My company, Paid On Results has been shortlisted for two awards at this years Affiliates 4U Awards. Its split in to two sections, the judge based awards and for this we are up for Best Network Innovation 2008, not bad when you consider how many Networks are in the UK, and even with the least amount of investment Paid On Results still manage to bring out new innovations all over the place. And the section picked by the community we have been short listed for Publisher’s (that’s Affiliate to the man in the street) Choice of Network 2008. This one has more respect as it’s voted by the people who actually matter, the Affiliates themselves. However I don’t hold out much hope of us actually winning as we don’t have the budget to beg for votes, currently a couple of the networks are doing the rounds begging for votes, so all the best to them

It’s not the winning, it’s the taking part, yeah that’s a load of rubbish, it’s all about the winning but at least we got selected, many “bigger” Affiliate Networks with money to burn didn’t even get picked either by the judges or the Affiliates, that speaks volumes in it’s self, so while winning is better then taking part, at least we got selected for 2nd year in a row so I guess we must be doing something right

These days eBay selling stuff you no longer want is a lot easier, even taking the photo of the item has become simple task as more and more people these days have a digital camera.

I was showing my sister how to list items via eBay and I was shocked to see just how simple they have managed to make it, years ago when I used to buy and selling stuff on eBay for fun you had to know a bit of HTML to get a half decent listing, these days it’s one simple page that you fill in, upload your photo(s) on that page and press the button and your listing is live… costing around 25p to list the item.

So instead of letting your old stuff gather dust, waiting for the day you chuck them out, why not chuck them up on eBay and make a few quid.

On Friday night I enjoyed an evening at Hamilton Park Racecourse with some of the crew from Paid On Results, was one of our works trips out that we try to arrange every month or so, this being the first one I actually made it to, last one was Ten Pin Bowling.

It was a really good night out, Hamilton is just South East of Glasgow, so it was a quick train ride from the office, I let everyone leave 30 mins early to attend (should get employer of the year LOL) when we arrived we got our passes, headed off in to the ground for a couple of pints, a look at the first horses being walked around the paddock before it was off to select our bets.

We had a great view of the finishing line from the bar and there was plenty of bookies on hand to take bets close by, after the races where over, 6 in total (I managed to get a 50% strike rate, winning 3 out of 6 races) we went outside to watch Sophie Ellis Bextor doing a small performance on the stage at the racecourse, pretty much everyone was in good spirits, dancing away especially when she rounded off with Murder on the Dance Floor, when I was looking around me I was thinking, if the kids of these parents all dancing away could see them now they would be mortified, classic dad dancing from every quarter, don’t get me wrong wasn’t all mums and dads, loads of young people attend the horse racing, was a far few hen party’s and a couple of girls had the designer dresses with big hats on, I think they have got confused thinking it was ladies night where you are expect to wear that type of stuff, the night we went along was called Braveheart Night and can pretty much where what you like. Anyway was time to head back to Glasgow, quick stop off at Bar West next to the train station, a small band playing cover tracks was on. All in all a very good night was had by all.

Way hey, opened my mail and found 2 lovely cheques from NS&I Premium Bonds for the May draw, always good to get a tax free prize from the Government, my total win was 1x£50 and 1x£100. I use Premium Bonds as away to keep any money I am due to pay in personal tax each year out the way so I don’t try and spend it, and Premium Bonds are great for this because while you can access your money in about a week or so you have to complete a forum to get at it. Premium Bonds are basically like taking part in National Lottery only the 2 main prizes are limited to 1 million each and win or lose you always get your money back unlike the Lottery, so if you like taking part in the Lottery I would recommend that you seriously look at Premium Bonds, it’s a bit more costly than a lottery ticket to take part but like I say you get the money back, gambling without ant risk, so guess that’s not actually gambling.

If you need to access your health records be they at you GP, a hospital or your dentist. You can apply under the Data Protection Act 1998, as you have a legal right to access your health records.

Now you will probably have a cost to pay, around £10 administration charge is common and if you need a copy of records, notes, results and x-rays then you will probably be charged a photocopying and administration charge however you can only be charged a maximum of £50 in total for this.

You will have to submit your request in writing to the practice / GP surgery and should send the letter recorded delivery keeping a copy for yourself, and you should receive a response in 21 to 40 days, legally they can’t take any longer than 40 day to action your request.

Give your full name, address, date of birth and contact number, and state when you are requesting the records from, this could be all records they hold on you however in some cases this may only go back only 3 or 6 years depending on who it was and what work/advice give was undertaken.

Remember this applies to any health professional, be they GP, dentist, optician or intuitions like a hospital.