Freedom To Read.

Books, libraries, the Internet & learning.
And it's all free.

Support your local library. You never know when you might need it, or want it.

A beach vlog.

Book: John Peel - The Olivetti Chronicles:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Olivetti-Chro...

Points Mean Prizes?

I'll admit that i've always been more than a little cynical about, so called, "Loyalty Schemes".
For a lot of people, they are usually thought of as just a sneaky way of supermarkets etc monitoring & watching what you buy in their stores.

You only have to look at the promotional vouchers that they send you periodically, through the post, to realise that they have an awful lot of information about your spending habits.
It really is quite frightening, when you start to think about it.

You're giving away all of that information, quite freely & all for the promise of some money off vouchers, or coupons. If somebody was to stop you in the street, or come to your door & ask you about the contents of your shopping basket, would you tell them quite so happily?

So, i guess the question we need to ask is, "Is it really worth giving away all of this information? And what rewards are we gettting in return?"

I remember years ago, my parents collecting Green Shield Stamps. Remember them?
They would be given away, when purchasing certain items, or in certain stores (I think!)
You then stuck the stamps in specially provided books. The idea being to fill up & then save the completed books. You could then exchange these books of stamps for specific items. Which were displayed in special Green Shield Stamp catalogues.

Aah, those were the days.
When nobody was really that bothered about what you were buying & when you were just being rewarded for buying certain goods. Nobody was trying to build up a huge database of what their customers were buying. And your innocent little shopping basket was not being used as a secret market research tool.

I have no doubt that some of these Loyalty Schemes are a lot better, than others. I know for a fact that i get far more from some, than from others.

From a purely personal point of views. I think i do fairly well from the schemes that i use.
I'll admit, that i don't use, or sign up, for very many of these schemes. That is partly because of that cynical nature of mine that i mentioned earlier. I don't really want too many people having too much information stored about me.

I realise that this is probably a very naive pont of view. Because my personal information is, more than likely, currently stored on computers all over the world.
Still, i suppose i can kid myself that this isn't the case?

But, i do feel that i have been "rewarded" pretty well by one of the schemes that i'm signed up to. Albeit, by using it smartly.

As a family, we usually do our shopping at Tesco & as anyone who regularly shops there will know, they have their own loyalty scheme, Tesco Clubcard Points.
Like most people, i suspect, when we first signed up for Clubcard Points, we just got the money off vouchers & were quite happy with that. After all, they are giving you money off vouchers for doing the shopping that you would do anyway. How can you lose?

I then realised that i could have the Clubcard Points transfered straight into my Airmiles account. Yet another Loyalty Scheme. but, one that has the potential to get you free flights.

Well, since making that switch, i have "earned" two free flights to the USA & also a cheap weekend for all the family to New York City. That's some kind of reward for doing your weekly shopping!

In 2008, i got a free return flight, with British Airways, to Chicago & i have just booked another free return flight. This time to Los Angeles, also with British Airways.

And, no, there isn't a catch. In fact, the 'deal" has got better over the years. In the past, you had to pay taxes for the flights. But, now there are no taxes to pay & it is all so much simpler.

I know this all sounds like a bit of an advert for Tesco & Airmiles. But, really the point i'm trying to make is that, if you play the Loyalty Scheme game correctly, it can be used to your advantage.

And, all you have to do is go out and buy your weekly shopping.

Have a nice flight.

Running Free - A Jog Blog.

I posted a blog the other day, "New Years Resolutions - Why?", all about, guess what, New Years resolutions & the fact that i don't make them. Amongst other observations.

One of the aspects of that i talked about, was how many people at this time of year will be thinking about getting fit, or at least trying to lose weight. That is one of the most popular New Years resolutions that i hear & it's the same every year.
I suppose this is only to be expected, after the excesses of the Christmas period.

What made me think of this again, was that this morning i went out for a run. It was my first run of the new year & the first of the new decade for that matter.
As i've mentioned before, either here, on in my vlogs on YouTube, i have been running for over twenty years now.

I first started running when i gave up smoking, which was rather ironically around the New Year of 1985/86. I had tried to give up smoking on a number of occasions before. But, had always started again. I was only what could be termed a "social smoker", but a smoker nonetheless. For example, i never smoked at work. Maybe, for this reason, i found it easier to give up?

I gave up smoking, more or less, on a whim. It wasn't planned at all. I just woke up on the morning of New Years Day in 1986 & never smoked again.
Well, you know how it is on New Years Day morning? The last thing you want is a cigarette! So, i didn't have one. This went on for a fair part of the day & suddenly i thought to myself "why not use this as an opportunity to try & give up smoking for good?"

As mentioned in that recent blog, i didn't tell anybody i was giving up, or at least trying to. I just did it quietly on my own.
For me, this was the best method & it's a method i've stuck with when i've ever wanted to change anything about myself ever since.

A friend of mine had decided to give up around the same time & he suggested that maybe we should try running? To help us get a bit fitter & also to help us combat the evil weed.
I can still remember that very first run & i'm pretty sure my friend can too!
As is usually the case, you never feel that you are actually as unfit as you really are. So, that first run, even though it was for only approx 20 miuntes, was not easy. But, then what did we expect?

We continued these runs for a while & then my friend decided that he was going to stop. I can't remember why.
I now had a decision to make. Do i stop, or do i carry on on my own? Thankfully, i decided to carry on. This was partly because i had come to realise that i was actually enjoying running.
I realise that i am quite lucky to feel this way. So many people i know, who do run, don't really enjoy it & find it a real chore. I am one of the lucky ones who loves to be out there, running free.

I carried on running, gradually increasing the distances, for a few months & then an opportunity to run a real race came up.
On Sunday, May 25th 1986, myself along with millions of others across the world, ran the world for Sport Aid, an offshoot of Band Aid & Live Aid. It was only a 10k "race", but it set the ball rolling for me, as far as running races was concerned.

Since that day, in May 1986, i have run 7 full marathons, including 4 London Marathons, 23 half marathons & many more races of varying distances.
Those races are something that i am very proud of, especially the marathons.

I tend not to run races nowadays & haven't run a full marathon for over 10 years now. I always have good intentions of running races, but those good intentions are usually as far as it goes.
I do still "tick over" as far as running is concerned. I don't run as much as i could, or probably should. But, i still enjoy it when i do & that's the main thing.

I often look back very favourably to that New Years day in 1986, when i decided to give up smoking & also to that day when i forced myself & my friend out of the front door, to go for that first, life changing, run.

I fully intend to keep on running free, for as long as my body, or my heart, will let me.
Here's hoping that will be for quite some time yet.

No Hiding Place

Today, in Britain, we had another one of those reminders that the the world & the nature of news has changed forever.
Although i can't pretend to know the full story, this is a basic synopsis of the story.

A Member of Parliament wanted to ask a question in the House of Commons. The question concerned the oil traders Trafigura and it's involvement with toxic waste in the Ivory Coast & a report about this involvement.
As is normal in these matters a national newspaper, The Guardian, planned to report this. But, then a law firm, Carter-Ruck, got an injunction preventing The Guardian from reporting the question. It was also prevented from naming the MP asking the question, what the question was & why the injunction had been granted in the first place.

This in itself seems to be against everything that Parliament stands for & against the freedom of speech. Usually procedings in Parliament are reported without any problems.

What, of course, Trafigura & Carter-Ruck had forgotten about & not bargained for, was the power of the Internet & especially the power of Twitter.

Word of what had happened soon got out & exploded onto Twitter. Both Trafigura & Carter-Ruck became top trending topics on Twitter & links & Tweets were flying around all over the Internet. I can vouch for this, as when i checked my Twitter feed first thing this morning, it was awash with Tweets about this subject. I wondered what was going on &, of course, followed some of the links. This is exactly what everyone else was doing. Especially as some of the Tweets were coming from some very popular Twitter users, like Stephen Fry.

If you didn't know about this issue before, you certainly knew about it after checking Twitter!
This had the complete opposite effect than what the lawyers & Trafigura wanted & expected. In fact, by suppressing the original story, they managed to create a completely new one.

Thankfully by early afternoon, the lawyers realised that the battle had been lost & the injunction was lifted. The story was then able to be reported quite legally. So, free specch won out in the end & hopefully, a big lesson has been learned by a lot of people.

In these days of world wide Internet access & social networking, nothing stays hidden for very long. In fact, the more you try to suppress a story, or incident, the more likely it is to explode in a way that could never have been imagined, even a few years ago.
Banning a story has the same effect as trying to ban a movie, or a piece of music. It just creates interest & provokes anger & angry people tell other people etc etc.

We have seen the power of Twitter, Facebook & social networking in general, when they have been the first to report news stories like the Hudson River plane crash & the death of Michael Jackson. We have also seen their effect when it came to reporting what was happening following the Iranian election.

The world has changed & maybe the power is starting to shift? Thankfully, in some ways anyway, the people in power seem to be the last to realise this.
Maybe they have been taught a valuable lesson today & one which they will need to learn from.

Power to the people?