Winning ways
For the last while I have been getting more and more mails about this site.
I get a lot from people wanting to do “guest posts”, which almost without exception would mean a post about some business or some topic that would bore the arse off anyone.
I get mails from businesses too, usually looking for free advertising. I don’t do free advertising. Actually I do – I put the wee link to The Smoker’s Angel in my sidebar because I had dealings with them and they went way above and beyond the call of duty to help me out. They didn’t ask for a link, so I gave ‘em one.
I received a weird mail this morning.
It started off with the usual flattery about how mine is a wonderful site [I know that] and how I write brilliantly [I know that too] and how they especially liked a post I wrote a couple of days ago [not one of my best so I suspect they picked one at random, but it at least means the mail isn’t a bog standard mail sent to millions?]. They went on to say that I was “clearly a talented, passionate and popular blogger” which I also knew but I think they are overstating the popularity bit.
So what did they want?
They are starting some kind of competition apparently and they want me to enter. It’s one of those “knock out” things where people vote over a period for their favourite sites and we end up with ten winners.
And what do the winners get?
This is the weird bit. They mix the ten up and send them off to various places around the world, swapping countries as it were and writing about their experiences.
The aim of all this is to understand other cultures and to promote peace between nations, so presumably I would be sent to some war-mongering hell-hole like Afghanistan, North Korea or New York?
So I would be dragged out of my beloved mountains and shipped off to some God forsaken spot on the other side of the world for ten days and would have to write about it? They leave a lot of questions unanswered though. Would I be able to get decent Guinness at my destination? Could I bring Penny? Could I pick a destination that didn’t treat smokers like they carried the Black Death? And what about the other side of the coin? Does this mean some poor unfortunate bastard would be dumped living with Herself for ten days?
I don’t think they thought this through.
Sounds to me like there's going to be a catch somewhere, like the Nigerian scams. (Which I still get fairly regularly, amazingly. You'd have thought they would have exhausted the pool of gullibles by now…)
…I would be sent to some war-mongering hell-hole like Afghanistan, North Korea or New York…
Heaven forbid that you would end up in New York! Egad! The lunatics really are running the asylum there! I'd prefer N Korea or Afghanistan to that. Actually, Afghanistan was a great place in the late 60s. I spent about 6 months there, cumulatively, over a couple of years. I loved the place.
I don't think there is a catch. The company that is running it would presumably get tons of free advertising out of it so I doubt it's a scam. I'd mention 'em but then they would be getting more free advertising! 😉
I can only think of one place on Earth I would hate more than New York and that's Las Vagas. Pyongyang would be paradise by comparison.
Hi GD,
Don't even think about it. There is nowhere in the World to compare with your bit of Ireland, and these marketing loonies must have some scam buried somewhere. Stay home, enjoy life as it is and keep walking the dog. By the way, how's your pothole/road and new water supply?
Don't worry, BD. I have enough on my plate without entering someone else's marketing campaign.
The strip on the lane where they buried the pipe was lovely and smooth. It's now as potholed as the rest. My water pipe is still just a length of plastic which is stuck in my hedge. In other words – no change.
Perhaps you'd be lucky enough to be sent down to Texas to clear brush on Dubya's ranch…
"I get a lot from people wanting to do “guest posts”"
To which the answer is: Log onto Google, and set up your own blog you idle piss-weasel. Then you can guest post until your fucking hands fall off.
Just a suggestion…
Hah! I'll try that, thanks.
[*now why didn't I think of that?*]