Scam? Nobody Likes Cowardly Bloggers

Attacking someone while hiding behind a veil of anonymity is a cowardly act.

Like all reasonable people, I believe in common decency and as such I have always been prepared to enter into open and forthright dialogue with those that question my integrity.

The spineless people that post defamatory and hateful smears do so because they feel that they can act with impunity. They feel secure in vilifying someone because anonymity makes them unidentifiable, unaccountable and therefore immune to the legal process.

That is no longer true.

As has been reported in the recent news, legal precedents have been set compelling Google to disclose the identities of anonymous Bloggers and those that post libellous comments.

Defamation of a person’s character is a serious, damaging and hurtful thing. Unlike these anonymous bloggers most of us have nothing to hide.

As such, anyone in the position of having their character assassinated by anonymous entities should instruct lawyers to expose, prosecute and seek as substantial damages as can be wrought from such craven people.

Icelandic Volcano - The Truth Is Out There

It's no good...

British pride and Atlantic domination needs to be re-established. We need to send the navy (since we can't send the RAF) to teach those troublesome Icelanders a lesson.

There is a conspiracy here. It all adds up. Listen...

Firstly, they tried to rob us Anglo Saxons of our staple diet, fish and chips. Remember the Cod war?

Secondly and more recently, they undermined the UK banking system with their worthless junk bonds and savings accounts and because their banks subsequently collapsed they sent their own economy (not to mention all those other countries that mistakenly thought those Vikings knew a thing or two about money) into financial free fall. As a result, they now owe the poor overburdened UK taxpayer a billion pounds...

What happened to all that money, that's what I want to know!

Their biggest bank called 'Kaupthing' went bust. Now, I don't know about you but it would seem to me that there was a clue in the name... 'Kaupthing' sounds suspiciously like 'Kau-ching' to me - and that is the sound that a till makes when you put money in it!

See, those sneaky listeners of whaling Bjork music were taking the piss right in front of our eyes.

Thirdly, and this is the big one, they fill the sky with ash so that our planes can't fly... They say it is a volcano. Yeah right! Hmm, methinks there is a pattern here.

Consider this: How many five pound notes in a billion pounds? The answer may surprise you: It is two hundred million! That is enough to fill several Wembley Stadiums.

So here is what I think:

I reckon those plunderous Vikings in Iceland have returned to their evil old ways of pillaging and have built a pyre in honour of Loki (the God of mischief and mockery) of monumental proportions - several Wembley Stadiums - on top of Mount Eyjafjallajökull (they even try to confuse us with unpronounceable names). Yes, whilst the eyes of the world were elsewhere those devious winged hatted Norsemen secretly constructed a massive bonfire made of non-other than 200,000,000 British five pound notes! Then, they put a torch to it and so mighty and overwhelming were the resulting flames they were able to convince the world that it is a volcano. 

Even now these worshippers of hammer-fisted Thor (the God of Thunder no less) laughingly dance around the pyre in circular motions to cause an updraft in the air whilst feeding more British taxpayers £5 notes to the flames and therefore create towering clouds of smoke and ash! 

So there is the rub of it... Our planes can't fly because the air is full of ash. Ash that is in fact the burnt cinders of British five pound notes! 

There can be no doubt that they are taking the piss again. Send in the gunboats I say!

Coming To A Screen Near You

Well, it's all happening...

Over the Christmas period and right up until mid-February I was preoccupied with putting my head above the parapet, more so perhaps than usual, as I was being followed around by TV cameras.

I'm appearing on the UK's Channel 4 next week in a documentary called 'How The Other Half Live' (screening on 8th April at 9pm), which was critically acclaimed when it was first shown last year. It's all about the lives of poor families and rich families and each week it follows the story of how a more affluent family help another in need. Interestingly, 'Save The Children' are sponsoring the series.

My wife and children are also in the show as it follows our introduction and developing relationship with the other family. I think you'll like it. It is quite moving and it certainly moved me to be in it - in fact, I felt very humbled by the experience.

Even more intriguing perhaps is how I'm going to be feeling after it goes out.

Out Of The Box Thinking...

I love this story so much that I felt that I just had to put it up on my blog - I think you will like it too...

American astronauts upon first going into space soon discovered that their pens didn’t work in zero gravity. So NASA embarked upon a program to invent a writing instrument that would work in outer space... After spending millions of dollars and burning thousands of man-hours on research and engineering, they finally developed a "pump pen" that could write anything, anywhere, at any angle. 

Meanwhile, in the secret laboratories behind the Iron Curtain, Soviet Union scientists casually took note of the researches of their American counterparts. They spent almost no time and no money solving this problematic dilemma. They already had the answer, their cosmonauts used…pencils.

From David Abingdon's book: 'Out Of The Box Marketing'

The Parapet

Raising Your Head

There is little doubt that raising your head above the parapet exposes you to the danger of it getting shot at. Anyone in the public eye or in sport or business faces this prospect.

In my time, as a businessperson, I've certainly been shot at - and, I have to say, continue to be shot at. Reluctantly I accept this as a hazard and by-product of my business and personal life.

Anonymous

I guess the most upsetting thing at seeing my own name, David Abingdon, in the same sentence as the word ‘scam’ – which is something that has happened to me recently, and to my real shock - is that a lot of people that write such things hide behind the guise of a pseudonym or just plain ‘anonymous’. 

I don’t think I’m on my own when I say that any reasonable person cannot help but think that they are spineless and cowardly, taking pot shots and then hiding from view. It seems shocking that these people feel that they can write whatever they choose – even if it isn’t true. There’s freedom of speech and then there’s freedom to make all kinds of remarks without any fear of comeback because you’re shielded behind a cloak of anonymity. I’m a pretty upfront person who is much more likely to spark a row by calling a spade a useless, blunt shovelling implement than by making a veiled dig, so it’s not how I work at all.

Others self-righteously judge and scoff without examining the evidence or the facts. They somehow feel that for someone to succeed in their peer group reflects badly upon them and shows them up as non-achievers. Therefore they must attack, undermine and criticize.

Someone once said:

‘Normal’ people will tell you that

If you dream you are crazy,

If you succeed you are lucky, and

If you are wealthy you are greedy.

Some of it may, of course, be due to the Tall Poppy Syndrome. Someone does something genuine with their life and earns merit only to be cut down, resented or subjected to condemnation because they succeed in elevating themselves. How sad.

To me it is a self-evident truth, and I’ve always made it plain to my students and the people I work with that, for what I teach to work, then it must be down to them. Hard work is the only way to make it work, and I should know, given that I never exactly had a silver spoon myself and built up my own businesses by putting in the graft, grind and sleepless nights that it so often takes.

In other words, I can show you what to do and how to do it but I can’t actually make you do it. You must do it for yourself – and if you don’t, you really can’t blame anyone else.  Even when that is the easy way out.