Here’s a little festive cheer for your desktop - download it here. Merry Christmas from Roome.

Hopefully some of you will already have signed up to come along to the 11^th Glug, happening this Thursday 25^th June from 6pm at The Queen of Hoxton. Roome Consulting are very happy to be sponsoring the event by way of bangers and other fine fodder for the BBQ on the roof, and we hope there will be even more random chat and merriment than ever. To add to the fun the Glug boys have invited eight illustrators who’ll be working on the stairwell and roof creating bespoke t-shirts, so bring along a blank to get some free original art-T’s to take home. With that and the special Glug punch on offer, it’s shaping up to be a pretty special evening…

Hope everyone has atleast 1 easteregg, does 1 hunt and atleast 1 long lie in………… HAPPY EASTER

It was very sad when twitter stopped their service, no more sending SMS updates to your phones , BUT , thanks to vodafone, its back…….  We can twitter straight to your mobile.

So for all of you who have been following us since our first twitter in 2006 will have our jobs coming straight into your pocket, how great is that!!!!!!!!!!

tweet tweet away…….

I re-read the Dr Seuss book over weekend “Oh the places you’ll go” and thought I would share its first lines, as for many, times are quite difficult I thought this would send a little cheer. If you’re not a great Dr Seuss fan and would like some more detailed advice in the digital media job market then do give me a call, or drop me an email eleanor@roome.co.uk

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

If you would like to read more then his book is available, well its pretty much available anywhere, I first read it in JAPAN!!!!!

Thanks to our great designer Cookie our site has gone a little CHRISMAS-EE as too has our office, christmas stockings everywhere

Most of you will be aware that on Monday the man with the bushy eyebrows, or Chancellor Alistair Darling, announced his 2nd pre-budget report and I thought it would be helpful to outline how it might affect you.

The main tax proposals are:

• Reduction in standard rate of VAT from 1 December 2008
• Changes to personal allowances including prospective reduction in the basic personal allowances for individuals with income above £100,000
• A prospective new income tax rate of 45%
• Deferral of the planned increase in small company corporation tax rate
• New loss carry back provisions
• Details of changes to capital allowances for cars.

As a freelancer / consultant, if you have your own Ltd company and are VAT registered; VAT from Monday the 1st of December will reduce from 17.5% to 15% until the 31st of December 2009, at which point it will revert back to 17.5%, therefore all invoices you raise from Monday should have VAT calculated at 15%.

The 15% rate will apply to:

• Supplies of goods and services
• Imports
• Acquisitions of goods from other EC member states
• For more details of changes to the Flat rate scheme

The small companies corporation tax rate, which applies to companies with up to £300,000 of profits, increased from 20% to 21% from 1 April 2008. The intention was to increase this rate to 22% in 2009 but this has been deferred until 1 April 2010.

For a full break down provided by the brilliant people at LAWRENCE & CO

A little bit of Brian Blessed for you……..

Now there’s nothing digital about this blog entry, more inspirational really.

In these days when its dark when you rise and dark before you even leave the office, when the media is saturated with economic doom and gloom and stories about sharks eating each other in a giant aquarium in Dubai, I thought that I would share the inspirational evening I had recently.

I went to the Royal Geographical Society to hear Brian Blessed speak about his life and travels. Crikey what a man.

In walked this humongous presence of a bearded man, leapt on to stage, you wouldn’t find many 72 years leaping anywhere, and said hello, two thumbs up and shouted “ GORDONS ALIVE…. “ (for those of you who remember Flash Gordon on TV that will make sense.

The hour just whizzed by as he spoke about his childhood, leaving school at 14 , his operatic training, his climbing of Mont Blanc, his achievement of being the oldest person to trek up Everest with no oxygen and his journeys into the Amazon, and the man just didn’t sit still.

The only thing he admitted to being afraid of was going on “Stars in their Eyes” as Pavarotti, as which point he then burst into the chorus of Nessun Dorma.

If you ever have the opportunity to see this man speak go, please go. We walked away feeling anything and everything was possible, that however bleak things look there are always great things happening around you.

He’s become a real icon for me, and why not, he’s currently training with the Russians and NASA to go to Mars…………..

 I think the point of this story is that there are a great deal of worried people out there, you have to keep faith, stay positive and know that we survived the last recession when the bubble burst, and as digitals not really a bubble, a huge explosion followed by complete silence isnt very lightly.

 Keep smiling

Brand Republic have an interesting article this week with some encouraging stats for those of us who work in the digital media market and have an eye on the economy

Online adspend up 21% while total ad market falls

by Jacquie Bowser, Brand Republic 07-Oct-08, 09:00

LONDON - Internet advertising expenditure grew 21% year on year in the first half of 2008 to £1.7bn as the total ad market fell by 0.7%, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau.

 If you have a spare two seconds its an interesting read, not just the article but the comments too

Our planned Roome summer outing was delayed somewhat by the sheer weight of summer holidaying going on here… something to do with the weather being rubbish and everyone needing to escape to warmer climes. Anyway, the autumn season brought with it an outing of the bone chilling variety in the shape of a Jack the Ripper tour. It was a cold night for a two hour walk around Whitechapel but drinks and sausage and mash from S&M Cafe kept us going and we sure did learn a lot of historical facts. Did you know that the road Houndsditch was originally an actual ditch that Londoners threw slaughtered cats and dogs into due to the belief they were spreading the plague? Those rats must have been laughing…