Couldn't resist a small Smashie and Nicie reference as the title of this post. Actually I don't do a lot of work for charity other than a couple of things in the past for Kingdom Kids and compering a few fashion shows for Breast Cancer Research. Recently when I've spoken of the 10Ks I've been asked if I'm looking for sponsors and I never am. I do these things for myself to prove that I can and to keep healthy.
The more astute will have guessed where this is going. I'm doing a Reindeer Run on 30th Nov '08 which is a 10K run around the campus at Stirling Uni where I studied. It's one of a bunch of races being organised by the RNLI to raise funds and while they've got money from me already as part of the entrance fee, I feel like I want to raise money this time.
I've spent a bit of time with the guys from Anstruther RNLI through being part of the annual lifeboat gala and I've come to understand the amazing job these volunteers undertake. I feel that we are most often being asked to donate to other charities and that the RNLI gets left out. I may be wrong in that but I've yet to be stopped by one of these agressive collectors in the street and asked for my bank details to support the lifeboats. I also can't remember, Blue Peter in the 80s not withstanding, when I last saw a TV appeal for them.
For these reasons I'm collecting for them and want to raise £500 by doing the run. There are lots of demands on cash but please help by donating through my Just Giving page. This allows donations by card and if you are a UK citizen remember to tick the Gift Aid box so that we get a donation from the government as well. With gift aid a donation of £10 becomes closer to £12. You can either click this link or the link on the right hand side of this page (Vox only) which shows my fundraising progress.
Thanks.
I've planned a lot of blog posts this year which have never made it online this year for one reason or another. For instance I haven't blogged about knackering my knee back in the spring which stopped my training. I haven't blogged about the plan to run 100K before Christmas (in anger/as a series of races) which was stopped by the knee.
Regardless, the knee seems to be better so I've started the training again. There are 2 races that I want to do; Strathcarron Hospice 10K and Stranraer 10K both of which I've run before. This'll be the 3rd year of running the Strathcarron race and I know the course well so it should be possible to be ready for that one. The Stranraer 10K is the race that I though was going to kill me last year thanks to a steep hill at the 3K mark. I'm determined the hill won't beat me!
It's funny how these things happen but I had worried about how I'd fit in these races around my Love Doctoring. I guess it's not a problem anymore.
Incidently it was a trip to Boots that focused my mind on getting fit enough to race again. They have a machine that measures stuff there and as a result I know that (when clothed) the following are my scary stats:
Height 5' 9" - 1.75m, Weight 15st 2lb - 96.3kg
BMI: 31.4 (Overweight), Body Fat (%) - 28.1 (somewhere between Average and Poor)
It's been a trying summer for many reasons and the icing on the cake came with the announcement during August that the Bauer Media FM stations in Scotland were to introduce networked programmes at certain times. The upshot as reported in the newspapers is job losses for some and I'm one of them. While I'm naturally upset at friends losing their main source of income I'm actually okay about my own position.
For those who haven't kept up with the story, I moved from Kingdom FM to Tay FM in Dundee back in November to host the Saturday Night Love Songs between 10pm and 2am. At the time I was dating someone who lived close by which helped make the 2am finish slightly better however the past four or five months where I've been driving back to Glasgow on a Saturday have been tough. During the summer months I was getting home at 4am and it was light. That doesn't make sleeping easy nor does it lend it self to a relaxing weekend.
Ironically the first part of networking started a few weeks back with live overnights from Clyde which start at 1am. It's amazing how getting home at 3am is so much better than 4am. The overnight is very well done too with local branding and an engaging presenter. There's been a lot of talk about whether a presenter in Glasgow can relate to listeners in Dundee, Edinburgh or Aberdeen. I personally think they can and certainly I've spent 7 years living outside of the are that I broadcast to without it being an issue.
So this weekend sees the last outing for the Love Doctor (I still can't believe people write letters addressed to the Love Doctor) before he's struck off. As I say I'm basically fine about it but I can't help but feel slightly cheated mainly because I'm out of radio at someone elses decision. I always believed that if you were good then there'd be a job for you. My ego won't let me believe that I'm rubbish (apart from those two rubbish show at the end of August).
So, if this is the end then it's been a laugh and I enjoyed being the guy off the radio. Don't ever under-estimate the icebreaking powers of having this job as a hobby. Somehow though, I suspect I'll be back sooner than later.
Much strangeness at Tay Towers on Saturday Night. During my show on Saturday night a movement on one of the security cameras caught my eye. As I looked closer I noticed a woman walking towards the bottom of the stairs to reception. At the weekend and at night they are chained off but this didnot seem to deter her as she chose to try to go under the chain. She appeared to fall up the stairs in the process of doing this but she picked herself up and carried on.
Having a bit of free time recently I decided I should download IE8 beta 2 and see whether it was an improvement on the current version. It's not. In fact it's very like Firefox 3 which I haven't really taken to either. However the thing that really worries me is that it breaks some of the sites that I work on professionally. Okay so there's an IE7 compatibility button but I'm not sure that the majority of the people that use the sites I work on will understand what that does.
Melanie questioned why I had to leave Glasgow for Dundee at 7pm on a Saturday night. The answer is that I don't but it's always seemed sensible just in case something happens on the way like an accident or a breakdown. In 9 months this has never happened but it's always good to be prepared.
As it happened I was ready to leave by quarter to seven which is the point I realised that my car keys weren't in the house. My keys were sitting in my bag which was sitting beside my desk in the office. It takes a good 40 mins to get to the office and back from the house.
Funnily enough when I left the office yesterday I left the bag as I was going to Edinburgh thinking that I'd pick it up on the way back. I nearly decided to leave the office keys as I didn't think I'd need them or the bag this weekend!
Thankfully keys and bag were retrieved and I was able to leave Glasgow just before 8. The drive only take an hour and 40 mins door to door but I now understand why I leave so early!
Wow, it's been a month since the last post and there's been a heck of a lot going on but not a lot that I can really blog about. There are a couple of topics that I won't normally post about and they've been the interesting ones of late. For those of you who haven't been bored by these subjects before, I don't post about the day job other than mentioning when I've been travelling and there is another subject in my personal life which I will one day discuss but at the moment I don't feel ready to. I've probably made that sound more interesting than it actually is!
What I can talk about is that I've become a plurker of late. If you haven't found plurk yet it's a micro-blogging type of site much like twitter. Having been a plurker for a few weeks now I can honestly state that it reminds me of instant messaging back when I used to use that more and would have 5 or 6 conversations on the go at any one time. It's good for posting a few lines about what you're up to at any given time but other than that I can't decide what the point of it is longer term. You get a karma score based on things like the amount you post and interact and that seems to help keep people posting more. If you decide to give it a try, do so via this link because it'll help my karma.
In other news, tomorrow I should be taking part in a 12 mile walk for Tay FMs Cash for Kids charity but I've had to pull out because of this knee problem that keeps rearing its head. Could be time for a trip to the doctors to get this sorted. To make up for pulling out I'm planning on doing something later in the year so get your wallets/purses ready. I'll be round looking for your cash.
I started watching West Wing from Series 1 again recently as I've mentioned before. After having a break from it for a few weeks while other tasks commanded my time, I returned to watching Series 3 where I discovered one of my favourite episodes; the one where Toby has a crush on a poet, and another episode that I feel sounds familiar.
The episode starts with President Bartlett being interviewed on the US Morning shows. After each interview he exchanges a few words with each interviewer. While 'live' there is a red light on the camera which becomes green when they are no longer recording. During one of the post interview exchanges the President makes a comment about his opponent that questions his intelligence. I apologise to those who don't want to hear the outcome of the episode but basically C.J. eventually confronts the President with the notion that he knew the red light was still on when he made the comment.
I feel this sounds familiar because this week a government minister walked into No 10 this week with a memo 'accidently' on display for the waiting reporters. Is it just me who thinks that this was planned as a way of leaking the news without making an official unpopular statement?
...and all he brought back was these lousy photos.
I had a bit of spare time while in London on business and as it was a nice day I decided to have a bit of a wander. Over the course of 20,000 steps I took a bunch of photos and the full set is on Flickr. However here are a few of my favourites.
1. There's quite a few buildings that are currently facades while they build a new body.
2. My first time across the Millenium Bridge and they first time I realised that St Pauls imposes the skyline as you look northwards. I love the juxtaposition of the ancient with the new.
3. The revelation that cheese never sleeps. This shop is just round the corner from London Bridge station and alongside the big market.
4. Drake's ship. The worlds first martitime museum and what strikes me about this is how small it is. I can't imagine travelling the world with a boatload of men in such a small space.
... are the ones that tend to get lost and the things you want to get lost are the ones that you can never seem to lose. Okay that's probably not the case but it sums up my discovery this week.
I've been following a blog/work of faction about a breakfast dj on a fictional radio station. The story ended recently and all bar the final two posts were removed at that time. Now I started reading half way through and was planning on reading from the start at one point and so was a bit sad that I wasn't going to get the chance. That was until I discovered that Google Reader saves all the posts from the blogs that you subscribe to. Cool for me, perhaps not so cool for the writer of the blog who is, I assume, trying to get a publishing deal just now.
It makes you realise that it's even more important to be careful about what you post online. A fellow blogger had, in the past, posted a few things that obviously reflected their anger about a situation and I'm sure it was a cathartic experience. It worried me though that it could, in the wrong hands, be used to cause trouble for the original poster. They've recently removed the posts but in light of my new discovery I'm questioning whether it's really possible to erase these things at all.
