2013-06-19T12:40:08-04:00 Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=mark-j-daniels Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Mark J Daniels Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2087745 2012-11-07T19:16:43-05:00 2013-01-07T05:12:01-05:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/ Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, is to join the cast of I'm A Celebrity [sic]... Get Me Out Of Here!

The 55-year-old Tory MP has been suspended by her Conservative party as she opts to ditch her duties to her constituency and instead appear on a reality TV show.

Mrs Dorries has apparently defended her decision to appear on a prime time show by stating that she believes MPs should go where the people go. I'm not completely sure she quite understands, then, what I'm A Celebrity is about.

A vast amount of her constituents probably can't afford to travel to Queensland, Australia, anyway and those that can certainly won't be there while she is. So she's hardly going to where the people go.

But if Nadine thinks she's being clever by "going where the people go" because there'll be eleven million people watching her on telly, she's forgetting that they won't tune in to listen to her political views on abortion. Instead, they'll be wanting to watch her and fellow 'celebrities' making fools of themselves by swimming in guano in an effort to unlock a celebrity chest.

People tune in to these programmes in order to forget the politicians who have cocked up their lives; they won't want to hear a party political broadcast, they'll just want to see how long it takes her to scream for mercy after a rat is sent up the inside of her trouser leg.

I agree that MPs should go where the people are in order to get a better understanding of what is happening out here in the real world but, rather than trying to get to her constituents by spouting a message whilst chewing on a crocodile's severed member, she would be better going down to her local boozer and meeting up with real people to find out just what they need from her party.

That way, she wouldn't be suspended. She would be serving her community. And people might take her a little bit more seriously. Might...

Still, one thing that's certain is that Nadine Dorries' decision to fly out to Australia for this weekend's opening show will have caused the producers of BBC's Question Time a massive dilemma: how much time should they spend discussing Barack Obama's victory over Mitt Romney when there's a politician on a reality TV show getting so much publicity...?]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2014210 2012-10-25T04:22:56-04:00 2012-12-24T05:12:02-05:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/ Check In At Your Favourite Pub And Earn Yourself A Love Your Local Badge...

FourSquare has struggled to gain traction in the UK outside of major cities such as London and Birmingham in the past but its popularity is steadily growing and now they've opened an office to grow business partnerships in the UK and across Europe. As a location-based social networking app it's certainly one of my favourite tools for finding places to go and checking in to venues.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter or Google+, whose mantras are to allow users to share just about any thought they have, FourSquare wants you to let your friends know where you are and leave tips about the places you've been. To make it more interesting the service is set up as more of a "game", with users scoring points for each check-in at a location and the person who's checked in the most earning themselves the status of Mayor of that venue.

With each check in users are shown a scoreboard, comparing them to their friends. It builds up a friendly rivalry that encourages users to check in at more places to score higher than their friends and the opportunity to steel the mayorship from a mate; users can then choose to share their FourSquare check in and mayoral status on their favourite social networking sites.

More importantly, FourSquare offers business owners the opportunity to capitalise on this rivalry by offering incentives to people who check in at their business. Site managers can set up specials that offer discounts, gifts or free products to visitors set on specific criteria.


Maybe you want to encourage people to start checking in by offering a Newbie Special. Or maybe you'd like to offer your mayor a reward for their loyalty (or even for the bitter rivalry between constantly interchanging mayors). Maybe you'd like to offer a special to people who've checked in five times, encouraging them to become more proactive with their check-ins.

Once they've unlocked a special, users simply show the screen to a member of staff to receive their reward.

To assist business owners further, FourSquare provide a set of easy-to-read but comprehensive statistics on how well their presence on the site is performing, how many check-ins they're getting, number of specials unlocked, and even the demographics of their visitors, to help them better understand how the service is working. You can even see when a check in has been shared on Facebook or Twitter...

And now, they've gone one step further, offering their loyalty to the Great British Pub in the way of a new badge. Badges of honour are offered to FourSquare users for completing a variety of tasks. Checking in to a venue late on a weekday will win you the School Night badge, while venues in London will get you the London Calling badge.

This week, however, UK users can earn the Love My Local badge for checking in to a pub three times. As the network gains more credibility and ground in the UK it's a lovely little reward for an iconic part of Britain's culture: The Pub.

So, pub goers: start using FourSquare, checking in at your favourite pubs to let them know you're there, and to get your badge! And publicans, make sure your customers have got an offer on hand to get themselves that badge...]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1984907 2012-10-19T10:48:32-04:00 2012-12-19T05:12:01-05:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
Facebook's 'promoted stories' for business pages work in a Pay-Per-Click manner similar to that which you would use to advertise on Google and can be a powerful tool for companies trying to increase the number of Likes they have on a page or attempting to get people to sign up to a newsletter, attend an event, or purchase from an online shop.

But now, normal users can pay to promote a story too.

Got a birthday to announce? A party you want to make sure your friends attend? When posting a status, users can now follow this up by clicking a 'promote' button and paying a small fee to ensure that their chosen story appears at the top of their friends' news feeds.

The feature could be particularly useful to those of us who allow subscribers (viewers who we are not directly friends with) to view our public posts as well as our friends, or business owners looking to increase the exposure of an event they have on a business page that friends or family might not be following.

Initially, it doesn't seem too expensive. The first post I made offered me the chance to promote it at the top of my friends newsfeeds for just £2.01, but a lot of concern is being mooted by users as Facebook seeks to find new ways to increase its revenue.

"It's Free And Always Will Be" says the website when you go to log in or sign up but, with a billion active users, the company is seeking to extract as much from those members as it can as business users begin to question the return on investment they are seeing from advertising on Facebook.

With a Facebook status having a typical 'life' of less than two and a half hours, for many of us what we say on the social networking site is being missed by our friends. By paying to guarantee our friends can see it we know our news is getting out there - but to what cost?

Promoting a status could potentially annoy users as it becomes apparent our friends are paying to ensure we see what they have to say and Facebookers could vote in vast numbers by logging off, a move Google would accept with glee as they look for any opportunity they can to increase membership of their own social networking site, Google Plus. Worse, they could simply choose to block or "unfriend" us. The shame!

Perhaps, then, Facebook have missed an opportunity: as a Facebook user, I don't want to pay to ensure my friends and family get to see a picture of my children in their Christmas play; but for businesses, 'promoting' posts can be a complex and costly exercise, configuring adverts, pay-per-click rates and daily limits.

If, however, we could pay a small, one-off fee to ensure that particular stories, events and so on appear at the top of newsfeeds for people who already Like our business page with a simple, one-click solution, many more would be prepared to pay to advertise on the site.

So, Facebook, heads up: keep the site free for your vast database of daily users, and make advertising more simple and cost effective for the businesses. You might find you get more take-up from those who have eschewed advertising with you in the past....]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1956933 2012-10-11T05:13:54-04:00 2012-12-11T05:12:01-05:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
The problem with Google's latest attempt to break the stranglehold on the social media space held by Facebook is the same as every previous effort (anybody remember Buzz?) - they're too late to the party and often seem to have rushed through a product to get it to market too quickly.

Personally, before it looks like I'm doing too much Google Plus bashing, this platform is actually one of my favourites. I'd happily give up Facebook and Twitter and move my entire online activity to Google+ but the problem is that most people who have looked at it have thought "it's not offering me anything different to Facebook; why change?"

So, from a personal user's perspective, it's a bit of a damp squib; from a business's point of view, however, Google+ could easily be the most powerful brand marketing platform out there, if Google could just tie it up to their massive search database and plethora of location awareness tools more neatly.

For example - my business has a Google Plus business page, in which I can do all the same sorts of editing as I can within my Facebook business page. But my business also has a Place page that shows up in Google Maps. Why can the two not be the same, thus tidying up the number of online presences my site has that I need to update and, at the same time, ensuring that all my updates appear in any Maps or generic Google search? Even the process of verifying your business page uses archaic technology, with Google posting a post card to you with a pin number on it for you to verify you really do own the business.

Furthermore, to update the Place and Business pages you have to be on a full web browser. Frustrating if you've got something to announce but aren't near a PC. As a publican, I'm often looking to announce my latest beer that's on tap, or an upcoming event or an offer we've just launched. Twitter and Facebook allow me to do this quite quickly, even if a thought occurs to me while I'm tapping barrels in the cellar, but not, unfortunately, Google+.

That's all about to change, however, with Google releasing the latest version of the Plus app with the announcement that we can now update business pages from our mobile devices.

You'd not believe the level of childish excitement this gave me as I quickly downloaded the update and set about having a play. Only to find that I didn't appear to have access to my business page via the app...

A quick search revealed that, in order to access this feature, you have to sign out of your account on the phone and back in again. Fair enough if that's a one-off to activate the feature, but this doesn't appear to be the case.

To get to your business page via the mobile app you must sign out and back in again. The app will now ask you to choose which page you'd like to update, personal or business, and will then log you in. Once you've done that, however, if you then want to go back to reading your personal stream or make an update on your personal page, you've got to log back out and back in, making the choice again.

So, Google Plus's latest version of their mobile app does give you the chance to update your business or brand's page whilst on the move, but the mechanism is clumsy.

If you're an ardent Google+ fan and want to see Google's endeavours in social media succeed then you'll struggle along but sadly, I suspect, most brand and business marketers will continue, like water, to find the easiest route to get their message out to their fans, followers and page likers.

Back to the Facebook app for me, then. Back to the drawing board for Google.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1928313 2012-10-01T06:36:16-04:00 2012-12-01T05:12:01-05:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
With six races of the Formula One season remaining, there's even a solid chance of a British success story here, too, whether it be with a driver or a constructor. (Or maybe even both.)

Which all makes me wonder why we constantly create such a rabid following of football.

In almost every international tournament, Britons baying for success end up disappointed, often before the event is even half way through. As a nation, we stand these people - who regularly end up in the newspaper for one nightclub misdemeanour or another, one extramarital trifling or another, or the occasional on-pitch inappropriate remark - on pedestals and eulogise them as pillars of our nation.

If there's one thing that should come out of 2012, it's that there are some fantastic sports people in our country who often get forgotten about (and certainly not paid as much). Pick up a newspaper and the back page will almost always be covering a football story.

And yet, in 2012, the rest of the sporting industry has had a stonking year. Bradley Wiggins in the Tour de France? Jessica Ennis, Mo Farrah, Luke Campbell, Laura Trott, Victoria Pendleton, Jade Jones in London 2012? (I've had to cherry pick some names there, so long is our list of success in the Olympics.) Oliver Hynd, Ellie Simmonds, Helena Lucas, Jonnie Peacock, Danielle Brown, Sarah Storey in the Paralympics?

These are just some of the names of people who've won gold - let's not forget those who did so brilliantly to achieve silver or bronze.

In August, I had the pleasure of meeting Etienne Stott and Timothy Baillie during the FIA World Endurance Championships at Silverstone and they were the most down-to-earth, really nice people you could ever hope to meet. Rather than being boastful of their gold medal success they were almost shy, embarrassed by the adulation thrust upon them.

And now, with dramatic success in the Ryder Cup, more names can be added to the list of Britain's fabulous sportspeople in 2012.

All this makes me wonder how on Earth we are going to be able to pick a Sports Personality of the Year this year. The list of possible entrants is going to be mammoth and the running so close. Any one of Britain's competitors, in any one of the myriad sports that have taken place this year, are eligible for winning the BBC's most prestigious sporting award.

Except footballers.

They should look to the hard work, dedication and true sportsmanship that has been shown this year, and take some lessons. And football, in general, could do with learning a bit from how the other sports manage themselves.

Maybe then there might be a chance that when we reach the World Cup in 2014, I won't be faced with a pub full of crying fans, all depressed that, yet again, they've been let down by their national team.

In the meanwhile, BBC, I recommend you scrap the voting system for Sports Personality this year and just have a ding dong of a party to celebrate the success of all our brilliant competitors.

--
*I include Wimbledon; mostly because Murray did, at least, make it to the final.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1722859 2012-07-31T07:49:55-04:00 2012-07-31T09:45:12-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
Quite rightly, a lot of the advice given to Daley was to ignore the comments and, early on, the original commenter seemed to recognise the error of his ways and even sent an apology; he was just disappointed that his hopes for a good result had been dashed.

But then it all seemed to go horribly wrong when, following a comment made by Daley, user @Rileyy_99 got on the warpath. Foul language and a string of abuse followed and the online debate got even warmer.

Waking this morning to the news that a young man of similar age to Daley had been arrested following his online tirade, I commented that I was glad he had been, and then entered an interesting debate online covering topics about how we are becoming a Police State and that Freedom of Speech is no more. But there is a difference between a freedom of speech and bullying or abuse.

George Orwell, as one commenter said to me, would have said: "told you so." Indeed, but would Orwell be worried about the Police State or, when you look down this teenage user's Twitter feed, the comments including an apparent threat to one user to stick a knife down their throat or to another user that he would come round to their house with a rope and strangle them with it?

When such comments are made, especially in writing on an Internet site, it's very difficult to decide whether they are made in jest or as a real threat.

As a publican, I spend a lot of time behind the bar mentally assessing whether what people are saying is drunken chit-chat, abusive or simply meant in jest, and then taking an appropriate course of action. We've all made a comment, either verbally or in writing, that we've subsequently regretted but, when you can see somebody's face, it's easier to make that deduction and react accordingly. Usually, if somebody's getting carried away, a simple "calm down" or a suggestion of another fifty pence in the swear box will suffice and most people will laugh it off.

Last year, uproar ensued when Jeremy Clarkson said that NHS employees who went on strike should be shot. Cue tens of thousands of complaints following a startled union who took offence to it but, in reality, anybody watching could see that it might just have been a poorly timed turn of phrase at worst.

We've all got quirky little sayings we like to use habitually. Growing up, whenever I did anything wrong, my mother would tell me I'd get myself shot for whatever bit of mischief I'd got myself in to. "You'll be strung up," is one my wife likes to use repeatedly.

But to tell somebody you're going to drown them, put a knife in their throat or a rope around their neck? All littered with four letter profanity? From a stranger? In writing...?

I'm no prude. Swearing doesn't bother me and I'm proud we live in a liberal age with the ability to share our thoughts with the world, but I stand by my original comment that I'm glad the seventeen year old was arrested.

I'm not suggesting we throw away the key, as some have done, or that he spends the rest of his life besuited in orange, connected to burly men by metal chains, printing number plates for the rest of his life.

But perhaps a little understanding in how to respect others and the technological freedom growing up in the 21st century is affording him wouldn't go amiss...]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1682439 2012-07-18T09:31:14-04:00 2012-09-17T05:12:07-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
With the Diamond Jubilee turning out to be a damp squib and the Euros falling unsurprisingly short of England's best performance, we've only got the International Running and Jumping competition left to fall back on.

Almost every event in between these "big" opportunities has also fallen foul of the weather with many being cancelled or performing poorly thanks to the Jet Stream, which appears to have become the nemesis of anybody trying to put together a good time outdoors this year.

Even indoor events have suffered as members of the public choose to cosy up at home on the sofa with a glass of wine and the telly instead of braving the elements to find out what's going on in their local.

With just days to go to the Olympics starting I must confess that the event has always left a bitter taste in my mouth. The much-heralded arrival of the Olympic Torch in our nearest town of Newmarket (4 miles away) decimated trade for the day as everybody went to watch it make its way up the high street (if they'd checked Google Maps when the Torch arrived in the country I'm sure it would have made it to London by now...) and I've always been a bit pessimistic about how much the event will really bring to pubs that aren't in the vicinity of an Olympic location. Will people really go to the pub to watch it?

Despite the wet weather and beleaguered performance of 2012 trade, and my personal doubts, like many publicans I'll be plugging on with a smile on my face and a determination to make it work. My wife and I had already been planning promotions and slogans we could use to try and attract customers through the door of our small village venue, only to learn this morning that the Olympic Committee is sending out a small army of 'brand police' to make sure we don't try and make our pub sound like an "official Olympic venue".

As I can only seat thirty people it's unlikely anybody will mistake me for the actual place to go and see the table tennis finals but I do have a sign on my door that was given to me by Coca Cola and contains the Olympic logo, so I suppose stranger things have happened.

According to today's Independent, pubs are allowed to put "watch the Olympic Games here and enjoy a cold pint of lager..." but if our A-boards are branded with, say, Greene King's logo we're not allowed to use them to let people know we're showing the games. Which will be a bit of a pain for those of us without unbranded boards - unless, of course, the Olympic Committee are going to supply us with them...

Worse still, apparently new legislation has been created to ban anybody from using the word Gold. Or Silver. Or Bronze. Or, amazingly, 2012. Twenty Twelve is banned too. And Two Thousand and Twelve. I apparently can't use the word London, either.

Or Summer.

(Not that we're really having one, so I suppose I would leave that one out.)

Now, the last time I checked, these words - and others in the list - are not actually protected by trademark so if I want to offer a celebratory pint of IPA Gold to my customers, I'm jolly well going to. I might even write on my A-boards "watch the Olympics here" and "enjoy Gold this Summer".

With 700'000 unsold tickets, a failed security company and the shambles surrounding the "Olympic Lanes" on the roads in to London, I would have thought that the Olympic Committee had more to worry about than whether I'm branding my menus with Golden 2012 Summer offers.

Lord knows what they'll make of Little Chef's Olympic Breakfast, then...]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1657908 2012-07-08T20:08:24-04:00 2012-09-07T05:12:12-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
The unseasonable weather, the unprecedented interest in this year's FIA Formula One World Championship and disarray amongst the Silverstone stewards lead to me sitting on the A43 for two and a half hours longer than I'd anticipated and - I must confess - I joined in the throng of Twitter users complaining about the traffic debacle.

At one point, I got out of the car and chatted with my fellow stranded travellers, all trying to get to see the action. So close we could hear the cars going about their business on the circuit, yet so far away that, because the car parks had become quagmires, we couldn't get anywhere near.

One group, sat in their VW Transporter, had travelled from Wales and told me that the last time they saw it this bad was before the dual carriageway was built. Another traveller was on his first visit to Silverstone: "I'll never come again," he told me, "it's ridiculous."

I could just imagine Bernie Ecclestone, ringing up Donnington and telling them all was forgiven, or flicking through his Rolodex for the telephone number of Snetterton. And then I began to think, annoyed as I was that I wasn't going to get to see the Friday action, that perhaps it wasn't really Silverstone's fault.

This year has seen unfathomably dire weather that has brought many public events, large and small, to their knees. Nobody will forget the Queen and Prince Philip standing stoically throughout the torrid weather for the Diamond Jubilee and summer fetes, carnivals and parties have been cancelled the length and breadth of the country.

As a publican, it is all too obvious to me how much damage this wet drought has had on trade and many of my contemporaries have told me the same.

So are we really right to expect Silverstone to have been able to cope any differently? It was worrying that they announced on Friday night that people with parking passes shouldn't attend on Saturday for qualifying but, on race day, many of the traffic problems were caused by people refusing to follow the steward's guidance towards the fields once the hard standing car parks were full.

These were, we know, exceptional circumstances. I showed my wife, who is a staunch music festival goer, some of the pictures of the grounds within the circuit, where normally grassed areas had been churned into a sludge of straw and mud, and she likened it to Glastonbury. And she, like so many others, walks and queues for hours each year to spend a week shin deep in mud just to listen to people sing songs.

"It's all part of the experience," she tells me each time she returns from one of these events, so caked in mud that she isn't allowed near me until she's been power-washed.

Despite the disappointment of Friday, the rain-delayed qualifying session of Saturday and the muddy terrain throughout, this weekend was a petrolhead's music festival and Silverstone delivered up another twist in the intricate tale of the 2012 Formula One season.

As we watched Mark Webber steal victory from Fernando Alonso in the closing stages of the race and lamented in the poor performance of Britons Hamilton and Button, before standing in the rain to watch the BBC F1 Forum and live music at the Main Stage, all I could think as I looked around at the crowds enjoying the entertainment was this:

It wasn't Silverstone's fault. It was all part of the experience. And it was fun...]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1611832 2012-06-20T09:24:39-04:00 2012-08-20T05:12:05-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
And if I'd read about this on April 1st, I'd have thought the whole thing was a giant April Fool's prank. But, apparently, Louise Mensch, MP, is venturing in to the world of social media by launching a rival service to Twitter.

The MP told The Guardian that the site's name, Menshn, is a play on the word mention. Seems to me it's more obviously a play on her own name...

A huge advocate of social media, Louise Mensch has used the Internet to her advantage and is a regular contributor to the micro-blogging site Twitter, which she cites as the reason behind setting up her own version of the service.

According to her and business partner Luke Bozier, Twitter's lack of focus is frustrating, even though they are large fans of the service. The site's large following makes for conversations to be highly random and the thought process is that Menshn will be a more focused version of the micro-blogging site, staying on topic rather than being dragged away from it.

But isn't that the art of conversation? Certainly, any good chinwag that I've been involved in evolves in to a discussion about something else and the same happens with subjects on Twitter and Facebook.

Menshn is launching as a US-only service at first, meaning those of us in the UK can't really see whether it's worth considering or not. Your starter for ten will feature topics focusing on politics and its launch is timed to capitalise on the upcoming Presidential Elections.

I can't see, at first glance, how the MP's new site is really going to differ. Topics can be followed on Twitter thanks to the use of hashtags and it's not clear how Menshn will prevent conversations going off topic once the discussion starts to evolve.

Rivals to Twitter and Facebook pop up from time-to-time and then disappear in to relative obscurity, the two big brands continuing - for now at least - to maintain their dominance in the social media blogosphere.

If Louise Mensch thinks she can take on the might of Twitter, perhaps she should look to Google for an indication of how successful it will be. The mighty search engine company has desperately tried to dethrone both Twitter and Facebook over the years with the launch of products such as Wave (now defunct) and Buzz (which faced a similar fate). And they're currently treading water with Google Plus, who's long-term success is based on integration with their well-established e-mail service GMail, their Google Drive service and the growth of their mobile operating platform, Android.

And even then, attracting people away from firm favourites Twitter and Facebook is proving difficult for them. As a stand alone product with only one agenda in mind, it could probably work, but many of us who like to use such services don't want to have to hop from one to another. The appeal of Twitter is that I can discuss whatever topic I like through one medium, not several.

A clever play on a noun or a surname, therefore, is unlikely to threaten Twitter just yet and, sadly, I fear it won't be long before this new service doesn't get menshnd at all...]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1589297 2012-06-12T08:56:13-04:00 2012-08-12T05:12:06-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
That was where I wandered off, looking at cars, bemoaning the fact that - unlike when I was a child - there weren't piles upon piles of brochures for me to collect and take home, and totally forgetting that I was there, in London's ExCel, with my eight-year-old son.

When I remembered he was supposed to be with me, he suddenly wasn't. Thinking it through, it was probably only a matter of moments between me turning to look at one car and him another, but it felt like a lifetime and, as the friend who was accompanying me and I hurriedly tried to remember where we'd last seen him, one panicked thought thundered through my mind louder than any other:

How the hell am I going to tell my wife we now only have to buy Christmas presents for one child?

I understand the emotion, then, that must have gone through David and Sarah Cameron's minds on that fateful Sunday when, after a nice family meal, they headed back to Chequers only to discover they were a child down when they arrived.

The two-car family had left The Plough Inn, just a few minutes drive from their official family retreat, with mum getting in to one car assuming daughter Nancy had got in to the other car with dad, and him thinking the opposite.

Dashing back to the pub, eight-year-old Nancy was found safe and well, helping the staff with their chores while she waited patiently for her dad to get back. Much the same as with my son at the time, who I discovered sitting with several rather pretty ladies all dressed in Honda.

My relief was palpable and, if I could, I would have bought a car from them there and then.

I'm sure Mr Cameron felt more than relieved to discover his daughter safe and sound and, while there may be some justice to criticising the couple for not doing a head count, this seems the perfect opportunity for the government to change their tune and point out how safe pubs are for the community, rather than constantly penalising the industry with more red tape and taxation.

This is an industry that is often castigated in the press for being harbingers of Friday night doom, with some shouting louder than others; while much of the press stated the Camerons were enjoying a pleasant family Sunday lunch, the Daily Mail wrote that the Prime Minister was having Sunday "drinks".

Let's not forget that many of the people often pictured in the press in the early hours of Saturday morning with their under garments round their ankles and their faces buried in a drain while they divest themselves of the contents of their stomach started the evening drinking cheap supermarket booze. Pubs which, more often than not, provide a safe and responsible place for people to enjoy themselves don't usually see these people until the end of the evening, and then have to take responsibility for their actions.

Perhaps now would be a good time for Mr Cameron to wax lyrical about how good pubs are for communities; a great first step would be for him to remove the Alcohol Duty Escalator.

You can help by adding your name to the petition here: http://goo.gl/yHB8B]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1520330 2012-05-16T05:51:44-04:00 2012-07-16T05:12:04-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
And Pastor Maldonado, whose ability and position in the team has been questioned many times, became the first Venezuelan to win a Formula One race. It must have left a FIA member running around desperately looking for the correct flag to display and the right national anthem to play.

Thankfully, no Borat-esque Kazakhstan faux pas took place on this occasion...

The twenty-seven year old had already cocked a snook at his detractors by placing his Williams on the front row of the grid during Saturday's qualifying session, only to find himself then promoted to Pole Position when McLaren's Lewis Hamilton was disqualified following a fuel irregularity.

With the Briton starting from the back, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was promoted to second and the Lotus Renaults' of Roman Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen to third and fourth respectively. Nobody expected Maldonado to be holding the lead by the end of the first lap and indeed, despite a strong start and a defensive line by the Williams driver, Alonso took the lead in the first corner and held it until lap 11, when he took his first pit stop.

What followed was a game of cat and mouse as former champions Alonso and Raikkonen kept young buck Maldonado honest throughout the following fifty five laps, but it was the relative new boy who ended up victorious, bringing to an end his team's winning drought and giving owner Frank Williams a seventieth birthday present to be proud of.

Five races, five different winners from five different teams. 2012 is shaping up to be a classic season.

But just ninety minutes later the celebrations were abruptly interrupted when flames erupted in the Williams team's pit garage. Thick black smoke filled the paddock and pit lane areas and team personnel from up and down the garages ran to help put the blaze out. All-in-all, thirty one people were treated for smoke and other related injuries but in amongst it all (286 minutes in if you watch back on SkySports F1 HD) you see race winner Maldonado looking around desperately for his fiancée, who had been in the garage.

Journalists and personnel tell him that members of his family had headed away and point him in the direction they went and then, in amongst the melee, fans milling around the paddock stop the stunned looking driver and ask him for a photograph.

I know that Bernie Ecclestone has been working to make Formula One less elitist and the drivers more accessible to fans but, on this occasion, many would have been tempted to say 'take a hike', and I don't think you could have blamed them if they did, but instead Pastor paused, smiled for the camera (twice!), and then headed on.

What composure and maturity he has shown in the wake of what must have been a turbulent and emotional day. A true credit to the Williams F1 team and his sponsors and, now, an interesting outside bet if you fancy being brave.

But I can't help wondering what the people who took the photograph must think when they look back at that picture, or show it to friends:

"Look, there's me with Pastor Maldonado, just after he won the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix."

"Was it foggy in Barcelona that day?"

"No, there was a fire raging in the Williams garage just behind him. Look, you can see the personnel covered in fire extinguisher foam, and if you look really carefully you can finally see an emergency vehicle arriving."

"Was everyone okay?"

"I'm not sure, but I think Maldonado was trying to find his girlfriend to check she was okay. I got there first, though..."]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1517057 2012-05-15T05:20:10-04:00 2012-07-15T05:12:09-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
The inexorable rise in the price of beer these days is as accepted as the height of Simon Cowell's trouser waist and yet, as a nation of beer lovers, we appear mighty reticent about fighting it.

Few people realise that beer duty has gone up by over 40% in the last three years and that a third of the price you pay for your pint is tax. Worse, there is a horribly cunning piece of legislation, known colloquially as the Beer Duty Escalator, which means that each year alcohol will rise by 2% above the rate of inflation, automatically.

This allows the Chancellor, during his Budget speech, to always use the vanilla line: "there will be no change to our alcohol policy this year." The general public always cheer, thinking booze has been left alone, and then blame the publican when the price of their pint has jumped another ten pence.

CAMRA - the Campaign for Real Ale - has set up an e-petition to stop this duty escalator but, at the time of writing, just 42'510 people have shown their support for it. For a nation that thinks beer is getting too expensive, this is surprisingly low...

Compare it, for example, to the "Pasty Tax". Britain was in uproar following the last Budget when it was announced that savoury products such as pasties or pies that are warmed up for take away would become subject to VAT, a price hike of twenty percent.

Off the back of such uproar, a petition of half a million names was delivered to Downing Street protesting the VAT addition and many others exist online for you to add your voice to. Now, I love a Pukka Pie as much as the next man but I also love my beer (even if it doesn't always love me...), and the pub industry in which I work.

Beer is the cornerstone of pubs; pubs are at the heart of life for many communities; the brewing industry provides jobs to millions of people up and down this land. Every day we read a story about one pub or another closing, of the beleaguered pub industry.

It doesn't have to be like that. There are many things affecting the pub world and for many small pubs it's hard enough trying to keep the business afloat in these times of drought, but the beer duty escalator is a heinous policy that really does need redressing.

If you've got a pub in your village, have a loved one employed by the industry or simply can't stomach the thought of carrying on drinking if the average price of a pint exceeds four quid, you can add your voice to CAMRA's campaign and sign the e-petition.

100'000 signatures are what's needed to get Parliament to debate the matter. If half a million pasty-lovers can do it, so can pub lovers. All you've got to do is click here... http://goo.gl/yikqv]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1437591 2012-04-19T11:14:47-04:00 2012-06-19T05:12:01-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
Just about every article you read on the subject mentions "minimum pricing" and "binge drinking" in the same sentence, as if bringing in a price of 40p per unit will stop the practice but the truth of the matter is this: nobody really knows what Binge Drinking means.

To me, minimum pricing should be brought in, but for the purposes of making the off-trade - establishments such as supermarkets, who sell alcohol in vast quantities at often below-cost or at-cost pricing in order to entice customers in and then have no responsibility for what happens afterwards - more responsible for the booze that they sell.

The minimum cost of 40p per unit won't suddenly make alcohol 'unaffordable', nor will it bring the price of the beer you consume at home up to the same level of that which you drink in the pub. And nor should it. Of course alcohol to be consumed at home should be cheaper than alcohol in a public house - you're actually buying two different experiences. At home, you're drinking a canned or bottled product, to enjoy in the company of your own home; in a pub you are buying the experience of the environment, be it a night out with your friends to enjoy music, a quiet chat, a meal with a loved one or simply somewhere to go for a change of scenery, for some company.

In a pub, the beer you drink will be drawn from a cask or a keg, your drink will be served to you in a (hopefully) clean and branded glass, you'll be surrounded by a friendly and lively environment and sometimes music or televised sport will be on offer, usually without charge. The price of your drink reflects that so, naturally, it will be more expensive than from a supermarket.

But often, Britain's apparent problem with Binge Drinking starts with the fact that many choose to begin their night out by staying at home and pre-loading - the act of drinking cheap supermarket booze at home before heading out to a pub or club much later.

When I was in my early twenties (I can say that, now I've just turned 40) a night out started in the pub at about 8pm. Today, for that generation, they don't think about booking the taxi in to town before 10:30pm. And the trade that supplies them with their early-evening liquor has little if any responsibility for the actions that follow, leaving it up to those of us who run pubs to take the blame.

Minimum pricing will go some way towards passing that responsibility on.

Meanwhile, Ann Widdecombe stops just short of doing a Jeremy Clarkson and suggesting all binge drinkers be shot in Tuesday's Daily Mail, an article that was accompanied by an obligatory picture of a young woman apparently comatose on a bench, beneath which stands a strategically placed bottle of Budweiser and another of Smirnoff Ice.

If Ms Widdecombe could define a Binge Drinker, I'd be happy. It is, of course, drinking to excess but by who's definition? The British Medical Association used to refer to drinking heavily over a weekend as bingeing, now it says it's an evening. Alcohol Concern says it's the equivalent of a man drinking five pints of standard lager or two large glasses of wine for a lady.

But the Office of National Statistics says a man drinking 8 units (four pints of standard lager) in one sitting just once a week is a binge drinker.

It won't be long before somebody enjoying a glass of wine with their dinner each night will be 'bingeing'.

By definition then, anybody who actually enjoys a drink - no matter how much, or where, they enjoy it - is a Binge Drinker. Minimum Pricing won't suddenly fix it.

But it will be a first step towards making the supermarket industry more responsible for their part in the whole fiasco.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1401916 2012-04-04T04:02:49-04:00 2012-06-03T05:12:01-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
Instagram, the photo-sharing app that has had iPhone users evangelising about the worthiness of their device over Android users since 2010, finally launched on the Google mobile platform on Tuesday but I must admit I'm struggling to see what all the fuss is about.

The app was launched relatively quietly, with just a small link to the Google Play Store appearing on the company's website to guide enthusiastic Android users in the right direction - but immediately the web was ablaze with fanatics and detractors alike. Jenna Wortham, writing in the New York Times blog, reported that Instagram was seeing 2000 downloads of its app every minute from its new Android community.

I have to say that I'm finding the Instagram experience relatively...meh. This isn't because the app is poor - in fact, it's anything but - but developers focusing so heavily on the Apple platform and leaving the Google operating system out in the cold means that we Android users have had access to a glut of alternative photo-editing apps for some time now and I'm not really sure I need another one.

The Instagram interface is nice, tidy and quick to get to grips with. A large, centrally placed button allows me to switch to camera mode and once I've snapped away I can apply one of the several lens filters that the app is famed for. Or I can import a photo I've already taken.

Once I've adjusted the picture to my liking it is uploaded to my Instagram account, where it's instantly shared with my online community; I can even choose to share the picture with Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare and Tumblr. Why not Picasa and Google+, I wonder?

The look and feel is pretty similar to the iPhone version, although one big feature - tilt-shift, which allows you to produce pictures that simulate a miniature scene - is missing from the Android version. This is a shame - I like having fun with tilt-shift features.

I have no doubt that Instagram will be a huge success on Android, simply because of its reputation and massive community, and the fact that so many have waited for so long for it to be launched. (Perhaps developers would do well to remember a massive community of non-iPhone users exists out there which they could be tapping in to because, while they're not, somebody else is.)

Instagram's biggest selling point is its online community of photo-lovers, and it can be fun to flick through the massive library of pictures that are out there. If you are somebody who spends your entire day taking photographs of your dog, or your beef burger, or your cups of coffee (there seemed to be an awful lot of pictures of that ilk when I scanned through different user profiles; I'll admit my first snaps were of a lemon and a packet of Monster Munch) or who likes to look at the photographs of strangers rather than your friends, then Instagram is definitely for you. It provides an undeniably excellent community for photo-lovers from one end of the professional spectrum to the other.

But if you're an Android user who simply snaps the odd picture and shares it with your existing online social networks, then - for me at least - the jury is still out.

It might grow on me, but for now I'll be sticking with Vignette. Which does have a tilt-shift feature.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1390528 2012-03-30T05:38:18-04:00 2012-05-30T05:12:01-04:00

Mark J Daniels http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-j-daniels/
She'll start in one shop, go to the next, followed by another, followed by a lengthy debate over an unbelievably expensive cup of coffee as to which piece of cheesewire was the most attractive/best price and so on, before heading back to the first shop and purchasing the first pair of knickers she picked up.

To buy heating oil, I invariably ring up the local supplier and ask them what price they will give me on a thousand litres of heating oil, and what their delivery schedule is like. I'll then ring another supplier, and another supplier, and another supplier until I find a price I like, then call my local supplier back up. They invariably offer to beat the best price I gave them by half a penny a litre and promise to deliver by that afternoon.

This process of bartering usually saves me a few quid on my next oil delivery and I've often wondered why I don't just ring up the first supplier, make up a sort-of-realistic price and get them to beat it, therefore saving me time on phone calls, but as I sat in a traffic jam caused by people queuing for petrol yesterday, an idea occurred to me.

As a nation, we appear to have gone in to meltdown over an impending fuel shortage, which doesn't - as I write - actually exist. Petrol is still in plentiful supply, with the only backlog that actually exists having been created by an inept government and panic buying motorists as retailers have a bumper week. Sales are reportedly up 170% for unleaded as car owners and those wishing to mow their lawns this weekend desperately fill their tanks and jerrycans to the brim and, as a result, prices are rising. It's like a summer's day in a pub for them, with their 'beer garden' over flowing with eager punters - only we publicans would be lynched if we even thought about putting up the price of beer just because the pub was busy...

One station I drove by yesterday had pushed diesel up to 152.9p a litre and cars were literally queuing on to the busy main road to get some.

The horrible fact of the matter is that, when this is over, prices won't come down. Retailers will drop to 150.9 and we'll all think this is cheap!

But what if we were to buy our fuel in the same way we buy heating oil? Or my wife buys undergarments? She also has a habit of coming home and saying, "oh, by the way, the car needs filling up..." This usually means the orange light has been on for the last two days and the car is running on only a memory of fuel.

At that point, I could pick up the phone and start ringing around local petrol stations to negotiate a price on unleaded. Once agreed, I can head out to the one who's offered me the best price and fill up. If such a bartering system existed on a national scale, retailers and oil companies would be forced to become more competitive in their pricing as we, the consumer, start to set the price we're prepared to pay for fuel rather than them.

And what about people out on the road when the fuel light comes on? Naturally, there'll always be an "at the pump" price, as there is at your local heating oil depot, but many of us have smartphones and mobile Internet devices. I wouldn't be averse to pulling over in a layby and searching around for a supplier if it saved a few quid.

Surely there's an app for that...?]]>