supersonic feet

In the end, the dealer in Newcastle wasn’t willing to make a sensible offer that could compare with one made by a dealer down in London (who’d think London would be a cheaper place to buy a car than Newcastle?), so a deposit has been placed on an Alfa Romeo 156 2.5 V6 Lusso in London.

The Lusso is the luxury variant, compared to the sporty Veloce (the Newcastle car was a Veloce). I preferred getting a Veloce, but the deals on offer were far too far apart to warrant the Veloce. I’ve since managed to get a set of 16″ telephone dial wheels and tyres on ebay for £180 (same as the Veloce), so all that’s really left is the suspension and sideskirts. I can do without the lowered suspension and sideskirts are cheap enough to add later.

This way I’m getting the best of both, with a great set of ‘extras’ on the car (12 months tax, MOT, warranty and breakdown cover, plus a service) at a lower price. Can’t wait until Thursday now to pick it up (though I can’t say I’m looking forward to the 3+ hour train journey to London!).

Been trailing around the North East today looking for a new car after my Accord was written off following last month’s incident.

Looking good is an Alfa Romeo 156 2.5 V6. Having driven it now, it certainly drives as well as it looks and even has a slightly more comfortable driving position than the Type-R (although only based on all of 30 minutes’ experience). There are a couple of nice examples around, so it’s a case of finding the right deal now and hopefully I can get it sorted on Monday.

I actually noticed this ages ago, but looking at it again it’s still a very clever way of filtering potential clients without simply listing criteria your clients have to meet before you’ll consider them (and therefore probably scare of/irritate clients you could have worked with).

What am I on about? I’m on about Bearskinrug’s contact page, where freelance illustrator Kevin Cornell lists some info about himself, a contact form and then a list of ‘helpful tips’ for people interested in hiring him.

The tips start with reasons for hiring an illustrator in general and then move on to general Q&As on accepted practice for contracts with illustrators. By doing this as a general ‘industry’ overview, Kevin avoids making it too obvious a list of dos and don’ts for working with him personally and therefore lessens the chance of the list seeming confrontational before client and producer even meet.

Further to the generalisation, words and phrases like “it’s proper to…”, “usually” and “it’s not uncommon for…” help to both guide the prospective client as well as suggest there’s room for leeway on certain points if absolutely required.
All in all, it helps to increase the chances that the people who get in touch will already have a good idea of how the process should go. Of course, plenty of people will miss or just ignore the FAQ, but the popularity of Bearskinrug and the humorous style of the site encourages people to readmuch more than on the average site.