Cash In

This humble outpost of the worldwide interweb is normally an advertising-free zone, but I'll make an exception for my latest discovery, AW Surveys, which pays decent cash for surveys that take only 30 seconds each. Well worth a look - just click on the picture below.

Dying Virgin

The current collapse of some of Britain's best-known high street traders has had an unexpected effect.

When Woolworths announced that it had begun a closing down sale, the day immediately following the announcement was the 100-year-old company's record highest day of trading. The Aberdeen brach was like food parcel day at a UN refugee camp, scrums of people all but slamming each other into the rapidly emptying shelves.

Yesterday, Mrs Wife and I ventured into Dundee and found ourselves in Zavvi, the oddly-named record emporium formerly known as Virgin.

(Richard Branson obviously bailed at just the right time. And the Virgin is now right royally screwed.)

It was a similar situation to that we encountered in Woolies just before it closed - the shop probably seeing more money flowing into its tills in single days than in the previous six months combined.

It's a curious situation - we're only tempted out into the shops when we think there's a bargain to be had, and we don't care enough to spend money in well-kent high street stores until they're wheezing their last dying breaths.

Ad-vanced Warfare

Mike, a friend of mine so good that he employed both myself and Eric at the same time, sent me this link to Cracked.com's "If Banner Ads Were Forced To Tell The Truth" competition.

And, is is the way of useless shite on the worldwide interweb, it got me thinking.

How do these sites stay afloat? Surely there can't be that many idiots walking this little blue planet?

But, after a moment's thought, the question kinda got flipped around - "Why aren't there more sites fleecing gullible mugs?"

As I was replying to Mike's email, an advert at the top of my Hotmail window flashed up urging me to claim my free £10 whilst playing Deal or No Deal for £405,000 - a jackpot which rose by a penny every second.

Surely anyone with half a brain can realise that:

1) Companies do not achieve success through giving everyone on the internet free tenners.

2) Companies do not achieve success through giving away £405,000 to idiots on the internet.

3) A jackpot that rose by a penny EVERY SECOND would rise by £1 every 100 seconds, or 60p a minute. 60p a minute = £3.60 an hour = £86.40 a day = £604.80 a week. A jackpot rising by more than £600 a week, in a game people pay for free. Does anyone see any potential problems with that? Such as the source of this wonderful bounty?

And yet, I have absolutely no doubt that there are idiots out there clicking the advert every single second in the hope of brightening their weekend to the tune of four hundred grand.

Presumably, to feature within an advert within Hotmail, the company behind the advert can't be short of a bob or two, and must be (comparitively) legitimate.

But if you're stupid enough to click on a link that says "Free Britney Sex Tape" - well, you deserve the spyware, don't you?

I think I should go and take some painkillers for my toes now.

Money, It's A Gas

I'm probably risking legal action by posting this, but as it's currently doing the rounds on the worldwide interweb, I thought I'd share it with you strange folks.

Liverpool defender John Arne Riise's pay slip has ended up in the hands of someone who shouldn't have it. And they decided that the best thing to do would be to take a photograph and post it on the net.

So, what do we learn from the document? That Riise earns 120,000 pounds a month - 30,000 a week in popular tabloid terms. That for August 2006, he earned a 250 pound "points bonus" and a tidy 15,000 pound bonus for playing in the Champions League.

We also find out that an average Premiership earner, well below the top dogs like Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard, pays more than 55,000 pounds in tax in an average month. And that, after all deductions, he walks away with more than 82,000 pounds in an average month.

So what do we learn? Absolutely nothing - we already knew that Premiership footballers had far too much money. Nonetheless, Riise and his advisors have launched an investigation to find out how the pay slip became publicly available.

Publican Relations

Scotland, for one reason or another, always seems to be defined in one of two ways: as the tartan, shortbread, Highland cows and kilts stereotype or as the violent, drunk, socially-deprived slums as portrayed in Taggart, Trainspotting and most other television and movie dramas filmed in Scotland over the last couple of decades.

The latter depiction of Scotland always focuses on one of two cities: Glasgow (Taggart) or Trainspotting (Edinburgh). Which is a wee bit unfair. The rest of Scotland can be just as rough as the country's first and second cities.

Take Aberdeen for example. Per capita, probably Scotland's most salubrious city, thanks almost entirely to the money derived from North Sea oil. A city where young single men who have spent five weeks at sea arrive home with the best part of five thousand pounds in their bank accounts. A city full to the brim with seamen.

Sure, Aberdeen's wide, tree-lined, granite streets look very grand and refined. But venture down to the docks at night time, and you'll see man's base instincts rear their ugly heads in two forms. Drink and hookers.

For a first-hand account of a night in one of Aberdeen's seamier holes, check out this post over at The Misssy M Misssives. Or watch the video below. (Ignore the plummy-voiced twat from Front magazine who speaks at the start).

Begins At Home

England's international footballers are amongst the most loathsome, obscenely rich people in the country.

In one passage of Frank Lampard's autobiography (which must be a thrilling read covering his 28 years on the planet) he supposedly regales the reader with the story of how he was in awe of the wealth on show on Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich's yacht. This from a man who earns about eighty thousand pounds a week.

In the space of a week, Joey Barton, a mono-syllabic thug who in any other walk of life would likely have been jailed by now, earns four times as much as the average British worker.

So, it is with mixed feelings that I read today's news that the England national team is to donate all of its earnings from international fixtures to charity.

True, the move is to be applauded. But we are talking here of 25 players making a donation once every couple of months. There are more than 400 players plying their trade in the Premiership, all of whom could make a sizeable difference by making a similar pledge.

Working Nine to Five

Today is pay day for Groanin' Jock. Another month at the coalface has passed, and my bank account is temporarily swollen with cash.

The temporaray nature of this swelling is terribly depressing. Within the next two days, most of my monthly earnings will be siphoned off to other accounts, where they will be soaked up by the mortgage, council tax, various insurance policies and my credit card bill.

But, as the money is sitting in my account today, I decided to afford myself a little treat. In fact, no, treat is the wrong word.

I forked out twenty quid today on what is, frankly, a necessity - Football Manager 2007. This latest strain on my social life, eating habits, personal hygiene and, quite possibly, marriage, is as eagerly-awaited as any album by any of my favourite bands.

I've been hooked on SI Games' management simulators since 1996, when I was first introduced to Championship Manager 2. Since then, I've owned every incarnation of the game - through Championship Manager 97/98 to Championship Manager 3 to Championship Manager 2001/2002 to Championship Manager 4 to Championship Manager 2003/2004 and on to Football Manager 2005, Football Manager 2006 and now Football Manager 2007.

It would be frightening to think how many hours, days, weeks (years?) I have spent playing these games. My managerial career, in hours alone, probably outstrips those of Alex McLeish and Gordon Strachan.

I could wax lyrical about these games for hours on end. Quite simply, I am the consumate geek, a fact I alluded to briefly in an earlier post entitled Can You Manage?. I'm so excited by the prospect of this new game, which will drop through my letterbox on October 20, that I am considering purchasing a new laptop to play it on.

But that would SERIOUSLY screw up the finances.....