Advertisements

At the top of his page are some adverts for Amazon. They are supposed to be relevant to what I write, but something isn't working.
If you click on one of them I receive a minuscule amount of money, so it would be better if they were more targeted.
The 2010 World Cup is going to start in South Africa in a few days, which probably explains why one of the ads is for a football video game.
I have absolutely no interest in football. At least not in the so-called game where young louts are paid stupid amounts of money to appear on a patch of Astroturf. I will happily watch a match if I know at least one of the players personally.
Football is not the most popular sport, despite all the media hype it attracts. It is the easiest sport to watch and therefore the most difficult to avoid watching, as it consumes many hours of the TV schedule.
TV is the reason why football is crap. They pump stupid amounts of money into the industry, even when the matches are boring nil-nil draws. Personally I would pay teams a bonus for good behavior and sportsmanship and fine them huge amounts for bad behavior on, or off, the pitch.
I've heard people justify the excessive amounts of money paid to sports people, because they can only work for a few years. That's illogical, because other people can only work for a few years, but they don't receive million pound salaries. I was told by a recruitment agent 20 years ago, that he wouldn't waste his time trying to find me employment in one of Scotland's big banks. He said that they never consider anyone over the age of 35, so why wasn't I paid millions, if my career was brutally terminated at 35 years of age like thousands of other IT staff?

Millets wellington boots

I recently purchase a pair of 'Hunter Lowther' unisex wellies from Millets online store, for my wife. She has genuine Hunters for riding her horse (and obviously to keep her feet dry) but they cost more than double these Hunter Lowthers.
The boots arrived within a few days, so full marks for delivery, but they aren't suitable for riding. Riders need their boots to come up above the saddle flaps to be safe, these boots were too short and would catch under the flaps with disastrous consequences in the event of a fall.
I wrote a review for Millets, which explained exactly why they weren't suitable for riding and also commented that my wife found the boots a bit tight and inflexible. It's strange that the official Hunter boot website has no reference to these 'Hunters'.
My remarks were rejected by Millets, because they breech their 'guidelines'. They obviously don't want people to be able to make an informed purchasing decision.

Rip off

My local paper, like many, is running a photographic competition. There are 6 prizes, £50 for winners in each of the categories, and £25 for 2 runners-up in each category.
The rip-off is that the terms of the competition state that the newspaper can publish any of the photographs, even those that haven't won a prize. Photos may also be used in advertising literature, by the sponsors.
It's about time that competitions recognised that photographs are valuable assets and photographers should be rewarded for their efforts.
If a photograph is good enough to use, it's worth paying for it. This article gives a good explanation why it's better to pay for a decent photograph than to use a free, or cheap.