Anyone with a WordPress Blog should install the free plugin Akismet which filters all the spam comments for you.

You have to be careful with some plugins because they can eat up memory and slow down your blog loading time. However if you only install one plugin – Akismet is the one. You don’t want a stream of links to porn or gambling sites suddenly appearing on your blog. 

I have had Akismet installed from day one of my blog, and the only spam that has got through are from the early days. In my naivety I didn’t realise that  “what a fantastic blog” was just a spam comment.

1) “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Rhett Butler, Clark Gable ‘Gone with the Wind’ 1939
2) “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Don Vito Corleone, Marlon Brando ‘The Godfather’ 1972
3) “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.”  Terry Malloy, Marlon Brando ‘On the Waterfront’ 1954
4) “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Dorothy Gale, Judy Garland ‘The Wizard of Oz’ 1939
5) “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Rick Blaine, Humphrey Bogart ‘Casablanca’ 1942
6) “Go ahead, make my day” Harry Callahan, Clint Eastwood ‘Sudden Impact’ 1983
7)“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”  Norma Desmond, Gloria Swanson ‘Sunset Boulevard’ 1950
8 ) “May the Force be with you.” Han Solo, Harrison Ford ‘Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope’ 1977
9)“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Margo Channing, Bette Davis ‘All About Eve’ 1950
10) “You talkin’ to me?” Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro ‘Taxi Driver’ 1976

Yippee! Last night I went to the pub, sold two of my paintings, and took an order for another one from the Landlord. That meant I drank all night and came back from the Hope and Anchor with more money than I started with.

This wasn’t an accident, but it WAS unexpected. One of the locals wanted a painting of the Alex character played by Malcolm McDowell in the film A Clockwork Orange. I painted two versions so he would have a choice. Then I took them to the pub together with another Clockwork Orange painting that I completed last year. 

You can WIN a 5 mile race, even if you can’t run more than 100 yards without walking!…….. HOW? Simple, you enter a handicapped race.

This works by the organiser estimating each entrants finishing time. If you have to run, walk, run, walk for example, your 5 mile time may be 1 hour 15 minutes. A regular runner like myself can complete the course in 34 minutes. So in the race you would start off 41 minutes before me, and we would both approach the finishing line at the same time.

I confess that this was prompted by my falling asleep during a new extended version of the 1926 silent film ‘Metropolis’. It’s definitely boring, but not the most boring film I have ever seen. That accolade goes to Gosford Park by Robert Altman.

For those of you lucky enough not to have seen Gosford Park, here’s what happens – nothing. That’s the whole film, nothing happens. The only entertaining part is the competition among the audience to see who falls asleep first.

The American Film Institute have named my favourite movie as the best Science Fiction film of all time;  2001 A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1968. The full list is here:
 

You don’t have to read the whole post to get the cure for Information Overload, It’s simple; – STOP BUYING.

If you have been in the Internet Marketing universe for more than a couple of months, you  have already downloaded far more stuff onto your computer than you can ever hope to use, let alone look at.  So DON’T BUY any more.

People with money to burn can ignore this, for the rest of us, (and I include myself), we need to actually work and develop what we have already paid for.

The film Clockwork Orange was banned in the UK because the director Stanley Kubrick feared British society could not cope with the ‘ultra-violence’ it depicted. There had been tabloid newspaper reports of ‘copycat’ violence breaking out after the film was released, and Kubrick himself had received death threats.

What made Clockwork Orange so controversial?

It was beautifully filmed and used Beethoven as the soundtrack. The violent scenes were often in slow motion with almost balletic aspects. 

Alex and his feral gang had their own uniform of white boiler suits, black braces and a bowler hat. They even had their own language. “Horror show” meant ‘good’ or ‘wicked’ in todays terms.  The overall effect was to glorify violence and make it seem trendy and fun. Not a good message for the youth of Britain.

The customer is always right, so if your clients make any suggestions to you, it’s worth following up. I am currently painting pictures of Batman for one of my customers. I would not normally have chosen this subject as Batman is a DC (Detective Comics) character, and I have always been a Marvel Comics fan.

I have already supplied a painting of Voldemort (Harry Potter’s arch enemy) for Esther, who gave it to her son for his birthday. Now her other son also wants a painting, and he is a Batman fan. Although the customer is always right, you can still negotiate and adapt any suggestions made.

If you sell physical products you need to deal with postage prices. Paypal lets you choose between individually setting a postage price for each product, or having the post value set by a rising scale linked to the total order value.

This is fine if all your products have weights in proportion to the selling price, but what if you have very light expensive products, or heavy cheap products? The Paypal postage scale becomes unworkable, and I haven’t even mentioned the problem of UK, European and Worldwide postage differences!