2008 I left UK and Belfast. They where able to help me only 50% of financing to any of my projects in Northern Ireland and I was told that unlikely I will find matching financing there. So, unable to find a job or do any other business activities, it wasn’t much viable to live in such kind of expensive country like UK. And as the result from recommendations of some locals who really admired my skills to sell them to BBC ended up me being a criminal who is causing “Stress and Anxiety” to some corrupted idiots in BBC.
And corrupted judges have no decency left anymore. If I was restricted to use a computers and Internet, I should have been in prison where they at least must give you a free food three times a day and not left without any money to street. So, I just protested in the front of Police station demanding my rights to be in prison and start my hunger-strike there like other honest and decent persons here have done before me. And I can tell that people in Northern Ireland are very friendly. They give you at least 5 pounds, usually more to survive.
And what kind of court puts a honest person to the glass box and not letting him to read his speach which he had time to prepare nearly a year? Therefore I considered UK to be a inhuman country.
Anyway, when I was talking with some lesbian girls in Internet who here living somewhere in central France, I decided to go there unaware that it’s so difficult to get Internet in France.
Anyway, those girls vanished with a car which was purchased partly with my last money so I was left alone again unaware what to do next. Spent some time in Limoges where you could get extremely good free food from local Social Restaurant but as winter was coming, I had to move more south.
So, I ended up to Barcelona. First days after arrival it was so heavy rain that I wasn’t even unable to hitchhike more south, so that’s why I got stuck Barcelona.
Anyway, soon the sun comes up again and as first priority I was able to get a library card – most important document for a homeless person. Where can you be in rainy or cold days and where to access Internet has been always top in my priorities.
Testing first those social restaurants in Barcelona where you could get only three meals with your passport and this food leaves you more hungry than before eating it, I was lucky to find Sisters of Mother Theresa who really give you a enough food for a day to survive. So, I have been stuck with them now third winter. Romanov Bin Laden, a guy who fight eight years in Afghanistan against Russians and afterwards against Americans and weights something 110 kilos described Barcelona social restaurants: you loose more kalors to go there than you can get from there and Siberian mom will take a gun and kill the chef here if she will hear how they have treated his son here in Spain.
Guy wanted to go Siberia and retire there watching how his pee will be frozen before it reaches ground but I think some Germans took him because I haven’t seen him lately here.
Other friends I met have been street musician Alex from Detroit and black single mom Kathy with her 11 y ears old daughter from Chicago who are living the boat here and two more interesting persons have passed by my park.
I admire Kathy. She is over 50 years old black single mom who thinks to be pop start and make number one disco hit to earn some money.
One guy from Lebanon was before a university professor of Arabic Language but when the war started, his views where considered too democratic so he had to leave. At least the European social system took him here so guy was mostly in hospitalized to have an alcoholism treatment which is over a year process. He told me a lot what Al-Qaida is and how it works, so blaming a wrong guy to cause September 11th attacks and going to war with Afghanistan and Iraq has been a stupidity of western politicians.
And another guy had walked here from Berlin with his dog (because you can’t hitchhike with a dog) going towards to Africa where he hoped that some civilized values are still left because it once was a birthplace of human civilization.
And my another friend is homeless Basque who knows anything about terrorists and international drug dealing.
Anyway, first winter here was fine so I found myself a nice sleeping place hidden in the bushes of Park Olympic. I had plans to help Pauli Visuri from AddWit Ltd out doing Internet marketing for his Team Messenger product but he wanted to do everything himself, did it mostly wrong and destroyed a good business project where I hoped to get some resources to buy myself a MacBook and start to write iPhone apps. Less than one visitor per day to guys website with some sales in a year wasn’t much what I offered of 20-30 visitors per day, visible positions in Windows Software download sites and over 2% sales conversion rate.
And I had another surprise being here. When I left Belfast, I especially asked can I use my Halifax bank account and card abroad. They answered that no problem, but it will cost one pound per transaction. Actually it was much more because I somehow got less euros than I had pounds. And I noticed also that my bank card is about to expire, so I asked for a new card. They told that they can’t extend it now but I can get my new card anywhere where I am. This was an lie.
When card date passed, I wasn’t able to access my funds anymore. So I went to Halifax Barcelona office where they told first place that no problem but it could take some days. After some days Halifax UK answered that “a person asking for funds should present a valid bank card; a person asking for a new bank card should live in designated address”. British banks are just bastards so I hope some day IRA put’s a bombs to such kind of organizations.
And there isn’t any work or economy in Spain so obviously I’m not getting any work here either. Official unemployement is something 28% but as Spanish small businesses never hire anyone officially, the real unemployment could be something 60%.
By April, I was so frustrated asking money from the street so I decided to hitchhike to Cannes film festival to see the possibilities and competition there. This route took me to the nice French town Arles which I really like even you can only get free coffee in the morning but not much free food there.
Cannes Film festival was total disappointment for me. Only thing you can see is ageing paparacis, young people love dramas and some bicycle police trying to convince you that local Meer doesn’t like a persons asking money on the street. What kind of Meer want’s people to starve to death in his City? So, I protested in the front of City Hall and found out a place where there is free food available. But compared to other French towns, it’s only little bit bread, a cup of warm water with package soup and some small conserved meat or salad in Cannes. So, obviously it isn’t enough for a full day.
All the things I missed in Cannes was good movies and later I was happy to find Cinema en Plain Air at the Parc de Villette in Paris, where they still show good movies what people really want to watch. So somebody should stop BBC and British Film Council to destroy film culture. When one member in UK parlament tried it, the petition went out in LinkedIn to save British Film Council which ended up “Please shot down British Film Council as soon as possible” from most of the members posts.
After Cannes, I decided to go back to Barcelona where I still have access to computers in public library and found Nimes in my way there. The social services there where really top level. In morning you can get a shower and petite dejunier, midday there is two restaurants giving you fantastic food for 1 euro, afternoon you can go again for the coffee and cake and in evening the SAMU Social van will give you a sandwich and soup. Within two years, the system have little bit changed so now there is another place where you can get a shower, coffee, cakes; and two big sandwiches and I think one of those restaurants has been closed by now.
Anyway, being back in Barcelona first summer some young Rumanians come to my park, rob my mobile and I decided to move more North finding any work anywhere. After Paris I ended up to Holland and found work near by Rotterdam after third day of my arrival.
I do not like Holland at all. You can’t ask money from the people in the street which actually they are more than happy to give you and especially you can’t drink beer. I purchased a sandwich and can of beer starting to eat near supremarket. And the Police told me that I should pay them 200 euros because I’m consuming alcohol in public place? I asked them to put me to prison where I could get a warm meal free rather than spending my last coins to eat and drink something but those inhuman animals just refused to do it for me.
I worked and lived with other Polish slaves cutting Paprika on greenhouses. Actually there is very difficult nowadays to find temporary work there because you need to go to Poland, apply there with your CV and if successful on job interview, they will organize you a transport from Poland to Nederland. Are those CV idiots are trying to take over everything?
Anyway, I was very bad cutting Paprika able to do only something 120-150 kilos per hour while Polish slaves put their ecstasy tablets in an cut something 400 kilos. Later they all smoked drugs listening loud music, so this company wasn’t much for my level.
But anyhow, I got myself few hundred euros what I needed and went back to Paris, then spent some time again in Nimes until got myself back to Barcelona for a upcoming winter.
Paris offers several places to get free food, like Restos du Cour, sisters of Theresa, Salvation Army vans, etc. so you won’t get hungry there if you bother to wait little bit in line or fight with Bushing Arabs in the Plaza of Battle of Stalingrad for example.
Meanwhile I had posted an article what kind of idiots British software companies are, promised to cut owners cock and put it to the first page of Google when somebody searches his company name. So his wife had contacted me for my availability to do some SEO work for them, which I gladly then accepted and earned little bit money during next winter stay in Barcelona.
Besides things that are very difficult to get in Barcelona and are common in France are getting a shower or washing your clothes. So sometimes I have even hitchiked to Perpignan just to get my clothes washed but usually I have to have this 7 EURos for it. Free showers are easy to get if you are a drug addict or alcoholic, but for a normal person it’s only Poble Sec where you have to wait in a line and get a number on previous day.
In April 2010 I went back to France again. The libraries went closed for a full week during pascua and nothing else to do, I was missing French food as well.
After meaningless time in this year Cannes too, I decided to go Slovenia. From last year Cannes festival I remembered one Slovenian Producer who where only one with ideas in Producers Network. As she didn’t answered to my email proposal, I wanted to meet here. Ljubljana is actually very small town having very interesting and friendly humorous people there. I loved their sculptures of naked people lining up in front of EU office to join European Union, or sculptures in their parlament building.
The French economy is South looked really bad. Being in Monaco again on Saturday evening the streets where totally empty, I saw only two groups of teenagers and Monte Carlo Casinos where empty too. Seems, that all the glory Cannes and Monaco once had have gone for forever.
However, my projects probably where too high for them so I didn’t got any interest from mentioned producer or Slovenian National TV for my documentaries.
And their prices in Eurozone are probably highest there even people are very nice and friendly. You could get warm soup with bread in homeless center of Ljubljana but I had used to get better free food.
So, back to France. Because I never had found a way from Torino to get highway tunnel, I have now crossed the mountains several times mostly walking and it’s a real beauty so I would recommend anyone to take those small mountain roads.
I a way to get Paris, I met a girl with Creek/Croatian origin who asked my help to move south from a small village Rossy, near Annecy where she lived. Annecy is very beautiful town as well, near Geneva having a nice lake between the mountains. But there is no work there so she had decided to move south, a place called Le Port Bou. I was surprised why she had changed her three rooms country house to a small flat in social house but seems that she was more like me. So, we had to put all her things to her grandma flat or throw away because there wasn’t much room in her new flat for them.
Anyway, she paid me some money so I finally was able to buy myself French Military boots. It has been flustrating to have a boots that will last only three months. Estonian military ones lasted at least two years so let’s see how long those French ones will last.
There was some hope that I could get a temporary job in nearby Magic Land as well but they had already complete when I got there. So, I was again back in Nimes.
Meanwhile I noticed that there is WIP JAM mobile applications event in Marseille, so I registered there and met Nokia guys trying to get developers interested to develop applications for Nokia. And when I had noticed before that those developers whose apps are doing really millions of downloads are not better than me, I could have a good chances to win in this market. Meanwhile I had even offered my skills to Brits again in Mobile Monday group but they just wanted to humilate me and my skills again to protect their incompetence and scam projects claiming that developing a mobile application must cost over 100K. I haven’t ever in my life written a code that needs testing or bug fixes and I do not need to learn some language several years to write a decent code like they do there. And I have never written any system over a few months not like they are doing 9-16 months projects having 12-20 persons involved. In 1995, when we went to the Word Championship of Programming we had to deliver the full working solution within 48h.
So I asked some friends could they arrange me a financing to do mobile apps and went to Paris to think about “killer app” idea and drink some wine. At the beginning of September there was SVG developers conference in Paris so I managed to arrange myself a free pass to it. To my surprise those SVG clips that I did in 2006 to earn some money from emerging mobile market still worked only with Opera browser and Ikivo drivers. While everyone there was so exited that Microsoft have included part of SVG to IE (not in Windows Mobile 7), I was shocked that my clips still didn’t work properly with WebKit (browser for Apple, Nokia, etc.) after five years.
The next step was to Munich. I managed to borrow 100 EUR from my friend to pay Discovery Campus Documentary pitching event there and hoped that maybe I could sell some of my documentary projects. But you can’t much reason with corrupted idiots who have declared themselves to be commsioning editors. And the budgets my competition was trying to raise where out of mind in hundred of thousands of euros. Professional documentary is something to produce 10-20K range for me or actually Documentarian should be a person who puts his camera to his back bag and goesto the places noone has gone before rather than spending his time in office preparing budgets and scripts.
I met an interesting Armenian guy there who wan’t to claim part of South and North Pole to Armenia as well. But when I talked with him that I have contacts who have previously organized and visited South Pole to help him, he wasn’t much sure he want to go there.
I had some hope for Channel4 and YLE Finland but Ann Miralis who is now commissioning editor in Channel 4 isn’t much in the level once Angus Mc. Queen was. YLE Finland answered that “your projects are too general to have general interest” which is much improvement from BBC answer “nations and countries whom we have no whereabouts cannot be interesting topic to our audience”. Another hope was from German MDR but Dr. Claudia Shiffner haven’t answered anything to my proposal.
So, I was in the hurry to get back to Barcelona and start to write my mobile app specifications down. Even I like Paris, it’s very difficult to get a Internet working conditions there as library computers have limited access of sites you could go and it’s only in 15 minutes slots.
I found very interesting algorithms to use in my process for object recognition from mobile phone camera photos which I need to test in real life. If I would have had a computer since I finished the specs in September, this app would have been already in the market by now. My idea was to win App Planet competition during World GSM Congress here in February but seems that this hope will vanish. My friends haven’t been able to raise me any financing yet.
I tried to ask a simple netbook and mobile from Nokia by sending them my specs without having much luck. At least Nokia guys loved my specs and when I visited bDigital mobile apps event in Barcelona, I met Nokia other guys again. Seems, that my name is already famous inside this organization but I haven’t got much help from them. Asking it from Mobile Monday London group was another frustrating experience to get humiliated as it was posting something to mobility.mobi thread so I just have to pray the God that somebody will stop Brits and they will have their D-Day someday.
And this event confirmed me again that there isn’t any competition for my kind of person and my product ideas in this market.
I have made a decent offer out. Why you need to pay $2-$3 per visitor to mobile ads networks when you could get much more traffic from my apps for $250 one time fee only. But there isn’t much reasonable business persons left who still know what ROI means.