Thursday, December 15, 2005

Radio 5 Live etc

Well, trotted along to see Simon Mayo at around 3pm today. It was good. Quite enjoyed it. Really liked the other reviewers - Helen and Joel - dead friendly.

At the end of the interview Joel turned to me and said: "Wow, I didn't know you were the editor of Ouch. It's brilliant! A friend of mine sent me the link recently". This is always really gratifying and makes ya feel you're up to something good. we're definitely doing something new and different and it surprises me constantly that we're the only buggers doing it. Glad to get some recognition.

Before I go any further, I have to admit I am utterly slaughtered. I sank pint after pint tonight. Popped along to meet Kristina's new colleagues at the new place she works at. They're great. A nice evening down in central London.

It's 3 minutes past midnight now. I must go. I've got a package to recieve tomorrow morning from a delivery firm ... fingers X'ed it's early. Christmas depends on the delivery of this item.

Oh and have you been watching Space Cadets? I'm hooked.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Radio and germany

I'm on Radio 5 Live tomorrow afternoon between 3 and 4 (Simon Mayo show) if you're interested. It's a book review panel, I'm still finishing off the final book tonight. It has been a bit of a slog!

Got back from Germany sunday morning. Liked it a lot there. Very quaint old squares and cobbly small streets and hidden back streets in Munich. Nice place to be.

For various reasons didn't really go to Christmas Markets ... well, went to the big modern one at Tollwood which was a bit rubbish to be honest. Modern and Kristingle markt (or whatever they're called) don't go. It even had a flippin' dance tent! It's on the site of the Oktoberfest. DO NOT GO if you're ever in Munich. It may be big but it's a bit crap on the whole.

Also, Munich on saturday night ... we just couldn't find a place to eat! We set out at 6:30pm and were turned away from more restaurants than I can remember. A pre-christmas party season thing we'd not thought of ... we should have prebooked it seems. At around 8pm we found a little local restaurant down a back street which was quite cute ... we got the last table.

Went to a beer keller ... HUGE! Massive! What a massive huge place. Bought Pretsels (braitsels?) from a side bar thing ... proper bready pretsels that I'd never had before. And a huge beer glass of dark beer ... a stein are they called?

Forgive my spellings ... I seriously can't be arsed to spellcheck my blog. Blindies don't see things written down because there is a huge lack of braille media ... hence my spelling has seriously dwindled since I lost my sight.

It was very cold but it didn't really snow ... except at the Tollwood xmas market. Effing cold, I bought a hat.

There were loads and loads of huge statues of lions dotted around the city ... all of different colours. I assume it was part of an art exhibition.

More another time probably ... Germany is cool. Damon must learn German.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

The disappearing PA

My Personal Assistant didn't show up for work on Monday. She also didn't answer my calls. Not entirely out of character ... I had expected her to get back with a story about friends needing her help, her house burning down or she had been asked by MI6 to carry out a special mission in Brent Cross shopping centre, or something.

I learnt last night through a third party that my PA resigned. All happened very oddly and outside of the rule book ... but rather characterises her up-and-down approach to life. She'll now only text but won't talk to me

I can't help but like her but I have a real problem with trusting her because of many things she's said that have turned out to be total fiction. We're talking incredibly tall tales! Not sure whether I want another PA now, haven't much enjoyed the ride. I'll probably talk more about her fictions another time ... when some water has passed under the bridge. Inviting someone else into your life and your home is scary - no doubt about that.

I do wish her the best though and I really hope she can sort out some of the problems she obviously has. I don't think she'll find a nicer more tollerant boss than me though.

1 more day

One more day til Munich. Currently it is 0C with light snow. Check out the latest Munich weather on the BBC's weather website.

Bloggingmone says that the Christmas market in Munich is better than even the famous Nuremburg market! Well hurrah! Went to the French Christmas market in Berlin last year (think that's what they called it, not quite sure where the French bit comes from, a nearby church maybe). That was very atmospheric. I've been to one in Cologne too and Vienna.

Light snow. Light snow. I can deal with light snow, I think. But maybe there's a perspective thing going on here? What is 'light' to the townsfolk of Munich where they get much more snow than us Londoners.

Meanwhile back in Britain ... Space Cadets starts on Channel 4 tonight which is surely worthy of a watch. David Cameron, new Tory leader (who has a son with CP IIRC), faces Blair at the despatch box in PMQs at midday. That'll be interesting being as he's only been an MP for 4 years and has only ever stood at the despatch on 4 previous occasions. Also Lost is on tonight ... got very intriguing last week: light behind hatch, etc.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

5 more days til holiday

Yay! Just 5 more days until I quit London and head on out to Germany.
 
I am going to Munich for 4 days. We checked out the weather a little earlier to find that it is currently minus 1 degree celsius today with heavy snow falls. So, it's going to be interesting ... and possibly a bit of an access challenge as snow is known as Blind Man's Fog. Work it out yourself.
 
I'm more into cold climates than hot though, most of my recent holidays have involved Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and, err, I seem to keep heading to Germany and Austria a lot too.
 
It'll be interesting to see how the Bavarians, much more used to snow than we are in Britain, deal with the weather. No doubt much better than here in London where one flake = gridlock in the capital. This is almost not an exaggeration.
 
Germany. I really like Germanic culture, especially around this time of year. I love Christmas markets ... not for the trinkets or the decorations or tat you can buy there ... just the atmosphere, the music, the cold, the beer and the street food. I fully intend to be stuffing my face with: wurst, spatzle (or however you spel it) beer, gluhwein, and whatever else comes my way. I hear that the Bavarians are into heavy stodgy creamy warm foods.
 
Am off out for a beer with one of Ouch's rather marvellous columnists, Liz Main, tonight. Don't think I've seen her in over a year.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Thursday, December 01, 2005

windmills = world peace

Godammit. In my important keynote online State of the Cranium address of last week, I forgot to mention the environment. I'm obsessed by it all! I'm not the best enviro person around but I really care about it. That makes no sense does it. In 2006 I must make it my New Year's resolution to recycle far more than I do.

I also forgot to mention Europe and the EU as big interests.

I'm also more and more interested in business ... at many levels. As an idealistic teenager I don't think I really appreciated just how money is important. God do I understand now! And how multinationals carry as much, or more, influence than many govts round the world - including some of the democratically elected ones. Interesting article in The Independent about how carbon trading is now becoming a big thing. Developing countries are making a business out of it "you pay us to maintain the rainforests". Amazing. I hadn't thought of carbon trading in quite that way ... though had previously been impressed with the whole idea anyway.

It's largely the developing countries that have all these important rainforests in them. They are, as is often said, the lungs of the planet. How to develop the developing? Pay them to keep the planet going. Amazing.

And hands up who is yet to make a link between the Iraq war and global warming? OK so it goes like this. It's a given that the war happened because of oil. It's not a cliche, it's not cynicism, but as Julia said in the comments on my last post ... how can we just happily ignore these huge must-be-truths and keep Bush and Blair in office?

back to that link. If we moved away from oil and fossil based fuels as the main source of energy in the west, suddenly our governments would care less about skermishes and wars and dictators dictating in the Middle East. We care about the gulf because there's loads of oil there. Should anything happen to cut the flow of oil, westen economies would be undermined. And if western governments got hold of the oil sources, then their economies would be able to boom due to lower priced fuel.

If we put money into renewable energies and alternative energy sources, Iraq (for instance) wouldn't matter to Bush or Blair. Or, rather, wouldn't be on their radar in quite the way they are now.

So, renewable energies = less war? = less imperialist forcefulness? = less islamophobia? = a slowing down of the greenhouse effect? = a cure for continued global warming?

In short ... windmills = world peace.

Scary news about the slowing down of the Gulf Stream thanks to melted ice caps thanks to global warming (today's news). Global warming could ironically mean Britain gets colder.

• FYI, The Independent is a national newspaper in the UK, very intelligent and with liberal leanings.

(apologies if this all just sounds like badly thought out blurb, I'm slamming all this down quickly. Remember ... I set this blog up to teach myself how to write again ... years of sub-editing and being forced to think hard about what I write has done my writers gene in, this is therapy)