Lammo in Mourning – Well, it finally happened.. Plymouth Argyle were relegated from the Championship last week, and we’re going to be plying our trade against such giants as Rochdale, Yeovil and Bournemouth next season. Heck, we might even be playing Aldershot Town in a league fixture next season – This from a club that claimed to have ambitions of “Premier League football within 5 years” – You have to wonder if they meant the Blue Square Premier?

It’s been a long time coming to be honest, and if we’d stayed up this year, we’d only have struggled again next year, so it may be better to re-group, get some positivity back in the stadium (where we’ve only seen 11 wins in the last TWO YEARS), and mount a promotion/play-off campaign where we might actually have half a chance, and get the momentum going the right way for a change (and then crucially, build on that momentum rather than wait until we’re in decline again, and chuck money at bad/awful/indifferent players as we have done over the last 2 and a half years). I’ll be there cheering the team whatever happens next year – hopefully it won’t take us another 12 years to “bounce back”!

Note: Yes, I know the pic is of Exeter getting relegated in 2003, but it looks a much better picture than any Argyle one I could find, and a scene that I’m sure will be repeated at the end of the 2010/11 season (assuming they stay up this season of course!)

Spare some change guvnor? – So the Sunday Times Rich List 2010 was released yesterday, and shock horror! I wasn’t even listed – still I wasn’t listed in the obituraries column either, so it wasn’t all bad! Someone who was listed though was fellow Plymouth entreprenuer Chris Dawson, who I profiled on this blog last year. Chris has had a fantastic 12 months, increasing his net worth from £160m last year to £250m this year, meaning he’s got more cash to splash than TV Dragon Peter Jones, Elton John, Mick Jagger or Michael Douglas.

How did he achieve this? By making sensible decisions during a recession, buying bankrupt stock at rock bottom prices from the likes of MFI and Empire Direct, and selling it via the Internet where overheads are low. He has further plans to expand his “The Range” chain of stores across the UK during the next year, and you wouln’t bet against him breaking through the £300m barrier in the 2011 poll – well done Chris!

It’s not big and it’s not cleverat – As well as Plymouth Argyle, last week also saw the inevitable decline of my least-favourite network, as Cleverat finally brought in the liquidators and closed their doors for the final time.

One of the very first blog posts I made on Lammo was concerning the launch of this network, asking what was the point? During their brief time on the Affiliate Planet, they managed to win not just one, but TWO Muppet of the Week awards for their general incompetence and awful attitude.

I doubt many affiliates will be shedding a tear over the demise of this “network” – I know I won’t!

Now that’s what I call an affiliate event 74 – I must say a big thank you to Linkshare for putting on their Symposium UK affiliate event in London last week, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was very well organised and an excellent chance to network (I even got to chat with a former Apprentice winner – fanboy heaven!) and pick up tips from some great industry bods. Why was it great? Everything ran smoothly, the day weas really well paced, with never a dull moment, but without feeling rushed.

The venue was stunning, with views of the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye basked in sunshine, the food was amazing – really top quality. The speakers, whilst covering familiar ground managed to captivate their audience with interesting tales and info. There were goodies galore in the trade-show style session, and even the evening event managed to avoid the all-too-familiar problems: the free bar wasn’t abused and so getting a single drink didn’t take 40 minutes, there was plentiful (very tasty!) nibbles on an almost constant supply, and on the few occasions that the DJ tried to pump up the volume, a quick word in his shell-like soon sorted that out!

So a huge thanks to everyone at Linkshare for a fasntastic day – I’m looking forward to the next one, although you’ve set the bar quite high now!

This week I have been mostly hating: Queen’s “We are the Champions” (here’s why)
This week I have been mostly loving: Spending some time as a tourist in London, rather than just rushing from meeting to meeting.

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