P.T. Barnum, impresario, showman, huckster, politician, entrepreneur and purveyor of humbug, was the guerrilla marketer par excellence. Although he died some 120 years ago there's much to learn from his business principles today. Born in 1810 in Connecticut, Barnum was to open 'Barnum's American Museum' in 1840. Among his innovations was a lighthouse, which attracted attention up and down Broadway. The museum's walls were adorned with great paintings of animals while its 'curiosities' included albinos, giants, midgets,'fat boys', jugglers, magicians,  detailed models of cities and famous battles, and eventually a menagerie of animals. Here are some of Barnum's breathtakingly original wheezes:

1)In 1835, Barnum displayed Joice Heth, a 161 year old slave woman who was (allegedly) the nanny to George Washington. He knew how to stand out from the crowd.

2) He used elephants to attract media attention.

3) Barnum knew how to get the most out of the media. Because of his ability to provide interesting and unique stories the media became Barnum's prized resource.

4) Barnum knew power the ambient marketing, before the hateful term was coined. An unemployed man came to his museum and asked Barnum for a job. Barnum handed the man five bricks and instructed him to place the bricks in various places around the outside of the museum. As he went about his business, he was to replace the brick at each spot with another one that he was carrying. He was to answer no questions, speak to no one, and seem to be deaf and dumb. Once an hour, he was to enter the museum, walk right next to the ticket taker, seem to pay the fee, and then proceed through the museum and out the door. A crowd began to form, watching the man and wondering what he was doing. Many of the crowds followed him into the museum just to see what was going on. In fact, the police had to ask Barnum to stop the man, because the crowds that he was creating were stopping traffic.

5) Barnum offered free music from the Balcony of his museum. But he deliberately hired bad musicians. He wanted people to move into the Museum, where they could take refuge from the awful music. This philosophy is continued to this day at fast food franchise places like McDonald's, which keeps the interior restaurants artificially bright so that people will be less inclined to dawdle.

This sign now fixed proudly to the Lion boat house is owned by Jake Rivera. He bought the sign which is from the Oxford St branch back in the 80s for a tenner from one of the builders renovating the store. Eel pie island was famous in the 60s and 70s as a rock venue. Jake was the founder of Stiff records. All in all not a bad home for a hmv sign.

In his recent much-vaunted book, 'The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It,' Jonathan Zittrain paints a frightening picture of the state of the net. One of the perils of which he is particularly scared is hacking. Interestingly, he advocates that our computers have two modes: red and green. In 'green' mode, the system is hermetically sealed and only approved programs can run, only safe traffic is sent and received, and safety is paramount. By contrast, in red mode, it's every man for himself. You can download and run any software you want, and, should you catch something nasty, there would be a 'restore' button that would wipe the offending lurgy and return you to your default settings. This idea has merit, for it gives you the choice whether want to into 'the big pool' or 'little pool', as the whim takes you.

Artemis Ocean Racing with skipper Jonny Malbon is currently competing in the Vendée Globe. The Vendée Globe is a sailing race around the world, single handed, with no stopovers. The race will last for 26,000 miles down through the Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope, through the Southern Ocean below Australia, round Cape Horn and back to Les Sables - and takes approx 3 months.

The Vendée Globe organisers call it the "Everest of the seas". In fact, conquering the mountain has proved easier, and in recent years, safer. There have been around 4,000 ascents of Everest. It is not unusual for a fit adult to reach the summit on a corporate trip. The Everest fatality rate since 1990 – the year the first Vendée ended – is 4.4 per cent. Even space travel is much more common than sailing solo around the planet. Some 485 people have been to space, and the fatality rate for space flights is 3.7 per cent (or 18 people).

Only 60 people have ever sailed around the world solo non-stop. Of those, 41 have done it in the quadrennial Vendée Globe (some more than once). Of 67 different people who had tried the Vendée before this year, three have died while doing so: the USA's Mike Plant and Britain's Nigel Burgess in 1992, and Canada's Gerry Roufs in 1997. The Vendée's fatality rate is 4.5 per cent.

Jonny is currently about 1000 miles north of Antartica and 1000 miles south of South Africa, deep in the heart of the Southern Ocean. He's had a few difficult moments, including sailing over a whale - causing damage to the daggerboard, and unfortunately quite a bit of distress for the whale. But Jonny is still going strong, currently on day 32 and in 19th position.

GOOD LUCK JONNY - We're all thinking of you

You can keep track of Jonny and where he is through the following link

http://www.artemisoceanracing.com/

The guru of blogging Jeremiah Owyang sets out his golden rules for corporate blogs. How are we doing? Find out here.