Recently readThis New York Times piece about politicians’ use of hand sanitising gels made me feel queasy just reading it. I’m not an anti-bacterial maniac, but I have a thing about clean hands. If I see you touch the floor or put dirty washing in the machine, I will struggle over whether or not to suggest […]
Filed under: Life, Manners, Politics | 4 Comments »
My friend Russ Willey has written the London Gazetteer, a brilliant book which explores all of the lesser known nooks and crannies of this city. Russ is a life-long obsessive about ‘Hidden London‘, and if ever someone was born to write a book like this, he was.
On October 12, Will Self wrote the following in […]
Filed under: Books, Friends, Life, Manners | 1 Comment »
Guardian man Neil McIntosh is going through his version of Dell Hell, this time with Philips. Don’t just blog it, Neil: Get a piece in the paper out of this.
On a happier note, when I asked Sainsbury’s why they keep sending me lean organic mince every time I order extra lean organic mince, they apologised […]
Filed under: Business, Life, Manners, Treating Customers Well | 3 Comments »
Wow, I’ve wanted to write this post for a while, but I didn’t want to do it after I’d just hosted some event, because I didn’t want people to think I was talking about those who were at that event. Now that it’s been about three weeks since my last party, I’m just going to […]
Filed under: Life, Manners | 2 Comments »
In the scheme of things (war, death, famine), my day has been pretty good. In the scheme of life as I’ve grown accustomed to living it (free of drama, passive-aggressiveness, and other wastes of time), it’s been bad.
One friend, across six thousand miles and with nothing but her instincts to go on (we hadn’t […]
Filed under: Friends, Life, Manners | No Comments »
How do you do someone a favour and not drive yourself crazy? This seems pretty obvious now that someone’s told me how to do it, but in short: Do them a favour which is no big deal to you, even though it may be a big deal to them, and shy away from doing favours […]
Filed under: Business, Friends, Life, Manners, Relationships, Survival | No Comments »
I was very excited when Ben Casnocha invited me to attend this quarter’s two Silicon Valley Junto lunches - Thursday’s on the peninsula and today’s in San Francisco. I had intended to make the one yesterday, but sadly had to bow out due to my ridiculous schedule here. I’m so very glad that I went […]
Filed under: Blogging, Communication, Friends, Life, Manners | 4 Comments »
Pierce Mattie, thy name is mud.
Filed under: Blogging, Life, Manners, PR | 5 Comments »
Wordcamp was pretty fun; I was there at 7.45 this morning, but only sat in on about ten minutes of one session (podcasting and vlogging). I spent the rest of the time handing out free t-shirts or printing name tags for people, answering questions about timetables and where the food was and where the nearest […]
Filed under: Blogging, Fun, Life, Manners, People I Know, Tools | 3 Comments »
Not so long ago, I was spammed by Feedpass, and ended up getting in a rather sternly worded email ‘discussion’ with them. They also pissed off a lot of other bloggers. Now, the entire company is for sale on eBay. What I want to know is, who’s the schmuck who thinks this POS is worth […]
Filed under: Business, Life, Manners, RSS Subscriptions, Technology | 1 Comment »
Some comments really deserve a post of their own. My friend Nancy Rommelmann writes about her teenage daughter’s experience with United Airlines last month:
Last month, Tafv showed up for a United flight from LAX to Portland an hour early. The airport was mobbed; there were 300 people outside on the curb, not being allowed into […]
Filed under: Business, Friends, Life, Manners, Treating Customers Well | 3 Comments »
You know, I have total sympathy with the woman in this story. United Airlines employees are some of the rudest, most apathetic, unhelpful people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.
Just last month, I had to get very terse with one of them for treating Adriana like dirt. I think my exact words […]
Filed under: Business, Friends, Life, Manners, Treating Customers Well | 6 Comments »
I’ve rarely been happier to be back in London. It is not a bit hot here! We actually used the duvet last night! It is possible to walk outside without melting! We were at Petica Evans’ naming party yesterday, standing outside the entire time, and did not leave drenched in sweat.
The bad news is that […]
Filed under: Home, Life, Manners, Music | 3 Comments »
So I just incorporated a new company. In fact, it was only incorporated on 19 June. Today, in the post, I had some snail mail spam from Switchmedia (no link love, sorry), telling me about all of the web hosting options they could offer my new company.
Needless to say, they won’t be getting my […]
Filed under: Business, Life, Manners, Marketing | 4 Comments »