Horrible morning trying to negotiate a banjaxed rail system today. I still don't know what happened, although cryptic comments from Southern Train employees lead me to believe that it was a Code 58 - Driver attacked by wolves. 

 

Still, discovered I had a few Fishbone albums on my Ipod. I'd forgotten how good they were. You should defnitely check them out. So that, coupled with having two books doing the rounds with publishers and agents and the fact that Walrus-faced git Allardyce got stuffed by the Arsenal Kindergarten Reserve 11 has left me in a top mood.  

...aka pull my finger out.

 

Disturbing signs are emerging that the online industry is spiralling back in a pit of madness as the money baths of CEO and venture capitalists begin to overflow causing billions of dollars to pour down the drain.

 

I'm getting head-hunted at least twice a week at the moment for both start ups and existing businesses. The salaries are typically double what I'm getting at the moment with the promise of stock that *may* be worth something one day. Am I interested? Last week it was VP of Content covering 10 European countries on a six figure basic salary. Trade-offs? Never seeing my family and potential to become rapdily unemployed with a ton of outstanding expenses owing. No thank you.

 

Is Facebook worth $10billion? Should everything you see and read have a 'social networking' or UGC component. This last bit irks me. My first online job was launching and managing a bunch of very well known websites (including www.empireonline.com and www.fhm.com) - we had message boards, user submitted content, chats and a load of other stuff, like all good websites in fact. Web 2.0 can suck my nuts, this has all be done before, only with lighter page loads and budgets that didn't fall on the wrong side of insanity. This  was 12 years ago.

 

Still hunting for an agent. Although in order to find one, I actually have to go about contacting one. So this begins (finally) this week. I also have a novel at the pitch stage with a publisher on a work-for-hire basis. This is great as, if it's picked up, I'm still free to sign-up with someone else.

 

Meantime I've been a very good boy and put off buying Halo 3 in order to concentrate on my writing. It had better be worth it...

I'm back in the real world after spending the last couple of days on a Bushcraft course in the wilds of East Sussex. It was an amazing experience learning to build shelters, tie tarps and get a fire going with the most basic kit (including bow drills). The aim for me was to become less dependent on hiking kit and, as an intro to this, the course worked out incredibly well.

 

The instructors were amazing. Three of the four were under 30, two have PHDs and all have chosen to spend their lives living and working in the outdoors. I really envy them. The fourth, Bob, spent decades leading safaris in Kenya and looks like someone who would feel claustrophobic any time he went indoors.

 

There were 20 of us in total, from a broad range of backgrounds: a father and son, an ex-miner turned radiographer, a movie marketing manager and a caterer who flew all the way for Dublin to spend a weekend lighting tinder and sleeping under leaves. I recommend these courses to anyone with even a passing interest in the outdoors. It really does make you feel more in tune with the world around you.

 

Arriving home I came back into a storm of bad news. First, a close friend of one of my sisters was killed while they were on holiday together - run down along with a friend after a party. She was just 21. For my sister, this has been her very first experience of losing someone she was close to. I think it'll take her some time to get over.

 

For me the news wasn't so bad. I've only had one truly horrific moment in life that has remained with me, and that was when my second daughter was born. She arrived after a quick labor and was immediately shoved under a heat lamp (which is standard procedure these days). After a couple of minutes of being worked on by the midwife and paediatrician there was still no noise from her. I could just about hear what was being said:

 

 

 

I remember the midwife looking over at me. I mouthed the words "is she OK", only to realise it wasn't me she was looking at, it was the clock behind me. Four minutes had passed since they'd started work, and still no noise other than the hideous whine of the suction pump.

 

My wife asked me if the baby was alright. I remember saying "They're working on clearing her airway" and squeezing her hand. All the while I could feel my throat tightening and wonder if I would have to tell her that our baby had died.

 

Less than two minutes later I heard the first cries from Alex. My legs went weak, but I knew deep down that everything was going to be fine. It still hurts to think about those six short minutes.

 

This time it was my first daughter. On she was cycling to the park with my wife (who was walking) when she lost control of her bike. It lurched off the pavement and straight into the middle of a busy road.

 

The driver of the bus, hands clamped to the wheel, just managed to swerve and avoid her.

 

Even my daughter, who is only five, realised how close she came to being hit. That night she couldn't sleep and, on getting home on Sunday, she hugged me and wouldn't let go.

 

Despite not being there, or perhaps in spite of it, that near miss has left me feeling the same way I did when we almost lost Alex. I can take the death of an adult, that's something that doesn't cause me pain. But to lose a child is a tragedy beyond measure. I've come close and even that is going to take me some time to get over.

As an ex-apprentice baker (amongst other incomplete skill sets), I still fancy myself as a bit of a whizz when it comes to knocking up the odd loaf or too. My favourite bread, by a country mile, is sour dough. It's also a pain in the arse to make as it requires a starter (or sponge) rather than yeast. This is, essentially, a home grown colony of yeasty micro-organsisms that is essential to making a proper sour dough.

 

I've started making my own by combing a bunch of flour and water and leaving it in a container on the window ledge. Every 24 hours I'll chuck half away and replace it with fresh flour and water. After a few days this should turn into a bubbling miasma of lovely little micro-organisms busily fermenting away just waiting for me to harvest several billion of them to produce the perfect loaf, or a Turkish Ekmet or similar. The missus isn't too sure about by attempt to introduce these colonies to a piece of her tupperware, but what the hell, I like bread.

 

I haven't told her yet that, once the thing is packed to the lid with life, you only ever use half. The rest gets kept in a fridge and fed on a weekly basis so there's a constant supply of sponge...

 

I'm on a wilderness course this weekend learning how to start fires by banging rocks together and building shelters out of trees. Should be fun, although my physio reckons I shouldn't be going near anything like that for at least a few more weeks. Pah! I can always whittle myself a new stump out of birch or something.

 

I'm now the proud owner of a new Golite Pinnacle - a 75ltr rucksack that weighs in at just over 700gs. It's a truly fantastic bit of kit. Great load carrying, extremely comfortable and isn't a mass of straps and clips like my Z55. Best of all, it can be compressed down to around a third of its size of use as a day or overnight pack. I'm usually very suspicious of features like that, but in this case it works perfectly. For me, this is the best of all worlds. Especially as the full capacity should allow my to pack enough gear (i.e. nosh) to go for over a week unsupported. Highly recommended - especially as my base weight (pack, 3-4 season bag, sleeping pad and tent) now comes in at bang-on 4kgs.

 

The submission deadling for the novel I'm working on is just around the corner. I've finished the outlining, characterisation and (most) of the synopsis. I need to have this bugger out the door by the 13th and, although I'm pleased with the amount of work, I'm not entirely happy with the story. I think this is due in part to having to produce a full outline. I never work that way. I start with a concept, my characters and rough idea of where I want them to end up, then the story takes care of itself. Writing with the shackles of predetermination is a painful experience. Still, nothing ventured etc. It's going to get a final polish then go out the door. I should know quite quickly whether or not I'll get the commission for the full novel.