We Love Ainsley Harriott

We Love Ainsley Harriott, even when he gives his backing to a well planned packaging idea for Tesco's Finest sausages.

Merry Christmas

Christmas is here, then it's gone. Let's not forget what Christmas stands for - giving and recieving of gifts, having a good time with friends and family and having a couple of well-earned days off work. Spare a thought though, for the poor retailers and their staff who have to work really hard in the run up. Well Done - and thanks.
But hey, it's suddenly all over a time to think of warmer days ahead, and summer. Holidays - I'm going to Butlins this year.

Can't wait for Easter - eggs and chocolates and another 2 days off work.
Merry Christmas

All good things must come to an end.

They say that all good things must come to an end. That's very true. For a short time a new idea comes along and it's great. But then the idea gets exploited. Commercial organisations get on board and spoil the freshness and originality of the idea.
For example, we had Car Boot Sales. Ordinary people bought and sold everyday items that they didn't want, and others were grateful to buy their unwanted items. They even ventured out at the crack of dawn on cold mornings to get their slice of the action. Then later came the tradesmen, the small businesses, then the large businesses - prices went up and the ordinary man was booted out.
Then the Internet was born. Millions of people grabbed the new technology and created websites, even small businesses, even huge dot-com corporations were born out of small beginnings. The Net became the home of creative new ideas, new services and information never before available to the masses (without going to the public library).
A lot of filth came along too - but there were always going to be consumers for it. So legislation quickly followed to prevent the Internet from being bombarded with porn, hate and abuse. So how as the Internet progressed. Domination by MSN and Google. Small online businesses are starting to struggle. Enterprising individuals got into Affiliate Marketing and build up sustainable businesses and retail minnows found another outlet to sell through. Now we are seeing that huge investment is making the Internet the domain of the corporate giants. Google assisted many people, but now is killing them off just as easily as they helped them grow. Google now charge heavily for web businesses to advertise (through PayPerClick programs like AdWords). They are now excluding "affiliate" sites from their organic search and closing in to nail the coffin lid closed with "Froogle".
The latest one to make me weep is eBay. It was great - an online auction site. The ordinary man had a new venture. Many people bought or sold on eBay. But look out, what's going on now. Big business is killing it off by limiting the opportunities for Mr Average to buy or sell. Every day the number of "Buy It Now" labels sit next to relatively expensive items (more that you'd pay for by shopping directly). "Buy It Now" is not an auction principle - it's SELLING an item. I hope Mr eBay gets to read this and brings back the basic thrill of eBay that made it so exciting, before it dies in it's own success.

Blinded By The Light

I'm at home now after a hard day at work, but what a horrible journey home on congested, dark roads. So here is my message to the driver I followed on the slow journey home. Oi you - when you come to a halt, how about using your handbrake and take your foot off the foot-brake. Then I won't be blinded by your impressivly bright high-level brake lights.

While we're on the subject of road-users, how about all you simple-minded souls who never turn your front fog lights off. Hey buddy, what are they called - "Fog Lights". That means when it's foggy you can turn them on so your lights penetrate the fog better. They are not "Rain Lamps" or "Nice Clear Evening Lamps", nor are they "Lamps I keep on all the time because I'm thick, inconsiderate and don't care about anyone else, Lamps". Turn them off please so you do not penetrate my anger threshold. Otherwise await PC Plod to tell you to turn them off with a £30 fine for an encouraging reminder.

Hard frost last night.

Did I speak too soon. There was a hard frost last night. Everyone has woken up to frozen windscreens. This would have been the day to make huge profits on ice scrapers, as we all forget where we put them when we used them last. Best of all, those of us who had a cold - well, it's gone now. Brilliant!

Coughs and Colds

Why is the weather so good?

The UK is now entering stage one of climate change.
It's November, and still warm, no overnight frost yet. There are so many of my friends with colds and flu just now. And the reason? It's too warm, and the bugs are not getting killed by a cold snap.
What a load of tosh. Why do people still blame the weather for colds and illnesses. They are viruses, not caused by warmth or cold. They are minute organisms that live in our bodies and pass around through other bodies.
Take this scenario. Bob has a cold - the virus is in his system, he coughs and splutters and his germs are in the air, and they quickly find another body to infect. So Bob passes his cold on to Sue, then Sue to Dick, then Tom, and so on.
Where in this process does the cold virus get exposed to sub-zero temperatures and start kicking up the daisies?

Thankyou B & Q

It's no wonder that B & Q are struggling as a UK DIY retailer. I'm building a shed and wanted to buy some shiplap timber. So out I popped this morning to our local B&Q store, found the shiplap in lengths of 5.4 metres. At £5.99 a piece it was a lot more expensive than I'd anticipated - you can "buy" a complete shed for what that was going to cost, but OK, I'm here now.
Only problem was how to get the wood into my car - 5.4 metres is way to long to fit in safely.
So, knowing B&Q have a cutting facility I loaded up 20 planks onto my trolley and guided it round to the cutting bay. Gradually working my way up the queue a little sign perturbed me - "First 4 cuts free, then 50p per cut" Hang on - I'd got timber costing around £120 and they want another £8 so I can get it into my car.
So I asked an assistant about it - "yes" he said - 50p a cut. But I suggested - you can cut 5 boards at a time can't you, so it will cost me less" Need I say more - "NO" that's the policy.
I returned the timber back to the rack - I didn't feel like stacking it so I left it on the trolley for the next person, who possibly might have a 6 metre long vehicle.
My reason for thanking B&Q was that I went to a local timber yard, a private, small affair and got all the timber I wanted for half the cost. And they cut it for FREE.

Thanks B&Q for saving me so much money - and you haven't even got A SALE.

Looking Younger

My wife returned from a day's shopping for cosmetics, and that sort of stuff, in the hope that some of it will make her look younger.

After a hard day shopping, she still found time, quite a lot of time in fact, to sit at the mirror applying these "miracle" products. Later that night she asked me my opinion. Darling, honestly, if you didn't know me, what age would you say I am?"

Looking over her carefully, I pondered.

Well, Judging from your skin, twenty, and your hair, probably eighteen and your figure - twenty five."

"Oh, you're just saying that to be nice. Be serious." she gushed.

"I am being serious dear", I said, "but I haven't added them up yet!"

Male objects. Female objects.

You might not know this, but a lot of non-living objects are actually male or female.

Here are some examples:

FREEZER BAGS: They are male because they hold everything in, but you can see right through them.

PHOTOCOPIERS: These are female. Once turned off it takes a while to warm them up again. They are an effective for reproduction, provided the right buttons are pushed. It can also wreak havoc if you push the wrong buttons.

TYRES: Tyres are male because they go bald easily and are often over inflated.

HOT AIR BALLOONS: Male - to get them to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under their arse.

SPONGES: Female - because they are soft, squeezable and retain water.

WEB PAGES: Female, because they're constantly being looked at and frequently getting hit on.

TRAINS: Definitely male, because they always use the same old lines for picking up people.

EGG TIMERS: Egg timers are female. Over time, all the weight shifts to the bottom.

HAMMERS: Male. In the last 5000 years, they've hardly changed at all, and are occasionally handy to have around.

THE REMOTE CONTROL: Female. Ha! You probably thought it would be male, but it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it and while he doesn't always know which buttons to push, he just keeps trying... and trying.

Drunken Jesus?

A drunk staggers out of a bar and runs into two priests.

He goes up to them and says, "I'm Jesus Christ."

The first priest says, "No, son, he died for our sins."

So the drunk says "I'm Jesus Christ." to the second priest.

He replies, "No, son, Jesus Christ is the Lord's son and is only with us in spirit now."

The drunk says, "Look, I can prove it." and walks back into the bar with the priests.

The bartender takes one look at the drunk and exclaims,

"Jesus Christ, you're here again?"

Clebrities - what are they?

What does a celebrity have that us ordinary people don't?

It seems that just about anyone can become one. All you need is some TV exposure and something for the masses to hook-up to. This could be that maybe you are pretty, blonde, thick and can't sing. Chantelle, on celebrity Big Bother proved this. A non- celeb became a celebrity - like magic!

Isn't it strange that most celebs spend all their life working on becoming famous, then when they are, they hide from the camera or go around in disguise so as NOT to be noticed?

I wouldn't want to be famous, but I'd like to be wealthier (not rich - but comfortable).

In fact, as Clive James said "Maybe we should all be celebrities - then there wouldn't need to be any distinction". Celebrity "extinction" I'd say.

Children - Adopt one now.

I'd like to adopt a baby. I've already got boy, and a girl. But I want another one. If you have a baby to spare please let me adopt him. I promise I will look after him.

The father of the Malawian boy David Banda has just discovered what "adoption" means. Did he think he was loaning his son for a while? Now adopted by Madonna, on a temporary basis he now says he wouldn't have agreed to adoption if he knew it meant giving up his son "for good".

Mr Banda had previously said the adoption was the "best" for his child. In today's world you know you've "made it" to the top if you can pop over to Africa and pick up a child.

Are children the latest fashion accessory?

New TV commercials for M&S

M&S must be really happy about the new adverts for food from Morrisons and Asda. When the TV ad's start to run the viewer immediately thinks of Marks & Spencer. A good example of copying an idea, but at the same time reinforcing the viewers concept of message given by the images and style of the commercial.

Bollards

The Photo Copier is broken

The Best Free Email service

There are lots of Free Email services, and some are better than others. But which one should you choose? and why would you need a free email account?

Well, before any further ado, you should know about Code Hot UK's own free email offering - it's the one we'd recommend, obviously. Before we set it up, we thought about what people would need and designed it accordingly. We went for the package by Everyone.net - which is a great, fully supported plug-in email system. If you'd like to offer your website visitors a free email service (A good idea when you have a catchy domain name) the everyone.net product is really good.

What is Free Email?
The best known and widely used one is hotmail. It's good, but not the best (it's microsoft, so it's widespread like flu). Free Email sits on a server somewhere, rather than on your own PC.

Whats good about Free Email accounts?
With a "remote" email account you can access your emails - send and recieve - from any computer, anywhere in the world, unlike the static email like Outlook on your PC at home or work. It's good because you can have a number of accounts (email addresses) and can change it (delete and restart with another name) if you become a victim of spam.

What's not so good?
You could be limited to a capped level for storage of emails - so you cannot have huge files or address lists, and so on. Having said that, you can upgrade to a paid account if you get on with your service (That's partly why they are free - in the hope that you upgrade and pay some). Sometimes an email address might be rejected, and not accepted to subscribe to some Internet services (They prefer an email address they know and trust).

Unfortunately, some evil spammers sign up to a lot of free accounts. They spoil it for the rest of us, again.Some free services can bombard you with adverts - which is the main gripe with MSN and Hotmail. The other detracting factor is the size limit for attachments. Having said that, they get better all the time. Needless to say, Code Hot UK email does not suffer from any of the above problems.

As they say, when it's free, it's great value for money.

So here are our top 10 Free Email Accounts (for UK users) :-

#1 - Code Hot UK
#2 - Tiscali
#3 - Yahoo!
#4 - Lycos
#5 - Postmaster Bronze
#6 - Hotmail
#7 - Orange
#8 - Hushmail
#9 - Bluebottle
#10 - Cwazy.net

There you are - if you know of any other good email services - please let us know.

Welcome to the BLOG at Code Hot UK.

Welcome to the BLOG at Code Hot UK.

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