Chart Topper

There are many misconceptions people have about the internet and the relationship their website has with it, these generally revolve around how people find their site and if applicable, start buying their products.

A primary aim of site owners (myself included) is a position on the first page of a web-search. There are many companies who promise this as a service, but here's where that promise may be misleading.

Say I own the first website to sell Broccoli online, you'd expect me to be No.1 in a search engine ranking for "Broccoli". Of course there is a huge amount of detritus out there on the internet that will impede that. Eventually once my site has matured it will likely crawl up the ranks and get to a more noticable place than the 54th page of results.

Meanwhile, I recieve an email from a company offering Search Engine Optimization services (SEO) saying - hey, we can get your site into the top ten of Google search results. So yeah, sounds like a plan to me. I pay them and sure enough, my website is listed in the top ten, well, my company is. Via their directory website. Which is full of advertising.

So OK, all's well enough, I have the online presence I desired. What happens though when another Brocolli seller decides to sell online? do they automatically get the No.2 Position? I've been around longer, sure my site only has two pages which haven't been updated since the site was launched, but I was there first. Sorry, wrong.

And here's the real crunch. What if I'm the eleventh company selling Brocolli to approach an agency offering SEO that 'guarantees' me a place in the first page top ten of Google search results?

SEO is internet snake oil. If you want your site to be reaching your potential audience it takes work. There's no magic button or switch that announces your arrival on the internet with a gala opening, no queues of people lining up to see what your selling, you have to knock on the door of every one of your potential customers and let them know you're out there.


A search from "Digital Ink" currently brings my website in at fourth place out of 1,250,000

Customer Subservience

So I walk into my local shop, take up a paper and 1/2 Litre of milk to the short queue and pay my £1 with a nod and a smile to the same guy who's stood there and taken my money every day for the past 4 years. I don't know the mans name but we know each other, I'm a good customer, he's a good shopkeeper. The papers are always nicely arranged and belong to the current day, the milk is fresh and nowhere near its due date.

One day, waiting while he checks the age of some potential minor looking to buy a bottle of MD 20/20, a man walks up to the counter (he has the same paper and milk as I do), puts 90 pence on the counter and walks away. "Hang on a second!" cries the till attendant, you forgot this! The seemingly belligerent customer returns and instead of, as I suspected, being berated for his un-british queueing conduct, is handed a fresh pack of Hubba Bubba picked from the counter display. "You forgot your free bubble gum sir, or would you prefer chewing gum? We've got some nice cherry menthol airwaves here".

The surly man grunts his approval and stuffs the pink and lime green packet into his jacket pocket before marching off to his destination.

Bemused, I wait for the aforementioned (probable student) customer to prove he's the legal age for the purchase of toxic liquids, make his purchase and leave, putting me to the front of the line.

"Hi, so is the paper on a special offer today? 10p off and a free pack of gum - I'll take that cherry menthol thanks!"

"No sir, that'll be one pound, do you want some chewing gum, that'll be one pound 49 pence."

"Ahhh no - just that and that. But the guy before last, he got the same as I did except it cost less and he got the free gum?"

"New customer, just moved into the area."

"Sorry?"

"New customer, just moved here, from up the road. To make sure he buys his milk and newspaper from here rather than his old shop I offered him ten pence off, free gum and the right to just barge in front of other customers. He just had to agree to come in here every day for a year."

"And what if he doesn't?" I ask.

"Well we told him we'd sue his ass!", he laughs "but of course we wouldn't really, not worth it in the end, you seen how much a lawyer costs these days! License to print money so it is, wish I'd listened to my mother on that one!".

So I'm pretty puzzled by now. "Hang on, he's just come to the area and gets all these offers? I didn't get any of that stuff when I started coming here!"

"Welllll… there's more local shops now… more competition… we have to do something to make sure our customers are loyal."

"But I've been loyal!, heck I've spent a pound in here every day of the week for the past four years… that's… that's like… a LOT!"

"One thousand, five hundred, and twelve pounds - thirteen if you'd like to include todays purchase".

"Well there you go! Christ! you wouldn't HAVE a shop if it wasn't for customers like me!"

He pulls out a form from under the counter: "Well if you'd just like to sign here, I can offer you the same deal."

"Ohhh no" says I "What if I loose my job? What if I have to move, or I break my leg and can't make it down here every day?"

"Well sir" he says, putting the form back under the counter, "In that case we'd have to sue your ass."

Pissed off, I left the paper and milk on the counter and walked out, empty handed for the first time in what was apparently 1512, sorry 13 days. I might have been mistaken but I'm sure I heard his voice echoing into the street "Bye! My name is Kamal, this conversation may have been recorded!"

So now I'm looking for somewhere else to buy my paper and milk. I'm thinking of just going to the library, I'll read the papers there, it's free and you know what, coffee doesn't taste too bad without milk, think I prefer it really.

That's a true story, you just need to swap "Local Shop" for "British Telecom", paper and milk for "Broadband" and let your imagination do the rest.

Meeting of minds

While living in Edinburgh the amount of wildlife present in the city was entrancing. Foxes, Badgers, Hedgehogs, even the occasional Deer. The only creatures to be seen in Stirling are rabbits and the seemingly solitary grey squirrel in the gardens over the road. Querétaro is an abundance of the weird and wonderful insects and lizards only seen on television in the UK.

And of course rodents.

I've no problem with the smaller and furrier of our earths co-inhabitants, most people seem to feel the need to kill them upon sight, something I'm not too keen on.

While living on Morrison Street in Edinburgh, I awoke one night with no real sensory or physical reason for my stirring. I just opened my eyes and there directly in my line of sight was a mouse. I should point out I sleep on the floor, albeit on a mattress on the floor, just never seen the point of spending large sums of money to be slightly elevated while sleeping - digression.

So there, sitting on the floor, illuminated by the moonlight bleached orange streetlights and looking directly at me was this tiny 'intruder'. We stayed like that for all too short a time, my mind filling with questions as to how was it I came to be woken at that very instant, what was this little visitor thinking, who had more right to be there, was it actually looking at me and more to the point, directly at my face, my eyes, or just staring into amorphous space.

Ten years on and I still ponder over that encounter. If ever there was a time that made me believe there's more to "Life, the Universe and Everything" than what we perceive through our supposed five senses, it was then. I just hope should a similar event occur my guest isn't of the exoskeletal variety.

Yeah, we get scorpions round these parts.

That Elusive Sense of Achievement II

I'm a bit of a 'completest', just hate to leave things undone, suppose it's what's now come in part to be known as obsessive compulsive disorder. While a lot of video games are 'without end' like Space Invaders, Pac Man (though that's not entirely true, seeing as it crashes at level 256), the vast majority are story led, they have an end and for someone like me that can become a bit of a problem. I recently came into possession of an xBox 360 and found the interesting "achievements" feature. Play 100 Games of Hexic and get an achievement activated, complete a level in Prey, and get an achievement.

While many of these can be a simple case of just starting the game, a number of them require some dedicated amounts of gameplay or a convoluted number of combinations of otherwise pointless actions.

As with most things these days there's a seemingly large online community of people dedicated to getting 100% of all these achievement points in each game they purchase, unfortunately I imagine there's a number of real life achievements they're possibly missing out on in their quest for online bragging rights.

So I guess my own problems with being a completest arn't that great, I still would really really love to know what happens when you finish Frankie goes to Hollywood on the Commodore 64 though…

Who's supposed to be watching who?

So far in life I've bought one TV set, a 23", 4:3 aspect ratio, manufacturer unknown, which rarely showed the correct colours and had from the day of purchase an annoying line right down the middle of it's highly convex screen. Prior to that, visual media was fed to me via a 14" portable which I'd dragged from abode to abode since receiving it as a parental gift aged 16.

Recently I had purchased for me a whopping 32" Samsung HD LCD which I'm sure uses more electricity than the rest of my household appliances combined and will make a fantastic radiator come winter.

Not long after its arrival I received a letter from the TV Licensing 'people' telling me they were aware of the fact a TV had been delivered to my home yet no licence existed for this address. The following is my response to them.

I recently received a letter saying that you had found that a TV had been delivered to my address having been bought on DABS.com.

Yes indeed my girlfriend bought a TV for me from there, I do however believe no license is required for the following reasons:

I have NO intention of watching broadcast television.
The TV has NOT been tuned into to any stations and shall remain as such.
I have a collection of around 1,000 DVDs which I could quite comfortably take the rest of my life to watch, plus I have a subscription to the lovefilm.com service, so receive around 4 films a week that I actually WANT to watch.
I have seven games consoles from the past 3 decades and a collection of more videogames than I can be bothered counting.
I am not likely to be spending much more time in the UK.

I would ask that you look at the current TV listings and tell me if there is ANYTHING that is likely to appeal to my 'demographic'. I'm a 36 year old male, single (as in unmarried and live alone), with an I.Q. in the top 5% for my age group. My entertainment interests are centered around Sci-Fi, Korean horror and what is generally termed 'extreme' music or 'Power Electronics'. I am also capable of reading something other than OK, Zoo or Loaded, my favorite author being Philip K. Dick.

So I am NOT interested in the increasingly popular gossip culture, reality TV 'stars' or the bovine stupidity inducing monotony of continuous repeats of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please.  I didn't have a TV for almost a year and STILL somehow managed to see that episode with the haunted pub about six times!

So if you can point me in the direction of any TV show I'd find to be beyond sickeningly banal then I'd GLADLY pay for a license, provided of course that the cost of such is in comparison to buying said series on DVD about a week or so after it's been broadcast - a la Doctor Who… which while a touch infantile I do still have a soft spot for.

As a web designer I'm very familiar with the huge amount of on-demand entertainment resources online. I am an avid exponent of youtube and recently joined the Joost beta program, which thankfully has many shows that I've been wanting to see for years but have never been broadcast in the UK nor made available on DVD.

I don't wish to come across as elitist, suggesting that TV is for "The Proles" (Orwell, 1984, Big Brother - the book, not the alarming popular TV show (Channel 4 sticks a camera in a womans bedroom and it's called entertainment - I do it and get 6 months and a restraining order (joke)) but the fact is TV is aimed at the lowest common denominator and I am firmly outside of any form of classification that the BBC is willing to 'entertain'.

So, I'd quite gladly have one of your officers round to inspect my property and the equipment here, should I be incorrect in my assumption that having the TV for purposes OTHER than watching broadcast television still requires a license then I appologise for my misunderstanding but would wish to see documentation to clarify why this is the case. If it is so then I shall dispose of said television and return to my previous methods of watching films on my 6" portable DVD and letting my consoles continue to gather dust until such time as I take myself abroad.

Food Glorious Food II : BD IV

The fruits wrought from carcasses of swine are regarded here in much the same way as hardcore pornography back home. It's there if you want it and know how to find it, but kept out of sight from children and self-respecting members of the community.
Plenty of poor substitutes are available in the form of beef or chicken luncheon meat, chicken hotdogs and rashers of breakfast veal. Stocking my food cupboard has become considerably easier in recent months. Having discovered larger chain supermarkets outside Manama, vast quantities of ready-made meals and cooking sauces are now at my disposal. Cheese is ridiculously hard to get hold of. Coldstores only seem to stock 'Happy Cow" a Dairy Lea type of product and processed cheese slices that the locals can't get enough of. Jawads (the local name for the Tesco brand), has a nice little deli section with a good range of mouldy cheeses and it was while perusing these nuggets of creamery gold that I stumbled across a shrine.

Barely noticeable was a gap leading to a secret treasure of more pork produce than you could shake a pot of apple sauce at. Pate, hotdogs, sausages, bacon, chops, loin, ribs, even that pie with the egg in the middle. Filling my basket like Hong Kong Phooey would, I slowed when the display degenerated into a pork autopsy. I was at an exhibition of body parts more suitable for grinding down to fertilizer than human consumption. Knuckles, bags of tails and icepops of blood, rinds, tongues and testicles - you name it, it was there, pink and frozen. 
Already stilted I halted abruptly when presented to the 10.23kg, cling film wrapped head of the creature who's anatomy was commonly disguised as a desirable accompaniment to egg, beans, grilled tomato and tattie scones.

Must admit, it looked quite serene…

Dichotomy : BD III

I was wandering around the Manama Souq looking for a suitable vendor from which to purchase beds for some friends imminent and much anticipated visit. In an alleyway I saw a woman sitting with whom I presumed was her offspring.
The child was obviously suffering from borderline malnutrition, barely aware of its surroundings, skin and threadlike muscles sagging from it's bones. I observed, while passing, as she tried to slide bread into the child's mouth which was just a slack opening to a head lolling about in her arms.
I found exactly what I wanted, paid BD30 (£50) of the 60 I was carrying, went home and ate a meal of sundried tomato and oregano pasta in a red pesto sauce with a glass of freshly juiced mango, while waiting for the delivery of my acquisitions.

Two days ago I found a dog lying outside the office, protecting itself from the afternoon sun in the shade of our building. The animal was obviously suffering from borderline malnutrition, barely aware of its surroundings, skin and threadlike muscles sagging from it's bones. I went back into the office and took from the fridge the packet of sliced roast beef I had planned to make sandwiches from for the forthcoming weeks lunch. I threw the meat to the dog and cautiously it emerged from its shelter, sniffed the food and with a swift jerk of its head threw it down its throat.
The next evening, on my way home, I saw the same dog sniffing beside one of the many restaurant bins which pollute the afternoon air. As I reached out to pat its head, it turned sharply, snarled with a vehemence I'd never before witnessed in an animal and ran off.