Christmas Tree

Just been on yahoo answers with, "why do gay men talk funny". Top answer was... Answer number two was a very confusing...

I agree, one of my biggest phobias is getting gang raped by a car full of mincers. My only comfort is that my poor dress sense combined with ugliness will keep them at bay, however I suppose Gays get beer goggles too.

Well a quick shuffle over to youtube found poetry in mincing. But even this is guy "normal" and not really the sort if mincing I was referring to. I can also understand it being developed over time, but surely a couple of youg'uns must just be putting it on.

This is a serious question and is not meant to be offensive to gay people. What is with mincing (don't know it's proper name). Is it a "she" gay thing or is it hereditary? Just had two young lads (18 is) in the car who were mincing for England. Naturally there are lots of gay people out there who don't mince. Any guideance would be appreciated.

Ok let's own up. Are you a terry or a bob? I would like to think I'm terry and bobs lovechild, but probably really just a bob.

Fucking hell man. What the fuck! Lots of different age groups on forums mate. Cant believe many under 25 have watched them. Tonights was the one where they challenge each other to a bike race to Berwick, then pass each other on the back of vans. Brown ale in the water bottles. Strictly speaking 'Whatever happened to the Likely Lads' then, not the original B&W series which hasn't aged as well. One of my all time favourite series, it would be good anyway, but the fact its set locally makes it spot on. I like how both series tell one long story, with the first one culminating in Bob's wedding. I've got the lot (and the film) on DVD, cheap as chips iirc. Yeah, I'm gonna try and get the lot. Each time I catch it on some channel I love it all over again. This should go in the claim to fame, but I remember the local farmer became an overnight celebrity because one of his wagons was used in an episode.

Stevie if you have a recruitment background and 5 or 6 clients you get on with it's a license to print money. Go for it. Parky I have hundreds of clients, most of them are cunts, but I have 20 solid base clients who would take me to lunch but at the moment 20 clients isn't enough, it's pretty desperate times. You see traits around the country with clients - London and the South East: money to burn, will agree to nearly any terms if you get what they want but sadly I don't cover the sarf...yet Midlands (particularly the West Midlands): all cunts, dull, repetitive, play various consultancies against each other hate dealing with them - South West and Wales: jovial but dense and when push comes to shove normally haggle like fuck - North West and Yorkshire: I'll put them in the same bracket because 90% are cunts, they all expect a scam, they're incredibly pessimistic and they trust absolutely no one - hard to deal with but Yorkshire are even worse than the NW (only place I've placed someone round there is Sheffield) North East: seriously best people in the country to deal with and I aint even being biased, but sadly there's not much money to be had Scotland: when times are good it's brilliant, when times are bad it's terrible, when there's a recession forget about devolution Scotland seems to get it worse than anywhere. All in all to cut it short Parky I need a buoyant economy to go it alone, and London and the SE is the ONLY place to get big money, it really is true. More proof if any were necessary that you'd be successful. Clearly identified market conditions by zone. What one of my mates did was he slowly went off book with a handful of recruits and placed them alone (coaching and interview preps). Then when he had enough to cover his fixed costs he took a leap of faith. He now works I'd say about 3 days a week and clears 40k (not a huge amount in your game I know) with time to enjoy the other parts of his life. Based in London though. What sector? To be honest, I want to be earning 100k plus when I go it alone, although 40k and 4 days off is still a good standard of living and significantly more than I'm making under the restraints of working for an employer. Where you are based is irrelevant Parky. London is 3 hours away on the train, I do the journey more than some inspectors, and I've been to Manchester and Glasgow on client visits too. All they are, are arselicky trips where you buy the client some dinner get pissed and have a laugh. Any specifics about vacancies you can get by email or over the phone. 40K and 4 days off beats 100k and six days working any day of the week. (Speaking from experience) Particularly if you have a family. Pub / food is definately the quick route to grey hair and dodgy ticker. Now writing books for companies highlighting how clever the ceo is That must be a license to print money.

Well first Id get yourself a better website Cheeky bugger Wasnt bad for two hours work trialing some downloaded software.

Only start a business if you have a client/clients first. Ideal world stuff tho. I know of a product that is mainly advertised through classified ads in local papers, followed up by a home visit to clinch the sale. This is very profitable but absolutely virtually impossible to get any sort of sales projections or client base. Makes the business plan pretty futile. Its simply a case of placing the ad and waiting for the phone to ring. Trying to raise the capitol to get started in the next few weeks so I'll let you know. P.S. Anyone want to buy a Taxi!

I'll tell you because thats EXACTLY the scenario that hubby faced one year ago. Well he wasnt sacked as such, I'd say things were just made so difficult for him to remain in his job that he left. He'd worked as bike mechanic/MOT inspector in the same firm for 29 years, the last 10 years or so he ran the workshop completely. Anyhow the daughter of the owner took over and of course had new ideas etc, they clashed so hubby left. We had £5,000 given as a gift from his parents. nothing more except my wages and just alittle savings. We were scared stiff but there was no way hubby could work for anyone else, he'd run the garage his own way for too long. Besides why should he? he'd made others well off for long enough! Tbh it was all go and luckily we didnt have much time to ponder on the 'what ifs' Within a couple weeks we'd found a unit on a trading estate to rent, all our mates helped to get it looking smart. Luckily hubby had most of the tools and equipment he needed as he'd bought it all off 'snap on' overs the years. (thousands of pounds worth of gear which I think we can still claim the tax on) We sorted out accounts with parts dealers, opened a business account (major headache in itself) had a nightmare getting insurances, found an accountant... etc etc ..its always the paperwork stuff that gives you the stress!!! He opened the doors of his garage last April. One year on now and things have been pretty good. Our aim was just to try and make it through the first year which we've done. A big learning curve but I have to say apart from 2 or 3 quiet weeks after Christmas hubby has been pretty much flat out with work. Having been in the trade for years and knowing so many people, a large majority of his old firm's customers came to him plus new ones too. Their loyality and support has been briliant, many say, 'Bri has looked after my bikes for years, I'm not letting anyone else touch them!' So considering our bad timing with the recession an all, things have worked out. . Now we are finding we could do with bigger premises and plan to put in our own MOT bay. Im very cautious about it all though. Thats brilliant

So lets say you've got £5,000 to play with and you've just been sacked and your only alternative is working for yourself. What would you do?

I love going through other poeples work and hate looking at my own. But yes, the creative really wants to get everything in. I used to hate it when the ad agency told me there was no way my 45 second radio script could be condensed to fit the 30 seconds allowed! Luckily I found Gambachini and all my prayers were answered.

Im enjoying it. Its just like a reaaly good film editor who can cut and chop and re-assemble the whole piece into an attention grabbing story. I quite often watch a film and think this is a very good tale, ruined by the editing. Usually not enough! On the other hand it can be really hard for the original "creative" to take as they usually either dont want any left out or like it the way it is, hence the directors cut.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=zqDP...XEC9Jp3ZA_3d_3d And you have to love this headline "Hughton keeping his fingers crossed for Stoke match" http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-ne...61634-23234835/

Fucking hell man. What the fuck! Lots of different age groups on forums mate. Cant believe many under 25 have watched them. Tonights was the one where they challenge each other to a bike race to Berwick, then pass each other on the back of vans. Brown ale in the water bottles. I'm under 25 and I've seen them! Point made already above by Andrew

Ebay, get them.

Fucking hell man. What the fuck! Lots of different age groups on forums mate. Cant believe many under 25 have watched them. Tonights was the one where they challenge each other to a bike race to Berwick, then pass each other on the back of vans. Brown ale in the water bottles.

On now, if you've never seen it, watch it. Comedy gold.

Ah, after the first 30 or so, you stop dying a little inside and build up a callous. I haven't worked on it much lately. I've been working on this idea I had for a comic book series the last month or two. Got the rough draft done, thought of a better opening and ending, now I'm generating that. My Mac has this program on it called Comic Life that makes it super easy to lay out a comic page. I can't draw for shit, but with Google and this image filter that makes photographs look drawn inside Comic Life, I've somehow managed to make a comic book all on my own (with a lot of unapproved assistance from image sources like the Associated Press). Lols. Truth is like a lot of creative activities, the real pleasure is in doing it, not flogging it. I sat and wrote a story for my daughter this morning in about 40 minutes in between jobs. Great fun at the time.

Sorry for sounding a complete cockend, C/T, but does a writer not have to have grasp of the English language first, to become a writer? Ouch! No. There are many well educated buffoons who may be able to quote and spout very high brow words, but have not a creative bone in there body. You also have to bear in mind the audience, children. Barely out of primary school there vocabularly is fairly limited. They are much more interested in the story than fancy words, hence the fact any idiot can enthrall a child with the re-telling of three little pigs, red riding hood etc. If you can put together a half decent rhyme or Limerick you are most of the way there. Most childrens picture stories such as the gruffalo are only 130 to 300 words long. It's quite amusing that what sent me down this route was Reading a few bedtime stories that were obviously wrote by a wordsmith, but the content was dullness itself. I almost deleted my post immediately after sending it, as it actually sounds far worse than I meant it to. The main point was that if a publisher received a story, or whatever, with poor English they would more likely chuck it in the bin, and move on to the next offer from someone else. As the yank most graphically spelled out, above, there seems a heck of a lot of competition out there!! From what Ive read thats very true. In fact these guys get so many novels over there desks, that most people reccomend that you only send them a one paragraph advert for your story. If the idea seems good, they'll ring you.

CID_mcdp Bloody hell man!!!! Good luck with it, everything I've read lately says that writing the novels the easy bit!!! I'm sure you've been down this road, but the mcmillan link above has a section for submitting unsolicited manuscripts. I'm sure you need to have thick skin getting all those no,s before a yes.

Sorry for sounding a complete cockend, C/T, but does a writer not have to have grasp of the English language first, to become a writer? Ouch! No. There are many well educated buffoons who may be able to quote and spout very high brow words, but have not a creative bone in there body. You also have to bear in mind the audience, children. Barely out of primary school there vocabularly is fairly limited. They are much more interested in the story than fancy words, hence the fact any idiot can enthrall a child with the re-telling of three little pigs, red riding hood etc. If you can put together a half decent rhyme or Limerick you are most of the way there. Most childrens picture stories such as the gruffalo are only 130 to 300 words long. It's quite amusing that what sent me down this route was Reading a few bedtime stories that were obviously wrote by a wordsmith, but the content was dullness itself.

And this site is even better. If your still interested after reading all the do's and dont's your doing well. http://www.shavick.com/getpublished.htm Anyway, sent in a little ryhme jotted yesterday in the taxi and we'll see if I get a reply!

This is the website of Mcmillan Childrens books, publishers of the Gruffalo and many more. Below is a link to their writers page which may be of interest to any budding authors. http://www.panmacmillan.com/Authors%20Illu...er's%20Area And yes, I'll still post when Im famous, infact I might even buy the club!