E-bay selling challenge - Skylanders Giants

For a while I’ve been thinking about an e-bay challenge, where I buy something for a £1 and then sell it on ebay and use the profits to buy something else, recycle that by selling it on and seeing how much I can grow my investment.

Well I’ve finally got around to starting. The first step was to decide what to buy, in effect im looking for something that is either over valued on e-bay or something that is sold at a bargain. The key to this challenge is estimating the real value of a product. Well, being the father of a 6yr old, I hope I can be excused for starting with toys, More precisely skylanders. These toys are NFC models which let children have something tangible which then translates on to screen via a games console.  I’m sure they will eventually turn out to be this generations star wars toys or corgi cars. They will be eminent collectable but in about 30 yrs most will have found their way to the local scrap heap.

Though at present there is a thriving second hand market and toys a plenty. New these toys sold for about £15 a model, but now 2^nd hand they can sell for a whole range of prices.

My angle here was to use a the 2^nd hand store CEX via their online portal webuy.com -   you’ll see you can buy a Skylanders Giant’s booster pack for a mere £1 not only does this have a figure included but comes with a game as well.  If fits within my budget, though there is a postage fee of £2.25, which I’ll have to absorb, but in reality it worked as I ordered other stuff as well.   

Interestingly the same figure sells for £1.50 on its own without the game, on the same site. Which, is in itself an odd state of affairs.  

So with step 1 safely completed on to selling it via e-bay. After a week it sold for £4.90 (including £2.70 postage).  Again here I had to outlay on postal costs but hers the figures

• Ø  Product cost  £1
• Ø  Postage receipt £2.25
• Ø  Total cost £3.25
• 
  
• Ø  Money received £4.90
• Ø  Less postage £2.70
• Ø  Total income £2.20
• Ø  Profit\loss -£1.05

Not exactly the result I wanted to start with. Despite doubling the value of my goods, the profit was more than eaten up postage. I’ll try again, but its clear that whatever I buy must be bought locally and then sold on line, that way i have a chance of keeping some of my income.

Total outlay £5.95

Total Income £4.90

Profit Loss -£1.05

Continuing my series of  book reviews for historical fiction, Im jumping back in time tot he House of Hanover, to George III and the Jacobite risings. Its a bit of an odd book as it starts as historical fiction set just after WW2 but then jumps back to the 18th Century.

Right from the start Outlander promised to be a very enjoyable read with the right mix of intrigue and character building. But there is no mistaking its length which in this instance maybe fells like there are 200 too many pages.  

The story itself is very enjoyable and set in the highlands it has a really atmospheric backdrop and an interesting story.  I am a fan of Historical fiction but most of it I’ve read has been focused on battles and war rather than love and romance, so for me it was a different read but one that held up to its own standards.

As a first book, its absolutely amazing and perhaps because it was never intended to be published that Diana Gabaldon  was freed from many constraints of tradition.  The book doesn’t follow a stereotypical historical fiction plot and it doesn’t rest heavily on the time travel complexities, instead it kind of meanders from one scene to the next. Almost as if the story is evolving with each page, and that the author too didn’t quite know where it was going to end up.

The book is full of colourful and intriguing characters that we come across in various situations, and  
they are each built up for a given scenario, but then quite often they are left unceremoniously as we move to a new situation.

 Coming back to the Length which on its own wouldn’t be an issue if it turned into an epic read. The problem is that the there is a key premise to the book, that once you understand needs no further explanation.   This leaves the middle of the book feeling quite repetitive with very little added to the actual plot most of this section is taken up with wishy washy romance, which a book of this length would lose nothing if it wasn’t there.  

The ending too, seemed to drag on for more pages than it needed to. There is a conclusion to the book and it’s a bold one with lots of excitement and a fitting end, the thing is by the time you get there your desperate to know what the ending is so it feels like it’s a long time coming.

Yet despite its length there remains a number of loose ends and unknowns, so I look forward to picking up the rest of the series which hopefully comes back to these left threads.

I would definitely recommend it, but give yourself a lot of time and don’t think too deeply.

Book Review - Trigger Mortis

As good as the original bond novels are they undoubtedly a symptom of the time. Were they to be published today they would undoubtedly provoke more outrage than Jeremy Clarkson holding a cold steak.  

So it is an interesting decision for Anthony Horrowitz, to build a new bond story around pre-existing Ian Fleming writing. As you star the novel what makes it even more remarkable is that he goes to great lengths to tie this new novel in to the original series, quoting recent events and continues to make James Bond a misogynist dinosaur. The theme continues as he picks up the relationship with Pussy Galore  and continues the Myth that bond is so irresistible to women that he can even convert lesbians to the alter of men.    For me the author pursued this angle right up to, but not beyond my tipping point, then it dropped and the realization dawned that he was almost apologizing for some of the Fleming Crassness, whilst at the same time re-writing history to allow a more acceptable Bond.   

Once you get over the, not –inconsiderable introduction and scene setting, the story finally begins. When it does its worth the wait, It continues at the pace you’d expect from the franchise and the story unwinds in a plot of catastrophic proportions. Of course we all know bond will save the day and we’re pretty clear that he’ll do so by charging in, girl in hand, avoiding death by the skin of his teeth. This leaves the suspense of the story a little flat, but what there is focused on the villainous characters and the unknown plot itself.

The book is set in the context of the burgeoning space race and does provide some interesting insights in to the events of the times, as well as the global political dynamic. One of the main villains builds a story based on the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_Massacre which was new to me as was a lot of the Korean war.   However , despite being about a British secret agent, there was very little British interest in the story instead, it was Bond saving America from the Russians

All in all an enjoyable book but no-where near the best in the franchise. Somehow it loses out on originality and frankness when compared to the Fleming novels and loses out to more contempory characters when compared to novels such as Jeffery Deavers, Carte Blanche.

QE2

I recently posted a blog about trying to review a Historical Fiction Novel for each English Monarch, in order of the most recent.  

So the starting point is our current Queen, Elizabeth II, and as our longest serving Monarch there is a long period of time from which to draw a decent historical Novel.  However, it’s also a recent period of time and so the History is much more recent.  Since 1952 a lot has happened but are there many historical fiction novels set in that period.

Her reign included the Cold war, the death of Diana, an Anus Horribilis, the decline of the British empire, and the growth of the commonwealth. It outlasted many governments and prime ministers including Thatcher, Blair, Eden, Heath and McMillan. There were several crisis’ including Suez, Northern Ireland, The Falklands, Iraq, and the miners’ strike.  One would think that with so much history it would be easy to find a novel set in that context but in essence the issue is that it’s all too soon. In 100 years which of these events will be the most memorable who knows, but Britain’s role in the Cold war seems certain to remain. Now let me see if I can find a Major English character linked to the cold war, someone who fought the Russians throughout, perhaps  a Secret Agent…

The Names Bond…

Immediately as soon as you reach Bond as you have to rule out all the original books, all of the Fleming novels were contempory fiction written about current events, so we have to look at his successors, but again most bring the bond character forward retaining its contempory nature, but there are 3 notable exceptions Devil May Care, SOLO and Trigger Mortis. Devil May care was a great read, but it was a while ago, and I've already reviewed it. I’ve not read SOLO, so this just leaves us with Trigger Mortis, which coincidentally I am currently reading.  So conveniently I’ll start there Next week.

Watch this space!

Hopfully…

Historical fiction reviews

A while ago I got big in to historical fiction, initially through Outlaw by Angus Donald and Sharpe by Bernard Cornwall, but it’s ballooned since then and now it’s quite rare for me to step beyond the genre with the notable exception of James Bond.

It quickly occurred to me that most of them are linked either to a particular monarch or to the events pertinent to the era, which in turn end up revolving around the monarch. Part of the appeal with historical fiction is the ability to learn something of the era. Even if the novels themes selves only cling loosely to the truth I’ve often ended up researching the facts behind the stories as I’ve read the novels.

So… It occurs to me that an informal challenge exists here and that is to try and read a Historical fiction Novel for each and every English Monarch. Im thinking specifically about English History, and from an English perspective, hence why I didn’t state British Monarchs.  This may get a little interesting around the act of union but we’ll see. 

Hopefully, I’ll review these on this blog starting from the most recent, but some self-imposed rules to start.  

• The novels must be written in a historical context. E.g not a contemporary book written a long time ago. But an old book written about an even older period does count.
• They must be about significant events of the time happening within England, or involving English foreign policy.  So Sharpe novels count as they relate to a significant milestone in English military history, but novels of Ancient Rome, or the American Civil war don’t.
• I’m trying to link novels to monarchs so I’d like the books to either include the monarch as a character, explicitly reference the monarchs activities, or be set in the contact of  the monarchs achievements or failures.

 

Leadership, apprentices and styles

I've recently started a Leadership program with work which has given me a lot to think about. A lot of self reflection and questions like "how do I trust people and why?", "What's is the art of conversation?" and what leadership style do I lean towards.

They took us through Goleman's six styles of leadership (As follows) and having watched last nights apprentice I thought it would be a useful exercise to look at the leadership styles expressed in yesterdays episode.

 

 

I cant for the life of me remember the team names and for the sake of this post its largely irrelevant, but there was definitely a team that won and a team that lost.

 

Team Lose

To start with the losing team, Where the project manager displayed a clearly commanding style, and followed it all the way to catastrophe.   It appeared that she wanted to come across as decisive, dynamic and visionary. But with a fresh team of unknown talents it came across like a steamroller,  charging towards a cliff edge.  The impact this had on the team was one of alienation both with the task, and the product itself, they didn't appear to be pushing the team forward and so lots of mistakes where made, and ultimately, a lot of distrust began to creep into the project.  Where ideas where shot down quickly it stifled creativity and left the team with very limited options right from the start. This in turn forced the project manager to get even more commanding, and so a cycle became entrenched.

 

Ultimately the success or failure of the task became narrowed to the project managers instincts, and the rest of the team either became very quiet, or openly hostile.  I guess this approach could have paid off superbly if the project manager knew her business and made the right calls, but unfortunately for team lose, the PM made a series of ill informed and ill judged calls, so the team was doomed to directly to failure.



 

Team Win

Contrast this style with team win, who Lord sugar credited with being very successful and one of the best he'd seen.  Here the leadership wasn't abrupt and wasn't closed, most of the team were ultimately supportive of the PM, but then he won so why wouldn't you support him. The most criticism suggested that he was delegating risk of failure but taking credit for successes.  For me he displayed a visionary style of leadership though it took a process of elimination to get to this conclusion.

 

The team as whole were set a broad brief and knew where they were going, each appeared to have clear roles and got on with it. With the PM not actually doing anything in particular.  It wasn't all plain sailing and mistakes were made, Whilst the PM set a vision and clearly wanted to trust his team, he just couldn't let go, maybe he hadn't quite built up enough trust. The result, he displayed a lot of helicoptering, where he allocated tasks went off but then flew right back in again right down to the detail, at times undermining the work of his team.  This went some way to re-enforcing the view that he was trying to abdicate himself of responsibility whilst retaining credit for success.

 

Ultimately this worked very well and there was none of the usual backstabbing and bitchiness. So with a new team it paid off  in spades.

So as far as Goleman goes last night seems to support the theory that visionary is the, most positive style and commanding one of the most negative. Maybe I'll try this again after next weeks episode.

end notes

And whilst I have the chance a special thank you to those of you who have given me feedback for this process, its been most insightful and very useful.


Leadership program with thanks via www.tvha.co.uk and http://www.parksims.co.uk/

Tour Of Britain Route through Chesham 12th Sept 2014