Just heard on 5fm that people in the UK are already complaining about this advert and that it might be stopped/withdrawn as its too violent…

Wow, I watched the advert and it is pretty hard hitting stuff – I wonder what people who are victims of domestic abuse think and good on Keira for playing her part in this trying to draw more attention to this domestic abuse. When I was working in London one of my collegues was a victim of domestic abuse, she’d left her husband before but always seemed to go back. Eventually she divorced him but it took a lot, I don’t quite understand the amazing hold the abusers seem to hold over the victims.

Anyway, watch the advert for yourself below:

Unfortunately for us here in South Africa it happened this week in London at Shepherd’s Bush but was for a good cause – ‘War Child’ a friend of mine went and I am very bleak I missed out.

Below is quite a good video of one of my most favourite songs ever been sung by The Killers + Coldplay + Bono, enjoy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KpN1KD_zTc&hl=en&fs=1]

So after this rapid arise of charity driven twestivals held around the globe Cape Town is to get its own and best of all the funds raised will go to the charity : Water.

If you don’t want to donate your hard earned money to ‘water’ then go along and donate your bucks to Cycle2Learn.org – mates of mine who are cycling from Cairo to Cape Town to build 2 classrooms for a rural school in the Eastern Cape.

Jennifer Connelly in charity: water Public Service Announcement from charity: water on Vimeo.

CharityWater is a legit site and is looking to raise $500,000 and awareness so join in for an evening of fun and games. CharityWater is trying to bring water to the people in need, a worthy cause if I say so myself and knowing that hundreds of cities around the world will be doing the same thing on the 12th is awesome.

A competition run by Afrigator and Ukash is offering R3k to the winner and R3k to the winner’s chosen charity. All you have to do is write a small blog about the chosen charity and send the link to ukash@expandsa.com.

Here is my chosen charity: The Tomorrow Trust

Reason: Education is the building blocks of everything, without education we can’t progress very far and for kids who are orphaned or in vulnerable positions this is really really important.

The Tomorrow Trust’s mission is to make a sustainable impact on these kids and to empower these kids. When everyone else has turned a blind eye to these poor kids this charity is coming through for them and for this competition they could receive a further R3k to help them in their efforts.

Take a look here for more details on the trust.

As this is my first year of blogging I’m still getting use to all the norms and from the blogs I follow I see quite a few people summarising their year and making predictions for the next year. I don’t think I’m going to quite do that but will outline a couple of things.

First of all something I just read on TechCrunch is the logo that MobileAge is using for their iPhone icon, take a look and see if you can see what it really is:
Pretty funny stuff, wonder if the designer could see it or just had a case of looking at it too long he couldn’t actually see it.

Interesting video below on a new book ‘The toilet paper entrepreneur‘, I might place an order soon.

Otherwise have a good Christmas and New Years, I’m off for a couple of days – can’t wait. But in the mean time there are plenty of things to look forward to in 2009.

1) Launch of Allthingsmobile – my new site
2) My mate finishing the Cairo to Cape Town cycle race for charity – go donate now
3) The new SEACOM underwater cable coming online in June which will hopefully decrease prices
4) Telkom coming into the wireless broadband scene and possibly as a new mobile operator
5) The 2009 elections in SA

From January 2009 to May 2009 a good mate of mine, Tim Gane and his pal will by cycling from Cairo to Cape Town. They will be covering a distance of 12,000 km’s and averaging 120km’s per day, each of them has put in lots of money to cover their own personal costs as its an expensive event to enter and organise. Click here to view their website and donate.

So, what are they looking for? Just R180,000 to help out a school in the Eastern Cape and build 2 more classrooms for the kids who really need it. Now, this is only (in today’s rates) £11,486.91 or $17,928.86.

Which really isn’t that much – for those of you who are from the UK/USA, you can definitely contribute a healthy contribution.

My pal, Tim and his mate only need to get 1800 people to contribute R100 (£6.38) – to the people in the UK/USA I think you could def contribute a lot more than that and I’d like to hear from you if you do.

Its time we stop living in our own small secluded worlds and open our eyes to see how the greater majority of the world really lives, we need to stop been selfish and just give a little back. A little is a good way to start!

I’m going to be helping out in terms of marketing, helping them manage their site, financially and hopefully even cycle one of the stages. Click here to go to their official website and donate!

So over the weekend a friend sent me a link to a website and a message urging all of us to try help, so I went over and checked it out and was impressed. Take a look here.

This is a website idea that I have thought about for awhile and I’m glad to see that someone else has tackled it and has done a great job, Greater Good SA is an online social marketplace. So basically a charity organisation will register and list services or work they need doing and then people like ourselves can come along and indicate we’ll help out with the project. Great idea I think.

So far the site has helped generate R9.5million and 21,000 hours of volunteer work.

I’m going to try get all my mates to help out with ‘Do it Day‘ on the 19th Sep, hope you will too!