Review: The Four Agreements

If you have read any of Carlos Castaneda's books and wondered what the heck he was on about, then maybe Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements" is for you. Subtitled "A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" it covers some of Castaneda's ground, but in plain English. While Castaneda's books are fascinating, he rambles a lot because he was learning at the time he wrote them. Ruiz instead gets right to the point and he clearly understands what he is talking about. In a nutshell, the book is about how to free your mind of negative, self-limiting thoughts and habits, using the ostensibly straightforward method of making four simple agreements with yourself. He says that what he is teaching is Toltec wisdom, that is, native American shamanism (Ruiz claims to be a nagual), but wherever it comes from, it makes a lot of sense to me. Indeed, I was gratified on reading it to discover that I already apply much of what he teaches: maybe I understood more of Castaneda's books than I realized! Of course, I'm not rich yet, but I am much happier than I used to be, most of the time.

The four agreements, in summary, are these:

1. Be impeccable with your word: i.e., be honest with yourself and others and do not talk yourself or other people down;
2. Don't take anything personally: when people 'insult' you or behave selfishly or foist their opinions on you, remember that it is not to do with you, it is to do with them: they have their own issues and viewpoints, which are not your problem. You do not need to worry about what they say or think;
3. Don't make assumptions: before jumping to conclusions about what people mean by what they do or say, ask them. Go to great lengths to avoid any misunderstanding.
   
4. Always do your best: you can avoid much self-criticism when you can reply to yourself, "I did my best," as long as you remember that your best will vary from time-to-time and you are prepared to forgive yourself for your weaknesses.

He also explains some of Casteneda's other terminology, such as the dream of the second attention. But whether you have read Castaneda or not, read this book. It is one of those books that everybody should read and I am quite sure that it can change lives - for the better.

EBay Scams

I have been experimenting with trying to sell one of my flats on EBay, and my car. Does it work? Er... not so far, anyway. What it does do, though, is attract deadbeats and fraudsters. You have to have your wits about you to avoid getting scammed!

For example, I advertised my car, and someone sent me an e-mail from within the EBay system asking me what my reserve price was. Well, being new to this, I couldn't really see anything wrong with telling him, so I did. He immediately bid that price... and the auction seemed to turn into a dead duck right there. My reserve was too high anyway, but nobody else bid after that. Well, he "won" the auction but, naturally enough, disappeared. Perhaps he thought I would be stuck paying EBay's fees, but I complained to them about him and got a free auction instead. Still, now when people ask, I don't tell them.

I have put the car back in. This time, the scams are different, and more sinister. I have been e-mailed by several different people all saying much the same. Here is an example:

Hello ,on behalf of my client i'll like to buy your (1994 FORD ESCORT)for £695.I'll also wish to tell you that i already have shipping agent that will come for the goods.If you're ready for that,then get in touch with me immediately.

Some ask about the condition of the car. Well, the ad describes its condition, so I guess that they are not reading the ad - possibly some robot or minion is scanning the ads for basic details and leaving the rest. Anyway, it is a clue that something is wrong.

Some offer a price for it - a previously advertised price of £695. Hmm...

Well, I followed up one, "milly". Her opening gambit was like this:

Hello,
I'm milly .I am interested in your[1994 FORD ESCORT 1.8TD LX 5dr Estate]and I'll like to know
your last offering price and to see the pics or to know the condition if it will be okay with me.I'll be
making my payment with a certified cashier's cheque .If you do I want you to get in touch with me
immediately for me to proceed with the Payment. As for the shipping I'll contact a shipper agent of
mine who will arranged for the Pick up as soon as the transaction is sealed and get back .I'll be
looking forward to your response.
Thanks and Have a Nice day.
Regards
milly.

Note in both e-mails the dodgy quoting of the car's details straight from the ad: [1994 FORD ESCORT 1.8TD LX 5dr Estate] in the latter one. Obviously pulled out by a robot, which probably also sent the e-mail to me. Anyway, "milly" had a Canadian Yahoo! e-mail address (although the mail headers, on analysis with Sam Spade, suggest the person is in Belgium), said (in garbled English) that her shipper owed her £4400 and would I accept a cheque for that amount and send her the difference? Er... right. On looking up that scam on the Internet, I discovered that what happens is they send you a false or altered cheque (i.e., a genuine one that has been stolen and altered, usually) that will usually pay in to your account successfully, but which on final checking, the bank will eventually discover is false and will reclaim the money - after you have sent £4400-£695 to the fraudster. Incidentally, she also asked for name and address details for me... a possible prelude to identity theft. I didn't tell her.

I had a phone call from one of these scammers today. Well, I assume it was a scammer - he asked about the condition of the car... I told him it was described in the ad (but it was a bit dented and drives well - he could be genuine after all)... and wanted to know the price. I didn't tell him. I said it was in the auction and he could bid for it there. He noted that it had an MOT (must have read the ad, then) and asked if it was taxed. Nope, it isn't. He could be genuine... difficult to tell with this one. If he comes to view it, I suppose I shall have to watch out for fake cheques or something. Or if he wants to test drive it, maybe he will try and separate me from the car for a minute so he can steal it (mind you, it isn't taxed... so no test drive then). Were I to allow a test drive, I would probably need a friend to sit in the car no matter what during the test drive so there are three people, not just me and him. Dunno. Dunno if I should give him my address so he can view it. I should make sure the official documents are not left in the car at this time, anyway - no point letting him steal those too. But I don't think he will call back, somehow. Mind you, he left is mobile number on my phone. Genuine? Hmm...

Whoa... hold the bus! I've just remembered that I am also advertising it in Auto Trader, where the condition isn't described (due to lack of space) and where the price is £695... Argh! Now what? Are they scammers, or not? Well, if they mention "shipping agent" I would reckon they are. The phone guy is probably genuine, though. Still, it doesn't hurt to take precautions. Just got to avoid the false positives - a bit like trying to filter spam! :-)

Why don't I just take cheques from all of these people and see if any really do clear? I could do that. On paying them in you specify that they are "for collection", apparently, which tells the bank not to pay you until it has been fully verified (I think).

Rental What If

Well, tenants have moved in to both of the flats in my converted house now, since it still hasn't sold. If I had known it was going to take this long and had put tenants in in the first place, I would have had an extra GBP12,000 in income so far this year!!!

Pun: two lots of tenants have moved in, so now I have twenty ants. Geddit??? LOL!

The Microeconomics of Minicabbing

Well, I've been trying to earn a living by driving a company minicab (MPV or people carrier) for a while now, but have stopped because it seem to me that it just isn't worth the effort (or, at least, I don't feel that desperate). I was working for a good company that kept me very busy most of the time. Here is how the finances stacked up:

Weekly Costs
Circuit Fees £135
Insurance £70
Car Rental £100 (this may be an underestimate, I never checked it exactly; using one's own car you would have to put maintenance and depreciation costs in here instead)
Insurance Excess £50 (assuming one minor prang every 10 weeks at 1000 miles per week driven)
Diesel £100 (i.e., £20 per day)
Parking £10 (at least, per day (it is necessary to park at airports when collecting customers))
TOTAL WEEKLY COSTS £505

Weekly Income
My minimum target was a gross income of £140 per day, which I didn't always make. Assuming it is the average, though (a good day could be £200, a bad day, £70), weekly income for 5 days is £700.

£700 Less Costs of £505 leaves £195 net income per week... before tax!

And for that, I would be working from 4am to 6pm, that is, 70 hours per week. What rubbish! As I feel that I can take home the same money for an office job working half the hours, I have quit the minicabbing forthwith.

The figures above are slightly distorted as they exclude account work, which pays for the car rental in theory - although in fact I ended up owing the company some of that from my cash takings too. On some of the days where the cash takings were low, that was because I had done a lot of account work. Nevertheless, if account work is excluded (i.e., the cost of the car rental), net takings are still only £295 per week for 70 hours worked (and more, sometimes). Still not worth the effort, except when desperate, I think. And, although I really, really need the money, I also need a life. The industry is structured so that it is only economic if you are prepared to work very long hours, and probably more than 5 days a week too. No thanks.

Being Someone

Actually, this desire to 'be someone' (referred to in my previous entry) is, I think, the common modern manifestation of the good old search for 'meaning' in one's life. Modern corporations try to elicit passionate commitment to their brand values in their employees by providing a community to which their staff can belong, with accessible bosses, help and training programmes, prizes and so on... and of course, low wages, since once commitment is there, money becomes just that little bit less important to the staff (but not to the company's shareholders or upper management). See this article about overwork, or Willing Slaves by Madeleine Bunting, a book about how people are encouraged to devote their lives to the company.

Me, I have experienced this kind of commitment to work in the past: I brainwashed myself into working hard for L'Arome, a multi-level perfume sales organization that was around a few years ago (now defunct) and worked really hard, moving up a couple of levels in the pyramid and more-or-less breaking even overall. Then, I went in to a computer venture with a couple of friends and worked hard for that too; we did all right for a while but the market became rather too difficult for us and we decided to quit before it got too late.

Right now, however, I am... minicabbing. Driving an MPV (Multi-Purpose Vehicle, or 'People Carrier'). Commitment? I don't think so. Where will I get any sense of belonging when I'm stuck in a car all day? The hours are long and the money isn't so great either: if I can bank a couple of hundred pounds after 50-60 hours' work, I'm doing OK, it seems. And for me, money has always been the key to my commitment: I worked hard in the past in the expectation of future financial rewards. I'm still waiting! :-)

The minicabbing feels to me like a sort of maintenance work: it will keep my finances ticking over while I think of something better, or until I can pay off my debts and then invest (there's little point in investing while debts need to be paid). The cab money won't pay the debts; that's why I'm selling my house; but it will cover day-to-day expenses. And, I guess, that is the position that most people are in who are doing basic jobs for what is really not much money. They and I need to budget carefully, so that income always exceeds expenditure, no matter how low the income actually is.

And wouldn't it be good one day if, finally, I could think of some job that I would actually like to do, and that would gain my commitment naturally and effortlessly, and which would in fact pay well?

It seems to me, thinking about this self-discipline thing some more, that although I am inclined to aspire to a life of leisure, in fact, such a life would not be good for me. What would be good for me would probably be a life of some leisure, with other time devoted to some big projects of some sort.

Otherwise, where would self-esteem come from, if all I'm doing with my life is loafing about? I may aspire to leisure, but I would also like to do something: to be someone as it is commonly known. This is the desire for fame that many people seem to have: the desire not to be an unknown nobody, but to be someone who makes a difference.

So effort is built-in to the human psyche.

Darn.

Socrates (or Xenophon, anyway) also talks about the property business in Xenophon's Estate Manager section 20 (that is, section XX). His character, Isomachus, describes to Socrates how it is advantageous to buy up undeveloped or unworked land, develop it, then sell it at a profit. That was written around 380BC. Property has obviously been good business for a long time!

Of course, it also requires luck, good market conditions, and, above all, application (i.e., effort or self-discipline: a common Socratic theme).

I think one problem I have is that I keep looking for work I can do that will allow me to remain lazy. Hmm... Might have to abandon that particular project. Until I'm rich.

I've been reading The Conversations of Socrates by Xenophon. In the Memoirs, Book 2 Chapter 1, he relates a story by Prodicus about how Heracles was deciding how to live his life: good or evil, basically, and Heracles met two women, Vice and Virtue. Vice described to him a life of ease and idleness, and Virtue a life of sweat and effort, but rewarded with great esteem and glory in the long run. You can read it here. The story starts about halfway through but the whole section is pertinent. This is similar to the Christian notion that the devil's path is wide and easy, but the road to heaven is steep and narrow (Matthew 7:13-14), or as I like to think of it, the devil's path is "Buy now, pay later," whilst God's path, i.e., the good path, is "Pay now, receive later" meaning make your effort or investment early to get the best results later. I mention all this because it is pertinent to the way I have lived my life so far. For various reasons I have been putting in not quite enough effort in most things for most of my life, and have as a result been gradually sliding down that slippery slope to eventual ruin; or so it seems to me. I haven't actually got there yet, as my eyes have been open to it for a long, long, long time, but on the other hand I haven't actually succeeded in solving the problem of how to act differently either.

Until recently.

I think! The key seems to me to be in my Diet & Fitness Page. For nearly two years now I have been gradually increasing my self-discipline and losing weight and exercising regularly. I have found myself a viable job with a minicab company that actually has enough work (at least in the Summer peak season - the rest of the time remains to be seen) and am further exercising my self-discipline by getting up at 3am to start by 4 each day, 5 days a week or more and indeed by going to bed by 7pm to maintain my fitness and alertness, and working around 12 hours each day (including meal breaks). My property is being sold and that should pay off the (stupendous) debts and leave me with some funds to invest (if it actually sells at some point... what an agonizingly slow process it is!). All this is raising my self-esteem, confidence, ability and indeed energy levels all round.

And all because I'm a type 2 diabetic and felt the need to do something about it: the slippery slope suddenly began to look rather too steep for comfort. Let that disease go too far and the physical consequences are truly terrible. So: a blessing in disguise? I guess so.

Well, there is an offer in progress for the downstairs flat, and a more shaky-seeming offer for the upstairs flat, so I could be in business soon!

Unfortunately, I am running out of money as of right now. Payments are teetering on the edge of bouncing. My minicabbing company doesn't pay enough, so I am going to seek out another company. If they pay a lot more (double at least), I may be able to stay ahead of the bills. Gotta start earning that money within days, too.

Going away this weekend, though.

This house not selling is quite a problem, really. I will probably have to remortgage it as two flats to ensure it values appropriately, then pay some stuff off with the proceeds, then finally sell it... Although I suppose that it *could* would out that I could end up being able to keep it... seems unlikely at the moment though.

Well, the property auction was today... but the house didn't sell. It reached £290,000 - not enough, but not far off either. I am hoping the auctioneers can stitch up a deal over the next couple of days. Nothing much else sold at the auction either: out of 18 lots, 4 sold prior, 2 sold at the auction, and the rest didn't make their reserves. I'm thinking the market is kind of toppy. So, I have got back to all the Estate agents and given them a new price: £315,000. They should be able to move it for that, or near offer. I think.

The car is out of order so I am not earning at present either. It broke down near the Baker Street end of Park Road, in the middle of the road. It began surging, then lost power and the engine just petered out. It wouldn't start again. A couple of policemen helped push it to the side of the road and the RAC attempted to fix it on the assumption that the throttle electrics were shorting out, but that didn't work. He suspected a problem with the fuel supply, so towed it to my local garage, MOT's Direct. I have asked them to do a full service on it. Might as well get it done while my loan lasts...

Well, the local estate agents weren't up to much, so the house is up for auction on Wednesday (5th May). I hope it sells then I can release all that dosh and pay some stuff off.

I got the loan, £25,000 from my bank, and I am working as a minicab driver in London to try and get some income. Not that cabbing is working very effectively so far, but I am hoping that as I gradually learn various "routes" around London cashflow will improve as I can do each job more readily. Business has been better the last couple of days, but maybe that was just because it was raining and people couldn't be bothered to hang around for the bus. The car is going OK, although I have scraped it a few times (not with passengers in it, and not against other cars). I will get used to driving it eventually, I suppose. Prior to this I have only driven on odd occasions; this is the first time I've been driving in earnest (that's the name of the car - hehe). I must be doing around 75-100 miles per day. I'm not working the cabbie's usual 12-hour shift: that seems too tiring and I would rather stop when my concentration begins to flag - after about 7-9 hours, typically.

So... what happened to my building blog? Couldn't be bothered, that's what! :-) Still, the house is nearly finished - a few days' work at most now. Planning permission is still pending, since the architect was so slow and incommunicative, in my opininion. Plus, the planning officer is kinda fussy... but presumably that's his job. The house is up for sale at £340,000, with a 3-bed at £175,000 plus a 2-bed at £165,000. Looks nice, too. Credit cards are going over £60,000 now, though. No more credit left. :-( I am looking for work as a cabbie to fend off the impending financial crash, and I might apply for a loan to push things a bit further, too. Got to sort all that out within about three weeks, I should think, or else... my credit rating will begin to suffer. Mind you, I could use my bank overdraft facility for a further month. But the main thing is to sell the house! Can't figure out what the profit might be. It is too difficult, but approximately, anything over £300,000 could well be net profit. We shall see... Soon, I hope.

Well, they knocked out a wall and a chimney breast, on Saturday, and today, Monday, there seems to be lots of hammering going on. I'll check out what it is all about this evening. I'm staying in the downstairs flat while they do the upstairs one, then I'll move upstairs and they can do the downstairs flat.

That's the plan so far, anyway. Meanwhile I can stress out about £40,000 or more being spent on my credit cards to pay for all this: more like £50,000, most probably, which may mean me applying for another card or two to cover it... Hope the property market doesn't crash just yet: it is looking decidedly toppy, what with interest rates bottomed out and most likely about to rise and the authorities finally discovering that people have been abusing self-certified mortages by lying about their incomes, thus over inflating property prices...

Where's my last entry? Anyway, plan E: 2 bed upstairs, 2 bed downstairs. Should be safe enough to pass, so the builders started yesterday. The architect e-mailed me a copy of the plan so I can print it out in miniature - he's blaming the postal strike for not snail-mailing the plans to me. The council has received them too, he says, although they haven't acknowledged that yet. I need to talk to them about where the new front door for the upstairs flat is going to go, as I would prefer it to go at the left of the front of the house and not next to the existing front door in the centre of the front of the house, as if it is at the centre, the downstairs living room loses a window as a corridor has to go in front of it: naff, if you ask me. However, the council planners don't like changing the frontage of houses, so I will have to ask them.

Meanwhile, the builders are in, upstairs, knocking out the kitchen/bathroom interface wall so it can be moved a bit, and generally doing initial demolition.

Hope those plans pass...

The architect came over a couple of days ago to look at my sketches of how I think plan... er, D should look (plan D: 3/4 bed downstairs, 2/3 bed upstairs flats). After a few 'refinements' he reckons it should pass. Why did he allow me to submit plan A? I don't know. Experts: if you don't know enough, you can't use them. Must remember that...

Planning permission!!! Er... has been refused. Looks like plan A is up the spout (2 x 2-bed and 1x1-bed flat). The council think that it is an over-intensive use of the site and it will lack open space amenities (garden space, I suppose that means). Actually, I rather agree... The architect says that the proposed flats do in fact conform to general standards though and that the council is incorrect in saying this. They also objected on the grounds of stacking - that is, bedrooms should be above bedrooms, living rooms above living rooms, and kitchens and bathrooms above the same, to avoid disturbance to residents of the adjacent flats. That puzzles me a bit, as the plans allowed for this: did the architect send an old version of the plan to the council?

Anyway, notwithstanding that, I must consider plans B and C. B: 2x3-bed flats. I don't see how that can be done, but I will ask the architect to see if it is feasible. Plan C: 2x2-bed flats: certainly feasible although the staircase is in a truly chronic location for this - well away from the front entrance of the house and past two downstairs rooms at least. How can the flats be separated? (It worked with 3 flats as the entrance could be moved to between the two downstairs flats.) In my area, a typical price for a 2-bed flat is £145,000, although they range from £130,000 to £162,000. So my expected return should be £290,000. My mortgage is £205,000. Costs, say £60,000, pessimistically. Profit, £30,000. Not much, but I suppose I could buy another place with it. Just about. And use the credit cards again to do it up... if the market stays OK.

Well, fine. I'm not rich yet, but there is at least a route through the maze, even with plan C.

Plan C with bad prices: final value £260,000, costs £265,000, would still have £55,000 available on credit cards to do something... maybe.

And the builders want to start in earnest on Monday. That doesn't look like it is on... and the architect is out of the office this morning so I will have to call him this afternoon.

Maybe I should just buy gold or something?

Or plan D: do it anyway, but just to rent out the flats for 4 years until planning permission becomes irrelevant. My rough calculations show that this may not be particularly viable, though, but I will have to check them again.

Well, to my surprise a planning officer turned up on Monday morning - no appointment or anything. He came in, measured the back garden, then left. Didn't want to see around the house at all. Hmm... I guess they are concerned to make sure that there will be enough parking space, and to see if it is practical for two of the flats to have their entrance via that garden. I think that there is space for two cars and there should be no problem with entrances. Should be OK. Maybe they will visit again to look at something else: it gives them a chance to get out of the office for a bit, especially if they don't make an appointment. Who knows? I might not be in and they will have to come out again.

A couple of the builders came in on Tuesday, from 10:30am to about 12ish. They had intended to swap two of the upstairs windows around so a small window could go in the proposed kitchen, and a large window in a proposed second bedroom, but they felt that the big window was too big and the small window was too small. OK, they are right. I shall have to buy two medium size windows. The builders finished ripping out the upstairs bathroom instead. My project manager came around yesterday to measure up, and to decide if a structural engineer is needed before we move a couple of walls about. We decided we should get a structural engineer in.

I still have one tenant upstairs, looking for a flat elsewhere, but he is going to have to move, at least to a room downstairs, as the builders want to rip out the chimney breast in his room. I must remember to tell him...

Well, findaflame.com can wait: I am now concentrating my get rich quick efforts in another direction: property (real estate) development. I am attempting to convert my house into three flats. It depends in part on my being able to get planning permission from the local authority, as planning permission is necessary should I wish to sell the house, and even raise further mortgages on the new flats. If I just want to rent them out, it isn't necessary, but I don't want to reduce my options at this stage, and anyway, I don't think renting them out would be profitable as I would have to live in one of the flats. Three flats would probably cover my expenses, but two probably won't.

So, what is the plan, and how does it stack up financially? That is, how exactly do I plan to get rich like this? I bought the house four or five years ago, with the idea of renting out 5 rooms and living in the rest. I have done that, and it has been just about profitable overall, but the tenants haven't kept the place nice and it needs refurbishing at the very least. I bought it using a credit card since although I had a good job, I had no savings. I have never been able to build up any capital, but my credit has usually been good - not always, but usually. :-) In this country, if your credit goes bad, it stays bad for six years, so you can recover from problems eventually. Anyway, I paid £6,000 deposit, but secured a 'cashback' mortgage, so once I moved in, I got £5,000 back, so my net capital input was £1,000. The house was worth about £130,000 but because the market was slumping a bit and the developer-owner wanted out, I got it for £106,000. It has 4 rooms and a bathroom upstairs, an L-shaped living-room and another room downstairs, a downstairs shower room and a large kitchen-diner, also downstairs. In fact, it behaves like Dr Who's Tardis: it looks small on the outside, but just seems to go on and on inside.

Due to my usual money-handling incompetence (or whatever it is), I have remortgaged it twice to extract cash to cover my debts, and currently have a mortgage of £205,000. I have recently had it valued at £240,000 and was going to sell it for £230,000, but have decided against that as, basically, there was hardly any profit in it: I would not get enough money out to be able to do anything other than get a job. And I don't want a job. I have pretty much had enough of the rat race, thank you very much. Instead, the plan is to try and add value to the property, and then (probably) sell it.

Upstairs will be converted into a two-bedroom self-contained flat. Downstairs will be converted into a two-bedroom self-contained flat as well, and (using the kitchen-diner) an additional one-bedroom flat. In this area, at current prices, the new value should stack up to a minimum of £130,000 for the upstairs flat, £140,000 for the downstairs 2-bed flat, and £95,000 for the studio: at least £365,000 in total, and possibly more, if I can get good valuations and prices don't collapse too quickly (the market is weak once more). I plan to get good valuations by making sure the work done is top quality, with no cheapskate corner-cutting anywhere. I plan to pay for it... with credit cards. I have been using them for years, paying them off, getting credit limit increases every time I do, and asking for increases every now and then just for luck and now I have a truly ridiculous total credit limit of £60,000 or more, split over half a dozen cards or so. With interest-free balance-transfer offers and some careful juggling, I can borrow much of this money at quite low interest. I only need it for a few months, anyway (I hope). The conversion should cost around £50,000 to £60,000, although I also have my living expenses to add to that: it is going to be close, but I will manage somehow (one of my favourite quotes is from Dickens, "I have every confidence that something will turn up.").

Planning permission is the most likely obstacle to this plan, as they might not allow it, although according to my architect it should be allowable. Plan B is for two three-bedroom flats, but I don't know quite how that would be possible given the building's layout. Values would be about £155,000 + £175,000 = £340,000, if it is possible at all. Plan C is Plan A but renting the flats out and the heck with selling it, but as I mentioned above, that is a dodgy option, profit-wise (after four years I would be able to sell it even without planning permission as I can then claim 'established use' but with the market weak I might not want to wait four years before bailing out and converting a declining asset into cash). Most likely, Plan A with some minor changes will be allowed, but the planning authority have been on strike and haven't even seen the place yet. The strike is now over, but a month has been wasted - another mortgage payment and more down the drain. Plus, all but one of the tenants has moved out now, so there is no more free money from them to supplement my non-income.

The builders arrived for the first time last Monday, 25th August and ripped out skirting boards in three of the rooms upstairs, and removed furniture to a room downstairs. I was unable to sell much of this old stuff with classified ads, so in the end I sold the lot to a second-hand shop for £50. It is all going to have to be replaced anyway, but it seems a shame to me that three perfectly good beds, wardrobes, etc., etc., become practically worthless in such a short time. But then again, you can buy new beds for £50-£100 each so why furnish a new place with old stuff? First impressions will count for a lot when the valuer comes to call. The builders also began work in the upstairs bathroom: it needs ripping out and re-doing from scratch as it had got extremely manky (young male tenants live like bears).

A plumber was shown around the other day, to see what he had to do to provide new heating and water supplies for the new flats, and the builders are back today, ripping out more stuff upstairs.

Strategy: builders? Why not DIY? Well, I am lazy and know nothing about DIY anyway. Best left to the experts, I think. They are quick and professional (they come highly recommended and I have seen their work, which is good). I am using a friend of mine with experience of all this as a project manager at £2,000 per flat. Delegation. That's the strategy. Maybe I will learn something in the process too, but I can't count on that if I'm not supervising it myself, can I? What about the next project? Well, I will deal with that when I have to. Something will turn up...

The so-called upgrade for findaflame.com isn't looking so hot. Yes, people can enter their profiles for free, and have to pay only when they want to communicate with another member. But what happens when their membership expires? Do they automatically go back to their old status of being able to browse but not contact? Nope. Nothing happens. I only have the option of being able to delete their profile manually, or leaving it as it is.

The company that makes it, fast-data.com has made something decidedly substandard, in my opinion. Now what to do? Take it away from them and get my own decent site written for GBP3k? Write my own (a lot of work for a non-programmer like myself)? I don't know... Any ideas?

I kind of feel it will be throwing good money after bad, but for GBP45 I can 'upgrade' findaflame.com to allow people to post their profiles for free, and pay to contact others. At present you have to pay even to post your profile.

I suppose I will have to do it, or I will never know whether I could have got the site to work better...

Well, findaflame.com is still not doing much. In a way, I am not too surprised; there are better dating sites around... or perhaps I need to qualify that statement. The sites are "better" in that they allow more precise criteria for matching. They are "worse" in that they are more expensive. They are perhaps marginally "better" places to find a partner because their "better" criteria encourage more people to join. But, in reality, I haven't had much luck with them either. I must have e-mailed well over 200 women over the last year or so, and had maybe 5 serious replies, and met two. For such a long time spent trawling through search results and galleries, the results are pretty desultory. I am probably going to let my membership lapse. I could meet more women on the bus (if I had the nerve to talk to them...).

So, what to do? Well, there is a new technology to the rescue! Speed Dating. I have seen three different formats so far:

a) Xdate: 30 or so women sit at tables, the men move from one to the next every 4 minutes;

b) The Single Solution: Everybody hangs out in a bar and tries to make conversation, with a mini-speed-dating thing on the side for those that want it;

c) Ladies' Excuse Me: 30 or so men sit at tables and women choose to speak to them, or not, at the womens' option (but be prepared to be ignored much of the time unless you radiate whatever it is they are looking for - good for judging the results of your presentation though).

I have to say, the results have been impressive in comparison to Internet dating. At event b) I met one woman that I got along with, although after one look at me she decided to emigrate to Canada. Still, it was a start. At event c) I met a woman too, and have met up with her again outside the event. So... better results and, indeed, less effort. If I go to one such event a month, the cost is about the same as joining one Internet dating site (Internet daters join an average of 5 sites) and the results seem to be much, er, "better".

Well, findaflame.com isn't doing much yet; but then again, it took a while for ringamoby.com to get going too - maybe it is the same. I don't know about that though: this time I'm using Google Adwords to publicise findaflame.com right from the start, and although I'm getting a fair number of hits each day, people aren't buying (there have been a number of declined credit card transactions, though - what's with that?).

Well, I visited the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square yesterday; it was a nice sunny day, and I was bored at home, so I thought: maybe I'll meet a nice young lady if I go out. No such luck, as usual - anyway, I was too busy looking at the paintings (multitasking problems here? Hmm...). I'll have to go back: after a few hours I had still only seen perhaps a quarter of the pictures available.

Incidentally, ringamoby.com is offering free mobile phones to UK residents who take out a phone contract... but enough blatant advertising!

Speaking of lonely-hearts ads, my next attempt to use an affiliate programme to add to my income has just gone online. After the success of ringamoby.com, which is making about £130 a month net profit, I thought I'd try another. This one is an online dating agency, findaflame.com. I'm keeping registration prices low at the moment since there are so few members yet, and maybe permanently, depending on how the economics works out. So, if you're single and need a partner, why not give it a try?

One thing about both of these sites: they cost me money to set them up, and on my money page I say that I don't like schemes where you need to pay up front to join. Is this a contradiction? I'm not sure. These sites qualify on the basis that there is a genuine product, not just sales nonsense or copyright text for sale. As genuine businesses, some set-up costs are to be expected. It is not the same as a "pay to join" or "pay me for this great info which I am not going to tell you anything useful about until you cough up" sort of thing.

Here's a funny news story: A struggling tea-shop owner in China helped her business along by placing lonely-hearts ads, and arranging for the rendezvous to be in her tea shop. She would always order the most expensive food, and was eventually arrested when she ordered kitchen staff to beat up a suitor who asked for a discount!

There's money in consultancy. The University in Bradford has paid
GBP21000 to a consultancy to come up with a suitable name for it. The
consultancy has come up with three possibilities:

Bradford University
University of Bradford
The University of Bradford

Need a job, anybody?

I was amused to see, briefly, before the BBC quickly cut to a more polite
scene, a bunch of Iraqis holding up a sign saying, "Go home US human
shields, you wankers."

I suppose the HS's were well-meaning, but I hope they will get a clue from
scenes like this: naive pacifism is the road to slavery, not freedom. Need I
say more?

I see that the allies are expressing outrage about the Iraqi violations of the Geneva Convention, in which captured US soldiers have been shown on TV. I didn't see it, but I understand that one soldier was shown being interrogated and was obviously afraid, and another was clearly badly injured (blood was visible). I don't support this treatment of prisoners of war, but I think that the allied whining about it is hypocritical. I have seen Iraqi POWs on the TV several times in this war, with their faces clearly visible, and nobody that I heard complained about that. That too was a violation of the Geneva Convention. Then again, during the war on Afghanistan, I remember seeing POWs packed tightly in a prison. I remember seeing one kneeling on the sand, hands tied behind his back, being interrogated by a CIA officer. That was in contravention of the Geneva Convention as well. Next, we have the US prison camp, "Camp X-Ray" at Guantanamo Bay, in which the prisoners are defined as "combatants" but not as "POWs" by the US so they can be held without access even to lawyers, including people who are almost certainly not terrorists. So, allies, make up your minds: do you support the Geneva Convention, or do you only support it when it suits you?

I see people are still saying the war in Iraq is not justified, and some 150,000 to 250,000 (depending on who you listen to) marched in London yesterday on this basis. Even the pope is against it. But... I am still convinced that the war is a (relatively) good thing. Nobody is denying that the Iraqi government is causing the deaths of 150-200 people per day on average (55-75k per year). Around one family in three in Iraq has had a family member tortured or killed by the Iraqi government. Recently one witness reported seeing 30 people executed by being fed into a plastic shredding machine (a bit like a meat mincer). Another report described tortured prisoners being killed with what appeared to be mustard gas sprays, including a 12 year-old boy. And the war isn't justified? I think it is.

OK, the war has started. Good, I think: the sooner Saddam is removed from power, the sooner he will stop killing people. I see that a big anti-war rally is planned for tomorrow, but I feel that this is disloyal, and moreover, dangerous. The anti-war people have lost the fight for "peace" (at the expense of innocent Iraqis), and any anti-war rallies now will only give encouragement to the other side, and thereby increase the risks for our own troops.

Right! I've finally added some short stories to the Tucana site; they can be accessed via the Sci-Fi Novel page.

So, the war in Iraq still hasn't happened yet. Should it? And shouldn't it be a war against Iraq, rather than in Iraq? Anyway, given that Saddam is causing the deaths of some 150-200 people per day, that is, 55,000 to 75,000 per year, it seems like a good idea to me. Leave him in power for another (say) 10 years and let some 500,000 people die, or get rid of him now at a cost of say 100,000 lives (as per the official figures from the last war) and save 400,000. The arithmetic speaks for itself.

But what of the possible consequences? The end of the United Nations? Well, if it doesn't work, do we need it? Perhaps it is time to discard it and come up with a better, less corrupt and less corruptible system. After all, do we really respect the opinion of countries like China (of Tiananmen Square fame)? Or France (whose premier, Chirac, has said he will veto a war against Iraq no matter what)? Or Russia (prosecuting a very dubious war in Chechnya)? Each of which countries stands to gain from oil deals with Iraq if sanctions are lifted and Saddam stays in power, but not otherwise? What if there is a new anti-Western jihad? Well, I hope not, but we would win it in the end, at a cost of perhaps 20,000,000 lives. Not worth it, unless the risks to democracy and freedom are greater by not fighting it, of course. What are the odds of jihad? Small, is my guess, based on nothing much. So, worth it again, if my guess is right (you have to play the odds, I think, but more than my hand-waving would be needed to figure out just what those odds are).

Hmm... yes, but photos can be "art" anyway...

Well, 'tis done anyway. I think it needs the names anyway (See yesterday's blog (below) if you don't know what I'm on about). Now, I just need to decide where to host the site. Tucana is getting a bit full... Wherever it is to be, it has to be free, or already paid for, anyway.

That's a lot of anyways. Anyway... next.

Ringamoby made GBP230 in February (the previous "last month" figure turned out to be for January). Well, it is getting there, but one of the pay-per-click advertisers, Overture, is increasing its rate so I doubt that it will be profitable - I will probably have to drop them and rely on Google AdWords for my advertising exclusively. That may mean fewer visitors, but on the other hand, it seems that only about 1 in 5 visitors are coming via Overture's service anyway.

Still pondering "Sinkland"... got a few photos already. I'm wondering if I should name the continents with on-picture text, or not. Hmm... I think I should. Yeah. Then it becomes "art" doesn't it?

I'm thinking of adding some short stories to the web site today. I'm also thinking of adding "Sinkland", a page of pictures taken of the soapy continents and galaxies that form in my bathroom washbasin. I might even paint some of them...

If you're looking for windows wallpapers, http://www.nationalgeographic.com might be a good place to look. They have lots of great photos.

Well, Chapter 11 (version 1) of the sci-fi novel is done. Yesterday I started on a small painting. Should be finished in a few days, then I'll try and figure out how to sell it, post it to the customer if any :-) and start thinking of what the next painting might be.

I was reading "Consciousness" by Rita Carter yesterday, and discovered that scientists think that our brains can actually do some of the amazing things that so far only autistic savants and the occasional genius seem able to do, such as multiplying large numbers, recording scenes in detail, remembering and calculating timetables and so on. The difference with normal folk is that our brains have built-in filters to prevent the results of those computations reaching consciousness! So, when you look at some dodgy maths on the page, your brain will have computed the answer in a flash, but you're not allowed to become aware of the answer!! It is thought that the filters are in place because your consciousness would quickly become overwhelmed by needless info: a person can only hold around 5 items in awareness simultaneously, and how many apes need to know the technical details when being chased down by a lion anyway? Consciousness seems to be needed for broader judgements. Still, ever since the invention of writing, and perhaps a bit before then, such abilities would have been pretty useful (if they could be switched on and off at will). However, that period of time is a tiny fraction of the time that our lineage has been in existence, so natural selection hasn't had long enough to do anything much about it anyway. So for now, all that capability is being edited out of our awareness. Sigh.

OK, I've just gone out and bought a whole load of painting kit. It set me back £150, and no doubt I've forgotten something, so we'll see how it goes. Mind you, I'll still be unhappy to sell a painting outright: I'm such a hoarder. On the other hand, it will make it interesting to see my stuff spreading around the world and getting lost. I'll keep a digital record with my trusty digital camera anyway.

Ringamoby.com earned me a gross £180 for last month. That may be a small net profit: I won't know until I go through my bank statements and check how much the advertising has cost... could be months before I know: usually I only go through my bank statements when my tax return needs to be done ;-)

So, how's the old sci-fi novel coming along Martin? Well, not bad. I've just finished chapter 10 (first draft). I guess I'm averaging about a chapter a year so far :-) but I'm writing much more lately since I'm off work at the moment.

Actually, I'm trying to retire from regular JOB (Just Over Broke) type work and am hoping to become a property tycoon instead. Anybody want to buy a nice 4-bed 2/3 reception 2 bathroom end-terrace Victorian house suitable for letting or conversion in Leyton E10? £250k to you (offers considered). You can check out the spec on http://www.rightmove.co.uk

I'm also considering taking up the old painting again, this time to supplement my living and not just for the archives. I just balk at the expense of buying all that paint and stuff... It could set me back several quid!

Hmm... well, this blogger thing is working, but I've had a few hiccups with it so far - like what's happened to the other stuff I typed? Anyway, I'm sure I'll get the hang of it soon enough.

Now. I can't help wondering if I'm just a sucker for whatever the powers that be want me to believe. But then again, we'll never know, will we? All the news you and I hear is second hand, that is, hearsay. Colin Powell's "evidence" at the UN was no better. He could have been showing pictures of anywhere, at any time, or cartoons drawn by schoolchildren. Who would know the difference? I think that one just has to make a judgement as to which is more likely to be true: which people are lying the most.