If you ever need a tailor or alterations.....

Then I recommend Bogart Tailors on Capel Street, Dublin 1. The tailors used to be run by an Irish owner but was bought over some time ago by a lovely lady who's name I think is Jolanta.

We've been in there several times at this stage and our clothes (mostly trousers etc..) have always been altered extremely well and for very little. They're located on the top floor of an old building on Capel Street (number 17). You'll find them if you by keeping your eyes up on the lookout for their sign which sticks out on to the street, above their door.

I don't blog about businesses unless I think they deserve it and they do!

Unfortunate marketing....

I saw this in Easons in town recently. I bet the Lonely Planet Marketing department were kicking themselves after publishing this year's guide for Mexico. Not surprisingly, they're going at 20% off!

Things you don't see everyday...

I've decided to start posting pics of things I snap while travelling or around town.

This was something I came across in Nice during a recent trip. It's a VW open backed micro-bus, where the restaurant have put a table and chairs for the patrons to eat out! Isn't that cool?

Cortix web design - scam or cowboy?

I got a call about 2 weeks ago from this woman from Cortix - a leading web development company which was expanding into 'my area'. After a long sales pitch, she said they were going to have a representative in my area on 3rd April and, pretty much, what time would suit me to meet her... A hard sales pitch to say the least... She specifically stated that although they were 'leaders' in their field, they needed my business as a foothold to establish themselves further in my region. As a confirmation of this fact, they would fulfill my web requirements for free...

There's a saying.. if it sounds to good to be true, it normally is!

And this is the case with Cortix. I got suspicious with these guys for 3 reasons..

• 1. the first call was such a hard sales pitch, it made me cautious
• 2. the second call was equally hard pitched, but when I said that I wouldn't agree to a meeting until I had reviewed their site, the rep actually hung up on me!
• 3. I called the number listed on the Irish site for Cortix Ireland and spoke to a guy with a foreign accent.. not sure what nationality. I ask if I could speak with a manager or supervisor. He asked me whyI wanted to speak to a senior person and I told him because I wanted to complain about a call I had just had from one of their reps. He then told me that they had no managers in the Dublin office!! Now that's a new one to me - no managers operating in their offices in Dublin! Must be a great place to work - a bunch of staff with no boss. So I asked for the contact details of a manager in whatever relevant office I could direct my complaint to. His reply was, and I quote verbatim " do you expect me to really give you the name of a manager so that you can complain?" - I replied yes, admitedly a bit shell-shocked by the attitude of the guy I was speaking with.

I know I shouldn't be so shocked - after all I am an NTL-UPC customer, so I know bad customer service first hand, but these guys were Gold Medalllers!

He eventually said, if I didn't want to receive calls from them anymore then I should just give him my details and he'd remove me from their call list. At this stage, I was furious, so I hung up.

I decided to Google them... This is why I'm blogging about them. They have almost no entries in English about the company, service or anything.... But in French, there is a wealth of entries about them.

Here area a few to start - cortix complaint 1 - cortix complaint 2 - cortix complaint 3

These guys have a very dubious reputation - be very careful and in my opinion, don't give them a cent. They will sell you a 'free service' but you'll pay dearly later - a website or design or similar. They get you in the contract's small print and in the poor post-sales service. They'll charge you for every change after the intial template is done, but more to the point, they will charge you for hosting, for traffic and every other thing you can think of.

This stuff is normally free, cheap or at least very reasonable elsewhere.. These guys seem to prey on the less e-commerce savvy and extract their money that way. And, let's be honest, they're doing really well... 28 million Euro turnover in 2008 and listed on the Stock Exchange...

My advice - you work hard enough for your money - don't hand it over to these cowboys.

I'll post again about these guys soon when I've read more material. (It's in French - give me a break... it takes time..)

So this is what they do in Iraq!

Maya Angelou - a video clip from the BBC site

I was having my lunch having returned cold and wet from the local shop with what I can only call an excuse for a sandwich. Like many people, I am still subdued by the combination of January (not my favourite month...), the recession and the weather.

So while surfing the net during lunch, I came across this clip posted by the BBC on their news site. Its from a lady called Maya Angelou - an American poet - on her thoughts about Obama.

I hope it lifts your spirits too.

I enjoyed this - a UFO encounter in the States