Much like the bloke in the shed from The Fast Show, this week I have been mostly making a light tent. Well that’s not exactly true. Mostly I’ve been doing other things, but about one hour of my time has been dedicated to this little project which is meant to transform a free box into a £400 photographer’s light tent. I’ve not had time to test it yet, and I’m still missing a couple of critical parts (a high range bulb and a sheet of bristol board) but aside from those, it’s looking dapper.

Last weekend Will’s brother was back from France in time for his birthday (due to an skiing injury) and so we ended up in the bridge. George brought along some home-brew cider (always good) and Gwyz made a long awaited appearance and told us he’s going to become a solicitor.

I’ve also been back at the alma mater. Their annual careers convention took me back once again, and once again I made the most of the free buffet and time to catch up with some folk I’ve not seen in a while. For various other reasons I’ve been back over there probably four times in two weeks, which is more than I have for a couple of years.

I’m digging some newly-found music at the moment. Goldfrapp’s A&E wasn’t an immediate hit for me, but has grown (this is the second track with the same title that’s recently caught my attention… for the other, see Patrick Wolf’s fantastic album, The Magic Position). Also I’m very much liking The Cat Empire, who I’ve not come across before but as a fan of Fat Freddy and the Easy Star All Stars, I was assured I’d like their self-titled album (even if it is a few years old) and I did.

I’ve got tickets to see Rich Hall in a few weeks time, and hoping to sort out a couple of other stand up acts who I’ve been wanting to see for a while. My brain is going overtime on organising the bigger aspects of my life at the moment, and it’s exciting, just for want of some actual progress.

Gran’s finally reached the point where she’s had to go into a residential home, although she doesn’t really understand it. After a fall that put her in hospital a few weeks back, she’d pack up her belongings every day and sit and wait by the ward reception for Dad to arrive at visiting time, much to the amusement of the nurses who couldn’t persuade that she had to stay for a few more days. When he finally arrived, she’d offer him a drink and sandwiches from the bar, which was probably the most confusing part for all of them, as there isn’t one. Although she can think all right in the immediacy, it’s just context and remembering what’s happened that baffles her. I’ve always thought it but the closer to 95 she gets, the more she cuts the shape and temperament of the grandmother figure from the old Giles cartoons.

Tomorrow I buy some bristol board and a lightbulb.

This week I did a mass purge of content. I rarely touch my CD collection these days, but I decided to do a mass clean out and managed to rediscover a fistful of Now That’s What I Call Music discs and one Pepsi Chart CD. Yes I know, but I was young and naive, and it was right at the end of the last millennium (and that was ages ago).

I decided to hook them up and see whether in all this time I had missed any classics tchunes; the sort of thing that remind you of the summer days out on the grass, or drinks at the weekends with your mates, but a few years before you’re meant to be able to buy them.

We’ll I was in luck. While most of the double discs contained a mediocre paste of pap, I’ve discovered that even pap can disguise a few little memorable gems and hastily ripped these forgotten beauties into iTunes. Tracks include Heart of Asia, Toca’s Miracle, On The Beach, Fields of Love, Blood is Pumpin’ and a couple of other ones. They’ll never be considered greats, but while the sun has been out and things have been looking up, I’ve been lapping it up and enjoying my very own early 00’s revival.

Also victim to the clearout, about £300 worth of old Computer Arts magazines, some going back to 2001. It’s sad to see them all go, it’s sort of how I learnt my trade (if only I could have claimed them as expenses in those days) but there comes a point where they become a health and safety hazard due to their combined weight, so I made the decision to get rid of the lot, including about 60 trial CDs all containing trial versions of Dreamweaver 4 and tutorials on how to make a wicked website using frames.

I’m making my way through yet another Heinrich Harrer book, and soon will have a review for it I’m sure. It’s much thicker than the previous volumes, but it does cover a lot more and fills in some of the gaps. I’m keen to finish it.

This week I’ve got a slew of projects to kick start and I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be a little manic, but I like it like that anyway.

What with Skins back on, the weather improving, some good comedy coming up, my swim routine getting back into shape and the hunt for more space all on track, I’m really enjoying watching the last few days of winter slip away.

It’s very odd for me to be championing something that appears on the ITV schedules as in recent years I’ve found very little worth watching on the network. However, there appears to have been a coup de grace in the form of a new comedy improv show which is apparently an Australian import.

I spotted about 10 seconds of the show last weekend while getting ready for to go out, and mainly attracted by the presence of Paul Merton doing something different, I took the time to setup ITVs ridiculously complicated Catch Up system on Windows (Mac not supported) and watched all the back catalogue of episodes still on offer from this first series (I think I’ve only missed the first one).

The programme is called Thank God You’re Here and seems to me like a slightly more accessible and up-to-date successor to Who’s Line Is It Anyway?

Like I mentioned before, Merton was the big draw for me, and it’s really good to see him back in an impro role, even if it isn’t his performance that makes this show good. In fact, if you like to watch for new comedy talent, it supplies a really good selection (Michael Macintyre, Marcus Brigstocke, Rufus Hound, Lee Mack etc etc), although there have been one or two guests whose inclusion seemed a little strange (Corrie actors), but then again that’s probably just because I can’t help comparing it to the WLIIA? format.

So that’s my current recommendation if you want some good quality improvised TV comedy.

This was another Multipack Saturday and there was a good collection of familiar faces at the meet on the balcony of the Old Joint Stock. Good news from One Black Bear who have just won a very important contract and Paul’s stories from MacWorld gave some insight into the new Macbook Air.

Aside from the local geekery, I spent three days with Rattle this week working on a couple of projects and took some time to visit Chris whilst I was up there. I know some of my friends think it’s odd to insist on visiting people everytime you go anywhere out of your usual territory, but I can’t help it - surely it’s better to stay in touch anyway?

Rugby-wise, I’ve only seen the England games due to some poor scheduling, but can’t say I’m feeling particularly pleased with our current form. I mean, we’ve done the same thing two weeks running (luckily this time it didn’t have such strong repercussions) but how do we let our game play fall apart so easily in the space of 25 minutes? At least it looks like we’re consistent.

Finally, and probably most surprisingly from the past week, I noticed quite plainly that in the new series of Lost, Bromsgrove (yes, like the local Bromsgrove) gets a mention. There’s clearly nothing more mysterious than Bromsgrove.

There has been plenty going on with me in the past few days. What with the completion and delivery of a piece important print work this week (with a Sunday to-press deadline) it wasn’t much of a weekend.

I’ve finally encountered the swathe of completions and launches for projects that have been ongoing (there are one or two anomalies that are yet to be mopped up, but on the whole things are wrapping up nicely).

Monday was no let up, heading to London for a meeting in South Kensington and an introduction to yet another exciting project. After all the formalities of work, I managed to track down probably my longest-term associate and friend (it’s hard to know someone longer than a person who you first encountered on the day you were both born - a day neither of us can truthfully say we remember) and we went for a couple of drinks to catch up on two years of life. Andy (we share the same name too) is an accomplished jazz musician, while I am a web type, but we’ve both ended up following the self-employed path. The number of coincidences between us including others probably are matched by an equal number of unrelated events, but I find it amusing how around 15 years ago (after a period of time when our two families had lost touch with each other), I was helping Dad cut down a hedge in the back garden of our new house, and we were all a little more than surprised to find that we’d moved in next door to each other. Despite all the odd gaps, the geographical differences and the rest, we always seem to manage to start conversations where we left off. It’s the only time I ever wonder whether your date of birth actually does have any possible influence on the way things pan out, and I’m certainly not one for believing those types of things.

Also today, quite surprisingly I came to learn that Dan had managed to inadvertently stumble across the co-founder of Tangerine design agency while organising some rental transport for him. Dan recognised the name of the complex where his customer worked, and mentioned he had previously collaborated with a design agency in the same estate. It turns out Dan’s customer was now working for the very same company, but had previously been attached to a rather more well known ID outfit.

Dan didn’t recognise the name of the agency ‘Tangerine’ (I could have told him who they were straight away), but the customer soon enlightened him that he had co-founded it few years ago with a bloke called Jonathan Ive. Had I been in the car I think I’d have a few more question. This opportunity was probably as close as you could get to achieving any kind of insight into the notoriously elusive designer’s method. Either way, I still find it highly amusing that Dan managed to get into a conversation with his ex-business and design partner, especially whilst doing something completely unrelated to design.

Once again that day of the year comes around when I gather up all the bits and pieces from one of my previous travels, order it, catalogue it, mount it then file it in a binder. This is the closest I come to obsessive compulsive, but for the past five years it has been a bit of a ritual, and I notice from year to year the date I tackle this job gets further and further away from when I took the trip. This, of course, is not ideal. You start to forget things. But it also makes the process more enjoyable as you stumble back across all those little things that had completely slipped your mind.

The main bulk of each of these folders I compile is made up of thick wadge of photographs. Usually it can take one to three days to mount them all up, depending on the size of the haul, which gets larger every year. Thankfully, after my US trip in 2005, I managed to cut down the number of photos I actually got printed afterwards (no one apart from myself wants to shuffle their way through over a K of someone else’s holiday snaps) so I just got the salient ones done. Unfortunately I wasn’t so pragmatic about Tibet, Nepal and India, and there is a stack approximately two inches tall on my desk, yet to be tackled.

I would place the photos in slip-in albums, but the cost is prohibitive for what you get and you still have to put them in order. A maximum of 60-80 photos per album usually at between £15 to £25 a pop means that I’d be looking in the region of £250 to mount them up (let alone the cost of the photos), and that would span 10 thickly bound volumes. No, instead I mount them in plastic sleeves with self-adhesive photo corners, which of course also gives me room to insert things like tickets, leaflets, notes etc etc and can usually get it down to one heaving volume. It is a miracle of patience I’ve ever completed one, let alone five - and by the end of the day you are guaranteed a headache from the concentration. That’s why I only go proper-travelling once a year.

I’ve just completed Japan & Australia (2006), but have yet to tackle the latest batch and it’s quite daunting. Maybe I’ll leave that one another year…

Last weekend proved to be more work orientated than I’d normally like; not to say I didn’t enjoy it, just it wasn’t much of a break from the web.

On Saturday was the first Multipack of the new year and a good turn out. There were discussions of magnitude going on, and I think we made some important decisions. Either way, there has been a flurry of activity this week. Expect some announcements soon.

Sunday started badly at 4am when I finally drifted off to sleep. At 10am I was running a training event with some clients, which of course, was well planned except for the venue. In the end we found some big armchairs and sockets in The Talbot hotel and had four hours playing in HTML/CSS wonderland. It’s not the most riveting way to spend a Sunday, but at least it was painless. Unfortunately the odd schedule meant I didn’t manage to get over to the pool, which was probably the day’s biggest disappointment.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were full of the extraordinary. I’ve been pushing the limits of my knowledge of servers recently, and also trying to break the back of a body of work that has been mostly enjoyable yet time-consuming. Anyway, most of that is under control now and I’ve had a string of new projects float over the horizon, so I’m feeling good at the moment.

Midweek I ventured down to London for a meeting and afterwards met up with Swanny who I managed to prise out of his office at 7pm. After a couple of drinks in a place where it was too expensive to buy bar snacks, I left for home.

Finally the post-new year social activity is taking off again and I’ve come out of the haze that surrounded the beginning of 2008 to establish some firm plans about what I want to achieve in the next few months. I’m looking forward to the challenges. I can’t believe it, but I’ve just realised that what I’m talking about are really just New Year Resolutions. I thought I didn’t do New Year Resolutions. Looks like I’ve been deluding myself.

Oh, and the Macbook Air looks interesting…

It’s probably best to say Happy New Year at this point. Mine was spent in London, another cheap return ticket by train and plenty of amusement along the bank of the Thames.

Swan and myself started with a couple of beers in Seven Kings before heading into central london where we met with Devito and Ainhoa before finding somewhere to sit in a Wetherspoons somewhere behind the Tower of London. A bit of ameretto and a couple of hours later we took off again closer to the river, having a good little meander in and around walled gardens along the river and through the marinas before ending up outside the Lord Mayor’s office with Swan’s sisters and their respective boyfriends.

It was quickly decided to find some shelter (a bar) where we waited for the strike of midnight. We had stopped right outside HMS Befast, hoping to be able to glimpse the spectacular fireworks, but rather perceptively, we managed to avoid them completely. It didn’t seem to matter too much at the time though - we heard Big Ben, saw some flashes of light behind the City skyline and retreated back inside briefly to place one last order.

At this point Swan, Devito, Ainhoa and myself split away once more and took to scouring the backstreets for some final place to spend the early hours. Despite our best efforts to crash a party without tickets, we found places would let us in if we paid, so we did.

The rest of the evening was spent on a cultural exchange with a group of Swedish tourists. I now know that something that sounds like ‘schlips knutze’ is a tie with a knot, however I am struggling to find ways to work this into conversations. It took about four hours to get back to Swan’s and I didn’t get to sleep until 7.30am.

By the time I arrived at Marylebone at 3pm later on New Year’s Day to catch the train home I was feeling surprisingly awake, but after walking back from the station then fish and chips, I was out like a light.

A good start to the new year by my reckoning.