The Event:

We proudly present hanukkahLDN 2009. Join us from 7pm ’till Midnight at G Casino, Piccadilly Circus on Monday 14th December to celebrate the festival of light.

From 7-9 PM we will be hosting a charity Poker Tournament. To enter the tournament you’ll need at least 1,250 chips. The top two finishers with the most chips will win a prize. (There will be re-buys available, through Twitter.)

Concurrently, we will be running Blackjack and Roulette tables using hanukkahLDN chips.

All chips won during the gambling portion will be considered legal tender for partaking in our Auction.

The Charity:

Jewish Hearts for Africa is a New York based charity [501(3)c] that purchases Solar, Water and Clean technologies from cutting-edge Israeli companies and donates them to African villages that do not have any electricity or running water.

Their projects include providing electricity for clinics, which enable the clinics to provide vaccinations and medical care, as they are actually able to refrigerate the medications. JHAfrica also installs solar-powered pumps to drill for clean water located beneath the ground.

hanukkahLDN has decided to raise money to bring electricity to schools and orphanages, so we can truly make this a Festival of Lights for everyone.

We have opened the possibility to sponsor.

Okay so call me a Thatcherite prick if you must, be I honestly think there’s no reasonable time to strike.

Striking is like blackmail. “I’m not coming in to work until you give me what I want. I’ll disrupt your business, and everyone else’s, I don’t give a shit. Until you give me what I want.” It’s a ridiculously selfish attitude.

When the Unions for Transport for London workers and Royal Mail workers decide to strike, they’re not only disrupting TFL/RM, they’re putting the whole Capital, if not the whole Country on hold for their own selfish purposes.

If you want more money – get a better job. It’s just that simple. If you don’t have the qualifications, flipping earn them. If for some reason it’s too late for you to re-qualify (which I understand may be the case), then I’m sorry but that’s your business. Don’t make it mine.

When a Union strikes because of reform, that’s even more frustrating. You’re then not only holding back businesses, but you’re holding back our society. If the Royal Mail has some ideas to improve the service, but this means more robots and less workers, then so be it. Yes there may be some job losses, but there may be a whole load more created in the robot manufacturing warehouses.

You have to remember, this is not your business. I don’t have the right to come into your business and tell you how to run it – so why should you have the right to tell them? If you want to be the decision maker, run your own damn  business.

I’d fire the lot of them. Simples. The Royal Mail have hired 30,000 temp workers to maintain the service whilst the strikes take place. If I were in the top position, I’d fire all the workers on strike and hire the temp workers.

In this recession there are too many people out of work, trying desperately to find a job. Then we have these idiots striking and QQing. If you don’t like the job, give someone else a chance.

Striking hurts the economy. The last RMT strike (TFL workers) cost London businesses £100,000,000. We’re in a flipping recession – think about it!

Striking is a lame tool, that’s over-abused today in the UK (and France for that matter), I think we need to clamp down. For anyone who disagrees with this statement, I end this post with two words: Bob Crow

So last night was The Europas – an award ceremony for Europe’s finest Internet Start-ups, hosted by TechCrunch UK. I have to say this was easily the best Tech-scene event I’ve been to. There were so many interesting people to talk to, the awards were greats, and of course the sponsored bar was better than a kick in the teeth!

I’m still quite hungover actually, so I’ll write up a more in depth review of the actual event on Sporkings.com over the weekend. But for now here’s my experience; What a night! I spoke to so many people, about so many cool projects, namely;

The nice guys (and girls) from MindCandy.com,
Paul Walsh, the Irish opportunist himself.
It was great to see Nikhil Shah again, he’s doing big things with new startup mixcould.
Nick Ferris Photography (your site is down! where can I see all those photos?)
Miranda, Jon, Tash and Sandy from the soon to be launched odbody.com, Huddle, Clio Collins, Said, Amazee, comufy, Morgan Stanley, ViCommerce (Gemany), econsultancy.com, Google, Spotify, Seraphim, hub.india, Infocomm, and of course Robert Scoble and Rocky Barbanica – I bumped into these guys on Monday, just outside our office. Farringdon’s a small place.

There were so many other internet peoples I can’t possible list everyone. Plus alcohol seems to affect the memory – who knew!

Speaking of bad memory, I cannot recall what time the actual event itself ended, but there was a very packed after-party across the road at ‘The Hide’. I remember backing up Jasper from oneDrum when some drunken guy was wanting to pick a fight lol. Something to do with Jasper greeting the drunken guy as ‘baldy’. Then once the after-party dispearsed, Ruk and I ended up at the odbody.com appartment, where we ate cheese on crumpets (yes, we’re British!) from a roof-top apartment with views of the London Eye – dangerously high after that many units.

I also remember getting a decent discount on cab ride to Oxford St due to being able to have a Germany conversation with the taxi driver. That’s entrepreneurship right there, lol.

The beautiful @rassami has setup a new venture off the back on The Europas, with co-organiser @petrajohansson . So watch this space for more interesting events in the London Tech-scene, hopefully in the not-too distant future. More start-ups launching off the back of start-up events, got to love it.

For everyone I met last night, it was really good to meet you. Even @yiannopoulos, but I’ll so no more on that one

The morning of an early-start after a late-shift is a difficult morning to get out of bed as it is – so you’re bound to be a few minutes late. But this isn’t helped by the stupid London Transport.

I hate to quote an old cliche, but you wait half an hour for a bus, then three come along at once.
These are supposed to be every 5mins, 10 at max lol. Wth? Frustrating.