Moose on the Loose

This evening was another one of those proud father moments. My youngest daughter scored her first goal in a competitive football match, a terrific volley on the half turn. All of the opposing team were probably two or three times the size of her & older, but she is a tough little battler who even pollaxed me in a football practice session once.

I have just awoken to the world in my hotel room with a massive hangover with wine lips to match, bless my cotton socks, somehow I don’t think the hair of the dog will be a suitable remedy for me on this ocassion. It looks like this time I shall be the nominated driver going home.

Last night I both had a terrific evening an event called The Vaudeville Experience “Expect the Unexpected” at the Vinopolis in London UK, with approximately 200 to 250 guests in attendance. Organised & hosted by Affiliate Window and generously sponsored by themselves and e2save, DRL, Comet, Play.com, LowCostTravel Group, ELC, Next, CD Wow, Heals, B&Q, Woolworths, I Want One of Those, Party Gaming, Holiday Extras, The Body Shop, Provident Financial. All of whom also donated some excellent prizes in the raffle, in I won a prize too which was a £100 Gift Voucher for Next, which we will share between our children, plus about £55 in vouchers from Play.com which will go towards my daughters books who is studying English Literature at University.

This event certainly has raised the bar with regard to being an excellent soiree & a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

The title to this blog entry was prompted by a very apt comment provided by David Hall of Affiliate Window at the beginning of the evening.

Don’t Affiliates Scrub Up Nicely

If you are currently aware of the current “hot topic” considered in some areas of affiliate marketing, you’ll realise this was indeed an apt & amusing comment.

Last night was certainly a classy affair, where everybody seemed to made concerted effort, with practically all the men wearing tuxedos & bow ties, whilst the ladies looked extremely elegant in their ballgowns & cocktail dresses, such as a friend Jude who wore a dress for the first time since her graduation night and whoms husband Jason had never seen her in a dress before (not even on their wedding day at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas.

Once again kindly thanks for the invitation to Affiliate Window and the sponsors.

When it comes to public transport I’m a total Mardy Bum, I totally dislike it. So imagine my disappointment when my children insisted we were travelling by public transport to the first international match at Wembley today, to watch England Under 21’s v Italy Under 21’s. It is normally quicker to travel 150 miles from my gaff to Birmingham than travelling 15 miles to Central London or 30 miles across London.

Anyhow, the days course of events was as follows:

• £7 to park at the British Rail Station, where the car parking machine didn’t even have prices or times displayed and was temperamental in working.
• There were no seats on the train to Waterloo, infected the old man flu & travelling with kids, we had to stand the whole journey.
• The escalator wasn’t working at Waterloo to transfer onto the Jubilee line, so a nice trudge down the steps.
• Jumped on the train, well at least this time the platform doors didn’t decide to continuously trap me like they did last time.
• However, when we embarked on the underground train, it was sweaty & clammy, yet again there were no seats and the train was packed like sardines! It was awful
• What seemed like the slow train to China, we eventually arrived at Wembley.
• I treated my kids to England flags (£5 each) to wave & a scarf (£5 each) to enjoy the event. couldn’t find a program stand though. Took some photos of the historic occasion.
• Arrived at the stadium turnstiles, only for some security bloke, pleasant his manners were, insisting that children couldn’t bring flags (the sticks to be precise) into the stadium. Great, that’s a tenner down the pan. A bit of a con when they get you to buy the flags at one end of Wembley walk, then prevent you from bringing them in.
• Through the turnstiles we go, daughter had the bottle top of her fizzy drink confiscated/taken away. How petty that was, when if she really wanted to chuck something onto the pitch, she could have simply stuffed a spare bottle top down her sock.
• Before we managed to get to other side of the turnstiles, two security people “a different security company” they claimed, said that sticks under two metres were permitted, well too late, please make your bloody mind up.… However, then they said we were not allowed to use digital cameras to take photos in the stadium? Apparently you have to have a license. Well, you can imagine my verbal response to these poncy security stewards.
• I decided to buy a souvenir programme, until I saw the length of the queues, one I paced at 55 yards, the other snaked around at just under 100 yards, so left that to later.
• We felt peckish, knowing how extortionate food prices are at Wembley, there were no queues at all as most people brought packed lunches & I recommend anybody going to Wembley to do likewise. I remember hearing on Talk Sport radio that morning, how the manager of Wembley boasted about the food product being of high quality. Ermm, what’s difficult about putting hot water into a cup with a tea bag, oh yes, when they forget to add the milk. Bought a jacket spud & some kind of cheese / veggie mix which looked like some fur ball the cat had regurgitated, plus spud wasn’t fully cooked in the centre. We were actually quite jokey with the sales assistant about it all, who said we were her happiest customers all day, yep even a miserable git like me.
• Kick Off, we pulled the camera out to take photos, along with the hundreds of others, I could just imagine security kicking everyone out with cameras or camera phones at that point in time. Blimey it’s meant to be a family occasion. That took about 20 seconds, just enough time to catch what will probably always be the fastest goal at Wembley after 29 seconds.

After that the day picked up a bit.

• It was an entertaining match, 3-3 draw was the result.
• With the masses of people leaving and heading back down Wembley Walk to the train station. I must admit the police had it very well organised, to prevent stampeding, by cordoning off sections & then allowing crowds intermittently through into the station. It was very well rehearsed & executed. Yes, it took a while, but it was safe, especially as there were plenty of families.
• The train arrivals on the return leg of the journey were about every 3 minutes, the platform wasn’t jam packed & there were plenty of seats.

As I chanted to my inner self …

“double seat, double seat, got to get a double seat” .. as the mantra is echoed by other passengers … “double seat, double seat, got to get a double seat”

And to my pleasant surprise we all got one.

On the positive side even though it only cost £6.70 each for adults (1) and £1 each for the kids (2). It still would have been cheaper & more comfortable to travel by car. However i certainly won’t pay Ken Livingston’s congestion charge for the privilege of travelling into London. Probably why, I refuse to attend meetings in London, even if I am being offered lunch by a company. Also, more often than not I come home with a cold, like how this trip aggravated my “man flu” even more.

However the day wasn’t quite complete, as we were disappointed still further by the dire England performance this evening against Israel in what was a lacklustre 0-0 bore draw. To be honest, I think that was expected.

More Importantly, Am I Really A Bar Humbug:

Myself and the children had a really good time. Children as you probably are aware, are not fazed about minor trivialities in life. To them, riding on a train whether empty or full is an adventure, the buzz of the crowds, the junk food, wearing flags as cloaks rather than waving around, wanting to stroke every police horse they passed, and basically having quality time with their daddy. It just puts my Victor Meldrew opinion into a little perspective.

As you can probably tell, our blog has received a fresh lick of paint to spuce it up.

Many thanks to my mate Eric for the hard work he did this afternoon for making all the changes and for arranging the artist to do the cartoon caricature of myself, which epitimises me to some degree. I was gobsmacked at how quickly Eric acheived this all in just a few hours. Also many thanks to another true friend Fraser who initially set up my blog for me.

The artist was Jim Elmore

I can hardly contain my excitement, today is the day that my two children are mascots for Tottenham Hotspur in their match against Watford at our home ground of White Hart Lane. I have got butterflies, my kids are as cool as cucumbers (which is normal) but all of us are extremely excited. We are really looking forward to it! … BTW Happy St Patricks’s Day.

“An Affiliate’s Life is All About Arse! … You’re Either Laughing Your Arse Off, … Kicking Arse, … Busting Your Arse, … Kissing Arse, …Covering Your Arse, … Trying to Get a Piece of Arse (only if you are single), … Behaving Like a Arse, …or You Live / Work with an Arse. (not you dearest if you are reading this)”

There is more humour & interesting articles on a more serious note on this affiliate blog.

5 Star Affiliate Programs

I will be posting shortly on some more important issues, but unfortunately I am still suffering a bit with jet lag after Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas .. “Bless, his cotton socks” .. In addition to this I’ve had a more than normal focused mindset on a couple of new projects and revamping of a tired looking website, with a resurgence in the never lack lustre self-motivation.

Over the festive period of Christmas & New Year and even into new year there will be less posts than normal. Usually from about 21st December to 15th January as my son has a birthday in this period too. So no apologies for any lack of posts.

I’ve tried to always maintain that business revolves around my family lifestyle, not allowing business to rule my life. So far i’ve managed to pretty much hold firm to this principle and would suggest the same to anyone to adopt.

Anyway, may I take this opportunity to wish everybody a healthy, enjoyable & successful 2007, it what will be no doubt an interesting year.

Also a warm thanks for some fabulous Christmas presents from Fraser & Fiona, Paid On Results (Clarke), Buyagift, Search 123, Affiliate Window, Virgin Mobile, Tradedoubler & Google.

Blog Tagging seems to be a current craze (phenonomen) at the moment spreading around like wildfire in the internet “blogosphere”, to the point it is becoming quite mainstream. Blog Tagging is where somebody tags you in their blog and you have to say 5 things that people don’t know about you in your blog. You then tag another 5 people who must do the same. Thanks to Kieron for tagging me.

So here we go…

5 simple things you didn’t know about me:

1. Before I did Affiliate Marketing full time I used to be in the Royal Air Force & had an entertainment agency.

2. I graduated at Kingston University studying Aeronautical Engineering which is totally unrelated to affiliate marketing.

3. I am a football coach and intend to go for my FA Coaching Badges.

4. My musical taste is still stuck in the 80’s, including many favourite bands such as The Cure, Madness, OMD, Depeche Mode, Wham & Adam Ant. I have a urge to attend a fancy dress party as Adam Ant.

5. My favourite food is Chicken Jalfrezi from a local curry house “Red Rose”.

So, in the festive spirit of Christmas here are the 3 people I’m tagging…Fraser, Eric, Matt

If you are one of the very few who has arrived here via our Google Adwords Advert via the search on my name or namesake, then a warm welcome to you.

As of the time of this post it has only received 22 impressions & 4 clicks with a CTR of 18.18% and Avg. CPC of $0.04

For the record, unlike what the Ebay advert suggests on the following link, I am not for sale nor up or auction on Ebay, I cannot be bought .. oh … unless it’s my my favourite curry … and no it doesn’t contain Moose Meat as an ingredient … that would be cannalbilsm.
For those who are wondering what the heck I am on about, visit the following links which is a search on my name & read the relevant thread in the A4U Forum. It questions Ebay’s or their partners unethical practice on bidding on protected trademarks and/or properties & inappropiate phrases whether it’s deemed as passing off … or .. derogatory words or keywords that clearly contravines Google so called Quality Standards.

Click Here for A4U Forum
Click Here for Google Adwords Ad

I am a little disappointed nobody has bidded on me, oh well, at least my children love me.

Let’s see how long it takes Google Adwords to disapprove our relevant advert & allow Ebays irrelevant one as seen here at the current time of posting.

Just incase they do, we have taken the liberty of collecting a screen grab for you.

The simple intention of this particular blog is an amusing send up of Googles questionable & irelevant Quality Score with a suggested bias against affiliates in it’s algorithmic behaviour, in favour of the bigger, deep pocket corporations like Ebay, and the double standards & unfair practices we feel are happening in the industry which will be well documented in due course and should be brought forward to industrial bodies.

I will add to this at a slightly later date but for the time being enjoy the thread on the A4 Forum, but remember the serious undertones in the infringement of your business & trademarks whether you are an affiliate or merchant, and ascertain for yourselves where the faults & reasons lie … Because this blog will eventually attempt to uncover the answers to the question “How Deep Does the Rabbit Hole Go!”

A Message to Ebay & Google: ” Pack It In You Moose Pimps .. This is Moose Abuse & The Moose Cannot Be Bought” … Quote kindly suggested by a friend.

I am so Happy … today I received a phone call saying my my two children will be Spurs mascots at the Tottenham v Watford match on March 17th, 2007 … I am totally ectatstic! When I told my kids, they were so excited that they were jumping around the room with massive adorable smiles.

Yep, you guessed it, we are a proud football family, with 3 Season tickets in the Upper West Stand at White Hart Lane, cheering on Martin Jol’s blue & white army. Mind you my children have the biggest lungs in every department, sometimes I like to think my fine set of man boobs, which were ones impressive pecs are slowly catching up.

My daughter & son will be living, breathing & experiencing the opportunity I could have only dreamed off as a child – what with being a Spurs supporter all my life. I was originally informed the waiting list would be about 2 years, and when I broke the news to the kids I maintained a sullen tone implying that it may be longer, cruel sense of humour ain’t I got.

Well at least I fullfilled one personal dream and that was to kick around a ball on the actual pitch at White Hart Lane, well I did, on the last game of the season at a corporate hospitality bash prior to the unfortunate away game on the last day of the season at West Ham, where half the team went down with food poisoning & we lost losing out on Champions League football. It was a great experience & I even scored a goal, acrobatically jumping up in the air whilst simultaneously switching feet to volley the Beach Ball .. yes that’s right .. a Beach Ball into the top right hand corner of the goal from a massive distance of 6 feet in wind prevailing conditions.

Obviously when the big day for my kids arrives, I’ll blog the big match day.

Come on You Spurs !!!