Do I look like an idiot? Or: #DearPR...

Dear PR,

let me start by saying that today has not been the least stress-free day I've ever known.  It's not your fault that I'm crawling, bloodied but unbowed, towards the end of Week 3 of my sons' 10 week summer holiday, that our compound now resembles nothing so much as a ghost town without a single other child for them to play with, or that they spent this morning squabbling and fighting in the back of the car both ways during a trip to the supermarket that took four hours from the moment we left the house to the moment we returned. Not your fault; I know that.

Neither is it your fault that I lost it with the Boys only half a mile from home, pulled over and gave them a good talking to, insisting in a completely over the top 'shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted' manner on complete silence for the remaining 5 minutes of the drive.

I also can't blame you for the fact that Moscow's current heatwave has brought the mosquitoes out in high numbers, forcing me to sit here at my desk armed with some heavy-duty Raid to squirt hopelessly at the little blighters as they feast on my shins - again.

And of course it has nothing at all to do with you that right now my hormones are playing havoc with my emotions; possibly if I had received your email this time next week my response would be a little less... shouty.

OK.  None of those things are your fault.

Now let's get onto what is.

Specifically, this:

'Please no not mark the article as 'sponsored' or 'paid for' - if you have a policy on your website to declare third party content, please mark this as a 'Guest Post'"* or "Featured Article".'


I know, Dear PR, that I look but a smidgen of my true age (that's what my bathroom mirror tells me before I put my contact lenses in, anyway).  But do you think I was (expletive deleted) born yesterday?  You are asking me for what is labelled in my rate card as a 'Sponsored' post.  'Sponsored' as in a clear sign that the post has been 'paid for'.  It will be paid for however it's labelled; you know that, I know that.  And bearing in mind that I don't carry "Guest Posts", and have never run a "Featured Article", I strongly suspect that 'The Potty Diaries' readers - who, given their choice of blog are obviously a pretty smart bunch - would be able to work out that it has been paid for too, if I used either of those labels.

May I refer you, in fact, to an excellent post on this very subject from Tots 100? What you are asking me to do - albeit in a small way, but you're asking it all the same - is to break the law.  


The Tots 100 post says; '... the OFT guidelines state that online promotional activity, just like any other promotional activity, must clearly identify when promotions and editorial comment have been paid for, so that consumers are not misled. (if you didn’t know, you can see the OFT guidelines as they relate to bloggers right here)**

So yes, I said 'no thank you' to your kind offer.  The money you were offering would have been very handy, I have to admit, but see that badge on the sidebar?  The one that says 'Brit Mums Blog With Integrity'?

I've moved it further up to make it more visible - in the hope I don't have to deal with this type of nonsense in the future.

***********

Tell me, other bloggers and any PR's who may have read this far; am I a naive idiot?  Or simply a principled blogger?  And what would you have done?


* the triple apostrophe is the PR's own, by the way.

** please click on the link to the original Tots 100 article for the link to the OFT guidelines.

Black-out curtains, shutters, and other necessities for sleep-full nights...

This is a sponsored post.

It’s dark here right now. That’s probably because I’m writing this piece at 10.30pm, but it would be almost equally dark if I were writing it at 8.45am, since sunrise isn’t until 9.15 in the morning at the moment. But it isn’t always like that in Moscow. Come summer time, the sun rises early, and doesn’t set until 10.16pm. Long summer evenings stretch out for what seems like an eternity, and there’s nothing like the blinding sun at 5.00am to make sure you greet the day bright and early.

That’s all very well for me and Husband; we’re grown ups; we’re supposed to be able to handle minor inconveniences like that (apparently). The Boys, however, are a different matter.

I’ve always considered myself blessed in that my sons are not early risers. Not for me those exhausted conversations at the school gate about Junior rising at stupid o'clock; historically, I’ve been lucky, and from an early age the Boys have slept through the night.

Or rather, they did sleep through. Until we arrived in Moscow, that is.

Here however, the sun rises at 4.44am in June and, by a not-so-happy coincidence, theirs is the first window that it’s rays hit. Soon after we arrived, I realised that blackout curtains were called for if I hoped to maintain any normal kind of sleeping pattern in the summer months, but it turns out that they are not the total solution I had imagined they would be. Light creeps in around the edges and over the top of the curtain rail; no matter how thick the actual curtain, it’s still lighter than is ideal in their bedroom.

It’s also noisier than I might like; we might send our children to bed at 8.00pm, but it’s light until 10.30 and not everyone else follows suit. You can hear other kids rampaging through the compound well after the Boys have been tucked up in bed (these children clearly need less sleep than my sons), giving my two yet another reason to shout crossly down the stairs about how bossy I am and how I’m ruining their lives. (OK, not the latter, not yet, but it’s just a matter of time, I know).

As we’re in a rented property, and building renovations are not a possibility, there’s not much I can do about this. But when I was contacted recently by Shutters Direct about the products that they offer, I have to admit that my interest was aroused. Apparently, not only do their interior shutters control the light, but they help to block out the noise as well, and also provide a safer alternative to blinds, since trailing cords are not ideal when you have young children about.

Sadly I don’t think Shutters Direct have an outlet in downtown Moscow just yet, so we’re continuing with our regime of blackout curtains for the time being to help combat the light pollution in the Boys’ room. As for the noise, well we’ll just have to put up with it, since I doubt that a stern word with our neighbours about suitable bedtimes for their children will make a blind bit of difference. They already think that I am beyond cruel to send my sons to bed when it’s still light in the summer.

It looks as if I may yet be one of those exhausted mothers at the school gates, after all...

Sky High and a sponsored post...

This is a sponsored post.

The Boys (and their father) are watching Sky High. Well, it's the end of half term and they've been so well-behaved that... Oh, alright, I admit. We all love a bit of cheese from time to time; so sue me.

Rather than bore you with details of the fiendishly complicated plot unfolding on screen (although I have to say I did quite like the comment I just overheard about one superstrong hero vs a technical superstar; "Yet he'll be the one on cereal boxes. Show me the justice in that..."), may I direct your attention to Feather & Black's website, where right now there is a sale going on?

I have to say that whilst I personally have not bought any of their childrens bedroom furniture to date (Feather & Black are sadly short of retail outlets in Moscow at present), the boys were lucky enough to be sent a pair of their Jaws pyjamas each last summer and despite the dropping temperatures (it's due to hit a low of -7 degC here tonight), these are still firm favourites. That may of course have something to do with the fact that Boy #2 is going through a growth spurt and whilst he's grown up, he hasn't grown out; rather the opposite, in fact. As a result all of his other pj's are now too loose in the waist, leading to some interesting builder's bottom situations at the breakfast table...

Whatever the reason though, the quality of these pj's is good enough that I will be taking advantage of the F&B sale myself when I visit the UK next weekend.

This may have been a sponsored post but I was serious about the sale and taking advantage of it...

TV as babysitting; Turtly Necessary

I'm going to come straight out and say it; we're in Wk 4 of The Summer Break and I'm not Superwoman. So I have, on occasion, resorted to tv as babysitting over the last couple of weeks to let me get a few things done (like write the odd blog post, for example).

That's why I was delighted to be sent a copy of 'The Turtle's Tale' to review with The Boys on this blog. Here's some of what the blurb says about it;

'A TURTLE’S TALE: SAMMY’S ADVENTURES 3D is an epic global adventure story, an animated family feature made spectacularly real by the latest in 3D technology. A young sea-turtle’s romantic quest for his first, lost love, a fellow hatch-ling, born on the same Californian beach, takes him on a marathon voyage across the seven seas, to the furthest corners of the earth.'

We watched it together, and the Boys loved it. So much, in fact, they've watched it twice since and would have done so more but for the strict embargo we have in place on watching more ANY film more than once a week (it was the excessive Star Wars viewing that forced the introduction of this rule, your Honour).

In brief then, it's great entertainment for the children for an afternoon, it's heart is in the right place, there are plenty of positive messages about the Environment and taking care of it throughout, fun characters, good role models, and The Boys - given the re-enactment currently taking place in the living room - rate it highly, so I'm more than happy to recommend it to you as suitable holiday entertainment...

A TURTLE’S TALE: SAMMY’S ADVENTURES 3D will be released in 3D on DVD and Blu-ray by Optimum, on 18th July 2011

This was a sponsored post.

Making money from fresh air with The Co-operative

Sponsored Post

Whilst on a fleeting visit to the UK a couple of weekends ago, I noticed that The Co-operative has started a new advertising campaign. I like the Co-op; it's testament to the principle that a good idea can stand the test of time and succeed. In fact, the original co-operative was formed by The Rochdale Pioneers in 1844. I doubt that back then they had any idea their concept would still be working over 150 years later.

The ad campaign I mentioned features some modern-day successors of the Pioneers ideals. I particularly like the first community owned wind farm; set up in a Cumbrian village, Baywind Energy Co-operative has been running now since 1996 and typically generates enough electricity to power 30,000 homes each year. Not bad for a project that was initially set up using a loan from The Co-operative.

Co-operative ventures don't always work, obviously (the vast farms set up in Stalin's time in Russa are testament to that, sadly), but it can be a very successful business model. The Austrian village that the Potski family went skiing in this year is an example of that; the entire mountain is owned by the occupants of the village, all of whom take home a share of the profits at the end of each tourist season. Not only does this mean that improvements and investments are joint decisions - and hence implemented more efficiently than they might otherwise be - it also means that every person living in the village has a stake in ensuring that visitors enjoy their trip and hopefully return in future years. In short, everyone wins.

Which is, essentially, what The Co-operative is all about.

You can find out more about the Co-operative on their Facebook page, and can get involved and join the Revolution here.

Partage propulse par ebuzzing

Sibling rivalry...

Do you treat all your children the same way?

Well, do you?

We try to. I think we succeed most of the time, but I have to admit that sometimes it's difficult. Like in the matter of discipline, for example. Threaten Boy #1 with withdrawal of tv-watching priviliges, or no dvd's for the rest of the week, and he normally crumbles. Threaten his brother with the same, and he runs off laughing; the only way we can exert any control over him is to use the Naughty Chair - and even that isn't always successful.

And then there is the matter of birthday parties. Autumn-born Boy #1 has had one every single birthday for the last 5 years. His winter-born brother, however, has been less fortunate. Mind you, what would no doubt be dragged out at every opportunity as a stick to beat us with by his older brother doesn't seem to bother him particularly; as long we make a big fuss of him (allowing his classic 2nd child 'look at me!' tendencies to be indulged to the hilt) and give him plenty of chocolate cake and train, plane and automobile toys, we seem to be getting away with it.

However, I think there is a bit of a tricky one coming our way very soon. Last year, when we took the boys skiing, we promised Boy #1 a Nintendo DS if he tried his hardest and learned to ski by the end of the week. He duly delivered and, a few weeks later, so did we. Boy #2, languishing in ESF nursery slope hell, was bored out of his mind and ran no more risk of qualifying for the same prize as his brother than I did of skiing with style and elegance.

But a year has passed. He's 12 months bigger and more co-ordinated. We've even managed to fit in a couple of pre-ski holiday lessons over at a nearby snow dome centre (for yes, believe it or not, even in Russia, land of what currently feels like perpetual winter, there are places where you can pay to slide down a snow-covered slope indoors all year round with 2 boards strapped to your feet). (Writing that sentence has made even me stop and query the intelligence of this past-time, by the way...)

So it may well be that come the end of half term, Boy #2 also qualifies for his own DS. And leaving alone the fact that he's a year younger than Boy #1 was when he got his, so I'm a year less comfortable with him having access to one, I can see a whole world of pain in wait if he exhibits the same single-mindedness about beating his brother in the gaming world as he seems to do in many other areas. (And let's not even get started on what kind of hell will break loose once they are skiing on the same slopes - although I'm hoping that's still a year or so away. Please god.)

The one thing I'm drawing comfort from in this is that neither Boy - yet - reads this blog, so they won't find out that there is now a Nintendo 3D (for which you don't even need a pair of those attractive spectacles) available should they care to look at the video in the sidebar on the right...

Note: this was - sort of - a sponsored post. But only a bit. I would have blogged about equality between brothers in any case, honest guv...

Co-operation- and how it can work

This is a sponsored post...

Here's something I can bet you didn't know about me; my dad grew up living above a Cooperative shop in a small Northern town, which his father managed and which provided a community hub for the locals when supermarkets as we know them today were the stuff of fantasy or tales brought back from across the Atlantic by tourists. I don't know this for certain but I imagine grandad knew all his customers by name - because, back then, that's how things worked in small towns - and that he exchanged pleasantries with them whilst carving them the requisite slices of ham or slicing them the right weight of crumbly Wensleydale.

Dad left that small Northern town more years ago than he might care to think about, but my grandparents stayed on and some of my earliest memories are of visiting that flat with it's icy concrete steps in winter, feeling the heat from the bars of the electric fire burn my chilblains, and huddling under nylon-topped quilts, sheets and blankets... (Why is it always cold up North in my memories, I wonder?)

Since then, the Cooperative has become more than a store and a savings scheme (remember the stamps?); it's now also a mainstream bank that punches above it's weight not only in terms of customers but in terms of ethical codes of practice, holding true to it's name and remaining a body run for the benefit of all it's members than just for a small handful of share-holders.

I was particularly interested to learn about their initiative The Cooperative Community Fund. This is a charitable foundation which receives donations from a group of public-spirited members who chose to give a percentage of their twice yearly share of profits to be used for the benefit of the larger community in their area. This year's total was £1.2 million and is to be allocated within the geographical area that money is received from.

Projects are allocated by postcode, and grants vary from a minimum of £100 to £2000. That may not seem a lot in today's world of high finance and telephone number mortgages, but even that much can make a positive difference if spent wisely.

Why was I asked to write about this? Because they are looking for applicants. I was tasked with thinking about an example; something that money could be spent on in my local area that would have a positive long-term benefit on the community (note: a group does not need to have charitable status to apply for one of these grants), will address a local issue, support co-operative values and principles, and ideally be innovative in it's approach.

Hmmm. I live in Russia, remember. 'Co-operative' is not a word that get's bandied around very often here; it smacks too much of pre-1991 and communism. 'Every man for himself' is more like it, if I'm honest. You only have to travel on the metro in rush-hour to see that. Unless of course you're talking about in a family environment, where everything is shared equally and one person's trouble is the problem of all. The problems arise, however, when a person has no family, for whatever reason that might be. I've recently become involved with - in a very minor way - a charity that helps with that, giving orphaned children not a home or care, because that is already - to a point - provided by the state, but which helps to give them the tools to deal with the outside world once the umbrella organisation looking after them moves them out of their institutions into a semblance of every-day life.

Now unfortunately, £2000 isn't going to provide much tuition for these children (teachers need to be paid, overheads need to be funded), but what it could do is provide them with some interactive tools to help them practice budgeting - even in gaming form, for example - and which might simulate some of the real-world decisions they could be called upon to make once they leave their 'home'. I read recently about a new computer game which simulates the effects on the world of certain environmental policies; make the wrong one, for instance, and India is flooded or Spain becomes a waste-land. I'm not a gamer, but I'm sure there must be similar games out there which do the same job but with real life situations.

And whilst it may not seem like a very worthy way of spending this type of grant, anything that could stop the young people I'm writing of being persuaded to swap their government-funded flat for a new wii, for example (and this does happen), and then finding themselves homeless as a result because they had no proper understanding of the ramifications of their decision, can't help but have a positive effect on the local environment, surely?

Cooperative Membership Fund

Click here to find out more about the application process to qualify for one of The Cooperative Community Fund Grants

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Dreeeeaam, dream dream dream....

'Imagine you won £40,000', Paypal said.  Imagine what you could do with it.  And then write about it.

How hard could that be? Well, harder than you might imagine, but here goes anyway.

Imagine; 40 grand, in your hand...   Paypal are billing it as a year's salary; all you have to do to enter is to buy something using Paypal and every single time you do so you're given a new entry to their weekly draw.

(Click here to get the details, and click here to see the t's and c's...)

So I started to think what I might buy with an extra £40,000.  Sadly, that wouldn't do the biggies, like putting the kids through university (well, it might one of them, but it's highly unlikely both of them by the time 12 years or so have passed given recent developments), or paying off the mortgage (some hope), but it could certainly make life more comfortable for a while.  I mean, I could blow it all in splurges on holidays, a new car,  flights back to the UK, a couple of mini-breaks, and perhaps some subtle plastic surgery or dental work (what? What?  I'm surrounded by perky Americans who make my smile feel just a little outshone and my chest, well...)

But back in the real world I think my sensible head would take over and I would end up using it to pay for stuff we actually need.  Well, when I say that, I mean stuff we need that I could buy from online retails who take Paypal.   It would probably get spent on computers for the kids, a new camera, purchases on i-tunes and other such 'essentials'. 

The good news of course is that the number of retailers accepting Paypal is increasing.  Which also means that I might also get to fritter some of it away on stuff for my own personal Christmas list, a work in progress but which is already taking shape...  First indications are that it may include, the new Issey Miyake perfume (which I've heard shouldn't work, but does) and a new toothbrush from Boots, a new necklace, a new dress, & a pair of jeans from Miss Sixty . 

Watch this space for updates - especially if you happen to be my Husband...

This, in case you hadn't worked it out by now, was both a sponsored post  and a first attempt at steering my Husband - if he reads this - in the right direction for this year's presents.  Wish me luck...

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Computers and the Family Revolution

This is a sponsored post...

I remember when my dad got his first computer, a North Star Horizon. It was not a family computer, oh no. Back in the dark ages you see (somewhere around 1981-ish, even before the ZX Spectrum appeared on the scene if you are antiquated enough to remember those), computers were not for families. Computers were serious things. They were techy. You had to be a bit of a nerd to 'get' them. The were ugly boxes with integrated floppy disk-drives (if you were lucky) that were noisy, cumbersome, took up entire desks, and dominated the room. Looking too long at it's flashing green cursor could give you a migraine.

And if you wanted to ask it to do anything much more complicated than to play Star Trek (Battle Ships without the sound-effects) or to produce a biorhythm for you (don't ask), you had to know how to talk to it. You had to speak it's language, which at the time was Basic, a fiendish combination of 0's and 1's that sent any sane person over the edge - especially if that sane person was a 14 year old girl who's grasp of numbers was shaky at best.

So I and the North Star Horizon computer didn't spend very much time together, if I'm honest. I glared at it from the other side of the room and gave it as wide a berth as I possibly could. In fact, it wasn't until the early 90's that I really got up close and personal with a computer, and even then the thought that one of them would ever be anything more than something to record profit and loss on, or to word process documents, was about as likely as Patrick Swayze ever saying 'No-one puts Potty in the corner...' (Like the cultural reference? If not, I'm guessing you're WAY too young to understand this post).

Nowadays of course, things have changed - big time. Imagine your daily family life now without access to a computer. The very fact that you're reading this suggests to me that thought is probably inconceivable. We use them to organise our music, to watch tv and movies, and catch up on what we missed when we were out living our lives. We use them to edit movies, to upload them to the internet, and see how complete strangers across the world rate those movies. We use them to make telephone calls, to pay bills, to share news or simply to keep in touch with - or tabs on - friends and family across the world..

And that's even before we think about how they are used in a classic 'work' environment, and how we use them to organise schedules, keep track of appointments, manage our finances, pay bills, and remind ourselves of all the things we have on our to-do-list in our notebooks and never got round to because we simply flipped over the page to write the next list and forgot to check back that we'd finished the previous one. (Or maybe that last one is just me...)

And, of course, not forgetting how we use computers to blog...

You would think, in fact, that we might have reached something of a plateau on how computers fit into our family lives. But of course, then why would I be writing this post? (And 'for the money!' is not the correct answer here)

No, I'm writing this post as a trip down memory lane and because if I was planning on buying a new desktop computer anytime soon I have to admit that this one would be quite high on my list of possibilities.

The new All-In-One desktop from Dell has - and I quote - ' high-definition widescreen display, internet connectivity capability (Wi-Fi), DVD drive, and the ability to connect to TV tuners, cable and satellite boxes and gaming consoles through an HDMI port.'

It appears to have similar touch-screen function to that of an i-pad or i-phone - check the youtube Video to see what I mean - which allows you to use your fingers to draw, colour or leave sticky-notes on the screen (great - somewhere other than the fridge door to remember to check). And on top of that, it's not the bulky desktop design that we're used to, but fits neatly into a corner with a stowable keyboard. And due to it's 23" screen and the fact that it looks so good, it could even make respectable-sized alternative to a standard tv.

Which only goes to show how far we've come from the ugly plastic box that was off-limits to the family, and which used to sit on my dad's desk and torment me with it's flashing green cursor...

Further information can be found here

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