Arrival

Well, a blog entry from Reyjavik. What more could you want. I´m even mastering a bloody Icelandic keyboard. Haven´t quite worked out what´s missing yet, but several buttons have moved. Ah, including the < signs. Tags may get interesting.

Got them. Yes, I´m in love with this place – it´s small, but perfectly formed. Arrived yesterday, and on a coach tour today, with whale-watching tomorrow. Back on Monday. Photos on Tuesday.

Away

No, not a hiatus – but there’s not likely to be any posts here now ’til next Tuesday. The simple reason? I’m away – in Iceland from Tomorrow ’til Monday, but not coming home ’til Tuesday. So there.

I’m sure there’ll be plenty added on Tuesday night, but until then have a good one, and go read the other sites on the blogroll. They’re worth it.

NY-LON revisited

A couple of weeks ago I talked about NY-LON on Channel4, and gave it the benefit of the doubt. It hadn’t started overly well, but there we go, some things don’t. However, we’re now nearly halfway through it and I can honestly say, I’m not going to keep on.

I don’t care if they stay together, or split up. I don’t care who does what, or why. There’s a problem with dramas based entirely around love, regardless of whether it’s seperated by a wall or an ocean, and that is purely that to keep the drama going, it’s going to be much the same in each episode – they’re in love, they argue, they split up, they make up, they’re in love. This kind of drama is fine for a one-off single episode thing, but over time and episodes, frankly it fucking drags. No two ways about it.

So I’m sorry Stuart and Edie, but you’ve lost me. And as a result, so have you, Channel 4.

Marie Celeste

Is it just me, or have the blogging contingent been very quiet today? It seems like hardly anyone I read has updated at all…

Dodging the Blame

As some people know, I’ve been involved over the last 15 months in a project to put in a Content Management System (CMS). It’s been a fuck-up from the start, and has taken 13 months just for the council to decide which system they want. But progress is finally being made, and we’ve got a deadline of 11th October for it to go live. Nothing like pressure at all.

In a meeting today about it, half the people have suddenly realised that come next week, they’re going to be at least part-way responsible for the website content that goes up from their departments. They’ve got to check it and make sure it’s right. Now, being a bunch of workshy blame-dodging motherfuckers, we’ve just spent three hours – yes, three fucking hours talking about whether there should be an extra approval system put in (bearing in mind a deadline a month away) so that they don’t have to take too much responsibility. This project has been on the go for more than a year, and yet these cocksuckers have left it til now to realise it means they might actually have to do something. It’s like the last year has never even happened. Like we’ve not had monthly discussions and meetings where all this has been gone through. Like they’ve been sleepwalking through, always assuming that final responsibility would be Someone Else’s. (In councils that’s the best form of responsibility there is)

I’ve now got an utterly bouncing headache, but I’ve been good, I have managed to get through the entire farce without once just saying “This should’ve been sorted out six months ago, you bastards“. But it’s been close, I can’t deny it.

Roll on Christmas. Yes, you heard that right – I’m looking forward to the Festering Season. Why? Because my contract finishes on December 24th. (I may move it a couple of days forward from there, but we’ll see.) So Christmas ’04 may actually be a happy, happy time.

Weird phase

Have you ever noticed that sometimes things just all click together at once? Where things you’ve been planning to do “when you get round to them” all suddenly start happening?

This week’s already been like that here. First of all was the resurgence (at long last) of the creative writing. That’s something I’ve been thinking about for at least six months. Then I finally got round to attending the public meeting of Redeye, a photographers collective around the northwest. Again, something I’ve been thinking about for the best part of this year, just never got round to.

And then to put the icing on the cake, I found out about a gallery space that’s looking for new photographers, and so I’ve got some prints done to submit to them. Nothing to lose really, and everything to gain. But that’s also been something that I’ve been talking about doing for most of this year.

I don’t know what’s made all this come together this week – but I’m sure as hell not going to knock it either.

Godfather

At long last, after a nightmarishly long labour, a friend of mine has given birth to her first daughter, Layla. 8lb 3oz. And amazingly, she trusts me to be the godfather. That’s going to be one messed-up kid…