On Online Casinos and Gandalf

Now you know me; I'm not one to whinge, but it's never too late to start, so here goes.

I've just come out of a seven-week stint on the unemployed list and I'm getting my feet back uder the table at smartlivecasino.com, a web site which offers the gambling public a chance to play against gravity and not a flow of electrons.

See, SmartLiveCasino uses a real roulette wheel which fires constantly, 24/7, so that people at the end of the phone or via their PC can wager real cash on where the little ball lands. This to me is much more honest than Flash games, where I've never been truly happy with random number generation, which is at the bottom of all such programs.

So I'm the SEO here, and it's my job to get people coming to the website in greater numbers. So far I seem to be having some success.

Now however, I find myself constantly fielding job enquiries, despite having signed off all the job sites weeks ago. It really makes me wonder if, all the time I was sitting down getting cheesed off with joblessness and impending poverty, the job sites were even working!

Still, this is no "beggars can't be choosers" situation. Smart Live is a really nice place to work, with a really nice bunch of people: much better than unemployment. And it's just around the corner from my favourite restaurant.

• Seen on the South Bank path: Sir Ian McKellen.

On Revamps and Siobhan Redmond

Time Out London's website has a new look today.

This was meant to be a facelift, but it became much more than that. In fact, this is a mini relaunch, bringing a much-needed new image to the site. It's also chock-full of the latest thinking and gizmos.

As of now there are still 117 outstanding "Bug-Fix" tickets; that's not to say the site is riddled with bugs. Many of these are features which we want to add but simply didn't have the time to do so. They'll all come in time.

This makeover is simply the first step in a whole series of changes coming to Time Out London Online. And it's my job to make sure they all happen. Wish me luck.

• Seen on Tottenham Court Road: Siobhan Redmond (The Bill: CSE Lorna Hart, EastEnders: Maeve Brown, etc.).

On Shozza and Westwood

Attended Shostakovich's 7th Symphony at the recently-refurbished Royal Festival Hall last night: the first of three Shozza symphonies in less than three months.

This was the music of my student angst: the soundtrack of my miserable loneliness. Where other kids of my age were getting angry to spitting punk solos and new wave neuroticism, I was wallowing in a piece of music written in a starving city under siege of the might of the German war machine. There's real pain for you, not: "Oh I'm so hard done by. I've got pimples and bad breath and all the girls hate me and my B.O.; and, yeah, the government are fascist pigs, right!"

The Leningrad Symphony ranks among those pieces of music written under tangible hardships, like Beethoven's Ninth and that stuff written by Mahler when his kids dropped dead, or (dare I say it) Sting's I'll be Watching You: a song about the agony of separation, guilt and adultery.

Do I remember somewhere a piece of research saying that listening to sad music makes you happier? If so, I think it probably worked for me all those years ago, and it still does today.

Yes, I was tearing up last night. Was it long-forgotten memories of a tatty student bedsit in the middle of a damp winter? Or was it the more recently-researched stories of the inhumanity of Hitler's attack on Russia, and Stalin's hateful crimes against his own country and its people, including Shozza himself.

I can say one thing, however, I think I now know why people start coughing at concerts. All that snivelling last night sent tears through my Eustachian tubes and down my throat, causing the desperate urge to hack one out (which I resisted manfully).

Next up is Shozza's 4th: my favourite Shostakovich symphony and perhaps his greatest.

Seen at the entrance to the RFH: Vivienne Westwood (iconic fashion designer).

Blah! Blah! Blah!

So, another post. This is getting infrequent.

The latest project is JamesGeary.com, a mini site for the editor of TIMEeurope to publicise his latest tome. There's also a blog (courtesy of Blogger) where people can contribute their own favourite aphorisms (no, I didn't know what they were either).

And then there's the AACL website (theAACL.co.uk), which finally went live yesterday.

Busy, busy, busy. Probably explains why I don't have time to do a blog.

No, actually, the reason for that is a mixture of apathy, absent-mindedness and a lack of anything important to say.

The problem is that, with hindsight, the important things take care of themselves; it's the mundane that gets forgotten ...

Stuff

I suppose it's time to post something new. If not, who knows, Blogger may delete this site. I *really* must do something with this: my vanity is not sufficient to post on a regular basis. Who's interetsed in little old me?

Go figure!

I was driving home from Camden Market yesterday and I went uder a railway bridge. On the bridge was sprayed "STOP GLOBAL WARMING". Interesting. Apart from the fact that I question the term "Global Warming" and its implicit meaning that we're all going to hell on a handcart because we drive and eat and screw, I was surpised by the intelligence that thought vandalising public property was justified; especially becayse spray paint uses butane -- a gas which has ten times the "greenhouse effect" of carbon dioxide. What a blow for sanity.

Sunday, Sunday

Here we are on a Sunday evening; magazine done for the week and dinner nicely digesting.

It's been a hectic weekend, from rushing around on Friday, talking, schmoozing, eating, delivering and finally giving blood. Yes, I finally managed to spill the red stuff in Bexleyheath. No fuss. No waiting.

On Saturday, we had a family day out to buy padded envelopes, monster Lego, schoolbags and groceries; together with a chicken dinner for four.

So, that's that then. A week to go before Easter and PJ's birthday; her 35th, again.

Speak soon.

Another day ...

... another entry. Well, this is meant to be habit forming.

Of course there are lots of things happening at the momenet. Problem is, it won't appear here for one or several reasons. 1) It is too boring to be of note. 2) It is too embarrassing to be recorded. 3) It is commercially sensitive and not for public consumption. 4) er ... 5). not saying!

If anythng happens that I can talk about, believe me, you'll be the first to know.

Bloody Hell

Tried to give blood again yesterday: I really did. Went back twice to flay open a vein in the cause of helping my fellow man. I say tried because I fell foul of beurocracy and bad management. After waiting for more than an hour at a "non-appointment" session, I got fed up with people walking past me because they had appontments.

Plus the fact that time was running out.

This must be the fifth time I've tried to give blood in the past 18 months, and for whatever reason it's come to naught. It seems someone up there wants me to keep my eight pints. When I've calmed down I may try again.

Another New Year's Resolution

I will start using this. Promise.

The Sun Also Shines

The British summer continues to confound. It is September 7 and the sun shines brightly on the earth below. In southern Russia, the people of Beslan try to come to terms with the death of 350 women and children in the cause of freedom and liberty; difficult one that. Killing children is certainly one of the grey areas, I find.

Meanwhile, more mundanely, web sites are being persued. I think I'll stop now.

Feeling the Heat

As prophesied, the heat is back; with cooling at the edges.

I've begun to write again with two columns for the web site: one on spyware, the other on Friends Reunited. A third column on internet extremists is a much thornier prospect. More toes to tread on.

Sitting here at the webdesk, I'm feeling the draught. It's the air conditioning which, like air conditioning the world over, never quite gets it right. Bet Paula Radcliffe had wished her core temperature was as low as mine is now.

The heat is back in the world too: 100 children held hostage in Russia; suicide bomings in Moscow and Israel. Not a cheery prospect.

The End of Summer?

That's it. The last bank holiday before Christmas. The end of summer. So the weather is about to improve.

That's the way it goes. Always. Could my sentences be any shorter? Yes.

The kids go back to school within days and the routine can recommence. This time, however, the routine will be one of getting my sh*t together; financially and career-wise. Emotionally and personally, I think I'm sorted: it was my 18th wedding anniversary yesterday. I'm still getting over the hangover.

The push now is for sceneonthe.net; the chance for me to let loose my skills on the wider world. This could be really good: an opportunity to ensure that there is some money left at the end of the month. And it occurs to me that I really like seeing my stuff out there. So aside from the work for the magazine and the website here (hereinafter known as "the day job"), look out for much more stuff aside from Vinylonthe.net and Kit Krazy.

The latest hope is an adult toy shop called Sinsations: I'm looking forward to doing a sex shop in a tasteful way. Further to this is obSceneonthe.net looks like a lucrative sideline: a web-development business aimed at the more "specialised" client.

Watch this space.

Let's Start Over

Blogging is a bloody good idea. Honest. if you can be arsed to do it. Once upon a time I used to keep a regular diary; on paper; in a book; for several years. It doesn't exist any more. It used to be the place where I could lay bare my soul and exorcise my raw libido. I was a teenager; and a randy one to boot.

But I destroyed it. I destroyed it because it was just plain embarrassing; cringeworthy. And towards the end there were huge gaps when I just couldn't be bothered to write anything. And then there would be hurried catch-up pages trying to skim over the very exciting news of my life.

That's what you're seeing here. It's literally years since I wrote anything in this blog. These days of course I'm not a randy teenager, just a randy grown-up. And life is not uninteresting: after all, I'm a prominent part of a world news organisation. But I forget about this; and there's so much going on at times that I never get around to it. But I'll be trying harder from now on. Honest.

Now normally, I'm a cheerful optimistic chap. Today? I feel glum and down at heel. It's the first day I've really felt autumn moving in. The light levels are not what they were, the leaves are turning, the weather is colder. Add to that, anxiety over an annual rent review and a hangover from bad wine last night, as well as simply feeling more tired than I have for some time, and you could call this a depression.

New sites on the web horizon are also on my mind. So much to do so little time.

Went to buy some great new succulents on my day off. Did a search on the web to find local cactii nurseries at www.bcss.org.uk/nursery.html and came up with toobees exotics in Woking, Surrey (or thereabouts). It took some time to drive from South-East London to leafy Surrey (roadworks, traffic, etc.) and when we arrived it was to find the place shut for winter!!!!!!! We phoned the number and spoke to a very nice lady who said she'd be along in 10 minutes to open up. And she was.

Anyway, the long and short of it is half a dozen new specimens, total cost £30. Now the problem is to find somewhere to put them. Hopefully, Toobees will ammend their website to say: "closed for the winter".

Okay, let's get more used to updating this more often than once a month. In my defence I can claim that work is taking up a fair slice of my time. Most recently, there was the TIMEdigital special, featuring TIME magazine's choice of the 25 top tech people in europe. Then there was the German election specials, two of them, one a week before and one a week after, featuring the spat between Bush and Schroeder over Iraq.

Before that, there was TIME's Biennial Fashion issue which was MUCH better than the previous attempt. How I now long for the days of Summer, after the Summer of Culture extravaganza, when it seemed like there was nothing to do. So the motto is now "Sieze the Day" (that's Vivat Lux, or Caveat Emptor, or Nil Illigitimum Carborundum, or something, in Latin). Enjoy the rest while you can, and don't feel guilty about slack time, it won't last.

Isn't that a lesson for life anyway ... it won't last, so enjoy it while you can. And that goes for the busy times too.

The nights are drawing in, the weather may even be getting colder. Winter draws on. Never mind, it will soon be Christmas ..

It's hard to get used to spilling your guts on the web ... hence my lack of entries this week. Experience tells me that, while life seems mundane in the extraordinary at the moment, in just a few short weeks it will all seem so fascinating. That is why I must get better at blogging.

I've just finished work on publishing the TIMEeurope.com contribution to TIME's 9/11 Memorial special. As always these things take a little long than expected, roughly 400% longer, even just to put up a series of copied links. Oh, and of course there were the six dozen tweaks to the site templates, which I've been meaning to do for ages and never get round to it.

It should be a quiet week in the office, certainly for the first couple of days. Andrew is taking some time off and since this was the low-stress 9/11 issue it seemed like a good time. Looming is the Fall/Autumn Fashion Special: here's to topping the last effort and winning some plaudits from my colleagues!

This is also a week for the kiddies to wend their way back to school, leaving me and their mum -- the Gorgeous Beastie -- with more time to be a couple again: isn't compusory education a wonderful thing?

The best part of Saturday is behind me: several hours spent in bed with the gorgeous beastie and several hours puzzling over the illogic of asp for beginners.

It's a beautiful summer's day outside, but like most people I daren't go outside to enjoy it lest I get, sunburned, mowed-down by traffic, stung by insects or tradesmen, etc.

There's an odd feeling of anxiety about, part of it the inescapable feeling that I'm back to work soon. Admittedly, this Bank Holiday Monday I shall be taking off; the first this year. But my brain is now in working holiday mode. Still I must drag myself away from this machine. Bye ... for now.

It's nine minutes past midnight and I'm feeling comfortably numb on the contents of at least one bottle of wine. Okay. so it's a vice; but one of the few I can afford.

Ive spent most of the day committing the best part of 4Gb of peer-shared mp3s to CD-ROM, freeing up precious hard-drive: of such things are holidays-at-short-notice made.

Firstly, the answers to yesterday's quiz. They were a) Three nuns and canoe, b) Only when the day has a "Y" in it, and c) Jeffery Archer, although "A useless piece of scum" would also have been acceptable.

These are "fluid" times in the land of Max Brockbank and his freaky family. It's still the summer holidays as far as the kiddies are concerned, but the flexibility of my work means that it's actually hard to get into the vibe. The British summer of 2002 isn't doing much to help; one minute it's hot and sticky, the next it's hot and wet, or is it cold and grey? Add that to wrestless kids and tight finances for the time of year and you have a recipe for stress and tension.

Worklife is also tense. There's a feeling of demob fever in the air as the current editors of TIME Europe prepare for the big handover, and with the 9/11 anniverary approaching no-one is very settled. Add to that the troubles of our parent company on the US stock markets and the numbers of people taking the chance of a holiday and you have an uncomfortable atmosphere.

Personally speaking, uncertainty is definitely the worst.