work with him when I was younger, during the holidays – especially the Winter.  During 1984, Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives took on Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers – causing the Miner’s Strike , that ran from 1984-85, and had a pretty devastating affect on Wakefield, where I live still to this day, destroying all the mining communities around – in fact, a big chunk of the country, particularly in the North of England – many places have never fully recovered, I believe the Wakefield area to be one of them.

The miner’s strike was devastating to my father and our family, as it was to so many in the Coal Industry. It seemed like the supply of coal dried up overnight – rationing started, Dad couldn’t get hold of much coal – and any stock he got was as likely to be stolen from his yard as it was to get to the few remaining customers who were able to get a coal ration slip. Dad’s business collapsed, we lost our home, all our savings went into propping things up until they ran out… and Dad nearly died when his heart failed as a result.

Since then, I’ve never felt that politics really represents the real people of Britain. A lot of the politicians we see are career politicians, born into privilege, and somewhat removed from the realities of life in the UK. The corruption within is disgusting – wealthy donors control and shape policy with their wallets, and the recent expenses scandal proved a lot of politicians to be self-serving, prepared to take liberties with money that we, their employers, certainly never intended to be spent expensively renovating up their multiple homes.

For my entire life, either the Conservatives or Labour have been in power – making the same mistakes over and over. Most people I know don’t feel that the Goverments, past and present, really represent them, or look after their interests. They seem to encourage profit at any social cost and looking after the wealthy and influential, while ignoring the needs of the average man or woman on the street. They spend vast amounts of the money we provide them with, in the form of taxes, on propping up banks – who nearly brought our economy to ruin with their maverick attitudes, speculative risks and pursuit of profit at any cost. What have the Labour Government done about it? Well, the banks are still handing out massive bonuses to staff, sticking 2 fingers up at us after we so kindly bailed them out of trouble. The Conservatives wouldn’t be any better – they want to slash Public Spending, causing further unemployment, and potentially causing the end of businesses who provide services to the public sector in the midst of our worst recession in decades. They will make the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. You only have to look at the recent furor over the party funding (millions) contributed by Lord Ashcroft – himself a tax exile from the UK, so where do his loyalties lay? Not to the people of Britain, I’ll wager.

I, personally, have had enough – and I’m not on my own. Some people vote for extremist parties in protest, as they target the common man’s fears – the recent rise of the BNP shows this. I deplore such extremism – I just want to live in a country where people get along and have a Government that looks after their interests rather than the interests of the money men. I feel about it so strongly that I am even standing for council election next month. Who for? The only party I feel represents a real opportunity to make positive changes, and to take 21st Century Great Britain forward – the Liberal Democrats.

A lot of people I talk to say they won’t vote Lib Dem, because they’ll never get into power – so they’re going to vote Conservative or Labour – one in protest at the existing Government and hoping for change, or the other because “It’s better the Devil you know…”.  To you all – the Labservatives – I say “Balderdash! (Actually, my real choice of word was  ‘Bollocks’, but balderdash is so much politer!) You’re perpetuating an ongoing 2-party nightmare that’s held its’ suffocating grip over Britain for 65 years. I want off this sickening ride, I want positive change, and I hope you do to. Things won’t change unless you vote for change. When enough people want change, change happens.

With that in mind, I’m going to sign off this post with an email I got today from Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib Dems.

Stayed tuned – an all new RobBellBlog.com is imminent – with regular posts, news and tips for small business owners and freelancers, Better Living and Better Business Through the Internet, iPhone & iPad, Cloud Computing and Web Applications articles and discussion,  Tech & Gadget news and reviews, and guest bloggers. I’m currently developing the new format, and will keep you abreast of all the improvements.

Rob Bell
- not usually so political, but it’s important!

Here’s the email from Nick:

Dear friend,

Last week, we launched a spoof campaign for the ‘Labservative’ party. You can find the details at www.labservative.com. It’s a funny campaign, but it has a serious point, a point only Liberal Democrats are making in this election.

For 65 years the government of our country has been handed from Labour to the Conservatives and back again like a game of pass the parcel. Red-blue, blue-red politics – and look what it has got us: corrupt politics, recession, inequality, time and again. They just take turns at making the same mistakes. It has to end.

The old politics is not good enough any more. It is time for something different. Our strategy in this election is to make it clear that if you want real change, you have to vote for a party that is different. All you will get from the old parties is more of the same. Just think how much they agree on.
On the economy: the Labservatives have been in thrall to the City of London for decades, neglecting the rest of Britain and letting the banks get away with doing whatever they want. And now the Labservatives are both refusing to come clean about the tough decisions needed to sort out the public finances – it’s a conspiracy of silence.

It’s the same story wherever you look: together David Cameron and Gordon Brown have blocked political reform, including our plan to allow people to sack corrupt MPs. The Labservatives compete to sound tough on crime instead of doing what works to actually catch criminals and stop them committing more crimes. And the Labservatives have made UK foreign policy subservient to the interests of the United States, from the illegal invasion of Iraq to the decision to waste £100bn on replacing, like for like, the Cold War era Trident nuclear submarines.

Labservatism is alive and well in Britain today, and only the Liberal Democrats can change that. A vote for Cameron or Brown is a vote for the corrupt, failed status quo. Only Liberal Democrats offer real change.
So wherever you are out campaigning, from Scotland to Cornwall, from Ceredigion to Norfolk, from inner London to rural Cumbria, remember this:

We are not campaigning against two parties: we are campaigning against one. We are campaigning against the old, failed way of doing things. We are campaigning for real, permanent change to build a fairer Britain. It’s a simple choice between old and new.

So get out campaigning, and take on Labservatism in your area. Say No to more of the same and Yes to real change.

Thank you for all of your hard work,

Nick Clegg

Yes, it’s true – the Internet Police have been round and arrested me for neglecting my blog once again. They said I had been blogging with undue care and attention, leaving my blog unattended for many days, even weeks at a time.

Oh blog, what can I say? I neglect you so, yet you sit there showing the world my words 24/7/365 unaffected by my ignoring you. They say I haven’t been feeding you properly, or dressing you appropriately. It’s not that I’ve lost interest, I still care for you – but I’m sorry, I’ve been seeing other Web platforms and activities. Yes, I have been spending increasingly more time with my Web Design business, and I’ve been seen a lot around Twitter and Facebook – I have also been spending a lot time with new clients, or on courses, webinars, or my other business, Ex Ignibus.

It’s not that I don’t love you, I’m just not sure that I’m in love with you – you’re not the blog I met almost 4 years ago (actually that’s true, you’re not that blog but you look and sound just like she did). You’ve got kinda bloated with all those plugins and applications I so love to feed you with, and your dress sense is so out of date compared to my other sites, who all got updated a couple of months ago. Your style just doesn’t fit in with the rest of the pack anymore…. but I don’t want to lose you.

There’s so much we should be doing together, and I know we have a bright future together – we just need to work better as a team, show a united front, and do what we do best together – giving useful information to novices and experts alike, on how to market ethically and effectively online, all about the latest trends online, and how best to use networks like Twitter. We need to up our game, dear blog, so here’s what has to happen.

Nothing much is going to happen here over the next week, because I am absolutely busied up with client work – and no matter what you say, you’ll always come second to my beloved clients.

After that, you and me are going to be spending some quiet time together, working on cleaning you up, getting you into optimised shape, thinning down your plugins, and completely redesigning your style and layout to turn you into one cool, sexy, intelligent blog that people are going to want to hang around with once again.

So get ready, because October is going to go down in history as the month you grew up and left your chrysalid to become a beautiful butterfly, rippling waves of positive effect across the blogosphere.

I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you – I’ll do better, I promise.

Your Naughty Owner,

Rob x

p.s. I got away with a caution from the Internet police, but they said they’d be keeping an eye on me in the future – and they’ll be back if I treat you bad ever again!

Another day of snow in Blighty – I woke up (hideously early at 8am!) to go to my first course today – and it was snowing away merrily outside the windows. Shivering, and seriously tempted to get back under the nice warm duvet, I forced myself to adapt to this time I’ve normally seen when going to bed lately, rather than getting up, and make my way into a rather chilly kitchen to put the kettle on.

20 minutes later I’m braving the snow covered roads to travel the couple of miles to the location of my first course today – Book Keeping and Accounts – a Business Link course I’m taking because I haven’t really used the accountancy skills I learned at university since university! I had an awful feeling that the course would either have been cancelled or no one had turned up due to the weather – but to my surprise there were 10 of us there, and the course ran as normal. I wasn’t that big a fan of accountancy in my younger days – at 16 I spent a summer on work experience in a friend of the family’s accountancy firm. This was where I discovered that, although I find working with numbers relatively straightforward, I don’t have any desire to fill my days with number-related work. After 6 weeks I knew I would never be an Accountant!

19 years later, I find myself needing to be more involved in numbers – fortunately technology has come on a long way in 20 years, and I can run all my accounting functions through some nifty software – currently I’m using Freshbooks and TAS, but I’m looking towards some accounting software that integrates more thoroughly with Freshbooks because I am quite literally in love with Freshbooks as my invoicing, time tracking, estimating and customer support tool! Unfortunately, most of the stuff I’ve come across so far is set up for US tax, and I need a UK version!

After the course I made my way over to Hospital for an appointment with my specialist, who has very nicely put me on a course of different painkillers as my current ones weren’t being as effective as they used to… Only time will tell if the new ones are any good – I hope so, I’m sick of cold-weather pain at the moment, and it reduces my ability to get around! I am 37 going on 107 some days!

Then at 6pm I went to my second course of the day – Business Planning. When I’d got home from the hospital I’d got quite comfy so going out again wasn’t the easiest job in the world… However, when you really decide to take control of your life the sofa isn’t the quicksand it once was and escape wasn’t that hard. Now don’t laugh…

I got to the venue and parked up and hobbled up to the door, buzzed and waited for a response. Nothing.
Buzzed again…. and again nothing. So I ambled round the front to the main doors – which had security gates pulled shut and the lights were all off… ‘Strange’ I thought, so I took out my booking form and rang the number. Unfortunately it was after 6 so there was only out of hours cover, but she said someone would call me straight back… 3 hours later I’m still waiting, so I’m glad I decided to drive home rather than wait there for the call!

After making a cuppa, I sat down with my diary and looked at the details again… right time – yes, right place – yes. Hmmmm, so I looked at the booking confirmation email – right time, yes – right places – yes, right month – NOOO!!! Yes, Mr Thicky here turned up a whole 28 days too early for the course, which rather explains the closed building I guess – Oops a daisy Rob! So here I sit feeling somewhat lacking in intelligence for my calendar-ical error. Stupid Stupid Rob! Gotta laugh though, eh?!?!

I’ve been out once this week already with my camera photographing wintry scenes at a Lake nearby, and think I’m going out again tomorrow. After discovering HDR imagery recently, I find myself motivated to go out in the cold to get some rather nice pics, if I do say so myself. Here’s one from Newmillerdam lake, a few miles from here. I’ve applied some HDR effects to create the effect.

Newmillerdam in the Winter

As I was snapping, I was lucky to catch this moment of madness too – I laughed for about 10 mins after it happened, and I’m so chuffed I managed to snap it – do not feed the birds, people! It nearly smacked the guy straight in the face – missed him by millimetres!

Killer Gulls Spotted in Local Beauty Spot!

Rob

Now you may know already about my sleep problems. If not, you are about to!

Rob Can't Sleep

Since I’ve been very young I’ve always found it difficult to sleep on a night, but as I’ve got older it’s got worse – especially since I had 3 big extreme sport accidents that mean I get a lot of pain through the night (and the day!)
I have painkillers, relaxants and even sleeping tablets to help me get a decent night’s kip, but they don’t always work.

It’s nothing for me to stay up all night working on the PC, going to bed at 8am if I bother going at all. My record for not sleeping is 106 hours – that was a long week!

When I am asleep, I’m impossible to wake up – for instance, I have 6 powerful plug-in alarms (battery alarms have NO chance) which require me to get out of bed to reach each in a different location in the room. I often end up sleeping until 2 or 3 in the afternoon – if I’ve taken a sleeping tablet I end up sleeping in all day – heck I woke up at 8pm this evening, missing a lovely Sunday Roast at my Mum’s house.

Telephones have no chance of waking me from my slumber, so reminders that I’m meant to be doing something when I’m asleep just go to voice mail.

The trouble with such a lifestyle is that you miss the daytime an awful lot – and it’s difficult to make appointments, difficult to work during the day, you don’t get much sunlight – heck I feel like a non-blood-drinking vampire!

I do, however, most of my best work through the night, finding the peace and quiet a pleasure that helps me to concentrate, focus and write/design documents so much better than I do in the day with all the distractions (on the days I do rise before night-time!)

It’s not unusual for me to work a couple of days without sleep, seated at the PC the whole time except for breaks, trips to the shops, etc….

Now I have a problem! Starting the week after next I have lots of courses I’m attending towards progressing my business development. Many of them take place at 9.30am – a time I’ve only seen when it’s been as I’m going to bed. I haven’t got up at 8.30 for months – it’s going to be a challenge, but I’m at the stage where I’m ready to do this – if I have to train after no sleep so be it. I’m also trying to return my sleeping pattern to what most people consider ‘normal’, sleeping from 12 til 8am. I have to admit I’m finding it so hard – my pain does not like to be told when it has to leave me alone so I can sleep!

The fact that I’m writing this gives away that I am still up after 2am (although I had a sleeping tablet about 2 hours ago). I’m not even slightly tired, and I have a horrendous ache all down the right side of my back.

I’ve tried every cure I can find for the lack of sleeping, but it’s been a lifelong partner of mine. Lately I’ve started to wonder if I don’t have an extended body clock – heck I could be evolving like that because it’s got easier, not harder, to do 35-40 hour sessions at the PC. I read something once that you should only go to bed when you’re tired enough… I don’t think I’d ever sleep again if that’s the only time you should sleep!
I’ve used lavender essential oils and candles, I don’t watch TV in bed on a night unless it’s a special occasion, I have a mug of hot chocolate made with warmed milk – although not tonight as I ran out of hot chocolate!

Anyone else share my sleep problems, and suspect they might have ‘evolved’ to a new sleeping pattern?!?!

Got any tips? I’d love to hear from you,

Rob

Bimble-Gate

My use of the word ‘Bimbling’, when asked what I’d been doing this afternoon, earlier almost caused an intellectual ruckus when I was accused of inventing my own word by a friend who would not accept this as a valid description of my activity! After the initial disagreement over whether it’s a word or not, I took to the web for clarification!

An internet search reveals definitions in the Urban Dictionary and Wiktionary which confirmed my understanding of the definition of the word – To wander in a happy but slightly disengaged state, though with some harmless or ineffective intent – I had been doing exactly that online this afternoon!

He still wouldn’t accept it was a real world unless the Oxford Dictionary confirmed it – and the only free version of that I found online is the concise version – which doesn’t include it!

When two more friends arrived they were asked if they knew what bimbling was – one did and it’s a word he uses quite a bit.

The other, however, thought it was another new one of the multitude of social networks he often sees me using when he’s here! Anyone decides to set up a Web 2.0 app and calls it Bimbling – I want shares!

So we were no closer to achieving a majority decision… and we’re still not! So it’s time to ask you!

We agreed in the end to compromise and use the terms ‘coloquialism’ and regional dialect to describe it, but I wonder how far the term ‘bimbling’ reaches beyond my home city of Wakefield in the UK – do any of the foreign readers among you recognise it? Have you heard it before?

So what do you think – valid word (as per scrabble rules) or not? Add your comments below…

The Wisdom of Seth

“Thing is, most of the stuff you do online doesnt cost money” so begins a great post by Seth Godin about the leverage individuals have online… if they do it right and don’t spend too much time bimbling – my choice of words, not Seth’s!

I like Seth Godin, he seems to talk a lot of sense about modern marketing. I’ve ordered 3 of his books for Christmas! None of the bookshops near me stock him though – no call for business authors here in Wakefield apparently!!!

Ah well, over to Amazon we go!!!

Here are some of Seth Godin’s Books on Amazon.com:

Here are the same Seth Godin Books on Amazon.co.uk:

Last Shopping Weekend before Xmas, it was quiet in town this afternoon though. Everyone’s skint!

Rob