Chillichap's World

Hello! Set up in 1995, eBay now exists on 190 markets worldwide. Individuals, companies and even governments buy items on Bay, as long as it's legal.  I basically took five English pounds and bought what really was a load of junk at a car boot sale. I put all of that 'junk' for sale on eBay and most of it sold. I recognised that I actually had a genuine business on my hands and registered myself as a business with HMRC straight away. This was about 15 years ago. So today I come to you as a seasoned professional seller on eBay. I'm going to share with you my top tips for success, but with a caveat - seller beware - it's extremely hard to run an internet-based business. This advice is tailored for Buy it Now listings-the format which I use mostly for selling on eBay and not auctions. TIP 1 - PUT THE CUSTOMER SERVICE FIRST It may seem obvious, but you haven't got a business if you don't have customers. Every day I see new sellers come in. They copy the blurb fr...

Hello! This film popped up on YouTube this morning and I, being a bit of a fan of Sly Stallone, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Often if you've never heard of a film-there's usually a very good reason. Read on to find out why I think this film may have slipped under the radar... The film starts off quite poignantly with Angelo 'Snaps' Provolone a gangster played by Sly Stallone visiting his father played by Kirk Douglas on his deathbed. Although the legendary actor does indeed look close to death, in real life he actually goes on to live another 29 years! His father persuades Angelo known as 'Snaps' to go straight and Snaps promises to obey his father's dying wish.  Snaps' hired hands aren't sure about their boss going straight and pretty soon one of his competitors Aldo (played by Peter Reigert) hears about it. Nobody, including the police, believes Snaps has gone straight and end up spying on him. Meanwhile, Snaps sets about improving himself an...

Hello! I really hate not knowing things and let's be honest, there's rather a lot of things to know out there. I've always been inquisitive and as a kid buried my head in large encyclopedias. I wasn't a nerd, just curious about life. When I reached my 30's, I breathed a big sigh of relief as the internet came along. All of a sudden, I didn't have to make multiple trips to the library several times a month to find things out or own the entire Encyclopedia Britannica (and keep it updated).  There are still quite a few topics upon which I hardly know anything - electricity is one of them. So in asking the question 'what is electricity', I'm finding out too and I'm putting my findings down in this blog for you to read. Well there's this thing called matter see, which is all the stuff around us including air, water, what we're sitting on and even the stars up there in the distance (matter is basically anything that has a mass). Matter is made ...

Hello! YouTube really wanted me to watch this film, as it kept popping up. So I have and will furnish you with the benefits of my wisdom, wit, and acumen by reviewing it. Don't say I didn't warn you! What I love about this kind of film is it's tongue-in-cheek and suitably vague-it has no pretenses and begins with the caption 'Somewhere in Africa 1940'.  The film starts at a campsite where two Brits are awaiting the rerun of their colleague. The colleague arrives back in a beleaguered state, drops a massive diamond and utters the words 'I've found the lost city', and then croaks it. One of his colleagues then cops it with a poisoned dart and the remaining chap runs for his life. Sadly the diamond falls into the hands of the Germans. The diamond makes it back to Germany and we meet Hitler's deadly agent Lola Pagola (played by Maud Adams) along with her sidekick hard man Heinrich (played by none other than the well-known British comedian Jasper Carrot!)...

 I just cooked an awesome lunch and it was so good, I thought I'd share it with you. I basically just used leftovers to make this scrumptious lunch:- I made Fried Rice in a wok using Leftover rice  Chopped carrot Chopped Onion Half a chicken stock cube Tablespoon of coconut oil Ground black pepper Half teaspoon of Mr Naga Sauce + Tarka Dhal AKA Garlic lentils (I make a batch every week in my slow cooker). I often add finely chopped green chilli and shave creamed coconut into my sauce too and have been known to unconventionally add a splash of soy sauce. + Cooked Meatballs I got the thumbs up from my wife, so it must've been good. I would've added fresh corriander-but need to go shopping! Please feel free to ask any questions Thanks for reading Matt AKA Chillichap

 Hello! Another film popped up on YouTube, this time an old black and white one starring the best British cads of all time Terry Thomas.  The Film starts with a passenger on a plane having one drink too many and becoming ill. Archibald Bannister (played by Terry Thomas) is the airport detective working for the World Health Organisation (which is where the title of the film comes from) who specializes in tracking down infectious diseases and their origins. Kennedy (played by Alex Nicol), a partner of the ill man is waiting for Cooper. Alex is a shrewd American who won't take no for an answer as to what's going on. Two of my favourite actors appear quite early-Honor Blackman who plays Sister Bryan, the airport nurse, and Richard Briers (who receives an introducing credit), who plays Jamieson-Bannister's assistant.  There's a bit of a flap on when it's discovered the patient has smallpox. Bannister and Jamieson gatecrash a party to vaccinate the partygoers against smal...

Hello! While I'm not an out and out fan of horror, I do like supernatural-particularly anything to do with vampires or werewolves. I typed in 'Vampire Movie' into my YouTube search bar and this film came up. I watched and enjoyed the original Fright Night starring William Ragsdale & Roddy McDowall and for some reason managed to miss this film whilst on my teenage hedonistic rampage (I'd just started going out with my wife-to-be). It starts off with one of the main heroes of the first Fright Night film Charley Brewster (played by William Ragsdale) having just completed three years of therapy. He's tells his therapist that vampires don't exist and he was just part of a weird mass hypnotic event involving the actor Peter Vincent (played by Roddy McDowal). Charlie visits Peter Vincent with his girlfriend Alex (played by Traci Lind). Whilst alone at the studio, Charlie notices the arrival of four dodgy looking characters who turn out to be vampires and their fami...

Hello! I've just finished watching this film on YouTube. The film has been digitally restored and is in colour. Heads up-whenever there is music playing, the sound is broken up and this can be a little annoying. I would urge anyone who watches this film to try and get past this annoyance, as I feel it's worth it.. There are quite a lot of ads too. This is the price we can pay these days for the opportunity to see some of these hidden/nearly lost gems. It begins with the main character of  Dr. Erasmus Craven a Magician of the dark arts played by Vincent Price. Living in his dark mansion with his beautiful daughter Estelle (Olive Sturgess) Dr Craven is lamenting over his lost love Lenore ala the famous Edgar Allan Poe poem. Erasmus draws a raven and a raven appears knocking at his window. To the doctor's surprise, the raven can talk and is none other than  Dr. Adolphus Bedlo (Peter Lorre) turned into a raven by arch-enemy  Dr. Scarabus (Boris Karloff). Dr Craven removes the...

Hello! This film popped up on YouTube and I thought I'd give it a whirl. I'm not a massive horror fan and although this film would've been grizzly and ghastly at the time, by today's standards, it's not that scary. Look, I've watched all episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and hardly hid behind a cushion once (er thrice), so I can be quite brave. The film is written by Robert E Kent & James B Gordon and Directed by Fred F Sears. The plot is that the would-be werewolf played by Steven Ritch is involved in a car crash and is unfortunately treated by two mad doctors who give him a serum that transforms him into a werewolf. He then kills people who attack him and the two mad doctors re-appear to try and kill him. The town's sheriff is played by Don Megowan and he easily steals the show for acting ability. Interestingly, the werewolf doesn't conform to known werewolf lore. For starters, he doesn't require a full moon to transform (something to do wit...

Hello! I suppose a blog is like an open diary, where you bear your soul and innermost thoughts in the vain hope that what you have to say will resonate with someone, somewhere. I figured that if you're interested in my blog posts, showing you my list of top ten favourite films would give you more of an insight into my personality. So this is my top ten movie list of all-time in no particular order . I love them all equally and never get tired of seeing any of them. There are plenty of really good films on the fringe of this list, and maybe I'll bring those up another time. 1 - THE LOST BOYS 2 - ALIENS 3 - THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 4 - BLIND DATE 5 - IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE 6 - LOCK STOCK & TWO SMOKING BARRELS 7-  GROUNDHOG DAY 8 - DUSK TILL DAWN 9 - THE QUIET MAN 10 - THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY Each of the above films deserve a blog post in their own right and I will do this in time. Please feel free to post your top ten list of films. Maybe there's some I haven...

 Hello! I've just watched this film free on YouTube-it just appeared randomly on my selections list and I thought I'd take a chance. It only received an audience score of 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. Low scores like this don't put me off these days, as I content myself by finding little nuggets of gold. As a writer, I'm just happy to have new experiences or ways of looking at things good or bad that only a great actor with a half-decent script can deliver. The film is a comedy-drama written by Milton Wexter and Blake Edwards and is directed by the latter who happens to be one of my favourite directors. It starts off on the operating table where Julie Andrews' character Gillian, is having a biopsy. Although unwell, she keeps her own health issue under wraps while stoically continuing with life in the face of her hypochondriac husband Harvey, played by Jack Lemon. Harvey is a successful architect who seems to be going through a midlife crisis and believes he's falling ...

 Hello! When I get up each day, I'm thirsty. Not for a coffee or a beer (although the latter is tempting, the warmer weather is migrating me to Gin & Tonic now), but stimulation. Mostly I crave knowledge or new experiences. Being self-employed means I work very strange, often long hours and pretty much sofa-surf most of the day (although I'm actually sat in an armchair). I'm a bit of a monkey, as I like to fiddle in the form of my keyboard and mouse and usually flit between looking at my laptop, TV screen, and mobile phone. So as I'm working, it's great to have something on TV. and this usually involves YouTube. So why YouTube? If you know how to use it properly, you can find almost anything. A very long time ago, I was an Information Officer, and finding things was my job. I can't seem to rest until I find what I'm looking for either on Google searches or tucked away in some obscure video on YouTube. The really clever thing about YouTube is that it uses...

 Hello All I thought I'd talk about one of my favourite dishes of all time - chilli con carne. I actually cook chilli con carne or chilli as I call it, virtually every week for me and my family. Everyone loves it, but it's taken a while to get my kids on board, mainly because I rarely compromise with the heat. It's got to live up to it's name right? I've been cooking chilli for nearly 40 years and I suppose it's evolved over time. When I pile my ingredients into my wok, I feel like an artist that will always produce a wonderful work of art and occasionally a masterpiece. You see, I don't measure my ingredients. I may have measured ingredients out in the early days of my cooking, but I can barely remember this.   Why do I love it so? Well, taste obviously. Although I say it myself, it's delicious. Each mouthful is a meaty, beaney, spicy hit. Chilli is definitely a desert island dish for me because I've never got tired of having it. It's also incre...

Hello. I really am a completely random person, you know. I might describe myself as chaotic sometimes. My mind often feels like an insane carousel spinning around at an impossible speed only to stop suddenly at some kind of conundrum. Questions pop up into my head sending me on an obsessive search for what I hope is the truth. At the very least, in such events, I hope to crystalise my thoughts (apologies to the multitude (eventually) of my American friends reading this-I am not going to substitute 'z' for an 's' on most occasions). So I've decided to kick off my blogging with a biggie. Does luck exist? So why am I asking this question in the first place and what makes me qualified to answer? Good question. All I can say is that I'm here right now asking this very question. I'm participating in life, so feel I have the right to be interested in it and even question it. I'm asking if luck exists or not because I have a feeling that I may be able to park a ...