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One of the biggest banes of my life is email 

Take a day off and the inbox has 100+ new emails in. Take a week off and you open your email application with dread.

Email in this day and age is starting to feel like an obsolete business tool. I seem to spend most of my time cleaning out spam that made it through the spam filters, or tracking down important emails that ares stuck in the spam filter 

Some of the important or potentially important/interesting ones take so long to get to the point they may get inadvertently deleted as spam or rubbish.

So saw this article about email etiquette and how the American Military use it and thought what a good idea 

Keep it to the point, functional, with an uppercase statement at the beginning of the subject line telling you what the purpose is.

• ACTION – Compulsory for the recipient to take some action
• SIGN – Requires the signature of the recipient
• INFO – For informational purposes only, and there is no response or action required
• DECISION – Requires a decision by the recipient

Then for the main email text, keep it short and sweet. 

Military personnel know that short emails are more effective than long ones, so they try to fit all content in one pane, so the recipient doesn’t have to scroll. They also eschew the passive voice because it tends to make sentences longer, or as the Air Force manual puts it, “Besides lengthening and twisting sentences, passive verbs often muddy them.” 

You can reads the article in full here: How to Write Email with Military Precision

Maybe we need to tweak some of the subject options. Imagine how much easier going through your inbox would be;

• SPAM - just delete me, you haven't won the lottery and don't need any SEO services.
• SALES - just delete me, you don't want whatever it is I'm flogging.
• ENQUIRY - could be interesting, worth a read, maybe a bit of business?
• WIFE - don't delete, treat as urgent and action straight away

Reckon this could catch on? Or can we just scrap email completely and use that funny thing you have to talk into for important communication?

Wikipedia  So finally they concede that facts are a bit sensationalised in the Currant Bun and Daily Fail, get away... 

As opposed to some of the more sales promo style facts in wikipedia! Thats when Jimmy isn't asking everyone for cash each time you log in...

That's my breakfast regime out of the window then 

Blimey, a DMOZ discussion, like being back in 2012 

We were in it, then I upset one of the editors and we disappeared. Tried resubmitting, then gave up after a few years.

It was the "holy grail" as Google used it as a reference point, but that's a long time ago. Just had a look for the first time in years and can see it's had a make over. It's now just a volunteer run web directory owned by AOL.

Arguably it is still used as a reference point by some search engines as it is a respected human moderated directory, so being in there is not going to be a bad thing and is a good link. But if you're not, don't worry about it.

Great post on Moz about this from 2015 which pretty much sums it up:

DMOZ Directory Impact on Rankings - Moz

OK, guilty - I too had to ask the question  Didn't realise that was her surname, ohhhhh matron 

image courtesy of wikipedia

Blimey, Jan getting political on us  

I've seen two sides to the NHS. Having nippers and some of the complications they had along with their mother during birth, then the NHS were outstanding. The previous NHS Direct helpline and the current A&E care have been exceptional. To be honest from GP's to minor injuries clinics, or seeing an out of hours doctor, the system seems to have worked incredibly well, from weekends to out of hours crisis.

I think a lot of the problem from what I see is people just turn up at A&E for trivia or stuff that can wait. Phone the helpline first and get an advice, see a GP, book an out of hours appointment if you are concerned but its not an emergency, normally run by the local hospital and takes the pressure off A&E. Common sense will dictate if you really need to phone 999. If you don't then then phone the 111 helpline.

But where the NHS does fall down IMHO, and only from what I've seen with family members ties in with what Jans saying. For older relatives care and compassion has been missing sometimes. Communication flow has been poor, which breeds distress. Some younger nursing staff can come over as condescending or patronising. Old folk can be hard work and cantankerous, but training needs to be able to deal with this. Imported night staff that can barely speak English hardly help things. Then worse, older folk getting shunted into a nursing hope to free up a bed while they convalesce but still need hospital care before going home, only for it to be a hellhole resulting in them getting readmitted in a worse state.

It seems to me that in ever increasing demands on the NHS as a whole, it is at the end of the lifecycle where care seems to be the worst, and which everyone concedes is consistently growing as we live longer. We should all be proud of the NHS and staff that work there, but a rethink is needed for how we fund and manage geriatric care, whilst ensuring dignity and compassion. Its going to need a lot more cash from somewhere, no doubt from all of us, but also needs a radical change in thinking, not just a blank chequebook.

Whoops, humour to politics! I blame Jan 

Another UK storm in a teacup for our elected sheep to procrastinate about.

We can hardly roll out the red carpet for China but then whinge and moan about a US President regardless how potty he sounds. Agree with Barney, lets concentrate on forging good economic ties and positive relationships that benefit us.

We've got enough of our own domestic problems, lets let the American electorate worry about their own issues.

Had a meeting last week with the Retail Motor Industry Federation, in particular the Trust my Garage division as we host their data on behalf the Consumer Code.

Part of the conversation moved onto the the recent MOT legislation, something I hadn't really considered and from what I had seen on the news sounded like a good thing. ie moving MOT's to every 4 years means another year before having to worry about MOT's so in my mind, good news all round. 

Chatting to the guys at RMI, they told me the other side of the argument and to be honest it was serious food for thought. Modern cars are much better insulated and sound proofed than they were years ago. The average driver has lost most of the basic skills we all had years ago, like checking the oil, tyres, listening to and identifying a strange new noise. Technology has taken over a lot of the tasks from auto tyre gauges (notoriously unreliable)  to automated oil checking, ie my wifes car doesn't even have a dipstick.

There is little argument cars are far more reliable than years gone by, but something I hadn't considered was road conditions and quality has deteriorated dramatically over the last 10 - 20 years. Budgets have been slashed, potholes are bodge fixed rather than fixed properly. The length of time for roads to get resurfaced has increased. Apparently the most common fault now for MOT failure is suspension component wear and tyre wear and damage.

So with long life servicing, motorists more reliant on technology, is having a manual check of your vehicle to ensure it's road worthy such a bad thing?

The government have opened a consultation to let everyone have their say, and a campaign has been set up by the likes of the RMI, AA, RAC, Halfords, Kwikfit to raise awareness of the issue: www.promote.org.uk. We have just published a blog post from Trust My Garage (part of the RMI) if you want more information:

Proposed MOT changes: Why the 4-1-1 system is dangerous

The cynics will say the organisations against this are self serving as it's interest for motorists to have regular MOT's and vehicle servicing. But I must admit regardless of manufacturers service guidelines, I always like my vehicles serviced and checked out every year for piece of mind, rather than relying on a sensor or a component that is supposed to last longer.

Am I alone or do you agree? Or do you think MOT's should be pushed back to 4 years?

Any thoughts or comments, for or against?

So now the travel ban has been overturned by a Judge and suspended for being unlawful. Trump responds in typical colourful style and of course via twitter. "if something bad happens blame him and court system"

This is turning into a really bad version of House of Cards, which if aired you would never believe...

I know what you mean, days and weeks seem to be flying by! Think I am definitely slowing down though 

It seems public and MPs sentiment is swinging away from the dynamic duo