Ronnie Soo

Who is the silhouetted bloke?

It’s actually one of 100 cast iron statues created by artist Antony Gormley, best known for the ‘Angel of the North’ sculpture in Gateshead. They’re situated at Crosby beach, north of Liverpool, and are spread out over a two-mile stretch of the beach. With the incoming tide, some of the statues which are further out actually get submerged!
(The one you see here is much closer to the shore – I’m not that daft!)
The work was only intended to be sited there for a limited time; the original plan was for it to be relocated in 2006 but it was eventually agreed to keep the statues at Crosby permanently. (Presumably Gormley made some more for the intended exhibits elsewhere!) Having the metal men on the beach makes for fascinating picture opportunites; especially at sunset the effect of seeing these life-size figures across the beach is quite dramatic.

Another photo, from another place (pun intended!) soon!

It’s a shame that Borat is no longer in the public eye, for a while back in 2006/2007 he was everywhere, brilliantly played by the comic Sacha Baron Cohen. How he got away with some of his antics I’ll never know, even now you don’t know whether to laugh or cringe at his humour! The character made his debut on British comedy series Da Ali G Show, which centred around Cohen’s earlier spoof hip-hop fan Ali G. Once Cohen feels his characters are becoming too familiar, he retires them.

I like to keep this blog fairly family-friendly so I’ll restrict myself to some of his cleaner (though still politically-incorrect!) outbursts

My wife she is dead…she die in a field…she die from work, an accident, but is not important, I have a new wife.
Yakshemash! In US of A, democracy is very different from Kazakhstan. In America, woman *can* vote, but horse – *cannot*!
American wine is like Kazakhstani wine, but not made from fermented horse urine.
(From Da Ali G Show)

Please, you come see my film. If it not success, I will be execute.
(’Promoting’ his movie!)

Kazakhstan is more civilised now. Women can now travel on inside of bus, and homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat.
(Video response to complaints/legal threats from -the real- Kazakh government!)

More Borat is not hard to find off a quick Google search, but I’ll close this (not too serious!) blog post with a couple of youtube clips…

Trailer for the film:

‘Borat’ appears at the Tour De France!

(I should point out that the film is available on DVD from your favourite stockist and no, I have no connection with the film, its producers or any of the aforementioned retailers!)

Technorati Tags: ali g, borat, borat quotes, kazakhstan, sacha baron cohen

It’s been a proper winter this year here in Britain, but it’s finally coming to an end. Here’s proof!

In previous years we’ve seen snowdrops as early as January but not this year, for once the seasons are in their proper places!
Spring is a nice time for photography with all the blossom, so I hope to be posting some nice pics on here in the coming weeks

I’ve had a few requests from friends of mine to put these photos back up on my new site; they are of Whitesnake guitarists Reb Beach and Doug Aldrich when they appeared at a ‘guitar clinic’ (a public demonstration) organised by the music store Sounds Great Music, just before the band played their 2006 UK tour. The event took place at the Holiday Inn near Manchester Airport, and a substantial number of fans showed up for this chance to see the two guitarists in a more personal setting than the normal concert. The pictures were put on my site when it was on the previous host, when I transferred providers at the end of last year the catalogue was lost. I have found the original catalogue on my hard drive and resubmitted it, it is a basic web layout as created by Picasa and I have changed nothing else. Here then, for my Whitesnake fan friends, is the restored picture gallery of Doug and Reb playing at the guitar clinic.

Reb Beach and Doug Aldrich Guitar Clinic pictures – click to view

A friend of mine has just launched her new venture; she is a graphic designer and illustrator of many years’ experience and also does website design. If you’re looking for good graphic design, a nice illustration for your site or publication, please check out the site. It’s in Finnish and English; not being a Finnish speaker myself I’ve linked you to the English side

Cinnamon Graphics

You’ll find several examples of her work on the website, if you do contact her tell her I sent you !

Plug over!

This week I am visiting North Wales; somewhere I regularly travel to and while here I hope to get some nice photographs. The weather is colder than usual for this time of year, it’s actually been snowing this week!

As a result, I’ve not yet been out with the camera – apart from during the journey down. This picture was taken at Llyn Celyn, late afternoon with the low sun. This picture is straight off the camera, with no enhancement and the only thing I have done is reduce the resolution for the web. The late afternoon sun really makes for a dramatic scene I’m sure you’ll agree.

I hope to bring another photo from this week – if the conditions let up!

Many people are stuck in the same rut, day in and day out just punching the clock. If you are looking to start your own business, perhaps you have wondered just what line of business to pursue?
One thing to avoid are those ‘get rich quick’ schemes so many people see. They are almost always aimed not at getting you, the budding entrepreneur rich, but the advertisers themselves!

There are a lot of people out there looking for the knowledge you may already possess; perhaps it is one of your hobbies or interests outside of your existing ‘day job’. You could start your own blog to write about these things, perhaps sharing a useful piece of information with your readers. From there those readers may also take interest in what else you are doing, and once you establish contact possibilites begin to open up.

Many businesses have sprung up out of new technology over the last decade; at the start of the 2000s mobile phone text messaging was a new thing, and restricted only to the users of the same network. Once it became possible to send messages across the networks, there was a whole new industry. As the phones themselves became more sophisticated, as did the ability for them to play samples of songs, which in itself became a massive industry. Currently it is becoming increasingly important for businesses to become visible in a search engine; you may have knowledge on how to best optimise that for local businesses and this is a valuable resource.

On a completely different level, there are now companies that clean your wheelie bin – a decade or so ago nobody had wheelie bins and so these firms have appeared to capitalise on a market which simply didn’t exist before. You may also have seen advertisments for firms who will value your gold jewellery; again, this is a market which was non-existent a short time ago but has capitalised on the recent recession. So it becomes clear that there are many opportunities out there, and it is often a new trend which kick-starts a new business idea.

Whatever it is you decide to do, it is vital you ACT on your idea. If you do not, somebody else will!
Even if it is simply starting a blog similar to this one, do it today. Don’t leave it until tomorrow.
I hope this post has given you some entrepreneur ideas and some food for thought; if you are looking to break away from that boss and strike out on your own, there has never been a better time.

As someone fairly new to the internet marketing scene I have been taking some excellent training; if like me you’re starting out with a WordPress blog it is important that you get your posts noticed. One way of helping this process is to enable the DoFollow option, I suggest you google this and see why it is so important. In brief, it helps increase your site’s Page Ranking.
The reason it is not enabled by default is to try and eliminate spam; you would also need spam plugins enabled and be prepared to moderate comments that are not relevant to your posts.

Another plugin which was recommended to me is CommentLuv; using this will encourage comments and also help to get those all-important backlinks to your site. These are relatively new concepts to me also, and I am learning as I go along.
If you are in the internet marketing scene and like me, are quite new to it, then I recommend you look into the options to allow DoFollow and CommentLuv, by all means research into them but anything which helps drive traffic to your site has to be a good thing. As I learn more about these tools I will post further blogs detailing how to get more from your own site.

Click to visit Comment Luv
DoFollow Plug in for WordPress

I took this picture today, down by the Liverpool Arena and Convention centre. They have just constructed a new Big Wheel in time for Valentine’s Day; it replaces the previous one which was in the nearby Liverpool ONE complex and which was dismantled at the end of last month. Many cities in this country have taken the idea of the London Eye and installed their own wheels, but at the time of writing this I do not know if this wheel is going to be a permanent fixture or a temporary one.

Anyway, it certainly cannot be missed – here’s my picture from earlier today (Friday 11 February)

Should I get the chance to go on it and get some pictures, they will appear here!

Today’s photo is from 2007, and was taken at Elterwater in the Lake District. The original picture came out a little bit ‘flat’ but with a bit of Photoshop magic it wasn’t too difficult to get more out of it. The colours are not changed, but it has essentially been boosted contrast-wise, so it now looks more like what I visualised when there. Autumn is mine, and many other amateur photographers’, favourite time of year. In Britain, you have to be lucky with the weather as well as the light in order to get the most of the colours at that time. On this day, we had a fine day so it was out with the camera and into the car! Another photo soon.

EDIT: Please note I have made this picture available as a desktop background; the image is available by clicking here