Makeup as you go along

Dave peers at the face of the IT industry, the heavy schedule of channel bosses, datacentre bootcamps - and Iron Man's next move

Bogey and Bacall, mashed tatties and liquor, and Leytonstone FC and heroic FA Cup runs are all things I find go together splendidly. But to that list of natural bedfellows it seems we can now add IT and, er, cosmetics.
I was intrigued to hear that Outsourcery boss Piers Linney - AKA the new bloke off of Dragons' Den - is ploughing his fat wad into a fake tan business. And this comes just a few weeks after Amstrad doyen Suralan Lord Sugarlord splashed £250,000 on Apprentice winner Leah Totton's cosmetic surgery clinic idea.
As a man once dubbed by the local rag as Dagenham's answer to Bill Gates, I've always been quick to spot an emerging opportunity. Perhaps I could top my two rivals by combining the worlds of cosmetics and computing in one holistic, turnkey solution by offering free liposuction or cut-price face peels with every server sold.
In fact now I come to think of it, I've often thought that a fair few of my fellow channel brethren could do with some colonic irrigation, given the nature of what sometimes comes out of their mouths.

Time tees
Fresh "research" from manly sounding call handling firm Penelope will chime with any channel types who've worked through New Year's Eve or cut short a family holiday to ensure quarterly numbers are hit.
Apparently, we IT micro-business owners toil away for an average of 53 hours a week - that's 66 per cent longer than the average Brit's working week.
"Being the owner and operator of a micro-business means taking on multiple roles and being everything to every customer," burbled Penelope co-founder Ed Reeves.
Yes, Ed, but in the case of the channel it also often means enduring leisurely afternoons on the golf course and regularly getting bladdered at black-tie soirees.
In fact, if you also care to add in the time I spend at the 19th hole, I'm "working" roughly the same hours as a Victorian loom operator.

He's Too Cool
What do you do when you're a smartphone vendor who's finding the going a bit tough?
Why, hire a Hollywood actor who has had more ups and downs in his career than a window cleaner, of course.
That is just what HTC has done in a bid to revive its flagging fortunes - it has splashed out $1bn on a new "Here's to Change" campaign fronted by none other than Robert Downey Jr.
And because the Iron Man actor doesn't actually need the money, it means he believes in the brand, explained the firm's main marketing man.
Riiiiight.
The first video, a hilarious brainstorming session, saw Downey Jr's character suggest that HTC could stand for "humongous tinfoil catamaran".
Cue tumbleweeds and chiming bell.

Give it some welly
I've found the perfect solution to get Dave Jnr off his backside and away from his computer and his unhealthy obsession with Read-It and Pint-Arrest.
I'm going to send him to a special IT bootcamp on datacentres.
The first one was held in London recently to attract former forces employees and disillusioned young people struggling to find work, to the exciting world of the datacentre.
It doesn't matter how often you say it - the words "exciting" and "datacentre" just do not go together.
But I digress - apparently datacentre operators are suffering from an ageing workforce, and not enough skilled workers coming on board to fill the gap. So they came up with this strategy.
I can just imagine lines of bored-looking youths being frog-marched around a giant room full of servers and given lengthy explanations on how everything works.
To top it all off, someone had the idea to label the already awe-inspiring datacentre as the "factory of the future".
Not really something that rolls socks up and down, is it?