But here’s the thing… I didn’t just want to have a boring list so I put it into order of the most secure income producing UK MLM down to the more riskier,
hmmm… maybe ‘risky’ is not quite the word, let’s say ‘pioneering’ network marketing opportunity.

I am sure that I have missed a few network marketing companies out here so please comment below if you’re business is missing or if you have any opion about my ordering of the list, hehe… Seriously though, I have tried to be as fair as possible with my ordering based upon company longevity, customer awareness of company, quality of products/services, if product/service is bought every month or just one time sale, plus also a whole bunch of other boring business type stuff. Please note also that just because your MLM company has been around for 100 years it does not better as often these old companies are the slowest to react to new technologies and market trends as they are stuck in tradition and a ‘but that’s the way we’ve always done it’ mentality. Yet on the plus side, company longevity is always a plus as you know the company has survived the ups and downs of a start up and your monthly cheque as a distributor is as guaranteed as any pay cheque from a regular job.

TOP UK NETWORK MARKETING LIST

1. Utility Warehouse Discount Club
   Ever wanted to sell a product once and have the customer keep buying each and every month with out ever having to do any follow up ever? Well how many people do you know that buy electricity one month and the next month decide they don’t fancy buying it any more? haha… This is what makes this the number one mlm opportunity in the UK for me, true residual income, not running around continuously chasing after fresh customers like a dog chasing its own tail. Also this company has an amazing history of great customer service and coming top for many of the Which? magazine customer service survey’s, crushing the likes of BT and British Gas. Truely, a remarkable company with real growth potential.
2. Avon
   This company must have been around my whole life and despite not being a girl or being into make and stuff like that in anyway (honestly), I like many people, would consider Avon to be a recognised household brand. You may think that the market is saturated and it is too late to make any ‘real’ money with Avon. Well if you have been around network marketing long enough you might have noticed the HUGE drop out rate. Really it is never really too late, 20 years of hard consistent work will pay off in mlm no matter what company you’re in.
3. Herbalife
   David Beckham! what about him? hmmm… I’m not sure what the link is with him and this company, other than that he played for LA Galaxy the US soccer team that Herbalife paid a small fortune to sponsor. However, it sure was worth it as when I joined the company back in 2004 it was like no one had ever heard of this strange american ‘wellness’ company. Today I can’t go into a gym without seeing someone strutting about with a Herbalife protein shaker or water bottle. This is a most definitely an excellent business opportunity for a fitness instructor or anyone seriously interested in becoming a personal wellness coach, it involves A LOT of customer follow up to run the business properly and profitably.
4. Forever Living
5. Ann Summers
6. kleeneze
7. Virgin Vie
8. Amway
9. Mannatech
10. Mary Kay
11. Monavie
12. Nu Skin
13. Wikaniko
14. Oriflame
15. Pampered Chef

The chart below taken from the NetCraft website March 2012, shows the ups and downs of market share for all top web servers across all domains. We can see that the market share between Apache and Microsoft are closely linked, as one goes up the other goes down. As for the smaller guys, they for the most part are not often talked about. However since 1995 when NetCraft began recorded data many web domains out there on the web today, although registered, they are currently inactive. This gives the more recent web servers a disadvantage if we were to award the positions of first second and third most used web servers in the world based purely on the information shown in the chart below. Would it not be a much fairer test to determine the Top servers based on sites which are active rather than just across all registered domains?

Market Share for Top Servers Across All Domains
August 1995 – March 2012

Back in 2003 Goldman Sachs released a report entitled ‘beware the penguin’ where they had suggested that the free open source Linux/Apache server would end any hopes Microsoft had of dominating the internet as it has higher-performance, lower-cost, and is more secure. However never did they imagine that in 2004 a complete newcomer would come along to rock the boat for both Apache and Microsoft alike.

A small Russian company of just a few workers produced nginx (pronounced “engine-ex”) which was released in 2004. This open source, lightweight web server in February 2012 had overtaken Microsoft IIS for total ‘Active’ sites across all domains and has now become the second most used server on the web under Apache!

“So-called Web 2.0 websites do run into scalability issues with Apache, and with Microsoft you run into cost,” says Jay Lyman, an analyst with research outfit 451 Research. “NGINX wins in these highly scalable environments.”

Above quote taken from Wired.com.

Why is nginx such a big deal? Like Apache, nginx is open source that is free for any company to install and use, however it is more lightweight than Apache requiring a lot less memory, plus also a little less functionality. However its main appeal comes in its ability to serve up web pages quickly and accurately during periods of extremely high volume, outperforming Apache in a devastating fashion.

The front page of the nginx website boasts this rather favourable quote:

“Several of the companies we invested in were able to solve significant scaling issues by switching their web platforms to NGINX,” said Thomas Gieselmann of BV Capital. “NGINX transparently and effectively enables the growth of the largest sites on the Internet today.”

Here is a short list of just a few of the big names on the web that have recently switched over to using nginx:

Now that nginx has secured some of the biggest names on the web, it is only time until the smaller companies follow suit and look to switch over, which could mean that in the next few years the now relatively unrecognised nginx could become a main contender for taking the number one spot of most used web server across all domains in NetCrafts comparative chart.

Wow what a day!

10.5 miles Route around Pen Y Fan in the Brecon Beacons with one of me house mates, Emma Doyle.

This is an excellent route that we found on the BBC website and you can download the map shown below plus full details on the route to try yourself at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/nature/sites/walking/downloads/Pen_y_Fan.pdf

We started off from the car park as seen on the map above and followed the Roman road which today was also being used by what looked like some (alot maybe 100 or so) guys on what looked to be SAS selection.

While walking taking one step at a time it is very surprising to look down and see helicopters flying around below you.

and some times above!

The walk up towards Cribyn, the second of the two hills, is quite steep but mostly paved in stone so is a very easy path to follow.

soon we was at the top, and after a short break, began our way up towards the highest peak in Southern Britain, Pen Y Fan.

This was a far steeper and more challenging climb particularly at the very top.

as you can see from my slightly exhausted expression

At the top is a plaque with ‘Pen Y Fan 886 M’ written on just in case you are not to sure where you are!

That’s me B)

& Emma…

Here we stopped off for some lunch, took some photo’s and enjoyed the very impressive view. Some say you can even see as far as The Mumbles just past Swansea but sadly we couldn’t quite make it out on this day.

Luckily when we arrive at the peak it was pretty clear but half way through lunch we was enveloped in a cloud and it suddenly became very cold and windy so we made our way down towards the next peak Corn Du.

From the table topped hill Corn Du you can see the what remains of an ice age glacial lake

and take in, yet another amazing view…

By now time was getting on (about 3 hours in) so we decided to make a move up towards the ridge way.

From here you can see the reservoir we had passed at the beginning of the day and the old Roman road that we had been walking along.

The path up to the ridge way is very clear however once at the top it becomes quite boggy in places.

Here’s a pic of me and my mate ‘the Rock’

The walk along the ridge way is very long and you really don’t want to fall off as it is a shear cliff face and not to mention a very long way up! But it bends around to the right towards the end and you make you way down a small waterfall to get back down.

This last leg of the journey towards the reservoir is also quite boggy, but at least it is down hill…

Once we had made it back down to the reservoir there was time for one last look up at the days achievements before heading back to the car and back home for a shower and a curry.

Hope you enjoy giving this ago yourself sometime, if you have I would love to hear about your experiences in the comments below. We did it in just over 5 and a half hours, but we did take quite a few tea breaks! hehe…

This epic journey took me to the other side of the world to foreign lands, all to meet my future wife as appointed by God (Although she was unaware of this at the time!). Far from straight forward, this journey did not go completely to plan due to my own disobedience I ran into a couple of set backs along the way.

The plan was to fly from Manchester to Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi to Manilla and then stay the night in a cheap hotel before flying off down to Cagayan de Oro to meet up with Armarygay

I booked flights for Monday morning despite being advised to book the flights for Tuesday and after a brief stop of in the fantastic airport at Abu Dhabi

I finally arrived in Manila…
As it was getting late in the day and the weather looking far from summer like, I checked into the nearest hotel and got ripped off big time as they clearly must have seen me coming fresh off the plane!!

The room at the hotel was adequate but  but not great considering the price I had just paid, Although it was far better than being stuck out in the tropical storm that was brewing outside.
The storm was got quite rough, the electric went out and I thought it must me normal, however when I woke up I found a devastated Manila in ruins from one of the worst hurricanes to hit the Philippines that year!
The electricity was out everywhere including the airport, the roads were blocked by fallen trees and the streets were covered in broken glass. However never having been to Manila before I wasn’t sure if this was just normal so I proceeding to the airport to catch the flight to Cagayan de oro.

When I got the the airport the place was in chaos with thousands of people waiting around only to find their flights had been cancelled and as the day went on the number of people just grew and grew.

Not speaking the language and not having a clue how things work in the Philippines I decided to team up with another passenger heading to Cagayan and get our cancelled flight re-booked for the following day. This meant a short stop over in Manila had now turned into 3 days… I really should have listened and booked the initial flight to leave the UK on Tuesday instead of Monday!

Melanie was great company for the 23 hours sat around at Terminal 3 and introduced me to a food I had never even heard of before called Siopao which has now got to be one of my favourite foods.

Soon enough we were on our flight and flying over Cagayan de Oro airport, which was looking a little less modern than what I was used to…

I left the airport and met up with the super amazing girl herself Armarygay and her sister Ladymae.

We stayed in the Lamar Hotel that was excellently cheap however the shower did not work, infact the only running water in my room was the cold tap, haha… and as for insects, well they were everywhere

I really loved the basic level of the hotel and enjoyed my short stay there before heading off to Armarygay’s home town of Kapatagan to meet the rest of the family.

I had an amazing time with the family however Ian was a bit quieter than I was expecting, apparently due to the fact he was too shocked by the length of my western style nose! haha…

We had a great time, especially at church and also our time at prayer mountain was amazing. So many great memories to look back on, but more importantly even more great times to look forward to together in the years yet to come!

Just check this video out, then read on:

It is true, I have never been fond of paying extortionate amounts of money each year for car insurance, despite never having an accident all the time I have been driving. It seems that as my no claims bonus goes up, so does their annual price rise for insurance, hehe…

Then one gloomy old rainy day, some young hoody yob came along and caused hundreds of pounds worth of damage to my car while breaking in to steal my stuff!!
And that was that! Good bye no claims bonus… Even though I never actually caused an accident! hmmm… I was left confused.com and a little miffed!

Soon came the good news from the insurance company as my insurance was due for renewal. Wow! They now wanted a small fortune. What they were expecting me to do is just grumble and pay what ever they ask, just like everyone else. But no, I ain’t into whinge culture these days.
So I decided to stick it to ‘um and get rid of my car!!

So I posted it on ebay

Check it out

No need to worry though as I have a cunning back up plan for transportation!

I decided to get a motorbike instead, nothing massive, just a cheap little 125cc would do me.

1. £15 a year for tax

1. About £80 for insurance

1. Fuel costs about a quarter of what it costs to run a car over the same mileage!

1. Plus cheap to buy

All in all, I thought I was on to a real winner with this idea. The only problem came when trying to find a half decent 125cc motorbike to buy. The classifieds are full of rust heaps and the local motorcycle dealers only sell big bikes or really expensive 125′s. I’m talking like £3-4000 for a Honda 125cc. Crazy money I thought, if only there was a decent supplier of low cost 125 motorcycle’s and mopeds. hmmm….

Well like I said I have given up whinging since it gets you nowhere. So instead I decided that as there was not a good supplier of low cost motorbikes in the area, then I would make one! hehehe…

A little over ambitious maybe?
but in the end that is exactly what I did!

And here it is today: Gears Motorbikes
Now located in:

• Manchester

• Swansea

• London

• Glasgow

• Cardiff

Thats the way to live life, don’t take any crap, just stick it to the man!

Like many people I have always loved the idea of living completely self sufficiently just like on the old TV show ‘The Good Life‘!
As a kid I always wanted to grow up to be just like Tom and Barbara on that show and grow all my own food. Unfortunately when you grow up ‘the real world’ takes a grip of you and you find it very hard to let go.
Recently while browsing the BBC iPlayer I came accross a program called ‘The Edible Garden‘, it is presented by Alys Fowler a presenter from Gardner’s world and is all about how she lives from her garden all year round just like Tom and Barbara only she makes it look so much cooler!

Ray Mears has been my all time most want to meet person ever since I was a kid and I saw him in his 5 minute part in ‘Tracks‘ each week (This was before he was ‘famous‘), however after a few episodes of The Edible Garden Alys Fowler has robbed him of that and has hands down become my person who I would most want to meet.

Alys’s Garden is not that much bigger than mine, but she has 2 chickens and just about every type of fruit and veg you can grow in the UK growing in it and mine, well take a look for yourself;

Inspired by her amazing garden and fantastic lifestyle I decided to take the plunge and dig up some of my scrapy lawn and make some room for some fruit and veg of my own. I popped down to the local supermarket and came back with a lovely smelling little Lavender plant, I was very pleased at first but soon realised I probably couldn’t eat it! hehe…

But how wrong I was… I then watched episode 5 of The Edible Garden and saw Alys making some really nice looking Lavender biscuits. Amazed by this exciting revelation  I searched Amazon to see if she had a book so that I could have some of her amazing wisdom for myself
And there it was, the book, The Edible Garden by Alys Fowler.
RRP £18.99 – Amazon’s price £8.99

£10 SAVING! I couldn’t refuse, hehe…
6 days later it arrived in the post and my first batch of summertime lavender biscuits were in the oven!

So quick and simple to make, just chuck some flour, sugar and butter together with an egg yoke then throw in some Lavender fresh from your garden and bung in the oven for 15 mins, done…

Fortunately Alys explains it all in a bit more detail in her book along with loads more cool ideas that I will be trying out as I grow more stuff this summer…

My garden still has a long way to go but I have big plans for it this summer and by next summer it should provide for me all year round, drastically reducing my weekly shopping bill!
I will be keeping you updated on how things are going and hopefully you can share some of your stories with me as well

Here is a link to the episode with Alys making the lavender biscuits:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

Last week I went to delivery a couple of pizza’s which actually turned out to be a prank order. No big deal it does happen every now and then in Domino’s. I really wasn’t expecting it to make front page news a week later in the Evening Post!

What follows is the news report from todays Swansea Evening Post – 27th April…

Cruel hoax of pizza delivered to family in name of son’s car crash killer

THE distraught family of a car crash victim has been sent a pizza with the name of the man who caused his death on the order sheet.

It is not known who ordered the pizza, but the incident has shocked the family of Andrew Corbett, who died in June 2004.

Mr Corbett, aged 19, was one of three innocent victims killed when the taxi minibus they were travelling in was struck at 70mph in Fabian Way, at the junction of Port Tennant Road, by a BMW M3. A split-second later the BMW was struck at 60mph by a Volvo C70 car.

Christopher Antonio, then aged 20, of Dinas Street, Plasmarl, was in the BMW and was jailed for four-and- a-half years for causing death by dangerous driving. Co-defendant, 28-year-old Christopher Churchill, of Redditch, Worcestershire, who was in the Volvo, was jailed for seven years for the same offence.

Antonio has since been released from jail.

Mystified

Derek Lee Martin, Andrew Corbett’s father, described how a Domino’s Pizza delivery man [thats me ] appeared without warning at his Swansea home with pizzas worth £32.

Mystified by the delivery man’s appearance, Mr Martin checked with his children to see if they had ordered the food, which had not been paid for. His wife was at work at the time and none of his children had placed the order.

Mr Martin said he checked with Domino’s and found that the name on the order was given as Christopher Antonio.

Stunned by this, Mr Martin said they had informed the police who were now investigating.

Mr Martin stressed Domino’s had not done anything wrong.

But he said he and his wife Karen and their children were horrified by what they believed to be a vindictive act.

He said the family were still struggling to come to terms with Andrew’s death.

Brilliant

The two other victims in the crash were Neil Jenkins, a 24-year-old football coach from Llansamlet, and his fiancee Lesley-Ann Morgan, aged 21.

Mr Martin, of Eppynt Road, Penlan, said Andrew had worked in a care home — the same one as his mum — before taking up a post at a special needs centre in Gowerton.

“He was brilliant,” said Mr Martin.

“I sit down and watch videos and DVDs of him. “But my wife can’t look at them. She likes to look at photos — she breaks down when she hears his voice. I find it comforting.”

A spokesman for South Wales Police said: “We are aware of the incident.

“Inquiries are ongoing to establish who ordered the pizza.”

The Post attempted to contact Mr Antonio but was unsuccessful.
_______________________________________________________

This just goes to show, you just never know what is going to happen when you step outside your front door!

- Ben Gillott (Part time deliverer of delicious Domino’s Pizza’s )

We are proud to announce that Celtic Quest Coasteering,

a cool outdoor pursuits business in Pembrokeshire is now the official sponsors of this years Rough Ride event.

At the time of updating this blog today, the Rough Ride event is just 7 days away. You can check the count down timer at www.RoughRide.org.uk any time.

The video above is the first in a string of videos that will be arriving on this blog over the next month or so. The 170 Manchester to Swansea Rough Ride event will be filmed all the way down, capturing all the best bits and also the worst

If you enjoy a bit of Twitter action,

you may want to follow my tweets at twitter.com/bengillott as I will be tweeting all the way down to Swansea, plus also tweeting the odd picture along the way to make things more interesting.

One question I seem to get asked a lot is, is this Rough Ride thingy just going to be a one off event?
I just can’t keep quiet any longer… No, this aint going to be a one off! I have massive plans for the future of Rough Ride and next years event is going to be truely epic. Plus I may be inviting a couple of extra fundraising bikers along with me, so if you know any one that may be interested make sure you keep Rough Ride in mind for next year.

It is now 04:30am and I will be catching the train to Manchester in 4 hours! Not sure if I will get any sleep tonight, hehe… But I had better have a go.
Can always sleep on the train tomorrow anyway!

Spent Sunday morning rocking out at Kings church and then got home to quickly get changed and throw on a 16 KG backpack ready for the second attempt at reaching the summit. I have no idea what the hill is called, but it is the big one in Swansea with the 2 TV masts on it…

As you can see in the picture below I managed to rope Mr Popham into coming along with me. Although to be honest his arm did not really need much twisting.

The walk from the house to the bottom of the hill seemed quite easy, I think because if you have someone to talk to it distracts your mind from the walking and weight on your back.

The weather today was really hot and sunny, which made climbing this hill very thirsty work. Luckily Mr Popham soon spotted a valuable water supply!

Hehe… however the water was not looking too tasty so we decided not to drink it after all.

The views on the way up the hill were amazing. If anyone reading this lives anywhere near Swansea and has never taken this walk I strongly recommend you do this this summer, although I wouldn’t recommend doing it with a 16KG backpack!
Just incase you are confused as to why I am doing this with a 16KG backpack or infact confused as to why I am doing this at all. It is because I am training fo the 170 Mile Rough Ride Charity cycle fundraiser for the homeless. It is from Manchester to Swansea over 3 days starting on 1st April. No fancy hotels, just sleeping rough as the homeless do, hence the back pack and the name – Rough Ride.

You can get more detals here

To be honest I am not as fit as I should be at this stage, and about 3 quarters of the way up the step hill my legs were really starting to struggle with lactic acid burns and every other type of ache and pain. Eventually I had had enough and took a flash 2 minutes…

This was not really enough though as when I got back up  I was still stopping every 10 feet to give my legs a rest, so I decided the best thing would be to ask Jesus to take over for a while and help me get to the top of the hill. Pretty much instantly I felt no pain in my legs at all and they just motored on up the hill for me chugging along like a little choo choo train. It was an awesome feeling and one I will probably not forget.

My legs went so fast I even caught up with Mr Popham, who was only carrying a  pack of Fosters and spare tshirt btw, And before I new it we were at the top!
If you do not know Jesus I serious recommend you get that sorted asap… I remember hearing Colin Jackson the British Olympic long jumper guy saying in an interview about how his relationship with God had helped him achieve success in athletics. The interviewer seemed to dismiss what he had said, but I think it is great, and sort of weird as unlike with taking performance inhancing drugs, with God you cant get blamed for cheating, BONUS!

Once at the top we cracked open a couple of cans of Fosters and took in the amazing views. You can see all of Swansea from here as well as Port Talbot and Swansea docks actually looks quite cool. Although I’m guessing from the ground it is probably quite the opposite.

After 20 minutes or so we decided to head back down as we intended on cooking a nice Sunday roast once we got back home.

Unsurprisingly, going down the hill was a lot more enjoyable than going up. Although I had got myself a couple of little ‘girly’ blisters on my heels by this point. however despite the blisters I was well glad I had worn the boots rather than making the mistake of wearing trainers again…

Mr Popham found himself a strange looking sculpture that he enjoyed imensely.

And before you knew it we were back down the bottom of the hill!

I had remembered to take along my heart rate monitor today and as you can see in the pic below I had an average heart rate of 66% Excellent for fat burning!
So now you have the answer to shedding those extra pounds, just strap on a heavy rucksack and go for a long walk Probably not the answer most people want to hear, but I think those people that are waiting for a magic diet pill are only in for dissapointment! Get out there and enjoy being alive!!

Once we had walked the rest of the way back home we got showered, changed, then sacked the idea of cooking a Sunday dinner and opted for going down the Taybarn for a cheap all you can eat dinner instead… Lovely

As always comments are welcomed by everyone and I look forward to seeing what cool things you have all been getting up to.

Ben

Not having measured the distance on a map I had no idea how long it may take, but I thought I would just give it a go as its all good training for the Rough Ride fundraising event in April.

I started off well enough carrying a backpack weighing about 16KG. This is great fat burning excercise if you ever want to give it a go!

It was a good fun walk which took me around the lake in Llansamlet and then all the way up through the forestry.
I managed to avoid walking along the road as the forestry seemed to be way bigger than I had expected.

However dispite my best efforts my off the cuff route selection had me just about half the way up the hill at the hour point. I did think about just going all the way on my first attempt anyway, but the weather looked like rain and I thought I may enjoy giving it another go on Sunday instead…

The walk home seemed a lot quicker, however actually took 55 minutes. I think if I do give it another go on Sunday after church I will just have to go with no time limit and see how long it takes…

Oh yeah, and I shall be wearing boots next time, I don’t think my old trianers will ast another day out like that, hehe…

I hope this will inspire others to get out and explore their local areas, I was really supprised at how close I lived to all this cool stuff. I look forward to hearing from your stories soon… Ben