Freedom From The Mundane » Internet

All Work And No Play And All That Jazz

colingalbraith — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:48:34 +0000

Image: Spice London

Yesterday was a blast. I spent some of the morning up in town doing some shopping for my parent’s visit later in the day, which naturally included a stop off in the coffee shop and a read of the paper. When I got home I sat in the sunny paradise of my back garden for the rest of the morning and read a book. It was bliss.

My parent’s arrived around lunchtime and we spent most of our time sitting it in the garden soaking up the sun, alcohol and some wide ranging chit chat. I’d spent the whole of Saturday getting the house cleaned up and tidy for their arrival only to spend most of the time sitting in the garden—go figure, eh?

Later, we enjoyed a wholesome roast beef dinner (cooked on my Dad’s request—kind of) and followed that up with fresh coffee and a choice of lime cheesecake or trifle. Lovely jubbly. I was totally stuffed and am still struggling to walk if the truth be told.

We got really lucky with the weather over the weekend. It was great being able to enjoy the garden for the day but it made the house cleaning on Saturday a bit of a droll affair. There was much panting and sweating as I worked the rooms. The house needed it, though, and having it look so clean is quite satisfying now it’s all done.

Yesterday was Father’s Day here in the UK. My daughter gave me a crime novel by a new writer she’s found for me along with a massive block of Galaxy chocolate. I’ll enjoy that over a film some night. To my own dad I gave a vocal card of a cheeky monkey, and I had planned to take him out to the aquarium centre in Tranent so he could select my new stock of tropical fish, but after he’d had a couple of beers he was too tired to go. Another time.

Despite using Factor 30 lotion all day yesterday, I’ve still managed to get burnt. Not my head this time, it was protected by a cap, but I have a large V shape on my neck and chest where my shirt was lying open. Against my blue work shirt it makes for quite a patriotic display of British colours.

I hardly spent any time on the internet over the whole weekend until last night. It felt good to be away from it for a few hours and not feel bothered about email checking or anything like that. There’s a certain freedom to be gained from gong into my workspace and closing the door, but equally, after a while, there’s a certain amount of freedom also to be gained from closing the door and not entering.

And so another new week is here. Yesterday was good for me because I got to spend time with my folks as well as my own family. I think Gail badly needed the rest, too, and soaking up the sun and wine in the garden on a sunny is the perfect tonic for recharging the batteries. All work and no play and all that jazz.

I am having a good month with my workload—my GDRs are turning over nicely—and I intend to have met another two, maybe three monthly goals by the end of the week. GDRs, for those of you who have been reading this blog unaware of the acronym, stands for Goals, Dreams and Resolutions. It’s an expanded form of the traditional New Year’s resolution list with the aim of providing consistent targets and desires within your working life, in my case writing, which can also be used as motivation and for looking to see how far you’ve come. It was designed by Devon Ellington and I recommend it to loads of people. I recommend it to you.

There’s a special offer running on my books at the moment. If you head over to my website (or the BOOKS page on this blog) and purchase any of them, when you are directed to Lulu simply enter the code FREEGROUND305 to get free ground shipping up to the value of £25. Offer ends 30th June.

STELLA is also available now to purchase from Kindle. Click here to buy a copy priced $5.29.

Gail Galbraith Photography is offering portrait shoots for £25 (knocked down from £40) if you book before 31st August 2010 and you use the word “Leith” in your query. For that you get a 1 hour session in her new studio in Leith, 1 free 8×6 print, an online gallery to show off to friends and family and where images can be purchase direct from, and all images from the shoot on a free low-resolution CD. (Subject to max of 4 people per session; each additional person is £5 each). You can contact Gail at gail@gailgalbraith.co.uk and view her website at: www.gailgalbraith.co.uk

That’s all for me just now. Peace out!

Awash With Websites

colingalbraith — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:46:52 +0000

Image: Global Spec

I did intend on blogging over the weekend but as fate had it I never really got around to it. I awoke on Saturday morning up with a slightly dicky tummy. May have been the copious amounts of Guinness I drank on Friday afternoon, may have been the ‘Full House’ pizza from Domino’s I swallowed in the evening. It may even have been a bug. Think I know what it was, though.

After fixing my dicky tummy I set about doing some house cleaning, starting with the toilet obviously. When I’d finished polishing it to within an inch of its life I realised I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring any longer. It’s been loose on my finger since I shed a load of weight and must have slipped off somewhere.

I searched everywhere. It definitely wasn’t anywhere in the bathroom, but I remembered having to go downstairs to get the cleaning products so I backtracked everywhere I’d been. Nothing. It just wasn’t anywhere, not even down the toilet where I thought it may have slipped while cleaning!

In despair I went into the bedroom to sit down, hold my head and see if I a lie down would help. And there it was, sitting gleaming on the middle of the duvet as if to say, “didn’t you hear me shouting?” The relief was instant. I’d taken it off to keep it safe while I cleaned because it was getting loose. There may be a touch of “senior momentitus” in there somewhere.

I finished my cleaning, put the rabbits out, then settled down to do some work. When I first built and installed a login system and gallery for my photography client, the intention was to work towards proving an online sales system eventually. This is pretty hard going to do yourself but on Saturday I discovered some software that could be used to just do that in an all-in-one package. It’s a full gallery display, purchasing and e-commerce site and it’s very flexible.

I installed it in the afternoon and showed her it. She loved it and gave it the thumbs up.

Sunday (yesterday) after a good sleep, I got up and installed the new software for real. Then, after about four hours of configuring it and adapting it entirely for her site, I put it into ‘Maintenance Mode’ so I could run some initial backups and diagnosis for performance. Only it wouldn’t let me back in as the Administrator. I was locked out!

I tried everything but eventually resigned myself to the fact I would have to reinstall it, which on doing so, wiped everything clean. I had wasted four hours of effort. My rage was undescribable. Tension was everywhere. Stress riddled every pore.

I rebuilt it all again—slightly quicker this time as I was becoming an expert by this stage—and finally got it complete by early evening. It’s now ready to receive new photographs to be uploaded for selling to clients. It looks quite spiffing even if I say so myself.

My role at the The Scruffy Dog Review has changed recently. As well as my regular column (Scotland’s Treasure) and minor editorial duties, I’m now the webmaster for the magazine.

Over the weekend we (the editorial staff) selected a new look for the website and I started work putting it all together. We’re going to re-launch on 1st November so stay tuned.

So, as you can see my entire time this weekend was spent working on clients’ websites. That alone made it a very different kind of weekend but still enjoyable, particularly when Gail dialled the number for the Prince Balti House and ordered an Indian meal for us late on Sunday evening.

There’s nothing quite like a Lamb Madras to celebrate a weekend of hard work!

Here’s something to amuse some of you…

The World Is Full Of Numpties

colingalbraith — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:53:23 +0000

Image: FruitFly

I found myself dealing with more numpties than I would normally expect to during my day job, yesterday. I mean, one has to wonder where we get the staff from at times. On one hand it boosts my profile, but on the other it is so infuriating to have to lead people by the hand who, quite frankly, shouldn’t be in the job if they don’t even know the basics.

I worked on the Ranfurly Review in the evening, dedicating my time to catching up with a backlog of submissions from as far back as July. I hate it when I fall so far behind because one thing I don’t suffer from is a lack of potential contributors. I now have issue 9 for December almost full and issue 10 for next March half way done.

I’m really suffering from a lack of flash fiction (fiction under 700 words). I have far too much poetry to deal with and far too much long fiction, that I had to resort to rejecting the numpties that sent me work that wasn’t in the correct format. I don’t mean single line instead of double kind of thing, I’m talking about when I have to download a compatibility update for MS Word just to read the type of sexy font someone has used. Don’t they understand pretty fonts don’t make the prose any better?

Another disturbing trend I’m noticing is the glut of stories from writers obsessed with sexual abuse. What’s going on? The amount of fiction containing adults facing up to childhood sexual trauma, prostitutes with hearts of gold (and no drug problem), or males that feel bad about themselves after raping or assaulting a woman, is just getting ridiculous.

Pay attention people. The guidelines are quite specific—no gratuitous sex or violence—It’s not readable, enjoyable, and it won’t make me sit up and think, “oh my, I have just discovered the next literary sensation in my lowly little magazine.” I do not want work that has been written just so you can get a load off.

I’ll be sending something out to this effect to the mailing list tonight, with a caveat that anything that breaks these guidelines will be binned immediately and the author added to my black list, which so far contains the names of two numpties.

One rather delightful thing was the letter I received from a man, who along with his submission included a letter. He was telling me the reason he was submitting to the Ranfurly Review was because he had seen my interview in The Leither magazine while lunching in Portugal during the summer. Not only that, but the guy lives about 300 yards from my house! Coincidences galore!

There will be some more work to do on the photographer’s website after a sudden flash of inspiration pointed my attention to a potential security problem. I tested it out before bed and sure enough, there’s a hole in the coding that needs plugged. I’ll need to have a think later today on how to go about it, but it won’t interrupt the service being provided unless they went looking for it.

I also heard back from another potential web client—a driving instructor—who needs a website up and running sometime soon. I’ve to call him back on Friday after work and hopefully we can batter out the requirements.

While all this was going on I was listening to Sportsound on the radio. St Mirren were playing at Kilmarnock in the 4th Round of the Leage Cup and after losing their lead with four minutes to go, ended up winning the match with a goal in the dying seconds. A superb result that sends us soaring into the quarter finals next month.

To today, and along with my usual tasks I want to get some good writing done and maybe get another tick onto my GDR list. I’ve found that dedicating an evening to a full task instead of progressing several is helping me to focus and push things along. Maybe I’ll get to that YouTube idea that’s been sitting on the list for too long now?

By the way, have you listened to Turning the Page yet? It’s my first audio recording attempt of a poem I wrote for Madness in 2007.

A Good Day’s Work

colingalbraith — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:55:36 +0000

Image: foundphotoslj

Check out my interview with Blazing Trailers, which was posted on their website yesterday. There were some good questions

Also, if you missed it, check out my gig review in Sunday’s News of the World, this week Theoretical Girl.

Good day’s work yesterday all round. The management have recognised my writing skils and have asked me to start writing a Department blog with a view to publicising ourselves in a “humorous but helpful” manner. It’s right up my street and should roll off the presses very easily, but my problem will be, as usual, knowing where to draw the line. Banter is permitted but to a degree so I’m working with one of the other guys in the department to pull all the background together. Then it’s off I go. It should be a lot of fun, actually.

My evening was devoted entirely to the website of one of my photography clients. I’ve taken a PHP script that configures the gallery and tweaked it beyond recognition. It looks great and allows for some great customer interaction, and it’s also very easy for me to upload new images when they come along, which is a huge time saver when working with a busy photographer.

The next step is to integrate it all with a shopping cart/e-commerce solution so customers can order and pay on the spot. One step at a time, though. This website has been a huge learning curve for me since the day it began.

That’s about my lot for yesterday. Today will be more of much the same but with the website out the way I can get back to some writing. I missed the deadline for the cover image competition, but the story has grown so I’m going to use it for my submission to New Writing Scotland.

I’ve still got a lot of work—achievable work—to get done before the end of the month. It’s been a good one so far but I want to end my “first writing month of the new year” on a high.

Finally, Madness’ latest album, the re-packaged release of Total Madness, hit the shelves today. It comes in 2 discs, one with all 23 of their chart hits, the other a spiffing DVD and comes in at a very reasonable £9.98 from Amazon. Gail, if you’re reading, my borthday is in a few days…

Mitchell, Webb and Galbraith

colingalbraith — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:41:24 +0000

Image: The Sun

Did anyone else choke on their cornflakes yesterday morning when BBC News announced that the Taliban have called for a human rights investigation into a recent air strike in Afghanistan? HUMAN RIGHTS—THE TALIBAN—there’s two phrases you wouldn’t normally connect on any level of human decency or respect.

Quite a day yesterday; I have hit a major high in the writing stakes. Despite coming home from work to find two rejections—well, one of them from a magazine that has now sadly folded, but at least the editor took the time to read my work and say he had enjoyed it nevertheless—it was a most accomplished day.

I got a lot finished in the day job, and back at home I worked on the interview, the spine-tingler story, and a little more on BACCARA BURNING. The short story is now almost complete; wish I could say the same for BACCARA but it’s getting there.

I heard about a live webcast by taking place at 7pm by Mitchell and Webb, so I logged on. David Mitchell, who also writes for The Observer, is running a campaign to save said paper as it is being threatened with closure despite not being in any financial or sales figure-related trouble. Half way through the webcast I typed into the little box: “COLIN GALBRAITH SAYS SAVE THE OBSERVER!!!”

Webb read it aloud as it passed over their monitor and turned his nose up at it. “What the fuck’s he on about? Save The Observer?” To which Mitchell jumped in and backed me up, initiating a debate about why the paper in question should in fact be saved.

I like to do my bit.

Later on, I moved onto some technical issues. One of my web clients needs a client login facility, where her wedding customers can login to their own individual section of the website and view their own personal wedding photographs and place orders. Without actually buying a solution, this is complicated stuff.

It took me a while—I’ve been working on this for a few weeks actually, to find a way of doing it that fits the bill—but last night I finally made the breakthrough. It meant learning up on PHP coding, but last night I delivered the client login, and it comes complete with a spiffing new gallery layout. I’m very pleased with it.

I struggled to get out of bed and into work toady, but I’ve got a few things on that should shake me out of it. As well as my usual writing requirements, I found out late last night I’m on the guest list for tonight’s Ray LaMontagne gig at the Usher Hall. Not sure what to expect, but from the small amount of research I’ve done this morning, he lives on a farm in Maine, has released three albums, and is only two months older then me.

Submissions From Both Sides

colingalbraith — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:10:42 +0000

Image: Sarah G

I didn’t really have much to say about Tuesday so I skipped a blog post. Hope you don’t mind. No point in writing about nothing, thought I, and instead put my efforts into making sure it didn’t happen again.

It rained for the best part of Tuesday, all through the night and all day Wednesday. I think one can safely say the good weather has passed and that we were very lucky indeed to get the sun and warmth we did for our “away day” on Monday. Let’s hope it changes in time for the weekend, though.

I’ve had some Internet work to do over the past couple of days. The property client I had been contracted by has not renewed the websites I built him. I think the credit crunch may have had something to do with the foreign side of the business, but the opposite effect was felt with the Edinburgh-based side, in that he has been so busy with bookings he found he never needed a website to get bookings for the next year.

I’ve also come up with a solution to a long-term problem for one of my photography clients, which has seen the installation of a membership area to the website, allowing clients the ability to log in to view and purchase their wedding pictures. The photographer in question has also indicated a requirement for a new site to take care of the portrait side of her business.

I’ve left the preparation of September’s issue of the Ranfurly Review very late. I have all the contributions in place except I am one piece of flash fiction down—four instead of the usual five—because we never received enough flash submissions.

The main things left to do are layout all the contributions, insert all the biographies and notes, and find a front cover—always the bane of my editorial existence.

Last night I got back on the submission trail, sending out many of the short fiction pieces I have on return, to magazines and competitions. I also sent out a few poetry entries including the National Poetry Competition.

Later tonight I’ll finish them all up and get everything out on submission where they should be. The exercise highlighted to me the problem in keeping track of everything. I have stories in my ‘Completed’ folder but not in my spreadsheet so were getting missed, stories that were written in the last year and are much improved on previous ones.

I’m going to amalgamate and sort out how I keep control of what magazines and journals are suitable for me to submit to. It’s getting a bit messy now there are just so many.

Day job has been extremely busy over the last few days with several deadlines coming in this week. When I got up this morning I was so tired I didn’t even know what day it was until after my shower and a cuppa.

Before I go, remember 54-year old Madness fan Tim Andrews from Surrey I mentioned a couple of weeks ago? He’s the guy who developed Parkinson’s disease a few years ago and who decided to stand on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square for charity.

Well, he was there for an hour, dancing along to Madness’ latest album, The Liberty of Norton Folgate and raised over £2,500 into the bargain. Good on ye Tim!! Click here to watch the short video of Tim on the Fourth Plinth.

Twitter No More

colingalbraith — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:16:17 +0000

Image: maximumpc.com

I ended up going with the wind yesterday and it paid off well. After an early start and thoughts of attending the annual Edinburgh Festival Cavalcade, the heavens opened and the decision was made not to bother. Scotland being Scotland, though, the weather turned at the last minute and it turned into a really nice day in the end, and the Cavalcade brought out some large crowds as a result.

We headed up around half past one and found a place behind Holyrood Palace under the foot of Arthur’s Seat. With Princes Street being closed off for tram works, the new route would take the Cavalcaders around Holyrood Park on Queen’s Drive. An inspired move as it happened, because it meant more people could actually see what was going on instead of cramming into the space provided by the width of Princes Street pavements.

There were lots of colourful and funny floats, buses, marchers and bikers, and there were plenty of theatre companies doing some promotion, charities, and of course plenty of pipe bands from countries the world over. I’ll have some pictures for you tomorrow in the form of a slideshow once I’ve finished preparing it.

Later in the afternoon I had intended to make a curry but the rest of the family went to see a girly flick at the cinema. Naturally, I stayed behind, and it gave me time to work on BACCARA BURNING. It also gave me time to take a small afternoon nap because the sun that had shone throughout the Cavalcade had made my napper go all hot and shiny making me tired.

I ended up having cheese on toast for dinner—a snack, not a real dinner, I know—then sat down to watch a film about 8pm.

As I was writing this blog entry I received a phone call from my sister. It seems my Twitter account has been hacked yet again, this time with a host of offensive messages being sent out from my account to several people on my list. The last time it happened I also lost my images and had tweets deleted. If you were one of those affected, please accept my apologies.

I’m going to complain this time and I’m thinking of giving up Twitter. I’m certainly going to have to change my password again. Rather foolishly, after it was hacked last time I changed it then after a short time changed it back again. While it was a good way to build up promotion and hits to my website, it also seems to be too easy for people to hack into, so what’s the point?

The last thing I need as I try to build up a pubic profile behind my writing, is crap like that happening to me.

What’s The Problem, Dude?

Colin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:00:01 +0000

Image: Mel Blanc

STELLA received a wonderful review from romance author, Ginger Simspon, over the weekend. This is the first official review of my new book and I’m delighted it was so good! Click here to read.

If you missed it, please pop over and have a read of my guest blog at Love, Romances & More, where I discuss the pleasures to be gained from writing to music. It’s already prompted some interesting comments.

Despite being on the bus into Edinburgh at 6:45am yesterday morning, I still managed to get gnarled up in tram works and traffic chaos. A Glasgow bus had broken down westbound on York Place, but with half the road already dug up it meant traffic was down to an involuntary single lane. When we finally got passed, the driver was so flustered he missed my stop, but alas, was kind enough to drop me off further along the road.

I wasn’t feeling my best by the time I got to work. Truth be told, I was feeling rather pissed off with life even before I’d left the house. These feelings usually cement themselves after a long weekend of being on standby and having to work. I get pissed off watching other people having a good time and me not being able to do anything. Not even the curry I made on Sunday night helped, because the family rushed into the kitchen, wolfed it all down then buggered off back to the telly again.

But when I look at my week ahead I have to ask myself, “what’s your problem, dude?” STELLA is getting good reviews, The Book Festival tickets are about to go on sale, I’m having beers on Thursday night with a good friend, I’m on News of the World business when I go to see The Beat on Friday, and on Saturday I’m going to a 30th birthday party.

Looking further ahead next week will see my 18th annual trip to Blackpool with my best mate, and shortly after I’ll be away on a Mediterranean cruise. Things are never quite as bad as they seem, I suppose.

I finished polishing another short story today: SAMSON THE GREAT is now totally done. I also continued work on BRIEFS and dedicated some thinking time to BACCARA BURNING; I can’t seem to get past this little hurdle so I’m trying to hear the characters. They’ve gone a bit quiet – think I might stir them up.

I finally got my website client sorted out with her transfer and finished moving her to her new hosting company. I told her I wasn’t billing her and that I would foot the costs seeing as it took so long to get sorted.

Mobile Working

Colin — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:31:34 +0000

Image: Roger Price

I’m delighted to advise that my guest blog went up today over at Love, Romances and More. In it, I talk about the pleasures to be gained from writing to music, so pop over and have a read, and if so inclined, leave a comment.

The STELLA blog tour is still on over at Lara Stauffer’s Ramblings of a Suburban Mom – go and check it out if you haven’t already!

I ended up having the house to myself last night, as Gail and Laura stayed over at a friend’s house after the Leith Carnival. But with the place to myself and boredom already having set in, I didn’t take advantage as I probably should have.

I had to work this morning anyway, signing onto the company network at 7am and then several times afterwards when I was called out. It was a broken sleep that led to me drifting in and out of dreamland until the girls got back at lunchtime. I was in a bad mood as a result (of having to work not them coming home), and it wasn’t until a strong cup of Java and a couple of bacon rolls had been dispensed, that I was able to pull myself out of it.

With sunbathing on the cards for most people today, I decide to stay in and work on my netbook in front of the TV; watching, Only Fools and Horses, of course. If’d sat in my office today I wouldn’t have achieved anything, but such is the freedom of having this netbook meant I could write on the couch, coffee next to me, and the TV on low.

I edited SAMSON THE GREAT almost to completion, and got some good work on BACCARA BURNING done during the course of the day. Very pleased with BACCARA actually because I’m at the join where the story moves from Italy to Scotland and there’s more tension between Randolph and Stella than I thought there was going to be.

I made a nice dinner of chicken tikka masalam with nan bread in the evening, and took my netbook into the kitchen afterwards to write some more.

I received my copy of the Edinburgh Book Festival programme of events yesterday and it looks delicious. I’ve not had a proper chance to digest but after a quick glance, top of my wish list will be Neil Gaiman, Val McDermid, and all the other usual Scottish suspects. I am most delighted to see that William McIlvanney is coming to Edinburgh, which will mean I will finally get to sit down and have that drink with him—or at least have that long-awaited meeting.

Until tomorrow, I hope you all had a spiffing weekend. That’s spiffing, by the way, not spliffing.

Not Enough Shrill

Colin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:04:53 +0000

Image: laffy4k

Long day yesterday.

The alarm on my new phone isn’t shrill enough to yank me out of my sleep, and so invariably I find myself flopping back and lying for longer as I wait for another, stronger spur to get out of bed. Yesterday morning it was the sound of my wife’s alarm clock, indicating I had gone way past my normal and should already have been in the office. Today I did not bad, but only because I set my CD alarm to blast The Specials at me.

Day job dragged but I managed to pepper it with some writing over lunch. I got some editing done on a short story – a relief to be back in fiction-land again – before heading home for more promo work and a dash of freelance.

I’m still having difficulties moving a client over from GNHosting but I made some progress. I managed to get the site up at a temporary domain while I go to war with the hosting company. She’s getting pissed off and it’s hard explaining how it works, which I can totally understand. I thought I was going to lose her as a client but I talked her round and I can’t see me charging anything for this one. I may even offer an overhaul in the near future for no charge.

Today you can find me over at Michelle Miles’ Ye Olde Inkwell, on the latest stop of my STELLA World Tour. And Sage Cohen still has that free copy of STELLA up for grabs. All you have to do is pop over and leave a comment to qualify for the draw – what could be easier?

Speaking of the tour. I’ve added a coupe of new dates. I’ll be a guest at the blog of Cate Masters on the 18th, and this coming Saturday I’ll be the guest writer at Love, Romances & More – not my usual forum, I know, which is why it should make for an interesting day!

View all my other appearances here

Tomorrow is my friend’s funeral so I won’t be posting any of my usual stuff. I have to write his obituary today, which I’ll post tonight for publication tomorrow. I’m not looking forward to it at all. Gail has taken the day off work to come through with me, which I didn’t really expect her to do but I think, in hindsight, I’m glad she has.

Part of my apprehension isn’t just down to it being a friend who has died, it’s also about the living ones I’m going to meet. There will be people at the funeral from long ago in my life, from when I was a very small boy up to my mid 20s, and some of them I have deliberately put distance between for a reason. Now, I will be with them again, and I fear there will be a rush of horrible (and good) memories when I see their faces.

See you on Friday.

Viva La Sushi

Colin — Fri, 08 May 2009 08:10:54 +0000

Image: Kristiaan

I wasn’t in the best of moods when I got up today, and things didn’t improve by mid-morning. The sore throat I’ve had these past few days has started to go, but in its wake has left a stuffy, annoying head cold that just seems to be sitting there like a cold pizza on a damp Glasgow street.

Add that to the arsehole in my office that went into a bad mood because I couldn’t talk to him about knitting, because I was too busy contending with my work and an extremely hectic morning (the boss called in sick) and you’ll understand when I tell you I snapped and bit the old bugger’s head off.

Contractors. Who needs ‘em?

As the day wore on I got worse. My eyes grew heavier, my head sorer, and I just wanted to sleep it all away. It was the funniest thing, though. I met my sister at Ocean Terminal to see a film (she was through working in Reekie for the day) and we bought some food to take in with us. I bought a wee tray of Sushi, complete with Soy sauce, fresh ginger stems and wasabi. By the end of the night I was feeling noticeably better. By this morning, I was feeling pretty good. Tired, still, but the sore eyes and head have gone.

The film we went to see was Star Trek. I had my reservations but there was nothing else worth seeing that we hadn’t already – or to be more accurate, my sister hadn’t seen. Not being a Trekkie by any stretch, I have to admit this was a surprisingly excellent film. It was exciting, dramatic, true to the story, and it was really funny. It’s definitely worth seeing even if you don’t like sc-fi or are even into Star Trek. I’m not much of a buff on either, but I’d go again.

On the working front, I didn’t have much time left when I got home from the flix. While I was feeling much better, I still wanted to get a reasonably early night and shake as much of this cold away as I could before today.

Basically, I ran through my email – today is launch day for EP’s May releases and I had 170 alone just from them! – and carried out an update to my photography client, my lovely wife. If you are that way inclined, feel free to pop over and check her site with all its new images up: www.gailgalbraith.co.uk

Today, I’m hoping to make a start on the Stella sequel, complete a short story, and do a whole bunch of work on the marketing plan for Stella. With under a month to go now, I must be prepared as much as possible.

I’m still feeling the head cold’s presence, but it doesn’t feel like it has the power to ruin my weekend any longer. Viva la sushi!

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Not So Secret Gig

Colin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:29:39 +0000

Image: e-pint.com

Friday at last.

I spent most of yesterday in meetings, one of which I almost fell asleep in. It was a combination of the night before and the fact I could not work out why I had even been invited; I never said a word during the entire hour.

I forgot to mention The Specials kicked off their 30th anniversary tour at Newcastle on Wednesday night. My mate called me from the gig while I was out on the bevy to remind me. I’ll be at the second of two nights they are playing at the Glasgow Academy on Wednesday. To say I’m excited about it is an understatement – I never thought I would ever get to see them such was the rift that tore the band apart. More on this later.

I completed Day by AL Kennedy – finally. It’s a book I am glad I read but I never got as much from it as I’d expected. I can see why it won Book of the Year but I found it difficult going. I‘ve started reading Val McDermid’s The Grave Tattoo, one of the books I got at Christmas. I love Val’s approach and attitude, her humour too, and I had a craving for a good crime novel so off the shelf it came.

I received payment from the property website client that I half expected there to be a problem with. But no, everything went through fine and he is talking about a lot more work. I still have to finish off one of my clients, currently transferring away from Ghoulnet. This is a process made a whole lot easier now another company is handling the accounts after they went down the tubes.

Our team meeting is being held today at lunchtime in Clark’s Bar. I had suggested it as a joke when nobody could think of anywhere to go for lunch with our sister team who work for the same boss. Personally, I can’t think of anywhere better to spend a Friday lunchtime.

This evening I’m off to Glasgow to stay at my sisters, then it’s off to Hampden for the Scottish Cup semi final against Rangers. No blogging then, but I’ll be Twittering all the way.

Madness has announced they are going to play a gig at Newbury Racecourse on May 30th. The idea of a wee evening at the races followed by a stomp in the paddock has been muted between my horse loving chum, Dave, and me. We shall see what transpires.

Speaking of Madness, today sees the start of the Camden Crawl. It’s the biggest yet and in their 30th year Madness will be playing a secret gig somewhere in Camden Town. I happen to know – it’s outside the Dublin Castle on Parkway, 4pm, so get down there if you have a street ticket and do some skanking. You’ll need to get there early though.

Lots more information on the Crawl can be found at Spoonfed. Enjoy it if you’re going – wish I was there.

GOOD LUCK ST MIRREN FOR TOMORROW!!!!

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The Universe Speaks

Colin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:34:25 +0000

Image: Sir Merv

Another terribly long couple of days. Finding the time to write is proving to be increasingly difficult. There’s no shortage of motivation inside me, but early morning and lunchtimes are the only really productive times of the day I am managing to bag just now. Evenings are a struggle because I am so tired and brain dead from work, and my productivity has suffered as a result.

I’m looking forward to Julz, my work colleague, coming back from New Zealand, if only to help take the strain. And while the contractor we have in just now isn’t worth his salt – he talks too much, drifts onto things he shouldn’t, and has to be reminded to turn his bloody phone in on the morning, then asks for two drinks when I offer to go to the machine – at least he only has a few more weeks to go; it’ll save me getting sacked for assault.

The good news is I’m to be involvement in the recruitment process for at least one new full-time member of staff, which will mean attending interviews and probing the candidates for their technical worth. If you’re a slacker, don’t bother applying.

I never blogged yesterday because both today and yesterday kind of ran into the same routine, the only difference being that last night I didn’t get in until 1am – hence the reason I never blogged. I spent the entire evening down at Gail’s pal’s flat (Samantha) installing a broadband line and setting up her new laptop for her. It wasn’t a bad way to spend the evening actually; while I worked we watched a couple of films, drank tea and ate cheese and crackers, and best of all, it was in the company of a hot woman. Result!

Today I was too tired to even check my email. Whereas before Julz was off I would be in the house by 5pm and be ready to go with the novel by 6pm, I’m not even leaving work these days until nearer 7pm. It’s exhausting and I’m falling behind with everything, forgetting things, and generally getting myself into a state.

My reasoning is this.

It’s only for another few days
It’s not doing my reputation any harm
bonus and salary review time is approaching
I’m going to celebrate the end of it with a fine Indian meal and some beers on Friday

Before I finish for today, is anyone else having any trouble submitting to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award? Each time since submissions opened I get a ‘Page Not Found’ error and it’s damn annoying. I’ve tried it from home and my day job PC but still the same. To quote a friend: “maybe the universe is trying to tell me something?”

The Scruffy Dog Review – Winter Issue OUT NOW!!

Turn Up The Noise

Colin — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:12:22 +0000

Image: Elward Photography

The British Government is considering making it a legal requirement in the new tax year to introduce a law that forces anyone applying or re-applying for an entertainment license to have a noise control device fitted to the venue. For live music venues, this will be the final nail in the coffin because these devices are ridiculously low. It’ll also affect theatres, pubs, comedy venues, schools, universities – you name it.

I urge anyone who has had enough of the Labour government’s OTT bureaucracy and nanny attitude to sign the following petition at: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoNoiseControl.

Message ends.

Later start today; an early morning appointment with my fortune teller meant I never got into work until 10am, and boy did that feel weird. Getting up at 8am felt like sleeping in until the middle of the afternoon – just plain weird.

Worked with Lennox over lunch – got some good work done and we’re flowing again. There are some major edits I’m going to have to make after this first draft is complete; scenes that belong much later in the book. I’m putting those to one side for the moment and just getting on with it now.

Spent some time with a web client – my wife; quite a lot of minor updates to her site making it a largish job. She also wants a client login section, which will be a real test of my skills to get that going.

Started putting together next month’s newsletter; struggled to find much to put in it, though.

Read some more of Day by AL Kennedy. I’m beginning to lose focus with it, which is disappointing. It grabbed me from the outset but it seems to be losing something. It’s beautifully written, I’m just not getting more of it as I get into it. Hopefully it will turn round.

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