Come buzz with me...

This is a Sponsored Post

You may have noticed, I've started to do a few more sponsored posts recently. I held out against this for a long time, and that wasn't hard, what with the plethora of offers to review the latest online war game and more recently the chance to take my dog to a red-carpet event for pets (note to any pr's reading this, I don't own a dog, never have done, have never claimed to, and much as I like them, am not likely to change that situation anytime soon...).

However, every now and again a product or opportunity pops into my inbox that is not only relevant, but is worth sharing, as when ebuzzing got in touch with me a couple of months back.

What's ebuzzing? In their own words, they are 'part of the Wikio Group and allow you to display videos and publish articles about brands that you like, when you want, whilst earning.'

Essentially it works as follows; a blogger registers to become part of their network (at ebuzzing.co.uk), and whenever a relevant opportunity comes up, they are notified by e-mail to go and take a look at the campaign. There's no pressure to participate, but if you like the look of it you can apply to write a sponsored post using information supplied along with anything else you can find out about the brand. You are of course paid for this service (average fees to-date for a 250 word article, in my experience, are between £30 and £40), and all ebuzzing posts are clearly signposted as 'sponsored'. Essentially ebuzzing rely on the blogger themselves to write about the product rather than simply regurgitating press releases sent out to a random selection of email addresses.

Now this post is the result of one of those opportunities - you may have worked that out for yourself by now - and in addition to spreading the word about how the system works, I was asked to come up with a brand that I would like to work with, to imagine my perfect e-buzzing campaign.

I don't think it will surprise anyone who knows about my addiction to chocolate that the first company to come to mind was Green & Blacks. There's a brand I can really get behind. Not only was it originally set up in a way that provided small cocoa growers with a sustainable form of fair-trade income (although I have to admit I'm a bit hazy on how that works now it's owned by Cadbury's, who bought it in 2005), but it makes a range of amazing products for the mass market - products that I happen to love. The opportunity to write about how buying something so delicious would simultaneously benefit families living in less advantaged parts of the world (assuming that's still the case) would be what you might call a win/win situation...

Find out more on ebuzzing.co.uk

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How far will you go to maintain the Christmas magic?

You might have noticed: it's nearly December. Pre-Christmas excitement is building here at Potski Mansions, and I'm just waiting for the first request to watch The Polar Express on dvd.

The Boys love it so much that they would watch it every week of the year given half a chance, so a couple of years back I embargo'd this one and now they can only watch it during Advent. I mean, I like the movie myself, sure, but there are only so many 4 year-old impromptu imitations of Tom Hanks performing 'Hot! Hot! Hot Chocolate!' that a woman can take - especially in June...

In any case, I was wondering; have you told your children there's no Santa yet? Even if they're teenagers, I'm betting that you haven't; most kids work it out for themselves sometime before they leave home, and no parent wants to be the one to burst the bubble of the true believer in Father Christmas.

Not, that is, unless you are the husband of a friend of mine who decided when his son reached 8 years old that enough was enough, and that he wasn't going to have a son who was the only boy in the class who still believed. So he took matters into his own hands and told him that Santa didn't exist. He subsequently became persona-non-grata in the neighbourhood where, it turned out, all the children did still buy into the myth; or rather, they did until my friend's son shared his new information with them. There were a lot of sobbing children - and unhappy parents - in town that Christmas, I'm told...

Here in the Potski Familiski, however, we don't only have the Father Christmas myth to tend to. For let it never be said that we forget that whilst they may have been born and brought up (until last January, anyway) in jolly old Blighty, Boys #1 and #2 are, in fact, half Dutch. (Or at least, we don't ignore it all the time.) And at this time of the year, that means only one thing to two small boys; a double whammy on the present front. For not only are they meticulously planning their Christmas lists for the 25th December, there is - deep joy - another gifting opportunity happening before that.

Oh yes, jongens: The Sint is on his way.

The Daddy of our benevolent Father Christmas, Sinter Klaas, hits town for his big engagement on December 5th. Admittedly, by 'town' I mostly mean 'anywhere in The Netherlands', but he has also been known to visit Dutch outposts across the globe to spread the good news and deliver presents and pepernoten* to the faithful. Such as, anywhere we happen to be. Now, I'm not going to go into great detail on the traditions and background to this festival (I've already done that here if you're interested), but there is an intrinsic part of it which, for children, is almost as important as the actual presents, and that is the visit of Zwarte Piet.

Piet (or rather, the Piets - plural) are Sinter Klaas's helpers. In actual fact, I suppose they are also his spies, for they arrive on the scene 3 or 4 weeks before December 5th and their job - in addition to running the Sint's errands and carrying presents etc - is to keep an eye on children and work out who's been naughty, and who's been nice, so the big man can decide who gets presents and who doesn't. One of the ways that they do that is to visit children's homes when everyone in it is asleep once or twice in the run-up to the big day, to check that their toys are tidy and they have been doing their chores etc. It's a great way to get stuff put away before bedtime, I can tell you.

Of course, this is a reciprocal arrangement. The children, expecting these visits, will leave out a note asking for their preferred gift from Sinter Klaas and obviously a shoe (because, why not?) in which they will leave the note and a carrot for the Sint's white horse. (Not sure why the carrot, since the Sint is not actually present on this visit but it doesn't do to ask too many questions, I find...). Assuming the kids have fulfilled their side of the bargain, Zwarte Piet will leave them some sweets and pepernoten.

So far, so good. But Piet can be a mischevious little bugger. So when he visits, he doesn't just take the letters, leave the sweets, and head out. No, he likes to leave his mark, so he mixes it up a bit. He puts things where they shouldn't be, tables on chairs, cushions on the floor, toys upside down in piles etc etc, and throws the sweets and biscuits all over the floor (this bit is particularly troubling if you have a rodent problem as of course you know they're all waiting for Piet's visits in just as excited a frame of mind as the kids...). Then, when your children get up in the morning, they're not quite speechless with excitement, and in addition to dealing with the sugar high before breakfast from all the goodies they gobbled up before you stagger out of bed, you also have to re-tidy the house that you so carefully (and quietly) messed up the night before.

Which in itself, is fine. I'm happy to do that - wait until my bedtime and throw a few sweets around, mess the place up, return the carrot to the vegetable basket and so on - to maintain the magic for my kids. But I do find it all a little galling when, after a busy day of play-dates, I confront my older son about the mess in the sitting room and am told in no uncertain terms that it wasn't him who made it, honest guv. The person who scattered the lego behind the sofa, the trains across the floor, and pulled the books off the shelves was - of course - Zwarte Piet.

Because, what am I going to say in reply? 'I know it wasn't, you little monster, because actually, I am Zwarte Piet and I didn't make that mess?'

I don't think so.

Not this year, anyway.

*Pepernoten are small brown round biscuits about the same diameter as 1p or 1€c coin, that disconcertingly resemble animal droppings, but which - thankfully - taste better than they look.

Hungry? I doubt it.

I was a guest at Boy #1's school assembly this morning. This sort of thing is always going to be impressive for parents of children who apparently do 'nothing' at school all day, who 'didn't learn anything', and who didn't play 'with anyone, Mama...' Today's assembly was no different. My older son, the one who doesn't learn anything, took part in a short play in which the only language spoken was Russian. But still - he doesn't actually learn anything at school, obviously.

The assembly however was not all about Boy #1 (amazingly). Each year that attended made a short presentation, sang a song, or did a play, and what really impressed me was a presentation the 5th graders did on their recent Hunger Banquet. Not having children of the right age (in this school that's 10 and 11 years old), I hadn't come across the concept of a Hunger Banquet before, and I have to say that I thought it was an amazing way to let our children - the children of the lands of plenty - understand some of the imbalance in the world.

It may be that this is an established tradition in your children's school, in which case I apologise for telling you things you already know, but if you haven't heard of such a thing, here is how a Hunger Banquet works...

The children are told not to bring any snacks or packed lunch into school with them on the chosen day. They eat nothing before lunchtime, at which point they are randomly given a ticket, which will be one of 3 colours. At our school, they were blue, white and red (Russian national flag colours, appropriately). 15% of the total tickets were blue, 35% were red, and 50% were white. The children then went to the relevantly coloured food counter; here's what happened next.

• The 15% with blue tickets were given chicken wings, fries, nachos and ice cream for their lunch. They were also allowed to go up for seconds.
• The 35% with red tickets were given a smaller serving, of rice and vegetables for their lunch, and no seconds.
• The 50% with white tickets were given a very small cup of water and a small cup of rice each, and of course, no seconds. If they wanted more water, they had to leave the dining hall and walk down the corridor with their small cup, which they could refill once.

I don't know about you, but this seems to me a very powerful way of communicating to tweenagers the imbalances of food supply in our world today - and the presentation that some of them subsequently made to the rest of the school underscored that...

Click here if you're interested in finding out more about hosting a Hunger Banquet. (Oh, and no children were harmed in the presentation of this concept; the kids without the blue tickets were given a snack once they got back to their classrooms...)

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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The Gallery Wk 36: Black & White

OK, I'm late with this - but better late than never, which is where I've been on the last few of Tara's Gallery prompts.

This week she's requested that our photo's be themed 'Black & White', and whilst I would love to be able to use a suitably moody shot I'd taken in black and white, I'm not that organised, and in fact, I don't think it's necessary when I have the one below. Admittedly, the photo I've chosen to use here has already appeared once on this blog - only a couple of days back, in fact - but I think it works. The colours are - more or less - black and white, but the black and white of nature at this time of year rather than the black or white of a photograph...

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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Festive Cheer in Box...

It's not at all difficult...

To get that festive feeling...

When you look outside your window...

And see this:

Which is why I don't feel at all premature in reviewing a new dvd that's just been released: 'Nativity!'.

Living as I do in an expat environment where it's not the done thing to refer to Christmas - 'Happy Holidays!' is the greeting we're supposed to use - can I just say how nice it was to sit down and watch a movie which is unashamedly British in it's approach to this? Based on the competition between two schools to produce the best Nativity performance and gain a 5 star rating from the local rag's critic, it has all the required elements for festive viewing.

There were children dressed as angels, Wise Men dressed as Elvis (which took me back to a certain Christmas performance Boy #1 gave a couple of years back), animals behaving badly, a batty headmistress, a kooky class assistant and - of course - a curmudgeonly school teacher (played by Martin Freeman, complete with the requisite cardigan) who starts out Scrooge-like in his approach to Christmas and ends up feeling the spirit of the season on a grand scale.

This is a great 'run-up to Christmas' Saturday afternoon movie, although perhaps not for young children if you're at all concerned by the prospect of a primary school field trip to the local maternity ward. And I think the hilariously bad-taste decision by Jason Watkin's competitive private school drama school teacher's decision to shock his way to a 5 star rating by producing a show called 'Herod', might go somewhat over youngster's heads...

Overall though, I really enjoyed the movie, and without running too much of a chance of spoiling the plot, I think I can share that there is a happy ending and that you would have to be pretty Scrooge-like yourself not to enjoy the Christmas shenanigens even slightly...

Note: I wasn't paid for this post but I did receive a free copy of the dvd...