Anne’s ramblings

Business Advice

There are lots of books in the world. Books about how owls are lovely wondrous creatures who should be looked after and conserved (when if you ask me Barn Owls, particularly, look like malevolent alien creatures: I mean, Google the words “close up of Barn Owl face” and see if I am wrong), for example, and books about how horses are “majestic” and even, laughably, “extremely friendly creatures that wouldn’t harm a fly”(I oppose that statement WHOLEHEARTEDLY: you would if you were bitten on the nose by a shire horse as a child).
Then there are books about business: How To books which promise to make you a millionaire in two weeks, even if you are a farmer from the backwoods of Mississippi who has never heard of the phrase “Windows operating system” and doesn’t actually possess fingers. My advice would be to steer clear of these and heed my warning: following their advice and not heeding my warning may result in the financial equivalent of having your nose bitten off. If you are very unlucky you may even be left looking like a Barn Owl… Because the point is, you can’t learn business from a How To book. Business is something that you have to learn by a) losing money before you make money and b) wearing a suit (yes, you will have to leave your house to be taken seriously in business, sorry) and c) having a brief-case on your person (yes, a wooden box is no good: I am talking to YOU farmer from Mississipi backwoods village). No self-respecting business person can do without one! Or just go on a course and learn from business men / women who have made all the mistakes before hand. Voila!

July is officially our ‘grumpiest month’

While we are toiling away on our jobs, we make take a break from our computers or cleaning supplies to remember our summer holidays. Just getting away from it all, two weeks of sun, sea and sand, and if you did not manage to get away from the United Kingdom, we had some great sunny weather to enjoy.

However, from this article, not everyone wanted sunny weather to bask in. In fact, many people we’re pretty frustrated in the month of July, to an extent that it is now labelled as the ’grumpiest month’due to the intense weather. According to an article by MSN News - http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=154098879&ocid=today - a survey conducted by Travelodge found that 78% of people felt the most moody in this month due to the hot conditions, 88% lost sleep every night, an average of two hours per person due to the heat, and even 70% of parents who took the survey had been disturbed by children complaining or struggling to sleep due to the conditions.

Tempers were also frayed in this month, with 27% of commuters lost their tempers with their partners or children during the hot conditons, one in two motorists lost their tempers while driving, and 45% of office workers took their tensions out on other colleagues.

With these figures, it is not surprising that July was a rather moody month, and even more surprising, is that 6,000 people took the survey, bringing the numbers of stressed and anger stricken people to thousands. It looks like the exotic conditons of weather don’t seem to help you unwind, so is it really a good idea to book that July summer holiday?

The Destruction of The Public Sphere

Habermas:

During the 18th and 19th centuries capitalism spread through Britain allowing the emergence of the Public Sphere. Habermas studied this emergence of the public sphere and its supposed decline during the 20th century. Habermas theory defines the public sphere as “An arena, independent of the government…and also enjoying autonomy from partisan economic forces, which is dedicated to rational debate and which is both accessible to entry and open to inspection by citizenry.”However Habermas claims that the Public Sphere dissolved More