Won't be posting much here until next autumn. You can catch my latest project at

http://www.ratingshub.com/invite/jemlux.html

It's a new review site on internet marketing

Happy Halloween!

Well, Halloween has finally arrived.
Hope you have stocked up on sweets and chocolates.

In Turkey last week they had the "Sugar Bayram" which was a bit like having Halloween after Lent. People had been fasting for 30 days and then it was 3 days of family visits and lots of sticky, gooey cakes. The kids also went door to door to get their "Halloween" gifts. The good thing about Turkey is it's treats without the tricks.

Have a good night and kids, don't get sugar poisoning!

Halloween pumpkin sailing anybody?

I saw an intriguing item on BBC Breakfast News this morning.

Apparently you can find these monster 100+ pound (45+ kilo) pumpkins that you can hollow out and use as a kind of coracle (a small round boat). Of course you have to be a kid or a jockey to get inside.

Halloween gift idea number 54 - a giant pumpkin and a paddle.

Halloween in Belfast

Here's a great Halloween gift if your loved one is into all things spooky.

Belfast, in Northern Ireland, is having a week of Halloween events and the highlight is the Spooky Bus Tour where you visit loads of haunted places on an open top touring bus.

Who sends these retro emails?

Sorry to be non-Halloween for two days in a row but I am getting really annoyed by what I call "retro emails".

I get a lot of emails every day and I try to deal with them all, which means a lot of deleting :-)
It is very frustrating when I have finished and my inbox still shows an unanswered email or two.

When this first happened I thought I was going crazy and I had to go through thousands of old messages (time for another cleanup!) to find the culprit. What somebody had done was set their computer to 2004 and the mail became the very first one in my archive.

OK, now I know so I can just go to the last page and delete it, right?

Wrong! Some more sophisticated vandals set the time for just 5 or 6 months ago so you have to spend more time searching. All in all, these "retro emails" are very frustrating and time consuming.

Anybody got any ideas about how to block them?

After Halloween it's only 47 shopping days to Christmas...

I know this is about Halloween and it' s a bit early, but I came across this great idea for a Christmas gift for young kids.

What you do is upload a digital photo of your child. They make a cartoon drawing of the child and they become a character in a Christmas cartoon which you get on DVD. A perfect personalised gift.

Check it out now because it takes them a few weeks to prepare it and the Christmas rush is coming.

www.keepintouchwithsanta.com

Friday the 13th vs Halloween

Come on, you don't really believe in all this Friday 13th stuff do you?
Apparently, many Americans do, and quite a few are going to stay at home today.
Despite this, a recent report says that there are more accidents and hospital admissions
on a Friday 13th than any other day. Probably it's Freddy Kreuger.

On the other hand, if you stay at home on Halloween you're going to get annoyed by all those pesky kids demanding gifts. If you go out, you're no better off because they will think you're hiding and play a trick on you.

This month is a bit of a double whammy, isn't it?