Rallye Aicha des Gazelles, Edition 2012

My client Benedicte, from the British Moroccan Society, has told me she is taking part in the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles, Edition 2012 which is the biggest women only rally in the world and held in Morocco and off road.
Or as she might say, “Un rallye automobile pour femmes dans le desert Marocain”

See  www.2smilygazelles.com and gazellesoffpiste.blogspot.com for more information.

Wedding Bells by Chris Martin

Wedding Bells would certainly have a place on my top ten list of Coldplay songs, but sadly Chris/Coldplay is yet to  release it, or even record it as far as we know.  I am guessing this is a combination of it not being finished, not being the right fit for Mylo Xyloto and perhaps it being Chris Martin’s song.

 

Hopefully it is being saved for a later project or album, pending the penning of lyrics for the chorus.  Christmas Lights and Wedding Bells seem to go together so hopefully Coldplay will shortly return to what they do best… wistful melancholy with a feint hint of cheese.

Top Ten Favourite Coldplay Songs Ever

This is my list of Coldplay’s best tracks to date… my favourites anyway!
  1. Yellow
  2. In My Place
  3. Viva La Vida
  4. Fix You
  5. Death and all his Friends
  6. Violet Hill
  7. Christmas Lights
  8. The Scientist
  9. Til Kingdom Come
  10. Postcards from Heaven

Wedding Bells would certainly have a place on this list, but sadly Coldplay are yet to  release it, or even record it as far as we know.  I am guessing this is a combination of it not being finished, not being the right fit for Mylo Xyloto and it being Chris Martin’s song.  Maybe it is being saved for a later project or album, pending the penning of lyrics for the chorus.  The only version available so far is from Chris Martin’s gig for the Apple conference.

 

Mylo Xyloto Review

With every new album Coldplay released since their Parachutes debut, I am initially disappointed, until repeated listening allow it to grow on me until I declare it their best album since Parachutes.  I fear that trend has finally been broken with Mylo Xyloto.  I still have a few more listens to go before my favourite songs settle into place and often it is the subtler tracks which reveal themselves last.

 

Charlie Brown, with a sublime piano echoing at the finish.

 

 

 

 

Jigoshop vs WooThemes

I am setting up new eCommerce websites for a couple of different clients and seek the perfect WordPress solution, whether a plugin, a theme or both. Having found the WP e-Commerce plugin to be clunky and buggy, I went back to the drawing board and conducted a review of all the leading WordPress eCommerce solutions out there.  It seems the leading solution is Jigoshop, which has now been forked by WooThemes, both literally and also when forked is considered a homonym (ideally using a northern accent).

The Ethical Considerations

My observations so far are that WooThemes did nothing illegal, only ethically dubious.  If they had acted more transparently and made a more generous and considerate offer for Jigoshop, perhaps thigns could have been more amicable.

Jigoshop could have better remunerated their two ecommerce developers, so they weren’t so easily stolen away by WooThemes.  If the JigoWatt, the JigoShop owners, had given their star developers decent shares in the company, they would have enjoyed their loyalty too.

The Differrences

All in one – WooCommerce bundling the extras together, by including SEO, emails, etc, as standard, makes more sense than Jigoshop’s (and Shopify’s) strategy of splitting out the premium optional extras.

Themes – WooCommerce have some great theme developers in their team, and are already churning out some nice looking designs

The Future

WordPress is not JigoWatts sole core business and it seems WooThemes have more focus, weight and money behind them.  Woo have a bigger community supporting them, not to mention the two main developers that built JigoShop now in their corner. All this suggests Woo are better placed to develop the WooCommerce solution more successfully than JigoShop will develop their solution.

 

Lethal Injunction

What connects Ryan Giggs, Hugh Bonneville, Rio Ferdinand, Fred Goodwin, Andrew Marr and Viscount Linley?  Absolutely nothing whatsover. Not a sausage.

Are they all the poor innocent victims of some terrible rumours?  Definitely not. No rumours here.

There are also definitely no rumours whatsover about many more celebrities: Jeremy Clarkson, Gordon Ramsay, Steven Gerard, David Threlfall, Alan Shearer and many more.

The fact the mainstream media cannot comment on the successful recipients of injunctions leaves it up to rogue bloggers to speculate. Well you won’t catch me doing it. No way.

But seriously, do we really live in a country where it is perfectly legal to spread untrue rumours about innocent celebrities, while anyone who publishes the truth about the guilty celebrities can be sent to jail?

And is it right that the rich and famous can buy themselves immunity while the poor, mere non-celebrities can be exposed and torn apart by the mainstream media?

Various words spring to mind – backwards, ironic, unjust and simply not fair on anyone.

So many names get thrown around by the bloggers sheer guesswork, it becomes a case of guilty until proven innocent. Did one blogger hear about a “British actor in films who uses Twitter” and guess Ewan McGregor? If so, the speculation caught on and other bloggers reported it as fact. Seems unfair on Ewan, assuming that is he is innocent.  I have no idea. If he is, but the rumours spread, poor Ewan may be resorting to bit parts on Downton Abbey before long, and with more than a mild grudge against the Lord of the Manor!

Perhaps the best thing about injunctions is the way rogue journalists, who do actually know who the guilty parties are, decide to reveal their identities cryptically.  And sometimes not so cryptically. Private Eye is a reliable hunter of injunction holders, always exposed with humour and style, see also the efforts of the Daily Mails, the Daily Mash

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