Poll Result: Most Against Strikes

I ran a poll recently which closed a few days ago, asking if you supported the strike action taken by DB Glass and Total Window Systems, part of the Epwin Group. These are the results:

Yes: 12
No: 16
Undecided: 5
Total: 33


So just under half of those who voted said that they were against the strike action, which doesn't surprise me, seen as though the appetite for strike action in this country is rather low.


What would be good to know, either from the company or from employees, is if the dispute has been sorted, or if there has been no solution found yet.

Social Media And The Industry

Twitter and blogs are playing an ever bigger role in communication within the industry. 2011 saw some of the biggest events in the industry played out on Twitter and blogs such as this one. Events like the Veka buyout of Bowater made the higher echelons of our industry sit up and take note...finally realizing that Twitter and the rest of social media is now here to stay in our little world, and are going to have to adapt to it, rather than social media adapt to them. 

Debates on the Green Deal and the DGCOS were also played out online. Many people were able to get involved in debates, getting their points across when previously they wouldn't have been able to when the internet wasn't such a powerful and useful tool.

So what is in store for 2012? Personally, I think Twitter will have a massive impact. The glazing community on Twitter is growing bigger every day, increasing the connections in the industry up and down the country. Debates are moving from forums and blogs into the world of Twitter. Probably because it's a more real-time platform, where reactions and replies are far quicker to gauge and respond to.

What about blogs then? Blogs will still have a massive part to play in our industry. Blogs are ideal for breaking a story, something which is very hard to do on Twitter where your 140 characters will restrict you. Blogs will still be the main platform for the larger debates and conversations.

I do have one tip for the heads of companies in our industry. Blogs and tweets are here to stay in our industry now, so your attitude to them also needs to change. Most of you tend to take an aggressive and defensive view to them, probably because you're all very worried information, right or wrong, being written about your company. Your blanket policy of threatening legal action to force bloggers to take information down will at some point fail, as one day we'll just ignore you and carry on publishing. The best way to respond would be to engage bloggers and tweeters, enter the level playing field and join to conversation. This is the right place to put anything right that has previously been said wrong. Forcing someone to take down a post makes you look iron fisted and totally out of touch with modern thinking. Don't lose your credibility by throwing your toys out of the pram.

As always, you'll see me on the online world during the coming year, I hope to see you all there!

New Targets

2012 is nearly upon us, and as always, the question on what resolution to make for yourself comes up.

Mine would have been to join a gym and keep regular, but I'm already doing that so that isn't an option. My yearly resolution for work is always to sell more than the year before, luckily I'm quite good at achieveing that, so can't really use that one either.

So, I may as well look to improve my blogs traffic. These are my targets:

1. I want to reach a steady 3000 visits per month. This seems do-able as I managed to reach that last November and blitzed over 4000 visits during June of this year. 

2. This is the tougher one. I'd like to break the 10,000 page views per month barrier for the next 12 months, accumulating 120,000 page views for the year. I'm going to have to average roughly 350 page views per day in order to do so, which I think is more than possible. But just to put this in some perspective, it's taken me nearly three years to reach 92,000 page views, so it will be one hell of an achievement if I manage to do it!

As always, I'll update my monthly stats page so you can all see my progress! So, expect lots of blog posts and you'll see plenty of me on your Twitter time line!

Merry Christmas!

Here it is again, that time of year to spend quality time with family and friends!

It's been a very long and hard year. So put up your feet, fill your face with food you usually have to burn right back off at the gym, have a beer/glass of wine, and relax knowing you don't have to go back to work for a good 10-14 days!

Thanks to all that have commented this year, ticked a reaction box or just paid me a visit on here. Your support is greatly appreciated and I hope that you all come back next year, and bring a few of your friends too :)

I wish you and all your families a very Happy Christmas!

Warm Wishes

Double Glazing Blogger

Removal Of Post

Once again, the threat of legal action has forced me to remove a post, specifically, the one regarding Masterframe.

I have also deleted the 'General Rant' post. Based on feedback and my own reflections on the post, it probably wasn't the best idea to publish a post with such colourful language! Hence, it's removed.

The last thing I want is to be waking up on Christmas Day worrying about legal action!

Happy Christmas!! XXX

The Green Deal Will Fail

The Guardian has published an article explaining how the Green Deal will significantly fail to meet up to the targets set by the Government.


They claim that out of the 14 million households in need of upgrades, the scheme will only actually reach 2-3 million homes. It get's worse for the Government, as the CCC (Committee on Climate Change), the Government's own body, are the authors of the report!


The reason they give is thus: currently, energy companies have an obligation to homeowners to allow them to improve their energy efficiency. The Green Deal will actually take this obligation away. The 'Golden Rule' of the scheme is that the cost of the upgrades will be outweighed by the savings made, therefore more than paying for itself. However, by taking the obligation away from energy companies, the whole scheme is then left to the devices of the market.


The worry the CCC has is that if energy bills continue to rise at a very high and regular rate, any savings to be made are going to become harder to garner, dragging out the repayment of the loan given to pay for the upgrades in the first place! Of course it's not guaranteed that energy bills will continue on it's steep rising path, but who honestly believes that bills are going to level out or even decrease? I certainly don't.


The Guardian also points out that people may not actually want the hassle of having a whole raft of upgrades being done in their home. Not everyone wants to have windows replaced! People are also going to be worried about cowboys and poor installations.


So, for all the hype and wishful thinking, the Government really needs to get to grips with the real-life details and figure out how to make this scheme work, or risk a lot of hard work culminating in nothing.

You Know It's Time To Quit When...

You know it's time to quit when food and car euphemisms become the main way to describe double glazing! Merry Christmas!

2011: Not The Year For Dictators!

Ben Ali of Tunisia: ousted.

Mubarak of Egypt: ousted.

Gaddafi of Libya: captured and killed.

Saleh of Yemen: attempted assassination and ousted.

Kim Jong-Il of North Korea: died.

Assad of Syria: ?

2011 certainly hasn't been a great year for the dictator. They certainly are becoming an endangered species!

One does hope the very best for all these countries that are going through major changes at the top of their ruling establishments. Though with the death of Kim Jung-Il, one fears how the country will go forward with his inexperienced young son at the helm. With his Swiss education, will he want to improve political ties with the rest of the world? Or, will he want to show his generals beneath him that he is capable of running the country as ruthlessly as his father, and maybe launch a surprise military attack on one of it's enemies to keep the elite unified?

Time will only tell, and obviously we all hope the very best for the impoverished population of North Korea, as well as all the other countries that are going through democratization. 

Improvements For 2012

Sometimes the best way to improve things is to ask those that use your service/product what they would like to see changed. So, for 2012, I would like your feedback on what you would like to see changed and improved on this site for 2012.

It can be absolutely anything; appearance, content, layout upgrades, themes, less/more advertising, more guest posts, more comments from me.

I really would like your responses on this one. I want to keep this site fresh, ever evolving and always engaging!

You Can Be Too Bullish

Social media sights and blogs are full of companies stating how well they seem to be doing. It's been like this all the way through the recession years. Now some of these bits of information are probably going to be true, despite no-one being brave enough yet to post any figures to back up what they're saying. I also fear that the mass majority of reports on how well many are doing are pumped up to save face, to prevent any bad information getting out into the public domain. The problem is, if your company goes bust after you've said how well business is, you're going to have some serious egg on your face.

One perfect example of this is Lakeside Glass who went bust a couple of months ago. They had a member of staff on the now defunct Glasstalk forum website who constantly talked up how well business was. How they were taking on massive contracts and oodles of new customers on a regular basis. In just a couple of years this company is now bust. All this over-positive, sickeningly bullish bullshit talking now looks even more stupid than it did when the company was trading.

Reporting on positive news is all well and good. But there is a fine line between truth and wildly overstating the actual state of affairs. From what I've learned observing these statements from people and companies is that it's better to provide some sorts of numerical proof to back up what you're saying. People using social media are becoming ever more skeptical about information they see, so proof is becoming ever more necessary. Also, it's also pretty easy to spot the bullshit from what's genuine.

You've probably all noticed how little I talk about facts and figures from the company I work for. That's for two reasons. Firstly, we're not a limited company so we have no need to publish any figures what so ever - hence utter privacy - so I don't see the need to talk about it online, no matter how positive or negative things are. Secondly, the minute I talk about how 'well things are right now', I open myself up to scrutiny of what I'm saying.

So, in the future, if you're going to talk about how well business is, make sure it can be proved correct. Don't leave yourself open to ridicule if things go bottoms up!

P.S. the industry has shrunk from £5.4billion to £3.7billion in the last few years. If all the statements online about how well companies seem to be doing were true, our industry wouldn't be in recession and it wouldn't have lost £1.7billion in value!

From Wakefield To Aberystwyth

I've been going to the gym recently and I'm starting to feel and look fitter...finally! Once you get me into something, I get into a routine and I'm usually able to stick to it. So I got to thinking today I should probably use this to my advantage and apply my preference to running to something worthwhile and beneficial to others.

So, I've thought about doing a charity run. It might sound a bit boring at first. Running is running. Nothing much spectacular about that, and I'm too much of a wuss to jump out of a plane or attach my legs to a bungee rope. So instead of doing a piddly half marathon or anything else similar, I thought I might expand my idea and do something a little bit ridiculous to say I've never done any long-distance running. Therefore, I'm thinking of doing a charity run from Wakefield to Aberystwyth!

According to Google Maps, it's 162 miles from home to Aberystwyth. It says it would take 2 days and 6 hours if I were to walk using the A487 as my route. Obviously I'm not going to walk. I'm thinking of spreading the run out to 27 miles per day, for six days, so just over a marathon a day for nearly a week. I think if I do roughly 5-6mph I could probably do it between 4-5 hours per day. I'm not a marathon runner, I'm not aiming for a quick time, long distance is my goal.

I'm currently undecided as to what charity to donate my proceedings to. I'm not aware of how to set this up, who to go to for help etc. So, I'm relying on you lot to help me out with this. Please let give me suggestions for charities, how much you would be prepared to donate and how to get this thing off the ground!

I'm pretty determined to do this. If I think I can get the support then this is something that is definitely going to happen.


Feedback very much needed on this one please!

Dot Com Bubble Burst 2.0?

The internet is probably the biggest single continuing achievement in human history. It constantly evolves to become more and more integrated into our daily lives. It helps organize our lives, entertains us and helps run our businesses. And business is where it's at for the internet. Business and the internet rely on each other, hence there are some absolutely huge internet based companies around at the minute, take Google and Facebook for example.

It's Facebook I really want to focus on here. It has a current subscriber list of roughly 800 million. Behind Google, it's probably the biggest online company on the planet. Up to to now, it has remained a business solely existing in the online universe. But it is currently drawing up plans to float on the stock exchange either before the end of the year or at the beginning of 2012, valuing itself at a staggering $100 billion!

This to me a huge over-estimation of what any internet company could possibly be worth. Facebook is a solely web-based social network, selling no physical product. The company is totally different to someone like Apple, who are currently worth anywhere in the region of $240-$300 billion. The difference here is that they're selling a physical product, something you can hold in your hand and use to boost your personal enjoyment or aid your job in business.


Facebook so far have earned their money through their advertising and selling of private shares to various people and organizations. But can a social-networking site really be worth the $100 billion Zuckerberg is hoping for?


My worry is that trying to turn a website without a physical product into a business is unsustainable. It would rely on public interest. We all thought MySpace was here to stay. Now look what a disheveled presence it now has compared to what it used to be. Thousands of staff made redundant, multiple sales and re-sales, company worth slashed. This is a company which only had social-networking and a music service to offer - something very similar to Facebook.

Are we seeing the makings of a dot com bust 2.0? Look at the share values of other sites like Groupon and LinkedIn. Both have suffered sharp falls in the value of their shares. 

Websites tend to have a pattern of losing interest. This site for example has quite sudden loses of interest from time to time. People must get bored of me! And that can be taken for things like Facebook and other social-networking sites. People will get bored and will want something new, no matter how many times you change the interface and add new extra little features that many probably won't use anyway. So turning something which such a volatile future is very risky, and and I don't personally believe it can work.


Comments and opinions welcomed as always!

Top 7 For 700th!

Well, I've hopped along to my 700th post with this one! When I first started I never even considered the amount of posts going into the many hundreds. But the site has done steadily well over the near three years that this has been running - so for that I thank you!

I thought this might be a good time to look back on what has done well on here, and I may as well forge a 'seven' theme out of the title, so below are the top 7 blog posts that have got me the most views and comments over the past two and three quarter years:

1. Veka/WHS Halo: Meger Or Veka Buyout? 
Story published on May 31st, 2011. Comments: 60. I was the first to publicly break the story of Veka buying the Bowater Building Products group. This by a country mile garnered the most comments, visitors and page views at 2712! May find it hard to top this one any time soon!

2. Tackling The Trickle Vent Issue.
Story published on November 25th 2009. Comments: 4. Surprised to see this as number two really. Maybe it's picked up more consumers wanting to know about trickle vents rather than some of my regular readers wanting to know my opinions of these tacky bits of plastic. Still, it has managed to rack up an impressive 2385 page views.


3. Hot Weather = Hot Sales.
Story published on May 4th 2011. We had a pretty hot start to the beginning of the summer (then it all went down hill!), so this was all about me reflecting on the positive effect that the weather had on sales figures for window companies. This post was viewed 1715 times.


4. Anglian Up For Sale.
Story published on September 6th 2010. Comments: 6. This was my first experience of Anglian being up for sale. We know now that is has been put up another time since this post was published. Once the business is bought I'm sure I'll do a post about that too! People wanted to see what I thought of this 739 times!


5. Is External Georgian Bar Expensive For What It Is?
Story published on May 5th 2010. Comments: 8. This post was just my general ramblings about the cost of external Georgian bar and if it really was worth paying as much as we all do for that product. Personally, I still think it's too expensive! Still, my ramblings were seen 728 times!


6. Economic Tug Of War.
Story published on January 18th 2011. This post was written when certainty about the economy was at an all time low. Since this post was published, the future of our economy looks even less certain! The struggle between rising living costs, raw materials vs wages continues unabated. This post has been viewed 629 times.


7. Synseal Come Out On Top
Story published on January 10th 2011. Comments: 3. For this, I carried out a poll on who the public thought was the best profile manufacturer in the country. Synseal came top of the pile, not my choice however! But still a good manufacturer and well done! This post has gained 457 page views to date.


If any of you feel compelled to read these stories again, I've linked all the titles of the posts to their relevant pages, just for your convenience!


Again, thanks for all your support, visits, page views, comments and recommends on Twitter. Now I'm gonna have to get my thinking cap on for how to mark my 1000th post!

Visitors Or Page Views?

If you're a blogger, there are two main statistics that mean the most. Visitor numbers and page views.

Visitor numbers are vital. The more visitors, the wider spread of people you're reaching out to. One level up from that are unique visitor numbers. The count of separate individuals - rather than numerous visits to your site made by the same people. 

Page views are also a vital statistic. It shows you how many pages your visitors are roaming through while on your site.

But which is more important? Depends on your own personal goals. Me personally, I think visitor numbers are more important. It gives you a clear indication of the scale of your website and how many people it is reaching out to. A website survives on visitor numbers, not necessarily page views.

For example, you could have 30 page views, made by only 3 visitors. Surely a better count of a website's traffic is the number of people coming to read it? I would take 30 visitors making 3 page views each instead.

Page views can also be a bit inefficient at times. Almost all blogs show a minimum of ten posts on the home page. So even if a visitor is reading 5 posts you've written, that is still only going to constitute as one page view, when really it should be recorded as 5.

Time for some stats. On the day this post was written, I had 119 visits to this site, from 102 different people - which I don't think is too bad. I also had 279 page views. Now if I had only told you about the page views, you may think that this isn't that many. But when you consider I'm averaging well over 130 visits per day at the moment from over 100 different people, I'd say that this the better measure of how well the site is doing.

I'd love to hear what all you fellow bloggers think about this, whether you agree or disagree. 

P.S. I'm forming a post about comments and how vital they are too!

High Street Takes Another Hit

It was announced today that for the second time, high street shoe retailers Barratt's is to go into administration, putting nearly 4000 jobs at risk.


The first time their owners went into administration they had to reduce the number of stores by 220 from 380. In total the brand has 191 stores throughout the UK on the high street and in malls, it also own the Priceless Shoes brand.


The Bradford based firm blamed the tough economic trading conditions for it's further difficulties.

Administrators Deloitte said that they were "working closely with suppliers to ensure the business has the best possible platform to secure a sale, preserve jobs and generate as much value as possible for all creditors".


One wonders when the assault on the high street will ease off. Barratts joins a long list of businesses that are either in administration or have fallen prey completely to some of the worst financial and economic conditions since the Great Depression. 


High street chains provide tens of thousands of jobs. Something needs to be done to help the high street remain a viable shopping option. There are too many towns home to baron, once-bustling town centers.

Money For Old Frames

Eurocell have just opened their £3 million brand spanking new recycling centre in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. The facility is capable of processing 12,000 post consumer waste frames per week, adding up to an impressive 624,000 frames per year. This massive new operation put them at the forefront of PVCu recycling in the UK.

In an industry which is battling against fluctuating commodity prices and constant price increases, recycling could be a bit of a magic bullet. 

If a manufacturer can count on the majority of it's PVCu raw material coming from a post consumer waste plant on site, rather than buying in new lengths all the time, then the amount of money that could be saved over time would be immeasurable. And I'm sure a massive relief on what would probably be a very strained profit margin. It would give that company more of a freedom on how it wants to run it's manufacturing process, and give them more of a say on the type of product it wants to produce and sell.

The environmental benefits are also enormous. Saving 624,000 frames from going in a hole in the ground will have a big impact. Now if every major supplier and manufacturer did the same, imagine the many millions of frames not going to landfill. Then imagine all that extra material which could be used to make brand new windows without having to waste money buying new materials!

There is also a huge commercial and advertising opportunity. Recent research has revealed that a fifth of consumers would be prepared to spend around 10% more for a sustainable and 'greener' product, and 60% of people want to buy from an 'environmentally responsible' company. So pushing the green ethics of your business and overhauling your recycling commitments has never been so important! Green is cool!

Review Of The Year: 2011

I know there are about 3 and a bit weeks left of the year, but I thought I might as well claim my spot and be the first to do a review of the year...from my point of view anyway!

Uncertainty
Before the bad years, the industry could count on the typical buying pattern. Beginning of the year used to be quiet, spring would bring a steady rise in trade, summer would see a racking up of business, autumn would see a gradual slow down, November would bring a quick sharp boost in the run up to Christmas, then December it would be hardly worth opening the doors.


The past few years unfortunately haven't provided the window industry with this regular and healthy business pattern - and this year was no exception. From week to week, revenues would fluctuate. Lead levels would look like a roller-coaster if they were plotted on a graph! This creates terrible cash-flow problems for companies, which we all know is the lifeblood of every business. We have seen some companies close their doors because of poor cash-flow, not because the orders weren't there. Banks are suddenly becoming very quick to call in their money these days!


With growth in the industry not set to return until 2015, it looks like the windows market is set to struggle for some stability in the coming few years.


Deal Or No Deal? 
The Green Deal later on in the year certainly caused plenty of debate within the industry. The Green Deal is the Governments flagship policy to get Britain's homes up to a higher standard of energy efficiency, by providing loans via the private sector to homeowners to have improvement work done to raise the energy efficiency of their property.


The GGF worked hard on behalf of the industry to make sure that energy rated windows was included as part of the deal. At first everyone seemed to welcome the plan. But as we all looked into the finer details that were available, questions were then asked about the viability of the deal. The biggest question being would the plan even work if the banks and biggest energy companies weren't prepared to stump up the cash for these loans.


My biggest worry was that even if the Green Deal was established, non-PVCu companies such as Tesco and Homebase, who have now launched their own ranges of PVCu home improvement products, would wade in and steal most of the newly generated business that the Green Deal would have created.


The GGF says that it is working hard to make sure all size and manner of company gets a slice of the Green Deal pie. But I still fear that the commercial power and reach of some of the biggest companies will dampen any improvement for the smaller installation companies in our industry. 


There are still many questions left to ask and many more answers to come. I do sincerely hope that it does bring an equal opportunity for prosperity across the whole industry, as it desperately needs it. The plan is to be implemented in October 2012, I guess only then will we be able to tell if it is going to have a positive impact on an anemic industry.

Social Media Flexes It's Muscles
2011 saw for the first time in our industry how big an effect social media sites like Twitter and blogs can have. In June of this year I broke the story of Veka buying out the Bowater Building products group. This was information that some in the industry knew about, but this site was the first to make it publicly known.


The response on here and on Twitter was immense. Various page views and visitor number records were broken. My Twitter account was even spam attacked to force it to temporarily shut down. I had employees from both companies contacting me asking if I had any extra information. It got to the point where I was feeling rather uncomfortable about having to be the one to explain the state of affairs of the company they worked for.


I got the feeling that both Bowater and Veka wanted me to keep my mouth shut, but they both probably knew I wasn't going to. 


This was the first time social media had any sort of impact on the industry and how it behaved in the online world. It forced more manufacturers to talk. But it has also forced the boards of the bigger companies to maybe have a re-think on how they deal with any sensitive information. 


Social media now has a permanent place in our industry. Whether you are a business wanting to make more business contacts. Whether you're an installers wanting to reach out to more potential customers. Or if you're an industry commentator with a blog of your own and an active Twitter user, social media now has a huge part to play in how our industry is run.


Year Of The Increase
High inflationary costs finally took it's toll on our industry this year. During the first six months of 2011 there seemed to be a never ending stream of letters from suppliers and manufacturers explaining how they would have to be increasing their prices within a matter of weeks.


The worst culprit for this seemed to be the glass manufacturers - most notably Pilkington. I think many of us will have received a letter from them explaining that pretty much all ranges of their insulating and tinted glass would be going up between 10% and a staggering 40% or more! 


The recession years of 2008/2009 and early 2010 finally translated into price rises in 2011. These were highly inconvenient as most companies were adjusting to what was a slow start to the trading year thanks to some of the worst winter weather in 30 years, and what was generally going to be one of the worst years for the industry in quite a long time.


The dilemma left for businesses was huge. Do they raise costs to cover the increases from their suppliers, meaning what was left of their profit margins was left in tact, but risk losing business as a result? Or did they absorb yet more increases, eating up what was left of a very thin profit margin already? From what I could tell and have heard over the last 12 months, it was probably a 50/50 split.


2012
So how does 2012 look? Most of you will probably agree that next year is going to be tough. I would go one step further and say that 2012 is probably one of the toughest years many of us will ever experience. No economic forecasts show any prospect of growth, which will also hit consumer spending at the same time. Prices are set to rise throughout next year as the price of raw materials remain high and inflation adds further pressure to the cost of materials.


January is the hardest time for our industry. Trade is still very slow, the poor weather puts another dampener on things, and tax has to be paid in January. This is the make-or-break time of year for companies. If a business is going to go to the wall, it's more than likely that it's this time of year when it's going to happen. The industry could see a lot of businesses pushed over the edge into liquidation. I know I seem to say this every year, but the economic conditions seem hostile enough for this to happen.


Despite what is going to be a very a tough year, I still believe that companies can make the most of what business is left to get out there. Companies have to be at their most fluid and adaptable if they are to steal as much market share as possible.


It can be done. We did it during 2008/2009 and we can do it again now. I think it will be tougher, but I think we are one of the most adaptable and durable industries the UK has to offer. We'll all just have to take it week by week and keep analyzing how we do our business.


I want to thank all of you for your support this year. This has been the best year for my blog so far, and for that I am greatly appreciative! A huge thank you to all my readers, regular or occasional. And a big thanks to all those who left a comment and joined in the conversation. I hope to see you all next year!

Have a very merry and relaxing Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

#project200

As the title of this post suggests, this is to promote the new #project200 campaign for @SophiiMaria's blog; http://www.sophiimaria.blogspot.com.

After the resounding success of #project100 yesterday, which I only started after lunch time, it's time to step this up a gear and aim for the 200 page view mark. Ideally, it would be nice to reach this milestone on a regular basis, rather than this be just a one off event. So, like yesterday, your support on this little project would be greatly appreciated.

Why am I doing this? Sophii is a student at Aberystwyth University and trying to make it in the entertainment industry. Exposure at this stage is one of the most important things for her right now, hence all the help I'm giving her. Also, she's now set up AdSense on her site, enabling her to earn some vital extra cash from her sight. Money is extremely important when you're a student. So seeing as though it's the festive season and a time for helping and giving, why not click on an ad and help her out?!

I'll be tweeting #project200 with a link to her site throughout the day, and Sophii will be publishing new posts on a regular basis today and the coming days!

A Big Thankyou!

For those of you on Twitter, you will have noticed I was heavily promoting @SophiiMaria's webiste; http://www.sophiimaria.blogspot.com using the hashtag #project100.

The whole aim of #project100 was to help Sophii's site get past the 100 page views mark before the end of the day. And thanks to you lovely people, she actually managed to get to 106 as midnight struck! So this post is generally a very big thankyou to all those who heeded my tweets and clicked on the link to her site! I'm sure she'll say on Twitter, but I know it meant a lot to her!

You may be wondering why I am promoting her site so much? Well, first of all, she's my girlfriend, so that's reason enough! But, on a more serious note, her aim is to become an actress. So she's using social media to help get noticed by as many people as possible, and I'm doing all I can to help. The more people that know/speak to her, the better chance she has of finding opportunities. She's also rooting out all those in the arts industry on Twitter and following them also.

Thanks to you guys, yesterday's #project100 was a total success, so THANKS! However, the next post is going to explain the next landmark for her site to get to!

How To Treat A Woman, Chef Style!

This is just a bit of fun, it is a bit rude though, with a naughty swear word right at the end! Very funny though! Enjoy!

First Snowfall Of The Year

I think we all remember too well scenes like these:

I know we have only had a few showers for now, but the outlook from the middle of this week is for it to remain cold. The last thing we would want before Christmas and for the beginning of the New Year is for total white-out like we have had for the last few winters. Now certainly is not the time for installers to be held up on their fitting schedules and for deliveries not to be made.


However, a bit of snow for Christmas Day and our office party on the 17th December wouldn't go a miss. Would make for some nice festive photo opportunities!

Now Is Not The Time For Striking

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the strikes that happened last Wednesday. So here's mine, and I'll try and keep this as swift as possible. On a subject like this it's easy to get carried away!

For me, striking at a time when the country is struggling to get it's economy back on track is down right selfish. The point of the Unions is that their workers signed a contract which said their pensions would be protected. However, we live in extraordinary times, therefore the menial contract means very little right now. People and companies have to be open to constant change and adaptation, if the economy is to function as smoothly as possible. This is something the private sector seems to understand. Which is also the reason why the private sector always seems to get annoyed at the public sector. The private is the first to feel the effects of any downturn, but just seems to get on with things, no matter how unhappy they might be. This isn't something that can be said for the public.

These strikes also took place while negotiations were still on going, which to me is quite rude and shows very little respect for the talking/negotiation process. It was always my thinking that measures like this were only taken when every possibility of a positive result are exhausted. However it seems that negotiations with the Government were not exhausted, so more time should have been given.

This is only my brief opinion right now, and will publish a far more elaborate and detailed report as to why these strikes were very much the wrong course of action to take.