Bashful Blagger

Bye-bye Blog, Hello Facebook

2011-05-31T19:40:00.003+02:00

All good things come to an end and, yes, faithful Fobbies (Friends of Bashful Blagger) even the NEEDSer blog must have its day. No doubt you noticed the long absence of anything new to read from...

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Top Tips: Harness the horse's mouth

2010-04-13T11:58:00.008+02:00

This is no time to hide your head. Wilting wallflowers maskerading as freelancers just won’t cut it in these days of cut-throat business. With more people jumping onto the freelance bandwagon every...

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Top Tips: The art of saying thanks

2010-04-01T13:25:00.005+02:00

Good things come to those who wait. Oh yeah? Maybe that’s true for itty bitty spiders sitting in wait in their webs for a foolish fly to come into range. But for freelancers like me, making a living...

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Top Tips: Beating the dry spells

2010-02-01T21:42:00.008+01:00

There are two certain Ds in a freelancer’s life. The first one, the big D, happens to us all in the end. ‘The End’, I should say, meaning: all of us die. The little D may be just as obvious,...

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Spam jam

2009-08-27T16:53:00.005+02:00

Back from the beach – at last! – and it’s straight back to work. I’m now editing a bright new paper by one of my favourite professors who fully understands the importance of getting her charmingly...

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Jammer dan

2009-08-20T08:08:00.004+02:00

Continuing the Blagger's recent holiday-reading trend in posting cold tales for hot days, here's one especially for the Dutch (reading) followers of this blog. This heartless bit of brutality is...

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Small talk

2009-08-14T07:27:00.004+02:00

This week the Blagger is still on the beach, enjoying a spot of fun, tea and bands playing out on the pier as the sun sinks its brassy beams into the florid sea -- so evocative from a distance, don't...

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Show and Tell

2009-08-06T21:29:00.016+02:00

The Blagger is on a break this week and next week too for that matter. To not disappoint all you regular Blaggaholics, here's some holiday reading, to keep you going til the Blagger gets back. Um....

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Let's play Linko

2009-07-30T00:02:00.010+02:00

Ka’ching! You’ve hit the jackpot, dear Reader. Yes, you’re in for a really big win. Instead of doing the usual, this week your bashful blagger is going to shaddap her pen and leave you to wind and...

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Nanoblogging

2009-07-23T00:54:00.021+02:00

Here’s a riddle for all you brainiacs: Q. What is a banano? A. Exactly the same as an ordinary banana, only one billion times smaller. I know, banano, bah no-no! It’s one of my nerdier jokes, but...

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Free style

2009-07-16T00:02:00.017+02:00

It can be risky fishing for business in the uncharted waters of the internet. What may seem like a goldfish nibbling the bait dangling from your website may be a shark who'll savage your tasty offer...

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And so fifth

2009-07-10T00:02:00.004+02:00

Recognise this, all you freelancers? One week you’re faffing about at your desk, with not a lot to do. You’ve done the filing, done the dishes, even done the doggies (taken them for a walk, that is)...

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Brave new word

2009-07-02T00:08:00.017+02:00

Have you ever been hit by a word that looks like it’s perfectly good English until you realise you don’t understand it? That happened to me the other day. I was surfing Cadrona snowfields high above...

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Length matters

2009-06-25T17:51:00.024+02:00

No bones about it, we all know length matters. Given the choice between the long straw and the short, I know which one I’d pick, any day. Long is safe, it’s seductive, it’s impressive. The longer,...

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Kiwi accent

2009-06-18T01:06:00.011+02:00

In sixteen forty-two, Abel Tasman sailed the ocean blue…This little rhyme taught me when the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to discover New Zealand. Somehow it’s stuck in my...

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Cross word

2009-06-11T00:14:00.024+02:00

Just imagine. It’s mid-morning, you’re in your peaceful office, fresh cup of coffee close at hand (but at a safe distance from your keyboard), working avidly on your latest exciting assignment (don’t...

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Sex symbol

2009-06-04T00:22:00.009+02:00

Meet the amazing Marina Orlova (28), dubbed "the world's sexiest philologist" by New Yorker Magazine. The possesser of not one but two degrees in philology from State University of Nizhni Novgorod...

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Star track

2009-05-28T17:46:00.009+02:00

Editing on paper, bah! Since I’m cack-handed (nope, it doesn’t mean what you think; check it out) my lousy handwriting has far more in common with a Jackson Pollack painting than the winning entry...

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Halley's comment

2009-05-14T14:50:00.040+02:00

A writer likes nothing more than being read. And so do my chubby cheeks, like being red, that is, with the poignant flush of a bashful blush. Yes really, I'm still amazed, bemused, and captivated,...

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Emma Chisit

2009-05-07T21:28:00.040+02:00

When I was six or eight or thereabouts my parents gave me a book. I forget what the book was called, something symmetrical like 1001 Answers to 1001 Questions, but I do remember that my addiction to...

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Cryptic colour

2009-04-30T11:52:00.026+02:00

Update: May 2, 2009. This episode was written and posted online in all ignorance of the tragic drama at Apeldoorn taking place at the same time. Dutch driver Karst Tates ploughed his car through the...

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Free booty

2009-04-23T17:49:00.026+02:00

Back in the day when dinosaurs walked and I was but a lowly bottom-feeder – one of several assistant stage managers at the Sydney Opera House – one of my backstage cobbers dubbed me ‘Main Chance...

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Hermit age

2009-04-16T00:01:00.031+02:00

You know the tired old sign that office jokers keep on their desks: "You don't need to be mad to work here but it helps"? Well, for me, “here” has to be “home”. Indeed, it would be sheer madness for...

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Deep gobbledy joy!

2009-04-09T00:04:00.029+02:00

Not so long ago one of my colleagues e-mailed the SENSE forum with a query about a copywriting term. “I need to crowdsource for this one,” she wrote. “What's the name for the key bit of text, often a...

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Tarot, Dare or Promise?

2009-04-02T00:04:00.027+02:00

One of my best friends is under the mad delusion that as a freelancer I won’t be touched by the economic crisis. Yes, just yesterday Roz (the Follower skulking behind the Fanny Ardant avatar) said to...

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