Idly examining the potential of Rougemont Castle as the next Syntagma Towers (see previous post), I’ve discovered it has now been sold.

It has apparently been flogged to a property company which wants to use it as an entertainment venue — very 20th century.

Intriguingly, it was sold by the Department of Constitutional Affairs, a tinpot Ministry in the Blair government that replaced the 1300-year-old Office of the Lord Chancellor, and which will soon morph again into the Napoleonic Ministry of Justice. Heaven forfend!

Worse, the Department is run by Charlie Falconer, whose only claim to fame is that he once shared a flat with Tony Blair and gave us the delights of the Millennium Dome.

Here’s another memorable view of this glorious pile, taken this morning.

Soon, maybe, the ghost of Elvis will walk the battements. Thanks a bunch, Charlie.

Just down the road from Syntagma Towers stands the oldest surviving castle in the UK. It’s called Rougemont, which means Red Hill after the iron-rich Devon soil. The French name indicates it was built by the Normans around 1070. Here’s a picture of the old entrance gate I took this morning :

Don’t you love those cannons?

The interesting thing about it, and why I’m inflicting this on you on a Sunday, is that it’s up for sale.

As regular readers may know, we’ve been contemplating the purchase of a new Syntagma Towers later this year. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

It would be the office address to die for :

Syntagma Towers
Rougemont Castle
England.

And can you imagine the business card?

So, what about the internet connection? Does that date back to 1070 too? Knights on horseback maybe? Think again. It has some very smart modern administrative buildings where the keep used to be.

I’m warming to the idea already.

It’s not easy to confuse Microsoft with Google at the best of times, but you may be excused for doing so with a new MS offering.

When I started Syntagma Media, bookkeeping and accountancy were real problems. We bought a couple of expensive packages — Quickbooks and Sage — but both were far too complex for a simple content business selling only ad space online.

Nowadays we rely on professional services, but for bootstrapping startups a quick, easy and FREE startup accountancy package would be a blessing.

So who’s going to provide this yummy piece of kit, Google? Maybe, but Microsoft got there first and it’s part of its Office suite. Wonders never cease.

Thanks to Rick Segal for the hat tip. Download Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 here.

Rick, of course, has form when it comes to free business offerings. See Syntagma’s piece here from November 2005.

Yes, folks the link machine over on Calacanis.com really works. Check this out.

See previous post for all the gen. We might just go linking round in circles forever.

This could actually be a very explosive meme, fuelled as it is by avarice spiced with greed. What greater reason to get involved. Fatblogging it ain’t.