As a full-time professional blogger, I expect the occasional disagreement with people in public. This is normal – I disagree with people in real life, so why should it not happen online?

I clashed with some one recently. No big deal and quickly settled, but despite the fact that we both agreed it was a mistake and moved on, some people outside the argument and no stake in the discussion other than being readers decided to take it upon themselves to make a few personal attacks on me.

These rather silly attacks involved accusing me of just about everything from being a child molester to a woman-hater. They apparently based these accusations on my collection of funny photographs. If you are easily offended, feel free to look at my “fun” page and get your knickers in a twist.

I am fortunate enough to live in a free country where I can pick and choose what I find funny and poke fun at anyone I feel like. Other people seem to disagree with that concept and would rather see me hanged, drawn and quartered than allow me that freedom. Although, if you are one of those sort of people, also – feel free to take a look at my collection of photographs and you will most-likely discover exactly what I think of you in one of those.

Although, I must admit, I am all tuckered out from hitting the “spam,” button. I actually had to hit it twice. And you can take that any way you like it if you are thinking of leaving me a comment.

If only some one could come up with something better than “Mark Knowles is a Douchebag.”

I do enjoy a good argument, but if people are going to enter a battle of wits, it is usually a good idea to enter the fray armed

The basis of all wordpress blogs is a free wordpress.com blog. Simple, easy to use and free. But it does have limitations. You must pay money to configure and use some of the facilities, you will get un-wanted advertisements appear on your pages, and you will be using a subdomain of wordpress. This is an example of a free wordpress blog:

International Luxury Real Estate

Didn’t cost me a penny. But - the web address is http://marcus1234.wordpress.com

Unless you pay extra and do some work, all free wordpress blogs are something.wordpress.com - not the best solution, but if you want to learn how to use a wordpress blog - awesome and free. If you want to try it out - this is a link to Wordpress.

Next step up the food chain is a self-hosted wordpress blog. The software is still free, but you must set up and pay for hosting space. Far more flexible and almost as easy to use. The more complicated you want it to be, that harder it becomes to manage and control. But you can do almost anything you want with it. This blog is a self-hosted wordpress blog. I choose to use bluehost for my hosting and they are excellent. Very little down time and above average customer service if you screw it up - as I have done on occasion :D  Pay them a visit and see what they offer:

The big bad daddy of wordpress blogs and aptly described as “wordpress on steroids” is a semiologic wordpress set up. Denis de Bernady has written a much more sophisticated wordpress blog system that basically turns wordpress into a content management system. This is what I use on all my blogs now (including this one - but I do not need most of the functionality.)

A good example of just how sophisticated you can make this is here:

Vodik - Video Solution Specialists

Now, you will need some CSS and flash knowledge to create something like this. If you just want to keep is simple, SEO-friendly and easy to use, this is another example of a semiologic wordpress blog - Luxury Real Estate Blog.

I do the setup, maintenance and management of this one. Take it from me - If I can do it, so can you

My advice - spend the $295 and never look back.

Some of the massively clever stuff it allows me to do is:

• Make it look the way I want
• One-click plugin upgrades
• One-click wordpress upgrades
• Add video
• Add photos, tagged, titled and managed
• Add almost any type of text in any font
• Check the stats in real-time
• Not spend my life pissing around with programming

Visit Semiologic and see what it is all about:

Semiologic - Wordpress on steroids

One criticism I will make - although you get free upgrades for a year - do not expect a lot of support. Wordpress is evolving so rapidly, the writer spends all his time keeping it up to date.

And I wrote this specifically for Guidebaba

Unfortunately, the hype surrounding this is getting to breaking point as far as I am concerned. There are more social networking sites than normal websites as far as I can tell. Sure, Facebook and Digg are pretty popular sites, but if you want to generate a Digg TRAFFIC JAM THAT WILL CRASH YOUR SERVER ! -

You need to pay people to digg your article for you or spend 10 hours a day digging other people’s submissions and making thousands of “friends.” Is it worth it is the question - and much of what I see on the front page of digg is garbage.

Facebook is not as bad - but I am getting completely fed up with people sending me good karma or asking me how much I think I would pay to “own them” or whatever. Come on facebook - let’s see some useful apps please……

If everyone is doing this surely that makes it worthless? How many social networking sites is enough? The only possible value I can see is when we start to see some niche social networking sites. Maybe they would be worth joining. So, if you write about “interesting cornflakes shaped like countries,” or “home brewing with nuts,” or “mid-life crisis, how to find that hottie after a nasty divorce,” here are a few suggestions. But I would think the latter is quite a big niche. Which begs the question - how big does a niche have to get before it becomes mainstream?

Contentinople has a list of the “Ten strangest Niche Social Networking Sites,” but they don’t seem to be that strange too me. Sad -Yes, Strange -No.

ReadWriteWeb thinks it is time for a social networking silver bullet. Presumably this will rid us of the vampire and werewolf networking sites. Where do the werewolves network online anyway?

ZDNet has a list of 12 social network sites for niche lovers. Which is, of course an oxymoron. No one loves all these niches. By their very definition, they have a narrow focus aimed specifically at people interested in that niche. So it is really 1 social network site for people who love pets or nurses or etc etc etc…..

The other question of course is - what is the point of network marketing to people who are already interested in whatever niche you are in?

Happy Niche Social Networking !

These are pictures of the wreck of a brand new Airbus A340-600, in November 2007, that had never flown. Brand spanking new right out of the hangar, without a single hour of air time.

Enter the Arab flight crew. Thank the French and their Arab friends for this bit of ‘comedy of errors’. Nine employees of the Arab airline were in the aircraft, but not one employee from French Airbus was present. The Arabs taxied out to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with virtually an empty aircraft.

This was their first mistake as they obviously didn’t read the run-up manuals. They had no clue just how light an empty Air bus really is. No chocks were set, not that it would have mattered at that power setting. The brakes will not hold it back at full power anyway.

As it turns out, the takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had all 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to takeoff but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc, etc). Then one of these brain surgeons decided to pull the ‘Ground Sense’ circuit breaker to silence the alarms.

This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.That was their last mistake. As soon as they did that, the computers automaticlly released all the brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward.They had no idea that this is a Safety feature so that pilots can’t land with the brakes on. There was no time to stop and no one smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting.

10 people were injured in this farce, 3 of them seriously.

So the rest is as you see it below.

I still want my country back !

And in the immortal words of John Cleese (supposedly), I will reproduce the “Notice of Revocation of Independence.”

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour’, skipping the letter ‘U’ is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter ‘Z’ (pronounced ‘zed’ not ‘zee’) and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix ‘burgh’ is pronounced ‘burra’ e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you can’t cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more ‘bleeps’ in the Jerry Springer show. If you’re not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn’t have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won’t have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as “US English”. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of -ize.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we’re talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as Men Behaving Badly or Red Dwarf will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can’t cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the ‘World Series’ for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders,your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls’ game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don’t believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time,you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren’t even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Knat’s Urine,with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Knat’s Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen,Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.

John Cleese

I am not sure if he actually wrote it, but it gets the point across.

In the meantime, here are a few interesting links to places worth a visit when you have eaten enough hamburgers to feel you have adequately celebrated the event. They are in no particular order.

David Thompson on Culture, Ideas and Comic Books discusses the cost of piety. It seems he has a similar view of organized religion to me, and I agree with his assessment - believe what you like as long as you don’t try and inflict it on me. An interesting blog with as wide a variety of topics as this one. Worth a visit.

Cory and Jay, Nice Guys Bad attitude sell their “Really Awful Terrible Bourbon and Peach Barbecue Sauce,” here. It sounds disgusting, but I am sure it will taste just fine after a dozen or so Bud lights. Well, maybe 15

Dark Roasted Blend is always worth a visit. Weird and Wonderful just about sums it up. Take a look at his collection of “Ugly Bugs.”

Best American Recipes - if you are uncertain as to what to cook this 4th July, my favorite collection of the best American Recipes ever is here.

The best of web pages has a great list of webpages worth visiting here.

Positive Atheism - If you in the mood for a serious look at why atheism is not a belief, Richard Dawkins on The improbability of God is reproduced here.

Startbabel Nederlands - Take a look and see what our Dutch cousins think is popular on the internet at the moment.

meneame - is a Spanish language version of Digg, only better

With a shirt like this - Who needs Pants?

Said 15-year-old is here:

I am of course laughing my pants off at the 100% hypocrisy of a social networking site that will ban a website because there are female nipples showing on a photo and then fills their site with advertisements like this.

Living in France, one thing you will soon discover is that a certain percentage of the local population will take great delight in correcting your mis-pronunciation of French. It took me a good 18 months of visiting the same bakery every day and having my pronunciation of the word baguette corrected. So when I found this video, it had to go on my blog. Love it !

Flight of the Conchords demonstrate all the French words you will need to survive in France for your amusement. Not only are they taking the piss out of the French, they are taking the piss out of all English speakers who have a 15-word French vocabulary starting with “Je voudrais un croissant.” 

Well, some one has called me on that. Shaun Stanley, the Luxury Film video guru, pretty much said, “It’s all very well taking the piss (I am paraphrasing) out of these crappy videos - What can you do that is better?”

Send me a camera and I’ll show you, says Mark.

Two days later, a spanking brand new Sony DCR-SR220 turns up on my doorstep with a note from Mr. Stanley explaining which is the sharp end.

Oops. I am hoping ten years as a pro photographer back in the days when a Nikon F-3 was hot stuff will stand me in good stead.

So, after unpacking the camera, and spending a few minutes marveling at the beauteousness of my new toy, I plug it in to charge the battery and read the destructions. I no longer adhere to the adage, “If all else fails, read the instruction book.”

As I am reading about how to connect this Sony handycam to a mac computer, a word wanders across my mind - VAGUE.

I read a little further and visit the website that Sony have to help you connect a SONY DCS-SR220 Handycam to a Macintosh ‘puter. A MacBook Pro, in this case. And I slowly come to the conclusion that they are not being vague, they are being deliberately fuckin’ obtuse.

After inspecting the instructions on their webpage, which is here, it slowly dawns on me that they are not actually being deliberately fuckin’ obtuse, they are

trying to sell me a new Sony Viao computer by making sure I cannot use this Sony camcorder with a Macintosh computer !

Ha! Not going to happen. I take a few minutes of video and plug my now-charged camera into the computer to see what happens. What happened to the famous Mac, plug ‘n’play rule? I have never once plugged anything into a mac that wasn’t immediately found, installed and ready to go within minutes.

Not a Sony Handycam apparently. Nothing - it is as though I never plugged the damn thing in.

A quick phone call to my newly elected video guru, Shaun, and I am appraised of the fact that Sony are trying to sell you their proprietary software along with a new PC -but there is a workaround. Whew!

Thank you Shaun. This is the workaround:

First job. Go to Squared5 and download their MPEG STREAMCLIP

Next job. Install said software, which is free. And I don’t mean free if you spend $500 on something else. Free as in no charge.

3rd and last job. Go to Apple and spend $20 on buying their MPEG-2 Playback component.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Works like a dream now. I have shot, edited and posted my first video to Google video. But - google has slaughtered the quality to the point I am ashamed to show it here.

Once again, thank you Shaun.

Watch this space

The photograph that got my entire blog banned was this one, of a female football fan at a World Cup Soccer match. You can see half a nipple as she gets all excited about something. I assume someone complained that they had been offended and within a matter of hours, the entire domain was banned. Amusing considering the photograph was taken at a public football match with thousand of spectators. Oh well, whateva! as my friend Sandra Rinck would say.

Click on the link above if you want to see the rest of the photos.

The photo that got all my google ads removed from one of my hubpages entitled, “The best naturist beaches in the South of France,” Was this one, a classic Jock Sturges photograph:

Too pornographic for Mr. Google apparently.

So, as I have removed all the google ads from this site and taken a massive drop in income I can now feel free to post as many nipples as I please and this is a selection from a football match where the female players wore body paint instead of clothes. There are an awful lot of scuzzy-looking men lurking around the goal posts though. Enjoy!

[Show as slideshow]

This Blog is Banned in China

I am sure there are loads of blogs banned in China and I cannot for the life of me work out why this is so funny, but pay them a visit - Some good stuff here