Longrider

Thanks to an email from Jules, I finally got to the bottom of this affair. It was Jules’ email that pointed me in the right direction. It seems that I had been infected by this.

When Google first contacted me, they referred to badware on Felix Domesticus and as I pointed out before, this had suffered problems with an upgrade, so the scripts were all over the place. Having rebuilt it, I checked it and it was clean. As it turns out, it never was infected in the first place.

I subsequently noticed that this place; longrider.co.uk/blog was also showing a warning, so I checked out that, too and found nothing. Scans of both sites revealed them both to be clean. My conclusion that the googlebot was over reacting seemed to be confirmed by others experiencing similar difficulties. I asked Google to review my sites and they were given a clean bill of health.

Consequently, when Jules advised me that Google were once more labelling this site as dangerous, I was, understandably annoyed. We had been through all this, and I was not looking forward to trawling through pages of script looking for a Will o’ the Wisp again. In his email, Jules told me that it was my main page that was infected. So, I went though index.php, header.php, sidebar.php and footer.php to no avail. I ran it through spybye.org and it came out as clean. I did the same for Felix Domesticus just in case. Again, clean. Then it hit me… Did Jules mean longrider.co.uk/index.htm? This is nothing more than a blank holding page that I never use. Yup, that was it. As it turned out the compromised file was hiding in plain sight.

So, having found it at last and removed it, I can ask Google to review it again. How do I feel about my annoyance with Google now that their bot has been shown to be correct? Still annoyed, frankly. If their information had been more specific rather than downright misleading, I’d have discovered the malicious code more quickly. Simply telling me that there is something, somewhere on my site is less than helpful. Telling me that it is on one site when it is on another is misleading to the point of being completely useless. I’m reasonably tech savvy, but malicious codes and hacking are not something with which I am familiar, so if I’m to trawl through the site, it helps to know what I am looking for. Jules’ link gave me that clue, so when spybye picked up the URL, I found it relatively easily.

So, Google, tell me what I am looking for and tell me with some degree of accuracy, where I should be looking and I won’t waste hours of my time on a fruitless search through lines of code that are perfectly okay.

As it turns out, the risk was relatively low anyway – Longrider Blog and Felix Domesticus were clean. If you do a search on Longrider, it is this place that comes up, not the holding page. So those of you who came straight here, there never was a risk to you.

Via Rachel, I came across the unfortunate story of Natalie who has been misrepresented by the Daily Mail. Natalie is, unsurprisingly, angry and upset by this. The journalist engaged in a ten minute phone interview and then went to press.

On April 30th just after 3.30pm, I snatched up my phone and bit the bullet. I called up the journalist that had ‘interviewed’ me (I say this loosely) and expressed my upset at her not actually stating that she was interviewing me and my concern that I would be included in a feature about revenge, which is not what I, or this blog are about. I told her quite shrilly (I was stressed for fecks sake) that I did NOT want to open the paper and see something like “Blogger gets revenge on ex with her blog!” or some other pathetic headline.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. Why am I not surprised by this? Newspapers want to sell copy and, frankly, bad news or news about people behaving badly tends to sell rather better than “blogger writes about self help for women”. E-venge is sooo much more sexy. So, e-venge it was. Natalie also tells us that there were 26 inaccuracies in the article. Again, I am not surprised. If my railway career taught me anything it is that journalists are incapable of accurate, factual reporting. They either get it wrong through sheer ignorance or twist it to make the story appear more salacious than it really is. I lose count of the times following the Paddington crash when a journalist would spout utter bollocks about signal sighting like they knew anything about the subject.

I also recall a colleague who fell victim to having her words “twisted by knaves to make traps for fools”; in her case, it was the Sun. She was angry and devastated to find herself splashed across its wretched pages. It took a long time for her to get over the sense of anger and betrayal.

As a signalling manager, it was my responsibility to attend incidents. Journalists have a habit of turning up at incidents looking for a juicy story, and an unguarded comment could lead to a damaging headline. Therefore, we were under strict instructions not to talk to the press unless we were media trained. More recently, I was contacted by Channel 4 following one of my articles about the legality of dress codes in the workplace; in particular, about men with long hair. She wanted me to appear on a reality TV show; The Salon as they were planning a feature on men with long hair. She was disappointed and bemused when I flatly refused. I did so for exactly the same reason that my Railtrack employers insisted that I did not speak to the press when attending incidents; an unguarded comment can be taken out of context and twisted out of its original meaning and used against the utterer. I would have no editorial control, therefore, I would have no control over how I would appear on the finished piece. It would have been easy to make me look foolish with subtle editing. No, thankyou, very much.

For much of his life, Freddie Mercury refused to talk to newspapers. His line was simple enough; they are going to make it up anyway, so they don’t need help from me. It was a stance he maintained until a day or so before his death. It is a wise stance and one worth emulating.

It’s a bit late for Natalie, but for any other bloggers out there, I have one important piece of advice; take a deep breath and pause if you are asked for an interview. Ask yourself if you really want to do this. I know it is flattering and you are looking at your fifteen minutes of fame, but they are not thinking of you, they are thinking of their copy, of selling newspapers. You are just a means to that end; a pawn in their game. Is that fifteen minutes of fame worth a damaged reputation and the heartache that goes with it? If you take one piece of advice away from this site, then take this; never, ever, talk to the press. Oh, and don’t buy the Daily Mail, but that’s a given, isn’t it?

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Footnote: Natalie has complained to the Press Complaints Commission, but she is also trying to get this story on as many blogs as possible to set the story straight. This is my contribution.

On Monday, I turn fifty. The thought that goes through my mind is; where did all that time go? It seems barely a day or so ago that I was dreading turning forty. At the time, I wrote an introspective for Bikenet, musing on growing older. Now it’s the big five-o.

My life has been somewhat chequered. This is in part due to not really having any sense of direction. As a teenager, I had the vague idea that I wanted to be a veterinary surgeon. What kid doesn’t? A staggering lack of self-awareness meant that I missed the blindingly obvious lack of talent in the physics and chemistry department – both prerequisites for this career. By the time I reached the fifth form, I had, indeed, realised that this was a non-starter. I thought, perhaps, I could go to sea; following in my grandfather’s footsteps; and join the merchant marine as a radio officer. Ah, but, my lack of prowess with the old physics rather got in the way again. Two years at college taught me that while I could just about scrape through the exams, I was never going to cut it. Besides, the merchant navy was disappearing fast.

I tried half-heartedly to get a trainee post with the GPO telephones, but they saw through me and that died a death before it ever got going. So, I drifted aimlessly into credit control. I was a passable credit controller but tired of it fairly quickly. A falling out with my employer left me temping for the best part of three years before I took a job delivering parts to garages on behalf of a motor factor. I kidded myself that as I was riding a bike and getting paid for it, I was doing okay. But even I could see through the self deception. I was a lackey; a poorly paid lackey and my twenties were rapidly drawing to a close and I had achieved nothing useful with my life. I had done a fair job of screwing up my education and my career through a series of bad choices.

Had I at the age of thirteen chosen the arts – something my art teacher exhorted me to do – I might have made a career in graphic design, writing or photography. As it was, these things are all confined to my extra-curricular life.

Two severe winters interjected by a wet summer put an end to my desire to ride a bike and be paid for it. In the spring of 1986, I qualified as a driving instructor at the age of 28. For the first time in my career, I felt that I was achieving something positive, that I had a career. I was a pretty good driving instructor, though I say so myself. I tended to specialise in those pupils who had struggled with learning to drive and my unflappable patience seemed to work with them and I enjoyed the job. Well, most of the time.

Then came the poll tax and 15% interest rates. Overnight, my client base dried up. I could have returned to the likes of BSM, but had been badly burned by the franchise system. A system that disadvantages the driving instructor while guaranteeing income for the school – no matter how little work they provide. It’s a bad system and my recent experiences working with the AA merely confirmed my dislike for it. Nothing has changed and my brief desire to return to this career on a part time basis was, in part, killed off by that discovery.

So, after five years as a driving instructor, a new career beckoned. I was offered a post with British Rail as a signalman in Bristol panel signalbox. When it was privatised a few years later, I found myself on strike. Even now, I wonder what possessed us. We gained nothing and some of the working relationships were never repaired. A pointless exercise that became politicised by both sides in the dispute. My relatively short involvement with the unions left a bad taste in my mouth.

Shortly after the strike, I took the opportunity to become a signalling manager. Looking after Westbury panel signalbox, these were, perhaps, the happiest of my railway career. As I approached forty, finally, it seemed, I had a sense of direction.

By the time I had turned forty, I wanted something else, a change. In the spring of 1999, I took promotion and was once more back in the training and development field – something for which I have a natural empathy. My new role was looking after the training and assessment requirements for the whole of the Western zone of Railtrack. To say that it was challenging would be an understatement. I was faced with systemic failure left by my predecessor and had to close the whole thing down and start again from scratch. That was fun. I made a name for myself  and that name was bastard. Curiously, mostly from those folk who when asked would insist that “something be done” about the training department. So, I did that something. As it meant removing the trainer, it also made me a callous bastard. I couldn’t win.

I felt that I was settled. Ah, but, not me. Oh, no. I was asked to apply for a role at headquarters doing much as I had been doing, but nationally. This in part was a consequence of my being a bastard in my previous role. Although I liked my manager and the role, the conflict with the zones made life unbearable. Recommendations from Cullen were given to us to implement. Middle managers simply resisted. Network Rail as it had them become had a problem with serial disobedience and I was sick of trying to overcome it.

By this time, I was tired, disillusioned and ready to walk away. When Network Rail decided to shed a swathe of its middle managers in November 2003, I was one of those who went. The package was a decent one and I had a self-employed role all sorted out.

That self employed role should have enabled me to earn a decent living on part time hours. That it didn’t caused me several turbulent years. And it is only in this past year that I have found a client that offers me plenty of reliable work.

My mid forties saw a change in my attitude. Ambition evaporated. I realised that I don’t much like work. What I want; really, really want, is to bodge about, doing a bit of writing, mucking about on the computer, taking photographs of stunning landscapes, riding the bike and creating something with the garden. What matters to me is not my career – and, in all probability, never did. What is important to me is my home, my family, my leisure.

So, as fifty looms, I am working part time; sometimes as a trainer and assessor and sometimes as an auditor. I thoroughly enjoy it. For the first time in my career, I really do enjoy the job that I do – and, what is so important – is that I have more leisure time than I have ever had.

Ten years ago, I hankered for my lost youth. My lost youth was a somewhat directionless affair, riddled with bad decisions, insecurity and dead-end jobs. At fifty, I have a sense of direction, I am comfortable with who I am and that semi-retirement in France is going to happen within the next year or so. All we need is a buyer for the house and we are off.

Would I go back? If I could do so with the self-assuredness that only maturity can endow, sure, I’d like to make a few changes. But, overall, probably not. I’m not sure that I could cope with angst and insecurity.

It is usual at this point for people to say “and here’s to the next fifty”. I won’t. At fifty, I am still reasonably fit and healthy. I have all my hair and teeth. I am fortunate to look a good ten years younger than my actual years. But do I really want to be a centenarian? Do I want to be wheeled about, barely able to look after myself? No thanks. I want to go out while I’m still firing on all four. So, another thirty years or so will probably do me fine.

So, here’s to what’s left

I love the facile fashion advice dished out by… well… facile fashion journos. Today, it’s advice on sunglasses.

Do I look cool in these? Or do I look a dork?” Every man has to ask this question about his sunglasses. If he has any sense, he’ll make sure that he does it in the shop - with a ruthlessly objective wife, girlfriend, or mate - rather than a week later when the lenses are scratched and he’s blown £150 on eyewear he belatedly realises makes him resemble a low-grade Albanian pimp.

I never realised that there was so much in it. Ever since the eighties, I’ve settled on the classic Ray Ban Aviator. I like the shape, they suit may face and they work. End of. At least, that’s what I thought.

It sounds easy but there’s a major catch: the gap between Steve McQueen embodying cool in his Persols and Alan Partridge embodying a prat in his mirrored shades is an extremely slim one. Which way you end up depends on three key things: your degree of self-confidence, your general dress style and your face shape.

Oh, right. I don’t have a chiselled face. Mine’s sort of heart shaped. I’ll still wear the aviators, though, because I like them. Now…

The self-confidence bit is the most important because it trumps everything. We all have friends who can put on any item of clothing, no matter how ludicrous or outré, and look brilliant. This is because, having no embarrassment or self-doubt, they are able to dress with such infectious conviction that everyone assumes they must know what they’re doing.

Oh, dear… I’ve always had my own dress sense and the willingness to wear whatever I want whenever I want and to hell with what others think. I have never worried about self-confidence and people just accept that my quirky dress sense is, well, just me. And, yes, I do know what I’m doing when I wear a regency style shirt and waistcoat with Levi jeans and western boots. This quality is not valued, though, it seems:

People who do are mostly shallow and worthless and will surely be punished by God in the afterlife, even if in this earthly one they’re destined to have far more sex and fun than we do. So it’s important to choose sunglasses compatible with your general dress style.

That puts me in my place, then. Dunno about the more sex thing – I must have missed that bit… Did I say that the aviator style works well with the regency/western look?

As for trends, Jabolin says that Aviators remain an excellent bet, but that where sunglasses are going is smaller, more intellectual and a bit geeky. “Sunglasses fashions follow clothes fashions, so you need something to go with that high-tailored, slightly gentrified look.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah… I’ll be sticking with the Ray Ban Aviators and slip a leather jacket over the loose shirt and waistcoat. I might just dig out those knee-length boots…

I put the Longrider abode on the market a little over a month ago. Realising that this was probably the all-time worst possible time to do so, I went ahead anyway. Hopefully we will be moving sometime in the summer, but the world will not come to an end if we don’t. I’ve asked a price that reflects the investment in time and money that we have made and it is in the middle of the price band for the type of house.

Of course, it is true that value is determined by what someone will pay – but this is a two way street – it is determined ultimately by what I agree to sell it for. I’ve done the maths. To clear our mortgage in the UK and half of the mortgage in France, leaving some fall-back capital should my self-employment hit another lean patch, then I need to get the price I’m asking or within a couple of grand.

If that is too high for potential buyers, well, we will sit tight. There is no hurry. So, should anyone be using the current state of the market to try and negotiate a big discount – or, worse, gazunder us – they will receive short shrift. The house goes at a price that I agree and not a penny less.

That rant aside, I’ve decided to try selling privately. I figured I’d give it until the end of April and then reconsider the possibility of placing it with an agent. I will probably seek out an agent as it turns out – a couple of viewings with no outcome so far. However, what pissed me off was an agent touting for work on the basis of my Internet ad. Now, I didn’t put that ad up so that someone could sell me something, I put it up so that I could sell my property. Mildly irritated, Mrs Longrider told them that we may, possibly, be looking for an agent at the end of April.

At the end of March, they called again. I reminded the caller that this was the end of March and I might consider an agent at the end of April. He did try to convince me that Mrs Longrider told him the end of March, but that one didn’t float.

Yesterday he called again. Now, to my thinking, the end of April comes around the 30^th – not the 22^nd of the month. Mrs Longrider politely told him to sling his hook.

There was a point where he might have convinced us – if he had listened to what we said and called back at the end of April. As it is, nagging us had the opposite effect to that desired. Let’s put it this way, when I am looking for an agent in a week or so’s time, that agency will not be on the list.

Hard selling comes with a risk; that you piss off the potential customer to the point where they will avoid you like the plague. This gentleman overplayed his hand. A little patience would have paid off. Nagging us lost him his sale.

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Update: A chancer knocked on the door yesterday evening and asked Mrs Longrider if she would accept an offer close to £30K below the asking price. I realise that the market is in difficulty, but that is taking the piss. The response was short and to the point.

This time of the year sees the sudden burst of life in the garden and greenhouse. My cacti have started to flower once more. Rebutia are a particular favourite of mine with their abundance of delicate flowers ranging from bright reds, pinks and yellow. They will continue to give a fine show throughout the summer months. This one is rebutia karuisiana.

Simon Singh wades into chiropractors today in the Groan, arguing that the practice is dangerous and half of patients suffer side effects – possibly fatal ones.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

I can’t comment on his assertion that chiropractors claim to cure ailments unrelated to back pain as I do not have the relevant knowledge, so I’ll take his comment at face value. However, I can comment on chiropractic from the point of view as a patient.

Back in 1998, I was suffering from significant lower back and neck pain. I was also getting a migraine at least once every six to eight weeks or so. I suffer from a slight congenital curvature of the spine; inherited from my mother’s side of the family. My line manager at the time recommended that I see a chiropractor as he felt that it would benefit me.

Now, I am the world’s biggest sceptic on just about everything from God to global warming and everything in between. That said, I am open minded enough to check out the evidence. The chiropractor I saw was a McTimony practitioner. They are an offshoot of the main theme, using a more gentle method of manipulation.

Despite warnings that I would suffer the side effects that Simon Singh mentions:

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

I suffered no such discomfort. The chiropractor warned me that there may be some initial stiffness, but, no, nothing. Within a few weeks and three or four visits, my posture had noticeably improved and my lower back was no longer making me constantly aware of its presence. The neck pain eased, too. The neck manipulation had another side effect; migraine frequency dropped from one every few weeks to one or two a year.

More recently, I went to my GP with a painful knee. The GP could find nothing wrong, whereas the chiropractor noticed that my pelvis was slightly out of alignment. It was the chiropractor who cured my knee, not the GP.

So, on balance, I’ll stick with chiropractic. Unlike homoeopathy, there is evidence that it works. Like Singh, I don’t buy the “curing asthma” that he quotes in his article, but it has certainly eased my aches and pains. Sure, there’s a risk. There is a risk with any branch of medicine. You pays your money and you takes your chance. I suspect that Singh is overstating the risks somewhat.

Has anyone been inundated with Spam from a company calling itself The Trading Floor? Ordinarily, I rely on my Spam filters to get rid of junk and don’t bother to unsubscribe – unless, of course, I know that it is a reliable company. I know exactly how this company got hold of my details; I asked for a credit report from Experian a year or so back. Since then, the Trading Floor and the suckers who bought into their mailing list have flooded me with unwanted junk on pretty much a daily basis. As others have discovered, unsubscribing from these people simply doesn’t work.

Looking at their website, they try to present an appearance of a legitimate company. The underlying message though is that they harvest people’s details in order to sell them on:

The Trading Floor is a revolutionary means of buying and selling risk-based customer/enquirer information through a centrally managed data pool containing millions of detailed customer records. It has been created specifically for the insurance and financial services sectors in response to rising costs of traditional routes to market and decreasing response rates.

In other words, no matter how they seek to dress it up, they are Spammers. If you run a company that is thinking of getting into bed with these people, I suggest that you bear in mind that this is by far the quickest way to get your email details onto Spam blacklists. Bombarding people with unwanted junk emails – despite them making you aware that they do not want them, is unethical business practice. Is that what you want?

The owner of the company is sponsoring his son, Myles in his karting endeavours:

Hi - my name is Myles Collins.  I am 13 years old and my passion is Karting.  I race in Juniormax and drive a Maranello Kart with a 125cc Rotax engine which is capable of nearly 75mph. I am currently sponsored by www.thecomparisons.com and www.thetradingfloor.co.uk .

And…

yes, my dad owns the two business’ of http://www.thetradingfloor.co.uk and http://www.thecomparisons.com . without those sponsors i couldn’t of got to where i am now (racing professionly)
thanks,
Myles .

Well, that’s very nice for you Myles. However, could you please remind your dad that spamming is not legitimate business practice. There are no circumstances where I will buy anything as a consequence of unsolicited emails. So, please, tell him to stop. He certainly hasn’t taken any notice of me asking politely.