I thought I’d managed to kick the habit getting too busy with stuff to not write for over a week, but it turns out I was wrong.

Last weekend was Multipack once more, and as well as the usual faces there were some new ones too - Sam finally made it down, but I’m unsure how much he had reckoned on debating the correct height of a building you need to throw a cat off (don’t worry - it was all theoretical - but the answer is 7 stories). Si bought along Flickr stash which naturally went down well, and Tim bought along Site Doctor stash too, so my bag was packed full off goodies by the time I got home.

En route I had an opportunity to also see Tim’s ridiculously large media system, complete with (and I think I get this right) a 96” screen. It is vast and completely stunning in full HD.

Aside from collecting things and watching home cinema, I spent most of the rest of the week filling out forms, in the bank and asking questions about insurance and accountancy. Not what I would consider truly gripping, but a necessity unfortunately.

On the flip side I got to have a few drinks earlier in the week, and a new book of Moo stickers arrived which can’t do anything but put you in a good mood. Not even a up-until-four-in-the-morning work stint for an emergency brief managed to really dampen my spirits, although I’m really hoping I get a chance to see some people I’ve not seen in a while soon. It occurred to me that my travels to London have not been so frequent of recent, so I want to correct this.

Mike got in the paper.

If you are looking for something to amuse yourself for a while today - check out this awesome site by Uni-Qlo. I generally don’t do these sorts of things, but this one is just so ridiculously catchy…

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Out of the blue I got a phone call from Will asking if I wanted to go go-karting yesterday and it didn’t take much convincing. I didn’t even realise we had a go-kart track in the Bridge, but apparently we do, and for the hour or so we spent there was much enjoyed. It’s not something I’ve tried before (not for not wanting) and found the whole experience much like paintball; great fun but one of those things you’ll only ever do every so often, so I was keen to make the most of it. I’d definitely do it again one of these days, though the unusual surge of adrenaline in the morning meant I had to drink coke all afternoon to stop myself from falling asleep.

In the evening I helped Dad assemble a vast collection of parts for his new compressor. It involved visits to Brierley Hill, Netherton and Wollaston before we finally got the whole apparatus together. While we were up near Quarry Bank we went over to one of the family graves which hadn’t been visited for by anyone for years. Despite being 99 years old this year, the memorial is still intact and good to see still standing. Only four or five of the nearby graves (out of many hundreds) are still tended and most have been vandalised, collapsed or fallen apart. It’s the first time I’d seen it and it’s a pretty impressive bit of stonework, put together for my great-great grandfather (Edward) in 1909, then used for his wife (Emma) and their son (Richard, my Gran’s dad who died four days after she was born, yet whom she still eulogises for).

I love this sort of stuff - not the macabre aspect of the graveyards, but seeing things that are genuinely important to your family history. There was something striking about this, probably the biggest memorial in the whole cemetery, in the highest plot, but now so wrapped up in brambles you cannot get to it without climbing through trees and round collapsed stonework. It’s completely lost to most people, but thankfully remains intact apart from some minor ageing. The other thing that intrigues me about this stuff is that I simply would not have existed without the people who lie in that grave, buried almost a century ago; people not even my 95 year old Grandmother ever really knew. And yet there it stands still.

I finally completed all the paperwork I needed to, created some interesting vector work and took a trip up to Sheffield to organise a new project this week. Despite this, it doesn’t quite feel like Easter yet - it seems to early - and I think next weekend is likely to be more relaxing than this one (says the man who’s organised a photography trip to mid-Wales).

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Last weekend was the largest Multipack meetup that we’ve had for a good while. As well as a good turn out of regular faces, there were also a large assortment of new ones, and despite some awkward seating arrangements and the lack of rugby being shown (the projector was broken) it was a very good afternoon.

Talking of rugby, I can only be pleased at the final England game in the Six Nations, however the disappointment at our general/earlier performance doesn’t inspire confidence. I’m prepared to be a bit more optimistic, but really, how did we manage to go and lose the Calcutta cup? Come to think of it, I’m glad the projector was broken.

I’ve got a mountain of forms to be filled out this week. With what can only be described as a marathon event of bureaucratic gymnastics ahead of me, changing one or two details with Companies House is clearly not as simple as I had hoped.

A client invited me to a business seminar earlier this week, and so I asked Will if he wanted to come along. We had to get over to Villa Park, but it was a good evening, and it provoked some in depth discussions about the types of work we are both involved in. I’m not one for schemes and things, but the psychology and profiling techniques were fascinating and I definitely was able to gain some perspective on my own situation right now.

I’ve made a couple of gem-like discoveries this week on the software front. BluePhone Elite has solved my problem of writing text messages quickly while working. I believe it can also allow me to take calls through the iMac too, but I’ve yet to figure out how to do that. It does pop up and tell me who is calling though. If there is one thing about phone communication that inspires a rage in me, it’s txting, especially when speaking is a more effective method of communication. Admittedly, there are times when a text works - a time, a number, a two word confirmation, but my inclination to create an essay or use long words make predictive text and tiny keys only confirm that these are the tools of Beelzebub. I bet he uses text messaging for every piece of communication.

The second piece of software that has solved a problem that until now I couldn’t explain fixes a niggling problem with my Macbook. I didn’t realise, but the having to wait up to thirty seconds for my laptop to go to sleep isn’t a consequence of age - it turns out that it has to save all the memory to disc at the moment. As a matter of course I put in the full amount of memory possible into all my computers, and didn’t realise this is why the process has become agonisingly slow of recent - it’s moving 2GB to hard disc every time I close the lid.

Well as a person who’s laptop spends more time on his desk than on the road, this is something I’m prepared to cut out, and with the SmartSleep preference pane the Mac now (once again) sleeps the instant I close the lid. Of course, on the move it’s more important to use the hibernate feature, so when the battery power drops below 20% it automatically turns it back on for safety reasons, but it’s bliss once again being able to flip the thing closed and put it directly into the carry case without having to wait for it to brace itself for some kind of nuclear disaster.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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