Now this is a true story, I have changed the names to avoid any potential embarrassment or future legal proceedings.

I work in a small office where we work hard, 5 of us as a team, we build, develop and market websites, each area of our enterprise is kind of symbiotic, mutually supportive and generally intertwined with each other. A designer designs a site in order for the task of development to be as easy as possible, he/ she also takes into consideration how the elements of the design will perform with regards to search engine optimisation and customer retention. So you see, we are a team with many disciplines working towards a common goal.

We, as an agency, make use of some of the major web players as marketing tools, we use Google, Overture and other such companies to make online marketing a more profitable process.

One of these companies, who I should not name, though I will : “Google”, makes a well appreciated effort each year in sending out Business Gifts to agency staff. In the past they have famously distributed Google radios, Computer Accessories and other such well received gifts.

Last year the search engine company decided to present marketing staff worldwide with some beautiful LCD screens. This would have been a great idea had the search engine company not taken the decision to award these most enviable gifts to only 2 members of our team. To see the two ‘marketing’ people swaggering around with their corporate gifts irked me hugely. I took this up with the search engine company immediately, I emailed complaining that their antics had caused division and resentment in our office.

Now you may wonder how a company gains global dominance in a few years, reaches a turnover of billions and sits, with the untrendiest man on the planet, as pioneering leaders and shakers of the Internet can be trendier than sliced bread. Well the answer is this… they sent me and my other colleagues LCD Screens as Business Gifts, they saw the humour in my request and ensured that their logo made it into our hearts and Christmas stockings.

Nokia maps have completely flummoxed me of late. I upgraded my Nokia N95 software as I had been promised a faster GPS connection as a result. I put up with the loss of my beloved Brian Lara Cricket game, but that is a waste of time anyway.

I rebooted and waited. On opening up Nokia maps I was saddened to see that the phone had no recollection of my previously lovingly installed maps from Smart2Go. I love zooming in on rethymno, Crete to see my old haunts. I tried reinstalling the maps using Smart2go Maploader ( a lugubrious application ) to no avail. I was becoming rather disillusioned by the software upgrade, losing my cricket and all that.

My next step was Orange who advised I called Nokia ( buck passers ). I did call Nokia, indeed I spent an hour on hold at various times of the day and night.

By chance and through a process of elimination I discovered that the old Smart2Go maps are no longer supported by the new Nokia Maps application, I downloaded the new Nokia Maps Loader and was soon zooming into my sat nav maps and even enjoying a markedly faster connection time to the satellites I believe are up there somewhere.

The unfortunate thing was that my original download of the Nokia Maps App had included a free 3 day trial of their navigational software ( with voice prompts) and it took me 4 days to solve the issues with me Nokia N95 above….they also seem to have removed the tracking facility on the new map software.. cheeky, like they are trying up revenues…

Now I have been in the market for a mortgage for a few years now. I have been working hard to get my foot upon that elusive first rung of the housing ladder. My income has increased greater than the rate of inflation, which should be a good thing, but still the bottom rung, and that is all I want to get to at the moment, is just out of reach.

House prices, of course, have been rising without a care in the world for other factors such as average incomes or inflation. Average property values are now several times average incomes, and when I say several times I mean a couple of times more than lenders are usually willing to lend.


With all the talk of late about the crash of the US subprime mortgage sector due to bad credit losses I was buouyed temporarily at the though of a house price crash - Could house prices in the UK suddenly plummet so I could go to the bank and borrow 3 times my salary and buy a nice three bedroom house? Sadly it appears not. Any drop in house prices may well lead to interest rate hikes which would make repayments on even these lesser figures as prohibitive as at present. At the same time mortgage lenders are unlikely to take such flamboyant punts in lending potentially unaffordable amounts to prospective borrowers.

So, what is the best way forward for me? I have considered trying for a buy to let mortgage, like buying a small, very small flat and renting it out - at least I would be on rung one? But, financial matters are conspiring against me, and the millions in my situation, what if house prices drop really? Then what a wonder that would be to actually, after years of striving to climb aboard the property gravy train I ended up with negative equity on a property I could not even live in.

I had a blinding idea the other day and was assured ( by myself ) that would get great interest on web, I was thinking of like a mash between Drivey ( http://drivey.com/) and Google earth/ maps so that you could like choose start and endpoint and then race like mad over a simple but correctly undulating course, say from Brighton to Bognor or so. Of course there could be tables, championships, even 2 player online races….. naturally I don’t have either skills or financial backing so I wont do anything…. And of course when I search for my idea, it is gone already… done very basically, but done all the same at http://www.thomasscott.net/realworldracer/ , next I am thinking of making a small machine upon which you can store music and carry around with you.METALLICA lyrics