My view isn't trendy, and it sure as hell isn't going to be popular, but it's my journal and my opinion.

If anyone would like to actually debate the issue, please feel free - that's how we all learn and develop. I welcome it.



I'm bored with people jumping on the 'easy target' that is the Catholic church. I'm not Catholic, but i watch a hordes of people grabbing the next excuse for christian-bashing, and I feel somewhat saddened. It's nauseating and exceptionally cowardly. So, you don't like the Christian church? Don't go to one, but let people have freedom of religion, it's called being part of a civilised society.

The voices of outrage currently accusing the Pope of bigotry didn't sound so loud when Islam4UK were planning their march through Wooton Bassett, or when Channel 4 decided that President Armadinajad of Iraq was a great candidate for the alternative Christmas speech. Never mind not wanting to facilitate gay adoption, there's a man who would like to behead every homosexual person on the planet. Where were you then? Oh, that's right, it didn't give you an excuse to bash the church, so you couldn't be arsed.

It's 'cool' to bash the church, right kids? But when it comes to the real injustices in our world, then it's easier to sit back in a glow of smug self-satisfaction.

Oh, and for the record, I can see the Pope's perspective. He (like the majority of practicing Christians), feel that placing children to be parented within homosexual relationships are not in the best interests of a child. Whether this is right or wrong is besides the point. If Christian adoption charities don't want to hand children over to gay couples because it's agains their beliefs., then what the hell is wrong with gay couples who wish to adopt approaching secular agencies, such as their local authority. I don't see how this is any different to charities set up to assist BME groups, or only women. If you don't fit the target group, go elsewhere. I wouldn't turn up at an Asian women's support centre and ask for help, I'd go to the CAB. If you want to protest this decision, why aren't you protesting against the gay police support charity, because they don't help straight people? We're either all people and all equal by law (in which case gay, lesbian, black, disabled etc groups must be instantly banned), or we're all entitled to our own freedom of conscience, and we all vote with our feet. Which seems fairer to you, because you can't have your all-inclusive cake and eat it.

Please don't bring the Catholic church's history of child abuse into this, because it isn't the here and now, and is (whilst a horrendous stain on the church that will take decades to shift) an irrelevance in this argument. The same for accusing the Catholic faith of spreading AIDS because of their stance on contraception. The church doesn't believe in contraception, but it also doesn't believe in sex outside marriage, so AIDS spread through sexual contact is something of a moot point. There are very few Catholics in the (predominently african) nations who currently have the highest HIV infection rates, and those that are there are as aware of the churches' teaching on extramarital sex as they are of its stance on condoms. Why therefore does this form part of any otherwise unrelated argument about the Catholic church?

If you want to debate my point of view on this, I welcome it, but please stick to the issue at hand.

Hopefully without typos this time!

Can anyone speare 3 minutes answering this one, please?

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MFFXWHH

All responses greatly appreciated!

Drove home, through mild flurries of snow, listening to Chris Evans get more excited than any adult has the right to be about snow. It was oddly infectious.

Arrived home to find Andy most pleased with himself, announcing that he had been thoughtful. Cue the smell of a lovely dinner and a mug of steaming hot spiced wine. Did I mention that husband is a wonderful man?

We ate while watching Never Mind the Buzzcocks, finally decorated the tree, then saw the full-on blizzard outside.

Andy is now contentedly playing Left for Dad 2, while I chill out with a glass of wine.

In the middle of any maelstrom of mental, frenetic activity and pants-on-head madness, there is an eye of the storm, where it's calm. Said eye of the storm appears to be currently in our living room.

Life is mad, but it's a good kind of mad.

If you like music, then read on....

My musical recommendations for the week are as follows:

1)Go to www.helpforheroes.co.uk and download John Tam's beautiful recording of 'Love Farewell' with the Band of the Rifles. Fantastic music and all for an excellent cause, for the bargain price of £1.

Then, if you want something to tear it up a bit after the haunting and uplifting refrains of the wonderful Mr Tams, then proceed to step 2...

2)Please. Go Here: http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download-Track/6-/RecentReleases.html

Download the album version of 'Killing In The Name Of'.
It's currently the most downloaded track on Pl...ay.com. It'll take 10 seconds and cost you 65p.

Help everyone with any music in their soul fight back against the sick moronic freak show that is the X Factor. Then enjoy your track! I know most of you already own the album, but humour me, it's christmas!

I know a lot of people are expressing boredom with reading about the campaign for RATM for christmas number 1, but...

a) You can't be as bored as I am of hearing about the sodding X Factor.
b) It's my LJ, and if you don't like it, you don't have to read it:

I'm doing a bit of market research, and I was wondering if you could help.

I've created a survey about nightwear, and it would be really useful if you could help in the following ways:

1) Please could you take the survey? It will take a maximum of 5 minutes and is anonymous - I will only be able to see the general collated responses, and I won't know who answered what!

2) Could you also forward the link to anyone who you think might be happy to do the same?

The link to the survey is here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z27NZN8

Thanks!

Cut for the disinterested:


So, I decided to take the plunge, and I've registered a few domains for the business concepts. I'm halfway through the huge quantity of paperwork required to tie them all in together as a limited company.

As it stands, the structure seems to work as follows:

Ohm Group Ltd - the umbrella limited company, with the following divisions:

1) Ohm Electrical Safety (does what it says on the tin!)
2) Ohm Communications (Conversation recording & CTI)
3) Ohm Management (The consulting bit)
4) Ohm Publishing (Where the book stuff already lives!)
5) Ohm Innovation (The quiet little brother in the background which I'm going to use to develop the mad invention!)

What I really need is a brand design that's going to tie all of these together, and make them obviously part of the same project. I figured that the simplest way to do this was to keep all the stationery and similar gubbins in the same colours and fonts, but the other key element is a single logo.

I picked Ohm as a name for the following reasons:

1) The publishing house is already called Ohm, and is already registered with the British Library and Nielsen, which would be a ballache to change.

2) Ohm has 2 meanings - it's the symbol/unit in electronics by which you measure resistance (which is instantly recognisable, if only because it's also the greek 'omega' letter). This makes it suitable for the first 2 divisions. The second meaning is it's use as a 'sacred sound' in hinduism. A sacred sound is a mantra people repeat in meditation to exact a change of mindset. The idea in this case is that divisions 3 and 5 offer tools to provide a change in practice and mindset. The publishing side covers both - the titles are either about electronics or changing practices.

So far, so good. Except I'm crap at drawing, and worse at design ideas.

So, I figured the best way to harness the power of the skills my mates have is to run a competition. You know the concepts, so why not design a logo?

The winner gets bragging rights, the chance to have their design used for real, and a surprise pressie dependent on who the winner is (i.e. I'm not going to send a bottle of wine to a teetotaller, or some perfume to a bloke!)

If you want to enter, then draw your idea and email it to me at charley underscore downey at hotmail dot co dot uk by Christmas.

I'll then put all the entries on Flickr, send people the link, and Andy and I will pick a winner and email all the entrants (as well as show off the winning design on here).

Any takers?

Sod it.

I'm doing it.

If I don't have a pop now, I'll find myself sitting in a chair 20 years hence, watching Eastenders and wondering what the f*ck happened.

I'm going to finish up my contract, form an umbrella limited company with my more relaxed other half, take on the conversation recorder division from my boss, help Andy set up the electrical safety business, work what after this afternoon became 6 days a month - 4 for my soon to be ex-company as a consultant, and 2 days directly for my soon to be ex-boss as a consultant on a very cool (but currently must be secret) project.

I'm then going to flex my address book fu and network like the corporate whore I can't help being, and try to convince other companies they need me to kill their overheads.

While all this is going on, I'm going to bug the crap out of some of my business associates for access to their associates, and generally bust my ass in the persuit of a government R&D grant for my crazy little invention.

Oh yes, and I'm going to finish my second book (for charity), and hopefully whore out some articles on the back of it. I may even keep my promise and do a little bit of volunteer mentoring for young lasses on the Prince's Trust Youth Business programme.

Yes, It's going to be busy. Yes, it's going to be mad. Yes, it's going to be economically uncertain. But I'm going to love every lunatic, back-of-a-fag-packet, pants-on-head-bonkers minute of it.

And if I haven't got a halfway decent living out of it in 7 months time, when my existing consultancy work dries up, then I'll go back to reality and sell engineering or pharmaceuticals again.

It may end in glory, it may end in corporate 9-to-5 mundanery again, but my boss was right today in the car. I'm an entrepreneur, and no amount of pretending it's a dirty work is going to change my personality or my skill-set. If I'm not on my toes, I lose my patience.

I'm going out (of my mind?). I may be some time.

Well...the last couple of weeks have been an insane blur of general confusion.

I'm going to cut-tag what could be a long and complex post, but if you have 10 minutes, I would appreciate your input.

( Read more... )

OK...Alice Cooper is playing Sheffield on the last Saturday in November, and Nottingham on 4th December.

Who wants to come?

I WILL be booking tickets on Sunday as I want to go come hell or high water, so if you want in on this, let me know soon.

Well, the letter hit the mat this morning.

I'm a war pensioner.

It feels a bit odd, having convinced myself I was going to get a rejection letter.

So, the good stuff is.....

I'm now allowed to see a chiropractor privately.
I'm being given some money to pay for this.
I can cancel my prescription direct debit, as I have a veteran's exemption certificate for any prescription that's connected with my disability (which is all of them)
I'm getting the house insulated, and it's going to be free as it's considered that a warm house is an important part of keeping me mobile.

I've been given an interim assessment, which means that they think I'm not too bad now, but may get worse in the future, which sounds about right. This means that if/when it does get worse, I can contact them and ask for a re-assessment, and they will adjust things accordingly.

This is all good and important stuff, but I just need to deal with the stuff in my head about being disabled and a pensioner aged 31. I know that nothing's changed about who I am, but it just feels a little odd.