I have a very strong memory of popping to the off-licence at an age when I was too young to buy alcohol but old enough to go by myself and get soft drinks. I remember picking up one or two square (well, rectangular) metal tins that would have contained a litre* of pineapple juice or something similar - these were for mixers at parties my parents were having.
There was no lid and I think the only way my dad opened them was to punch two holes, one for pouring, one as an air vent. The tins were quite pretty and colourful and might have had repeating patterns. Can't remember any branding on them. They weren't thin tins, like cola cans, but quite solid and rough to the touch (not rough, but not smooth I mean).
I was in London, UK but these may well have been imported.
I've not managed to find any mention of them on Google, I suppose I need to read some magazines of the 1980s to see if they're advertised in one...
I've now received three once-daily spam emails to my Gmail account from Emily Clark Consulting. These include a range of job advert summaries which are all 'co-ordinator' roles which, curiously, is my own job title (so I'd be less surprised if these came to my work email account).
At the end is an unsubscribe option and a note saying that I "agreed to receive email notifications about new job ads from [them]" which I absolutely did not and am quite irritated by. Each job listing links to other companies' vacancies pages with a tracking link so I assume those companies are paying to have people spammed. I expect I'll receive another email later today.
1. Hovering over the job ads in the email displays these links, presumably a click results in a payment
Possibly the simplest option is to unsubscribe (and report to Gmail for spam) but I want to know how I came to be added in the first place... and I'm also on the warpath.
They've almost certainly added me to their mailing list by
scraping websites for email addresses so unsubscribing may not solve the
problem if I'm later re-added after a subsequent re-scraping. What I need is to
be on their suppression list. Though I'd prefer not to be on any of
their records.
What others have said
The first thing I did was to see what others had to say about Emily Clark Consulting by searching on Google, and... it's not good.
2. Oh dear. A search on Google for the company's name suggests spam as a related search.
Someone has created an entire WordPress website(1) to highlight the fact that the organisation spams people. Their TrustPilot record(2) is full of similar complaints (along with some praise for the company's consulting). I found three Tweets(3) referencing the company's spam and a blog post(4) highlighting the problem in some detail and actions taken by the blogger (including reporting the company to the ICO, which doesn't appear to have solved the problem yet).
According to what might be the company's Twitter page(5) they offer "Personalised jobs, sourced from every major job board, within the last 24hrs, delivered in one convenient email." The account was created in October 2021 and last tweeted one month later.
3. May or may not be the company's official Twitter page
Official records: Companies House and ICO
Their Companies House record(6) says that Emily Clark Consulting was "dissolved via compulsory strike-off". Dissolving a company is a fairly normal and generally benign thing, resulting in removal (strike-off) from the register, however a compulsory strike-off isn't and is something that is imposed on a company that has failed to satisfy its obligations.
The company was registered on 16 November 2020 and as far as I can tell has never filed any paperwork (or it's inaccessible to me). I've clicked on all the clickable things on their Companies House record. I don't know enough (anything) about company law but it seems that a company can't trade once it's been removed from the register. That said, you don't actually need to have a company to charge people for sending out emails but it's odd if they're implying that their company is still a 'thing'.
In the footer of the company's website (powered by Wix(4)), next to the bit saying what the Companies House registration is there's also an ICO number. This apparently indicates that they have paid a fee to the Information Commssioner's Office in order to be permitted to process people's information(7a), which I certainly wasn't expecting. That registration expires on 19 November 2022(7b).
I've emailed the company asking why I've been added without permission. I'm certainly not averse to hearing about jobs that I can share with other people but Emily Clark Consulting is going about things in entirely the wrong way.
There are two correct ways to get people on a mailing list 1.
Provide a sign-up form for them to submit their details (Emily Clark
Consulting does have such a form but I'd never visited their website
before so very certain I'd never signed up). Ideally there should be a
confirmation email sent to the submitted email address to check (in case
someone types in wrong address by mistake). Once the person clicks a
confirmation link they're on the list to receive emails.
2. Email relevant people and invite them to sign up, assuring them that if they do nothing they will not be added to anything.
The wrong way is to scrape the web for email addresses, add them and tell the person that they signed themselves up. Grr.
Incidentally I run three job-related websites myself (scicommjobs for science communication jobs, tscicom
for scientific comms jobs and techdevjobs for jobs in IT) as well as running psci-com, a mailing
list for science communicators (which also carries free job ads). While I might eventually charge for posting job ads on tscicom I'm certainly not planning on spamming anyone.
References
(1) Emily Clark Consulting Reviews: Spamming your way to success https://emilyclarkconsulting.wordpress.com/ - this is a site created solely to highlight the company's spamming emails, it's not the company's website (though the link could be misread as being that way!).
(2) Emily Clark Consulting - TrustPilot Reviews https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.emilyclarkconsulting.com - currently (as of 20 June 2022) 56% excellent and 42% bad. Additional 'information written by the company' on that page implies that "We only contact people who have registered or applied for one of our advertised jobs. Any request to unsubscribe or delete is actioned within 24hrs, but usually immediately, or you can easily unsubscribe via the button (that is clearly marked) at the bottom of the email." - I emailed them about this on Saturday so am not really expecting them to stop emailing me before Tuesday 21st June 2022. But they shouldn't have added me in the first place, hence this critical post.
(3) The three tweets
For anyone who's been getting rubbish spam emails from Emily Clark Consulting, they scrape the web for any email addresses then spam you, so report them to the ICO if you can. Trustpilot reviews will confirm the same.
Good to hear I'm not the only one. One email every day since Friday (including over the weekend) to an email address that I only use as a forwarder - AFAIK it's not published anywhere. https://t.co/NOJbA8WKyP
No idea where “Emily Clark Consulting” got my email, but they’re not responding to GDPR deletion requests, so I did the next best thing and reported every mail they’ve sent me to ICO.
(4) Spammers: Emily Clark Consulting - Keith Greer's blog https://keithgreer.dev/spam-emily-clark-consulting - Keith has contacted the ICO, Wix (the company hosting their website) and at least one of the companies mentioned in the spam emails. Sadly this doesn't seem to have stopped Emily Clark Consulting from spamming people by email though.
I'm assuming Keith used Ctrl+U when on the web page to bring up the sourcecode, which tells you that a Wix site was used.
(5) EmilyClarkCons - not a commentary but the handle for what seems to be Emily Clark Consulting's Twitter page, which last tweeted in 2021. https://twitter.com/EmilyClarkCons
(6) Emily Clark Consulting Limited - Companies House https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13023378 Company No: 13023378 - The company was incorporated in November 2020 and booted from the register in April 2022. Normally I'd expect to find some accounts or other information in the Filing tab but it's very sparse.
A cheering update! While the Film4 Summer Screen is no more, Somerset House have partnered with Everyman Cinema to screen open air films throughout August 2022 as part of the #ThisBrightLand festival. The daytime films are free, evening ones are pay what you can. Full listing here: https://www.everymancinema.com/this-bright-land
As part of #ThisBrightLand, we’ll be screening family-friendly films with @Everymancinema for free throughout August, every weekday at 13:00.
Come join us!
Wed 3 Aug - 101 Dalmatians (PG) Thu 4 Aug - Mary Poppins (starts at 12.30pm) Fri 5 Aug - Paddington (PG) pic.twitter.com/JjhoAzd8KW
I am feeling slightly bereft. Somerset House have announced that they're no longer going to be screening the Film4 series of open air films in their courtyard. This was a huge fixture in my London summers and I've seen so many great films there and always looked forward to seeing what they'd screen while haunting their website for the new listings. With the pandemic it means I've not seen a film there since Summer 2019 as 2020 and 2021 were cancelled. And now no more. Wail!
I nearly always went to these things by myself - the
tickets sold out pretty quickly so I didn't want to hang around while
others made up their mind! I'm sure I must have seen one or two
screenings with friends though.
Big
thanks to Somerset House and Film4 staff for keeping me entertained for
14 of the 15 years the film screenings ran (I didn't hear about it in
the first year). I hope a cinema screen will sneak its way back into
your courtyard one day in the future.
(There are lots of Summer Screen trailers on YouTube)
Below there is a complete listing of all known Somerset House / Film4 summer screenings - over 200 films screened at over 170 events. The last one I attended was The Piano. For a more visually appealing record of all the films (excluding duplicate films) Michael Leader has put together this Letterboxd page with the artwork for each film.
This post is part of a series of me being a bit nostalgic about things, the other posts are as follows
Google Doc version of the embedded info below. Plain text (for Google and searching etc) at the end.
It's
fair to say that the open air cinema screening market in London may
well have reached saturation point - last year there were just over 980
screenings in and around the capital and the volume had certainly been
trending upwards over the last few years. Currently in 2022 there are
already 450 screenings and I'd expect another 150-200 to be listed
before the end of the season.
Really? No, Really? podcast with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden
Really? No, Really is good fun, its launch was timed beautifully for me finishing my Seinfeld binge :) Click pic above for their YouTube channel or links below for audio only, or any podcast app will do.
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