This competition just gets tougher!

I've created a monster. To be more accurate daytime-cookery-competition-TV has created a monster.
Not a mealtime goes by in the Shaw household now without my four-year old daughter proclaiming "the carrots are delicious, and the taste comes through from the pine nuts. But the tomatoes are yuck."
Fortunately for me, whether we have lamb and sweet potato tagine with roasted vegetable cous cous or fishfingers and oven chips, her act always ends with "Today's winner is..." dramatic pause, camera switches from one sweating contestant to the next "...Neil".
I'm presuming she uses my first name to avoid any accusation of the judge favouring Daddy.
Honestly, she doesn't watch that much TV, but clearly just enough to turn her into a combination of John Torode and Jilly Goolden.
There are upsides as well, she is fascinated by cookery. The routine actually starts before the meal hits the table.
While I stand in the kitchen slaving away over a hot stove, she grabs a stool and works along beside me.
I wouldn't say she's quite Great British Menu material yet, at least I can't see Raymond Blanc tucking into a plastic cup half filled with water, mixed with milk, potato peelings, rice and £3.50-worth of organic dried wild basil. But she gets the idea. And I think she's planning the first episode of Come Dine With Me to feature five toddlers.
The foreign students we play host to over the summer have also been impressed - which isn't a good thing for the state of British cuisine.
Over the past two years we've had students staying with us from France, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy and Spain and all of them notice a range of cultural differences between our country and theirs.
But what they all notice in common is how little cooking people in Britain do, and how little time they spend together as a family eating.
Every one of them has been stunned by the amount of space given over in British supermarkets to ready meals and processed food.
And every one of them has been shocked by tales from their friends, staying in other houses, of meal after meal in front of the TV eating frozen pizza or beans on toast.
I usually reply with something about Britain having the longest working hours in Europe, but the reality is we seem to have lost the process that see one generation pass on cookery skills, even basic life skills, to the next.
The truth is, we would rather bung a shop-bought chicken masala in the microwave for three minutes and eat it while watching someone cook for a bunch of pretentious judges rather than cook one from fresh and eat it with our family talking about their day.
Well, I guess I better start preparing the menu for this evening, can't face another harsh dressing down from The Judge.

Abruptly, the sound ceased

Two amazing things happened last night. Firstly we launched a new-look website after months of planning and preparation, and secondly my other new baby slept for FIVE hours in her own cot!!!
I say months of planning, but the actual build of the live site was done in about seven working days. Seven days in which my second-in-command on the web team here was on holiday, seven days in which I also had to run the old thisisplymouth and seven nights in which I wasn't getting ANY sleep.
Of course before embarking on the build process I prayed to the Gods of News to keep everything quiet for a while to make the whole thing easier. Of course that doesn't work, there are no Gods of News. They are all demons.
But here it is, the new site. Brighter, fresher. cleaner. Hopefully you will be able to find everything you want a lot more easily. If not shout and I'll point you in the right direction.
So far the comments have stopped flooding in. Mostly because you now have to register to comment, so no more fake emails and no more trying to get around being blocked.
And while silence reigned online last night, it also reigned in my bedroom.
Delta is now 38 days old, and for the first time in, well, 38 days she decided to give sleep a try. And it seems she liked it.
Up until this point sleep has been taken only in three to four minute snatches, bookended by the high-pitch wailing you would normally associate with a banshee or a nuclear reactor about to go into meltdown.
Last night she watched Big Brother, fell asleep, slept for five hours, woke up to feed then went straight back to sleep and woke up again at 6am. IT'S A MIRACLE.
As with our first we've tried to be fully organic with Delta. But as Trinity was placid from the start it was easy to avoid chemical medicine at most points. Something wrong with the baby? Try massaging her with marjoram.
But when you're subjected to sleep deprivation like they use at Camp X-Ray, (didn't they change it's name to Camp Delta?...hang on a minute) Western medicine starts to look more attractive.
Sure we start out with the Infacol, then at 2am I'm starting to shout "DRUGS, MORE DRUGS" and at 4am I'm reaching for that old bottle of liquid morphine I've got left over from when I had my gall bladder out.
But it seems launching the new site worked to clam Delta down. I think it was preying on her mind.
Of course it would have been easier if two days into the build they didn't radically redesigned the basic structure of the site, then three hours before the launch redesigned the graphics and the navigation system.
And it would have been easier if commercial hadn't suddenly woken up to the fact we were getting a new site two days before it launched and suddenly started saying "where's that link no-one ever uses and when they do it doesn't work, I want it up here"
But it's all over now (ish) and there are several great new things you can do with the site. Every channel (news, crime, South east Cornwall etc) has its own rss, so you can subscribe to be updated with the news you want, and there is a /forward for each channel too to make it easier to navigate.
In a novelty we thought we'd try a search facility that actually works, and you can search across sites so if you like you can read articles from thisishull. Well, someone may want to.
It does have its disadvantages. Trying to keep the order of stories as you want it is like trying to herd yogurt.
So if you suddenly see "Seagull trapped on roof" as the top story, we haven't turned into thisisexeter (website of the year 2007), and normal service will soon be resumed.
The story ordering seems to work on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal (what do you mean you have no basic grasp of quantum physics?).
For those who haven't read A Brief History of Time or the technical manual for a Starfleet transporter pad, the uncertainty principle means we can predict where a story will appear, or when, but not both - and usually neither.
Ah well, we'll get used to it.
Let me know what you think. I'm sure Delta will.

There are no Muslim terrorists

I spent 12 solid hours yesterday editing comments as they poured in to thisisplymouth. Wading through so much filth can really wind you up.
In the end to distract me from the barrage of extreme racism I had to resort to extreme measures of my own - origami.
OK, it may seem fairly trivial, but believe me it's hard to think about just how evil some people's minds are when your trying to carry out a tricky reverse inside mountain fold along a line you won't even make for three more steps.
And the end result? Well, people are still racist, but at least I have a small green paper rabbit to look at.
At least 20 per cent of the comments that came in yesterday had to be taken down, and of course those making the comments have no idea why and get very indignant about it. The real curse of racism is that the people holding racist beliefs honestly feel them to be reasonable.
Of course some comments are worse that others. Those comments ordering we immediately round up all foreigners and execute them are rare, while those saying our country has been diluted by people intent on harming us are more common, and the most common are those saying 'send them all home' and 'Enoch Powell warned us this would happen'.
The real problem does come down to a lack of integration, this ghettoisation which is more prevalent in a city like Plymouth where the communities of people from minority ethnic backgrounds are smaller.
How many people in Plymouth spend a significant amount of time with Muslims? Very few. So of course there is misunderstanding, fear and hate. If you don't spend time with Muslim people your only view of Islam is what you have been told by people who can never understand it or, worse, may want to give you the wrong impression.
Many of the comments taken down imply or outright state that Islam is an aggressive faith, bent of world domination, that violence to infidels is at the core of the credo.
The truth is the exact opposite. There are no Muslim terrorists. No-one who commits acts like 9-11 or July 7 can call themself a Muslim. No-one who would use a lonely and broken individual to commit acts of terror is a Muslim. They are not considered Muslims by anyone inside or outside that faith.
I freely admit that I myself have spent little time with Muslims. I grew up and spent 18 years in Leicester, but my friends were Sikhs and Hindus. Same again when I spent four years in Peterborough and again when I spent three years at college.
I grew up counting Rashpal, Gurpreet, Mayur and Akash as my friends. While the Mooken brothers made my life hell in the playground.
I ate in the temple with Rashpal's family, enjoyed the sweets Gurpreet's mum made. But I have never spent significant time with anyone from a Muslim background. (Unless you count the Muslim guy called Innocent my cousin briefly dated, who my dad accidentally fed pork - we didn't see him much after that)
But because I grew up and have spent a lot of time in a fully integrated city I find it 'more difficult' to think in a racist manner - it just doesn't come naturally.
All those saying we sould send the Muslims home, the only answer is the opposite, invite all people into our homes.
The objective or terrorism isn't to blow things up, it is to instill terror. If your reaction to these attacks is fear and hate, the terrorists have won.

Bloody public transport

Bloody public transport. Here I sit, blogging from the slightly grubby and very cramped seat of a Number 12 bus - the only form of transport which seems to think the most direct route from Torbay Hospital to Paignton is via the centre of Torquay.
40 minutes?!? I can do Paignton to Plymouth in half that (police traffic officers please ignore that last remark).
Insult to injury the bus timetable told me a bus was due a minute after I strolled up (lie) and that they came every seve minutes (lie). The fact three buses following the exact same timetable passed in the opposite direction while I was waiting for this one seems designed by fate, or Stagecoach, to induce a stroke.
And then two turn up at once. I thought that was just the punchline to a Jasper Carrott joke.
To top it all off my epic voyage home is setting me back £2.85. So Gordon Brown can continue his pogrom of taxing us motorists back to the Stone Age while the oil companies mainline cash direct from our accounts but it seems there is no alternative - buses are even more expensive than driving and about as customer-friendly as a Barnstaple B&B.
So why do I find myself traversing the Queen's highway with the hoi polloi?
As previously reported my other half is expecting our second child. Not due for another couple of weeks but when the maternity unit sees a lull in the tidal wave of economic migrants "coming over here, using our NHS"(damn, I've come over all Daily Mail) I guess they decide to induce.
Having got a lift in to avoid filling out the second mortgage applicaion necessary to fund a day's parking, I was planning to wait by the bedside all day for the action to start, watching £2 a minute TV and contracting C Diff, but when the midwife heard I'd been up all night uploading election coverage to thisisplymouth she took pity and told me to go home for a nap. Either that or she heard I was a journalist and wanted me out of the way. Ah well, by the time this bus gets me home at least the new arrival will be old enough to drive back and pick me up.
In other news, I'd say even more exciting news but the other half may kill me, thisisplymouth has rocketed up the chart to become the third largest website in our nationwide group, and has just been shortlisted for a prestigious website of the year award.
Well must go, a bloke with a dodgy grin, a Morrison's carrier bag and a smell of yak is eying up my palmtop and the bus is just pulled upo in what is either Paignton bus station or one of the slightly-less gentrified parts of Albania.

Victory and the price of freedom

WE WON!! No-one was more surprise than me when the camera swung round to table one in the conference room at the Holiday Inn as it was announced that thisisplymouth and The Herald had won a Media Innovation Award.
One year, well 15 months, messing around with this multimedia stuff and this was our second awards ceremony.
The last one we got beaten to the post by the Financial Times and had to settled for 'highly commended', this time we got the prize.
I was so sure we wouldn't win, after all as I say we're real newcomers to this, that I had no speech prepared. Fortunately the Editor took to the stage with us and said some very wise things. I mean they were probably wise, I was dumbstruck by all the lights and cameras and trying to hear what was going on through too much Venetian red wine. Well, they should have put our award earlier on.
The prize came for our nativities minisite, which allowed all you out there to view the hundreds of pictures of photographers took at nativity plays last year through an advent calendar.
Of course the real reason I'd had too much red wine was that our photographers couldn't make the gala meal, so the wine we'd ordered for them accidentally ended up in my glass.
If I had been able to say anything, it would have been a big thank you to all involved in putting the site together, a big thank you to the judges for giving us the award, and a big thank you to the media industry for welcoming us with open arms. I'd also like to thank all the Herald readers and thisisplymouth visitors for putting up with our experimentation over the last year. Our tarffic is 100 per cent up on November 2006 when we first started improving the site with multimedia content - so I take it you like what you see.
...
After Friday night's ceremony it was back to reality with a bang, weeding through story comments again. For every comment on the Ben McBean story praising 'Harry's Hero' for his bravery, there was another decrying all Royal Marines for taking part in the conflict in the first place.
Once again, each comment has to go to that subjective test - is this an honestly held belief? How far do we allow freedom of speech to intrude on the feelings of others?
There are no answers. The Royal Marines, whatever else they are fighting for, also stand for democracy and the right to say what you want - rights that did not exist under the Taliban. If Ben McBean has the cojones to face extremist insurgents in one of the harshest environments on Earth, if he has the bravery to come back from what those insurgents have done to him, I believe he would want us to allow people in this country the freedom he is fighting for in another. I would hope that even those that cannot support the conflict, would be able to support those ordered to fight in it.
We should allow people freedom of expression, and all endeavour to consider others when we freely express ourselves.

EARTHQUAKE

Well I survived my first major earthquake. I say major, one person injured, a few bricks slightly out of place - but apparently it's the biggest we've had in the country for 25 years. 5.2 on the Richter Scale so I'm told.
I wasn't that far from the epicentre in Market Rasen, I was staying overnight in Leicester while taking part in a two day conference in Nottingham.
So you want the dramatic every cough and spit first hand account of my horror at the hands of Mother Nature?
Well...I was woken up at about 12.50am to feel the house rapidly vibrating, with a low growl rumbling all around. It took me a while to figure out whether the boiler was about to blow up or if it was the effects of the chicken satay (Thai style) I had for dinner (with fried rice).
It was over by the time I had woken up enough to realise it was neither. And that's it, dogs barking in the street, a few car alarms going off, and I drifted back to my restless sleep dreaming about the new website content management system I've been trying out (yes, even my dreams are geeky sometimes...apart from that one I had about Angeline Jolie dressed as Xena warrior princess).

View Larger Map

Personally I think this new management system is much more interesting. Probably won't make top story on Radio One Newsbeat, but it pushes my buttons.
Without getting into too much detail, expect to see thisisplymouth exponentially improved before the summer - barring flood, fire or er... earthquake.
PS It's quite disconcerting being in the East Midlands, everything is just slightly different from Devon. Even the roadkill was different driving along the A46 today, no badgers, and I haven't seen so many bruised and battered foxes lying at the side of the field since Argyle took on Holloway's new crew.

Hell in a handbasket

Everyone experiences those moments in life when things shift, slightly, and nothing looks the same any more.
You know the kind of thing, like you're watching Neighbours and suddenly it has adverts in the middle - you're just not used to it.
For me it was taking a tour of the maternity unit in Torbay at the start of the week, the same day, coincidentally, when news broke about them giving a mother the wrong baby to breast feed and giving another baby in special care someone else's breast milk, but that's by the by.
The first thing that unnerved me was the sheer number of people. Of course I've seen the news reports saying maternity units are now inundated, but you have to experience it for yourself to truly appreciate it.
Four years ago, with the tour before our first, there were less than a dozen of us and we were given a leisurely two-hour tour, going through every aspect of the unit and seeing every facility with no rush. no hassle. Everyone smiled.
This time we were crammed into one of about a dozen groups of about 20 people. The unit was so stretched they had to get one of the anaesthetists to act as receptionist while all the midwives and various volunteers took people on tours. We got about 20 minutes, most areas and a whole floor were off limits because they were so busy.
Throughout the whole experience the midwife was at first begging, then almost ordering people to have their baby at home rather than come into hospital. When she wasn't showing how basic and uncomfortable the surroundings were she was re-enforcing how draconian the visiting rules are. Having had one child in Torbay I would have to say the facilities and staff were great. But they seem to be under so much pressure now they would much prefer you just stay away, thank you very much.
Hmph. Thinks I.
But the real shocker, and at this point I should highlight that my wife is a teacher outside Plymouth, was that one of those in our merry band of expecting months was an underage pupil at her school while another was a teacher sacked for having un-professional relations with a male pupil.
Hmph. Hell in a handbasket thinks I.
Women have been having babies for so long you'd have thought we, and by that I mean the medical profession and society, would have got it right by now - and by that I mean both the facilities we provide and having our ethics in order.
Maybe I'm just getting too old, perhaps I should start writing letters of complaint about the state of modern society to Herald Express postbag.

Everything in moderation

Its not an easy life being a web editor. Okay so there's none of the danger of front-line combat or the hard work of construction, but it has it's moments.

I'm not talking the 5.30am starts six days a week, or even being on duty 24/7 - that's just the job. If you want to avoid the gut-wrenching feeling of being scooped you have to stay alert.
The price of inner peace is eternal vigilance.

Perhaps the toughest apsect is moderating all the comments that come in on our stories. On an ordinary day the flow of comments, although significantly higher than it was a year ago, is just about manageable by myself and a team of people here in the office.
But when a topic touches a nerve all hell breaks loose.

The campaign to keep the Nigerian family here in Plymouth is the greatest recent example of that, with more than 2,000 comments on the stories in a week, all requiring careful attention.
Usually I try to leave as many comments as possible untouched. I delete only where absolutely necessary and edit as little as I can.

But with this topic it grew more and more difficult through the week. There were the inevitable racist remarks, some of which were easy to spot, others of which required some thought.

Each comment required a bit of perspective, a few moments to stand back, set aside any personal thoughts on the situation and reflect on what the commenter was saying. Was it racist? Was I being oversensitive? Would other people view it as racist? Would a court of law view it as being likely to incite racial hatred?

Of course, in the end, we couldn't please everyone. Any comment which was edited or deleted sparked instant online retribution with claims that the Herald was twisting the story, trying to show more community support for the family than existed and repressing the views of the people of Plymouth.

In fact the majority of comments that were edited or deleted weren't down to racial views, but down to potentially libellous comments being made which could have landed the commenter in serious trouble.

On the other side those campaigning for the family came close to backing out of the debate, claiming the Herald's comment section had been taken over by the BNP who were using it to spread their propaganda. In the end they relented and I believe the debate was vital, healthy and a valuable contribution to the ongoing story. No-one can deny the passion of the campaigners or their opposition.

At the end of the day, as I say, we couldn't make everyone happy. But I think we probably upset most people an equal amount, which has to be some kind of victory.

Of course being web editor is as enjoyable as it is challenging, and despite the Gothic glower it even has me chuckling on occasion.

Take this morning for example, while updating our social network pages, I came across a friend request from Paranormal Devon, who wanted to join our happy band on MySpace.

The psychic investigators sent a personal message with their request 'didn't know you had an account on MySpace otherwise would have requested sooner.'

Not particularly psychic nor investigative.

Sorry Paranormal Devon, couldn't resist, it just tickled my funny bone. Welcome to the family.

Herald on MySpace

Herald on Bebo

Herald on Facebook

Herald group on Facebook

What's in a name?

So we've reached the stage of trying to decide on a name for the baby. Our three year old has already chosen Lola for a girl and for a boy...Mr Bump.
We've decided we may not go with those options, and have drawn up a shortlist, as well as digging out the old shortlist we had four years ago.
We showed it to father-in-law last weekend and he hated them all...so we must be doing something right.
I've kind of settled on Delta as a perfect first name for a girl. Our first is called Trinity as she is the third member of the family (among other reasons) and Delta would fit perfectly with the name/number system as it is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet (pretentious, εγώ?)
We are having trouble deciding on a middle name though. Trinity's middle name is Africa, as that is where she was conceived, but three-bed-semi-in-Wimbledon doesn't have the same ring, much more suitable for a Womble.
We thought Delta Dawn, bit too American, then Delta Echo...but where do you stop Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf?
Boys names, a lot more difficult. I kind of settled on Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve in the Bible - the ancestor of Noah and hence the forefather of all mankind. Medieval lore has it that as Adam lay on his deathbed he sent Seth back into the Garden of Eden. Seth convinced the Archangel Michael to open the gates and once inside he collected three seeds from the Tree of Life. Those seeds were placed in Adam's mouth before he was buried and grew to become the trees that provided the wood for the three crosses on Golgotha. Not a bad name.
Of course father-in-law points out that Seth is also one of the Egyptian gods of the underworld, the Lord of Chaos and the god of people with red hair. Now death and chaos I can stomach..but gingers *shudder*
Personally I was more concerned people might think he was named after Seth Armstrong off of Emmerdale Farm. Then again I was named after Neil Armstrong so there's some connection there.
Obviously the internet is the best place to find baby names, and I've developed a new found respect for the Miwok tribes after coming across the name Tumu, meaning a deer thinking about eating wild onions. Now there's a word you need in your life. Much of the Miwok languages seem to be made up of similar concepts, the sound of a bears claws, the cry of a hen harrier while descending, the noise of a salmon in a slow-running stream. I think I might just go with Nigel.

Inner tubes and the rise of China

Is it just me or have babies got more expensive in the last four years? I'm guessing it's got something to do with the price of oil or possibly the rise of industrialised China.
I only mention it because Saturday saw the first of what is likely to be many trips to Mothercare, now that the latest addition to the clan is well on the way.
We dug the old pushchair out of the loft to find all three of the tyres were flat, and no amount of pumping would get them to stay up for long. Long enough to get to the library then half way back before having to physically drag the fully laden beast, kicking and screaming, along the mean streets of Devon.
So the kind lady in Mothercare advised us that after three years the inner tubes may have perished. "Hmph", says I.
"How much?" says the heavily laden wife. To which we are informed that inner tubes will cost us £17 each. "Argh", says I, wandering off to look at the new pushchairs mumbling something about it being cheaper to buy a new one.
The idea of buying a new buggy deflated faster than three-year-old inner tubes when I started flicking over the price tags and finding that 649.99 wasn't the model number but the price.
Fortunately back at home I logged on to eBay and managed to find three inner tubes, plus delivery, for well under £10. Derek, the man who will supply them, assures me they are now on the way.
I'm sure having the first one wasn't this expensive. Must be the oil thing. I wonder if you can get babies to run on used cooking oil.

Pakistan and pregnancy

I was in the local kebab shop last night (yes I know, far from organic, but the wife's pregnant and this is what she was craving - last month it was pickled onion Monster Munch) and along with my two small donners with chips and a battered sausage I got a neat summary of the political situation in Pakistan.
While it may not sound like the kind of conversation you want to be having in a chip shop on a cold December evening, it was actually welcome. Having been off-line for the last week I've avoided most of the news (local and national) and it's refreshing to get an analysis from someone with a real interest and insight. The West Country has a lot to offer that the rest of the country can't, but there is no doubting that it lacks a rich cultural mix. It can sometimes make it difficult to really engange with issues far from home, even those that rolling 24-hour news tell us have such a global impact.
The problem with rolling 24-hour news is that it tells you the events have such a global impact so many times that you rapidly become desensitised. There is a truth in hearing about the story from someone who sees the images on TV not as stock footage, but as home.
Hmm, maybe a few days back in my own hometown of Leicester has left me craving a little more diversity here in Devon. Better avoid the new year sale at Trago.
Anyway, back to the main news of the day - yes, the wife's pregnant. She says she is in her 20th week, but in Dad Time this is week one.
The difference between the two is that she starts counting from the moment of 'conception' (some point during a week-long holiday in London), while I start counting from the moment of 'acceptance', which is when I start to realise that she isn't just getting fat from too many Quality Street and Monster Munch, and that her breasts aren't getting bigger for my benefit.
This will be our second, the youngest is now three and is very excited about the forthcoming arrival. She has already decided if it is a girl she will be called Lolly and if it is a boy, Mr Bump.
The first half of the pregnancy has gone smoothly. First scan at 12 weeks and second scan on December 28 were perfect, no health problems, nothing out of the ordinary.
The only glitch came when little one refused to play for the camera and we couldn't find out the sex. Wife, who jumped up and down in the examination room before making the sonographer have another go, says she is getting fed up of being asked 'seven times a day' whether its a boy or girl. Of the 14 grandchildren on her side of the family all are female so far, so grandad (who has three daughters and no male heir) still has his childhood train set locked away under the bed in the spare room.
Wife's sister is also pregnant, due at the same time, so there's a race to the finish. Will either have a boy? Who will be the first? It's a race to build a face when you play Mr Pop.
Hmmm, that doesn't sound right.

Is it just me or does 2007 seem to have flown by? I guess for me that's mostly because the web site has kept me constantly busy. When Holloway decided to sample the delights of Leicester we were pushed well over 500,000 page views a week.
Blogs, like this one, have been read well over 70,000 times in the last year and I'm hoping to rapidly increase that in the near future by tidying them up and adding a few exciting new writers.
Video has also gone down well online. Other titles have experimented with and dropped daily bulletins while our strategy of creating video that adds value to the stories has worked well. You especially loved the footage of a drink driver being chased by police and that has been watched well over 10,000 times since it went up earlier in December.
We also get all of our news online earlier now. For me that has meant getting into the office for around 6.30am every day, but the response has been positive and I'm starting to acclimatise to listening to Sarah Kennedy's bizarre ramblings on Radio 2.
And we've embraced the weird world of social networking, with the Herald's entries on Facebook, Bebo and Myspace arttracting more than 850 friends.
Well, time to get back into the old routine after the disruption of Christmas and New Year. I'm not one for resolutions but I'm hoping to keep my blog a bit more up to date over the next year, with regular updates on the pregnancy and the state of the website. Fans of pointless rambling nonsense rejoice!
Happy New Year!!!

The Long Way Round

Buying fresh produce that hasn't travelled as far as Michael Palin before it reaches your table became a little harder this weekend as close to a century of milk production and distribution in Totnes curdled.
More than 160 employees at the town's Dairy Crest wandered into the manager's office on Saturday morning to pick up their redundancy cheques, then spent Saturday evening pouring some of it across the bar at their leaving do at the Grand Hotel in Torquay.
For those 160-odd, their friends and families and all those whose own livelihoods depended on the Totnes site, the impact of the closure is obvious, and potentially huge.
For the average shopper at Morisson's in Totnes picking up four pints of Westcountry semi-skimmed you could be forgiven for thinking that nothing has changed. But it has.
Because while last Friday those four pints of Devon white gold collected in our fair county travelled just a couple of hundred metres from the front door of Dairy Crest, where they were processed, to the back door of Morrisons, where they were sold, those exact same pints now travel well over 350 miles to get to the same destination.
And the same goes for whichever Morrisons or Sainsbury's you buy your local milk from (because it will still be sold as local), or even if you have Dairy Crest drop your milk at your front door.
While the milk will still be collected locally, in Devon, Cornwall and Dorset, before it reached your doorstep or your shopping trolley, and will end up at local depots like the one in Plympton, and supermarkets like Sainsburys at Marsh Mills and Morrisons in Outland Road, it now has to go on a sightseeing tour to a processing plant in Gloucestershire or London on the way.
So even if you live next door to Farmer Giles, the dairy farmer, and its his milk you buy - you could well find it now travels hundreds of miles to get to you.
This is the challenge consumers now regularly face when trying to buy local. You can shop at farmers markets and organic shops where each product is labelled with its point of origin, and you know it took the most direct route to get there - minus several middle men.
But achieving that inner warmth only middle-class satisfaction can generate can be expensive, inconvenient and it can limit your shopping choice.
So off you pop to your local hyper-mega-uni-corp supermarket where, handily, they have recently taken to selling hundreds of lines of local produce.
Fresh fruit and veg, milk, cheese, meats and more all now come from that bloke down the road.
But that still doesn't mean they have just been driven down the road - the chances are they have taken the long way round.
Until recently Tesco shipped all of it produce, local or not, to a giant central depot before then shipping it back to the places where it is actually local to.
Recently it started experimenting with local depots, including one in Plymouth, so Westcountry produce will stay in the Westcountry.
Not perfect, but a step forward. In order to be perfect the produce would have to take the shortest possible route from producer to retailer to consumer. Farmer drops it at the back door of Tesco, you buy it at the front. Of course the logistics of an operation like that, and the cost it would add to the produce mean it won't happen. Tesco will never be a farmer's market, and wouldn't claim otherwise.
But, while I've quoted the example of Tesco's, there is really no need to single them out. You can be sure that the local produce you buy at just about any other supermarket will have taken a little vacation on route to your plate.
Some supermarkets, Sainsburys for example, have a great system whereby you can check right down to the farm or producer where your goods came from. But that doesn't mean you get the full theaa.com routemap of the journey it took.
In the US produce travels an average 2000 miles between producer and consumer. In the UK, Defra reckon that between 1992 and 2002 our food miles here in the UK rose by 15 per cent.
The lesson here? Well, firstly that if you buy your milk at a supermarket or get it delivered to your door you could well find this morning that your carbon footprint got a little bigger over the weekend thanks to the couple of hundred extra food miles on every pint of milk. And secondly that, when it comes to supermarkets, local doesn't mean that an item has always been local right through the chain it takes to get to your plate.
Want to know more? Here are some useful links.
The BBC has a good page, defining food miles and why they matter, with articles and a discussion at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/food_matters/foodmiles.shtml
For a more in depth analysis, check out the Wikipedia article at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles
You can get a rough idea of the food miles taken to get to you if you know the country of origin of your produce with a basic food miles calculator at
http://www.organiclinker.com/food-miles.cfm
...and you can then calculate how much CO2 is pumped into the air by that journey at Farmers Weekly, where you will also find a host of other useful links at
http://www.fwi.co.uk/gr/foodmiles/more.html

Two things I hate about Flavour Fest

There are two things I hate about Flavour Fest. One is that I've just come away from it with my wallet £75 lighter. The other is that it isn't held every month.
As a Plymouth exile (I live in the wild yonders of Torbay) I braved the rains, the 45 minute trek along the A38 and the stench of the Theatre Royal carpark to make my way to Plymouth's fourth annual festival of local produce.
And I wasn't disappointed, I was stunned to find a dozen local growers and producers of organic produce I'd never even heard of among the hundreds of stalls tempting me and thousands of others with their wares. I filled my shopping bags, and my belly, just for research purposes of course. Balancing a tagine in one arm and six bags of organic plants in the other I scoffed my way through a Thai curry and a banana crepe, along with more produce than I can mention here without alerting the Health Police.
You will often hear and read people running Plymouth down, or dismissing us as a crumbling industrial oasis in the heart of a rural paradise, but Flavour Fest shows us for what we really are - diverse, vibrant, innovative, passionate, adventurous and thriving.
What really warms my heart when I wander through the stalls at Flavour Fest isn't the vast, diverse array of extremely high quality local produce across hundreds of tables, it is the thousands of people who turn out to enjoy them.
Even in the grey drizzle the event was packed. People love Flavour Fest and they turn out to support it, to enjoy it, and to relearn what the Spirit of Discovery really means.

Live Earth had an instant impact on me, an impact beyond the initial anger at the BBC cutting away from Metallica to rerun Crowded House.
I awoke this morning and unplugged all those little adapters that usually cling to the wall, with their green or red glowing eyes, waiting for me to recharge one of my mobile phones, mp3 players or myriad other electrical devices.
When I boiled the kettle for a cup of hot, strong, organic coffee to enjoy in the early-morning sunshine, I boiled just as much water as I needed.
My shower was taken in half the usual amount of time, and breakfast was eaten in a room illuminated just by the light from the window, not from the bulb.
When I wiped spilled butter from the kitchen surface I used a sponge, instead of the kitchen towel I would usually reach for.
Now, all of this probably didn’t offset that moment I reached for the remote control and burned out the batteries trying to find the rest of the Metallica set. Or the moment I then reached for my CD player and cranked up what Jonathan Ross called “The Sandman Song”.
But the changes I made, if they are made by a million others, and if they are made every day, will shift the course of our planet.
I could say I don’t know why I didn’t realise this before, but that wouldn’t be true.
What is true is that the environmental message, the global warming warning, has been around us for years. In fact it has been around for too long, and has been too prevalent.
It quickly became wallpaper and muzak and Big Brother Eight. We saw it everywhere and so we came to take it for granted.
What Live Earth did, despite what the cynical arms of the media are saying, is make us look again at that wallpaper.
We can now see it isn’t just a meaningless pattern, it is a series of images and a tract of words that spell out our future – or lack of it. Each meaningless swirl is a picture of a species we have wiped out. Each patch and blotch is a swathe of earth burnt and wasted to provide fuel for our greed.
What we need now is for Government’s to make two or three major changes. But in lieu of that one million of us making 10 million minor changes will have the same impact.
My choice to lead an organic life was, until now, a selfish one. We ate organic produce to prevent our daughter taking in the kilos of chemicals she would otherwise be lumbered with every year.
Now it will have an environmental dimension too, as I seek to eat not just organic food, but locally-grown organic food to reduce the carbon used to bring it to my plate.
My lightblubs are already low energy, but now I will continue the new trend of switching off even the small lights that blink at me from adapters, TVs, computers and music systems.
I already split my rubbish into three, compostable for the worms, recyclable and the rest. Now I will also stop being lazy and chucking glass in with that landfill waste just because the binmen won’t take it once a fortnight with the green bin – instead I will store it in a box under the stairs and take it to the bottle bank when my box is full.
I will walk to church this morning, instead of driving.
All this, and the other changes I can make, will add up to very little. It will reduce my carbon footprint by a few microns. But we can hope that if a few thousand or a few million others take similar measures, we won’t have to put up with another global concert opened by Genesis.

The Enemy Within

Terror attacks at select sites across the UK, and we look within. Well, there's no need to look for the suspects - the media already have them hung drawn and quartered under headlines such as The Docs of War and Doctor Evil.
On websites across the country you can see the messages popping up just minutes after Sky News starts running its 'breaking news' banner. "Send them, all home" the posters rant.
But even before that racism was lurking just below the surface. We (the white majority) never experience it, and find it easy to believe we left all that behind in the 70s.
But my eyes have been opened after taking in a couple of foreign visitors.
No, Chez Shaw isn't the latest Al Qaeda terror training camp. We're hosting foreign students for one of the local language schools.
Every day they come home, we ask them how their day has been, polite conversation through thick accents and broken English.
Then three days in the first reports. Both our student visitors, one German, one Swedish, had been experiencing racism on the streets. Shouts of abuse. Bad language. Threats. Just days into their visit and they were targeted, several times. In fact most times they go out there is some unpleasant behaviour.
Our German student was warned by the school not to tell anyone where he was from for fear of abuse or attack.
Perhaps my shock at this level of abuse to our foreign visitors is in part due to the fact I spend so much time online. The internet brings us closer together, it removes all social distinction, we talk with people of all races, colours and creeds withour even considering such meaningless variables. But when we step outside our door we look not with the virtual eyes of a 21st century citizen of Cyberspace, but with the cold, fearful eyes of a nation told it is under siege, nervous of the enemy within.
Terror attacks need to be put into perspective, and they need to be seen for what they are designed to be. Okay, the bombs didn't explode, the fires never caught, the lives were not lost - but the main aim of these attacks is to drive a wedge between us, to divide neighbour from neighbour, to make us fear, and retreat and shout abuse from behind the wall.
If we do that, if we even think that, the terrorists have won without lighting a single fuse.

Cider, spamming and Girls Aloud

Apologies for the delay in posting - wow was it really the end of April that I last sat down to write a blog? Time sure flies when you're joining Girl's Aloud online fan clubs.Now, before you contact Operation Ore, this was all in the name of work. Sometimes you just have to make these sacrifices, and visit websites packed with saucy pictures of Nadine and the Ginger One.You see, as web editor for the Herald, my job doesn't just involve writing the (very) occasional blog, and making sure all the latest news appears on our website in the right place at the right time.I am also the cyber-equivalent of that bloke sitting in a box in Armada Way shouting 'Herald!!!'Part of my job involves letting other people know what's on our site. So when we have news about Girls Aloud I join up with the bulletin boards and post the info.Not just Girls Aloud, I've joined discussion groups and social networking sites on everything from the Royal Navy to archaeology, and from crime to Elton John.Most of the boards receive me well. I consider myself an online ambassador for the Herald and try to respect the rules of the boards I visit.Some just ignore more, some post replies grateful for the news. Only once have I been accused of spamming.Well, if joining a bulletin board just to post links to your own site is spamming then...oh yeah.Ah well, must go.I'm locked in a heated debate over which one is better, the Ginger One or the one who gets rowdy in nightclubs, then this afternoon I'm off to an organic cider festival. Its an eclectic life.

April 25 2007

Six months into the Herald running its own website, and we were invited to attend a prestigious industry award-ceremony, not bad going - if I do say so myself. Now, there are several industry awards ceremonies each year, just like the film industry has its Oscars, Golden Globes, Baftas, TV Quick Awards etc etc.

So which of the newspaper industry gongs are the most prestigious? Hard to tell, everyone has their own opinion. One quick test is - the most prestigious awards are whichever ones you just been shortlisted for a prize in. The least prestigious are the ones you just walked away from empty handed, vowing never to enter again because 'it's all political'.
Fortunately for us, we swanned, or more staggered, out of the Hilton Park Lane with a commendation for thisisplymouth in the Most Innovative Technology category. Not the top prize, but like I say we've only been running the site for six months and we were beaten by the Financial Times, so I don't think there's any shame in that.
It was an eye opener, not just the £50 a bottle wine, the steak to die for and the best dessert ever created by man (an indescribable chocoalte souffle), but also the chance to talk with some of the other nominees. They included the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Mail on Sunday, some international newspapers and many, many more. Elite company.
Sitting next to me was the deputy editor for the BBC's world news website. We started comparing sites .They're coming up on their 10th annivesary...and have a team of 250 dedicated journalists.
I almost spat out £4.75's worth of Bordeaux at that point.
"You mean you share them with TV?" I managed.
"No, no, just for us..."
"And the radio?"
"No, just for the website
"And that includes all your production staff and technical team and coders?."
"No, just reporters."
"Huh!" was my considered response.
As I say, six months, but its good to know what we're up against. Taking the Herald forward online puts us in direct competition with people like the BBC's national and international news websites. The fact the judges would put us in the same room as leading national and international titles is more evidence of that, and of the fact that we are competing at the right level.
For example, at the time of the Iran captive crisis, people from across the world were logging on to thisisplymouth to discover the latest, as well as visiting sites like the BBC and Sky News.
The circulation of the Herald no longer stops at the River Looe in one direction and the River Dart in the other. Now at least 10 per cent of our online readers are outside the UK, and many more are in the Uk but outside the Herald's traditional heartland.
So how are we approaching this huge opportunity? What are we doing to make thisisplymouth the best site for the people of Plymouth and beyond?
Six months ago just a fraction of the Herald's content appeared online on thisisplymouth. Every day a few articles would be blasted along the cables to a small team of technicians outside the city who watched it flow into the site, checked it looked okay, pressed a key or two then went on to one of the other three-dozen sites they managed.
Okay, there may have been a little more to it than that, but you get the picture.
Since November we have been working hard to ensure all content goes online, and that we make the best use of it all. Which is why you can see new folders and sections for everything from our features content, reviews and previews and our motoring section to euchre results and American Football.
Every news story that appears in the Herald now appears online, and it appears earlier than before. Back then nothing appeared before 12pm, then you had to wait until 12pm the next day for more.
Now we start adding content in earnest at 7am, then we don't stop updating until 10pm. Any breaking news overnight will also prompt a dash to the nearest keyboard to make sure it hits your screens as soon as possible. People start commenting straight away by adding their thoughts to stories, sending in emails or joing the debate on our bulletin boards.
And its paying off. the figures show 250 per cent increases in traffic to our news and home pages, and a 450 per cent increase year on year in new visitors.
On top of that we also now offer you a host of online exclusive content, like this blog. We have well over a dozen bloggers writing on everything from Polish community and Islam to basketball and fishing. In the first six months you've read these pieces more than 20,000 times.
We've also added video, including footage generated by headmounted camera by Herald reporter and fellow blogger Tristan Nichols in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and the Falklands.
Talking of the Falklands, I've been busy beavering away to update my programming skills, which were somewhere at the level of being able to write a version of Space Invaders for the Spectrum48, to take in HTML, Java, Javascript, ASP, JSP, CSS, MFI, B&Q and D.I.S.C.O. and we can now create minisites like the one holding all our content for the Falklands 25 commemoration at www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/falklands.
We've also built sites for Face of Plymouth 2007, the forthcoming election, last year's school nativities, the Royal Marines deployment to Afghanistan, Entrepreneurs Bootcamp, Gold Star and others - including Battle of the Bands 2007. This site, similar to the others, included picture slideshows, audio, video, a discussion board where the judges, bands and audience talked about the evenings before they happened, then disected them afterwards, band profiles, latest news and more. In its six weeks it drew in close to 20,000 hits.
During the last six months thisisplymouth has also been extensively redesigned. We've added online photosales so you can buy all Herald pictures online, we've added a new video section with our reporters trained in filmwork and we add audio files to some stories, like Ollie's latest rant or one of Martin Freeman's excellent interviews.
So are we happy to have come away with a commendation after a busy six months? Yes, very. But personally I'm even happier that we've added 4,000 new registered users to the site, boosted registered users on our bulletin board by a quarter and that the site has had well over six million page views in the last four months, because that means that we're providing what you - the users - want, and that is what it's really all about.
So any tips to those out there hoping to become a succesful web editor? When you find one, ask one!! The best advice I would give today is "If you've got to sit the first part of a nine hour exam in advanced web deign at 6pm in Paignton, try not to be drinking at an after-party in a bar in Soho at 2am that same day."

April 5 2007

Over 13 days it threatened to escalate into all out war. Hour by hour, minute by minute the language became more belligerent, more confrontational. At times it spilled over into an all-out us-and-them nationalistic furore.

Diplomatic efforts were made, perhaps the right word in the right place could bring it to a conclusion but, with the world watching, all seemed in vain.
I refer, of course, to the web chatter on thisisplymouth and other sites (yes there are other sites out there) following the capture of our sailors and Royal Marines by Iran.
For every comment posted on our site in response to a story, or on our bulletin board, offering support and messages of hope for the captives and their families here in Plymouth and elsewhere, there were two raging against the British war machine and the 'loonie Muslims'.
Thankfully those 'loonie Muslim' comments were few and far between on our site, but if you check out 'Batch's' page on bebo you will come across a few comments that would have Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning dialling the Racial Equality Council. Yes, okay, they got the geography wrong. And the spelling, the grammar, the history and the politics. But they were offensive none the less.
There was the odd comment on thisisplymouth which may, or may not, have been racist. In an age of political correctness gone mad, and an age when people can post their every thought with minimum effort or consideration, it falls to us to decide whether a comment is or could be perceived as being racist.
For example, one post refered to Mr Ahmadinejad as Mr Ahmedinnerjacket.
Is that racist? Possibly, probably. The writer almost certainly never meant it to be racist, simply ridiculing of a man who had ridiculed our service personnel. Certainly it has enough potential to be perceived as being racist that we decided to remove it.
But then again, Tony Blair is only ever refered to by our posters as Tony Bliar. Tudor Evans is only ever refered to as Toady. The Lib Dems are only ever the Limp Dims. Offensive certainly, but not racist.
Then again, as for comments on thisisplymouth raging against the war, you could hardly move for them.
In fact, when Mr Ahmadinejad started speaking about the folly of Western troops being in Iraq, and the evils of putting a woman and mother on the front line, I thought he was reading from the user comment section on thisisplymouth. No, seriously.
Few things get our online correspondents more riled than war. Being a naval city with a proud history of sending its sons to give a sound kicking to anyone who may have deserved it, or perhaps just looked at us a bit funny, there are many in Plymouth who treasure our military might and will happily expound the value of war for hours on end.
At the other end of the scale, we have have posting on our site some of the most aggressive pacificists that you could ever wish to meet. Trident, the Middle East, military budgets will all have them calling for the dismantling of the New World Order. "OR ELSE!!". Any excuse will find them posting an anti-war comment on a story.
Say, for example, we posted an online version of the Our Father. It wouldn't be long before we got a comment saying something like "Our Father, in old English that's Vaeter Unsere. Vaeter sounds a bit like Phaeton. Phaeton was a 38-gun-frigate which captured the Dutch in Nagasaki in 1808 and fired upon Japanese and Chinese vessels. YOU MUST DISARM NUCLEAR MISSILES NOW."
One post leads to another, soon it gets personal, and people say things online they would never say face to face, not just for fear of being punched but because the Internet grants us an assumed anonymity and also makes the person we are attacking anonymous.
Even the Falklands War commemoration section of the thisisplymouth bulletin board has attracted anti-war posts. People who would never in a million years think of vandalising a war memorial will happily 'vandalise' a virtual memorial by posting comments that veterans and relatives of the fallen will find offensive.
As more and more of us have access to the Internet and find new ways to express our views, it looks like we will have to learn all over again the rules of polite society, learning to respect the opinions and feelings of others not through fear but through compassion and understanding. While the Herald will continue to police all comments posted on any section of its site, as all responsible website owners do, there must come a time soon when we as users learn again to police ourselves.
If we want the Internet to remain a place free of censorship, we must learn to censor our own dark and hurtful thoughts rather than posting them 'in the wild' where they could do more damage than we could imagine, and certainly more than we would wish.

March 23 2007

As a nation, in fact across Western Culture, we have come to expect more and more for less and less.

The thought struck me twice yesterday, the second time was on arriving home to find all the neighbours in the street and up in arms as the house across the road had been burgled in broad daylight.

Two men in their early 20s had fancied a couple of large flat-screen televisions and hadn't fancied paying for them, so they popped into someone else's home and helped themsleves, also doing a bit of impulse shopping and picking up a PS2, some games and some jewellery. All this at 2.30pm as the neighbours were watching. Of course they were supicious, and of course they approached the men and took down the car registration so the two may not keep hold of the gear as long as they had hoped. Everyone wants something for nothing.

A similar thought had occurred to me earlier in the day, pondering on how the hi-tech Internet had regressed us all to a free-love, free world, pre-tech 1960s. Admittedly, the thought occurred while sat in a dimly lit cafe listening to reggae munching an organic cheese and ham toastie and banana smoothie in the middle of Totnes, but that's not the point.

The reason for this thought? As newspapers across the country begin to focus increasingly on the Internet, the company accountants are looking at how they can make money from a platform that traditionally gives everything away.

Since its inception content online has been free, and we as users expect it to remain free. As soon as someone tries to charge us for something, we go elsewhere.

Newspapers in various places have tried to run subscription services, and have found just handfuls of people signing up, while the masses go elsewhere to get their content for free.

It doesn't stop those accounts and sales types trying to squeeze the extra penny out of users when they can. And why not, newspapers are, on one very important level, a business, and businesses have to make money.

Some newspapers will offer the content for free, and then offer premium services on top which you pay for, but again it doesn't seem to generate a huge deal of interest. Every day we here at thisisplymouth look at what services we can bring you, some go looking to see what services they can persuade you to pay for, others go looking to see what services they can bring to improve the site. Hopefully at the end of the day the result is the same, a bigger and better thisisplymouth for all users.

So what is the answer, how can we make money from the net while providing content people will want to keep coming back for, and maybe even pay a little for? Answers on a postcard please. I would pay you but...you know how it is.

March 19 2007

So another weekend bites the dust. More and more often I seem to be glad to get into work on a Monday, to have a break from the chaos that is Saturday and Sunday. So much for the day of rest. So much for keeping the sabbath holy.

In fact, the last three weeks have been a pretty manic time, packed with firsts.
On the organic front, while I have been a devotee of pesticide free produce for three years the one thing I had never done, until this month, was order an organic veg box.
The reasons not to order a veg box always seemed to outweigh the reasons for ordering one. Firstly the boxes are only delivered on one day a week, so you have to arrange to be in, and make sure you hit the ordering deadline, and hope the arrival of the veg fits in with your eating plans for the week.
But much more of a disincentive for me was the random lottery factor of the whole thing. When you order a veg box it isn't like online shopping at Sainsburys or Tesco. Your choice tends to be limited to the size of the box, the contents are down to the supplier.
Now personally I was never happy with that. I always had visions of opening up the box to be confronted with something like the second round of Masterchef Goes Large. That's the bit where Jon and Greg torture the candidates by showing them random food items under pressure and asking them to identify the mystery items. Like CSI without the AOL sountrack and MTV camerawork.
But while I've been engaged in a heavy-duty DIY project in recent weeks (more of that later) the wife has taken over the duties of cooking, and she decided to risk 'The Box'.
Week one, we ordered online from Riverford...and my fears were allayed. I could recognise every item in the box, knew how to cook it and was willing to eat it. And so to the second first. The wife has spent three weeks cooking, a job I normally take care of. Even with the range of random produce from Riverford, she went through the first week turning out great food.
Then week two struck. The second box, and 'what the devil is that' was the cry when we peeled back the paper. Forget CSI, this is X-Files.
Okay, so the veg inside may not be the most exotic things ever, but they were certainly something we'd never eaten, cooked or bought before, and had no idea what to do with. Each week's box does come with a newsletter and some suggested recipes.
So away we went trying out celeriac, raw beetroot, Swiss chard and artichoke hearts for the first time.
The conclusion. Well, ordering an organic veg box is a bit like a day trip to Crealy. Some of it is fun,. some of it is terrifying, some of it will leave you feeling queasy and the whole thing leaves you lighter in the pocket. But you are left with some great memories and undoubtedly you will want to go back for more.
The third first? If that makes sense. Back to the CSI. If you're new to this phenomenon, so was I. Basically its like The Bill, but American, and rather than going round chasing people through dody housing estates and bashing down cheap doors on council flats, they use cotton buds to pick up something that is obviously blood, then cut to a five minute sequence of strange camera angles and fades set to a Richard Marx track, then all stand around and say "It's blood."
Each show starts with a murder or six and an obvious suspect, the team spends 44 minutes pursuing someone else, then it turns out it was the obvious guy you thought it was at the start. This doesn't just happen in CSI, also try out CSI NY, CSI LV, NCIS and JAG for similar results. Oh and Criminal Minds. Or should I just call that one CM for the sake of completeness.
So why the sudden change in my TV diet?
Back to the DIY. For the last three weeks we have been converting a concrete shed in our back garden into a flat. Now this project is well beyond my abilities. Then again, so was ficing a leaky washer on the bath. In steps Bob, the wife's dad's sister's husband. A builder by trade who works at an inexpensive rate if given a solid diet of American cop dramas and tea.
And so we come full circle to the busy weekend. Saturday was a mad dash to get the shed, sorry annex, into a suitable state for the family inspection. The whole of the wife's family were turnimng up in the afternoon for a meal as her parents were celebrating their 40th anniversary. So the morning was a mad DIY dash to get concrete and carpets laid, paint in all the right places etc etc.
The afternoon was a mad dash to cook 3.5kilos of organic lamb and all the accompaniments.
The evebing was entertaining said family. Sunday. Mothers' Day. Damn, i have to do it all while she stays in bed. Why wasn't that one in the wedding ceremony? "Biut I spent the whole of yesterday working for your family..." I tried. "Unnh..." she grunted from under the duvet.
"Unh" indeed. Only three hours later did Mothers Day come up as the topic of this week's sermon. Our vicar chose that moment to inform us that Mothers Day wasn't about Mothers, it was about the Mother Church and the Mother of God and should be used to celebrate all family. So I had to get up at six o'clock, look after the youngling, make breakfast, clean up Saturday's mess through four dishwasher loads and then get back to making the shed, sorry annex, for nothing?
I'd also made the mistake of asking our two-year-old what she wanted to buy mummy for Mothers Day. I expected the answer to be playdough, or a dolly. Easy enough, I thought,. Back came the answer "A necklace with some flowers and a card with a doggy."
"Huh?", damn that brain-boosting organic diet. Now I have to wait another 10 years for her to return to answering in monosyllabic grunts. Like her mum.
I had briefly considered entering the sterile corporate cathedral of Drake Curcus to find the gift and card all under one roof, before falling for the IQ marketing and heading to the Independent Quarter. That's the part of Plymouth City Centre that used to be called 'the scuzzy bit round the market'.
And the result? Excellent. Once I managed to negotiate the sparows and chavs in Colin Campbell Car Park, and get past the second hand shops without being forced to cash any cheques, but a samurai sword or buy back stuff nicked from my home in a burglary, the IQ was a pleasant(ish) place to shop.
I endedup in Tor:Pedo where, far from that corporate cathedral, the stock was unique and interesting, the staff courteous, interested and informative and the purchase was perfect and unique rather than settled for.
Ah well, that's the weekend over, here's to an easy week before whatever next Saturday and Sunday have to offer.
Right, where's that calendar, I'm planning my Fathers Day revenge already.