A day at home yesterday, so today’s photos are views from home, and one from under the desk where my assistant was working very hard.
The house, as you can see, has a lovely view, but there are some drawbacks. When the cruise ship is in, as yesterday, and the wind is in the wrong direction we get its fumes wafting up, and those of the other boats, even when the engines aren’t running, so I am not sure how that happens. We also have Captain Snort living next door. He’s been away for a while but is now back and back to his compulsive habit of snorting water through his nose to clear out his sinuses (I can’t image what else he would be doing) every hour or so. But, apart from that, the view is lovely so here are some shots of it.
Other thoughts occur to me today, one of which is about the stupidity of online advertising. Now then, when anyone clicks the advert link at the bottom of my posts (see below) I don’t think it’s stupid at all because the website earns tuppence each time you do it and it doesn’t cost you a thing, and it all goes towards providing the blog. But here’s a slightly different take on these adverts which earn some companies millions and others, like me, less than €70 a year…
I recently went looking for a hotel in Belgrade. I wasn’t actually in Belgrade you understand, that would have been a tad eccentric. But I used the internet and Booking.com. (If you book your Rhodes or Symi, or any, hotel through our Booking.com box over there on the right we also get another tuppence, eventually.) I had a lovely time looking at all kinds of hotels at all kinds of prices, and thinking, ‘I won’t stay there it’s too posh,’ and eventually found one that I think will suit us when we go there in December. So, I booked it. I also booked flights with Aegean Airlines, as you can’t use many others from here in the winter, and I like them.
All well and good and sorted (not snorted). Now though, each time I open a website that carries these adverts, my own included, they are all trying to sell me hotels in Belgrade and flights with Aegean. What is the point? Let me say that again slowly. What. Is. The. Point? I’ve just boked my hotel and my flights. You. Are. Too. Late. It’s like when I buy a book, the next thing you know Amazon are popping an advert on your screen or in your email encouraging you to buy the thing you just bought. What. A. Waste. Of. Some. Poor. Computer’s. Time. You’d have thought that, by now, someone would have come up with a way of knowing that you don’t need to be tempted by what you’ve just paid for. I mean, the big ‘They’ out there in the internet world seem to know everything else about us, but they can’t figure that one out? Sheesh.
So, unsurprising it was that an email I received, and this email said: “Hello James Collins,” (Hello, I politely replied) “Are you looking for something in our Travel & Holiday Books store?” (I was, but I just found it, dim-wit.) “If so, you might be interested in these items.
Carry on up the Kali Strata-James Collins
Village View: A year on Symi–James Collins, Neil Gosling
Terms and conditions apply…” Yes they do, I wrote the bloomin’ things and wouldn’t you, a clever computer thing, have thought that if you’re writing to James Collins via a Greek email address he might already have something to do with books about Greece by James Collins? I don’t know, and I thought computers were supposed to be clever.
I need to get out more. Oh look! (He says, looking at this post online.) An advert for a hotel in Belgrade…
