Sunday PR roast

Accountants Ernst & Young issued a press release today (Sunday) but the named PR, Vicky Conybeer, did not have access to a photo of those quoted in the release because she was not in the office.

Why bother releasing it on Sunday or being the named PR if you can’t help working hacks? Continue reading

Poor Govt. PR

Big Ben and a streetlight in the dark

Throw some light on it

An email to my MP asking whether I should complain about the Communities PR team to the minister or head of the Civil Service elicited a response, at last.

I called Matthew Gorman there on 15 December. I asked for the amount of council tax collected and the cost of collecting it, plus the amount of council tax benefit paid and the cost of paying it. I was given this information ten years earlier by the predecessor department for an article in the Guardian.

Continue reading

Tweeting twits

Tweets from #governmentnews are so wrong the person tweeting should be taken out and shot. Journalists should avoid this site because of its inaccurate and misleading information.

Yesterday, 17 January, it tweeted that new donation and funding figures for political parties had been published. This was just baloney. Continue reading

Blog or bog off

In the past few days I have worked from my Macbook using mobile internet connections from:

  • The top and bottom decks of double decker buses
  • standing up on a London commuter train
  • Seated on a Virgin train
  • On the overground section on a London tube
  • In a Starbucks and a Pret
  • Standing on Oxenholme and Lewisham stations

I have used a mix of my Vodafone dongle and my BT Openworld account. And that is in addition to several other people’s home wireless broadband networks. Continue reading

Tech no no

This morning a power cut brought down the servers, preventing me from posting my early morning news to the content management system (CMS) of the websites for which I write.

But that is nothing compared with the technical no-no yesterday.

A woman sent an explicit and personal email meant for her boyfriend to me by mistake. Continue reading

Missing links

screen grab of News NowAggregator site News Now has revealed a few more details of the legal battle it faces against the major daily and local UK newspapers over its linking.

In a Q&A format (link opens hew window) it claims News International objects completely to any linking to its stories, while others want payment for including those links.

We should all defend News Now’s right to use headlines and links.

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Coping strategy

I had a bath this morning. I doubt I am any cleaner than the extensive soap and flannel body wash I had standing on one leg each day since I left hospital after my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee operation on Monday. But I feel completely different.

And how you feel is vital. When you have an injury, illness or something else that knocks you back – especially as a freelance, potentially alone for long periods – you need a strategy to cope. Continue reading