Sorry… the site has been down for I don’t know how long. It would appear the lovely tech support guys at Surpass Hosting (my hosting company) have fixed the problem for me. Thank you, whoever you are, a job well done. I have no idea what was wrong, but whatever it was, you’ve sorted it and I don’t have to re-build my site. A thought I was not looking forward to. Needless to say I will be carrying out a backup of my files in the next day or so!
Just to let you know my RSS feed is not working. I need to sort it out. GAH!! Prefer WP so far but a couple of things are getting on my nerves now. I will be fixing over the next day or so. I’ll do my best to keep my RSS URL the same, for the two subscribers.
Why on earth have I moved from Movable Type (which I’ve been using for years), to the lovely Word Press, when I’ve hated it so much in the past? Ease of use.
Movable type is rigid and unflexible. Let’s not even get into the really illogical user interface in the control panel. I fancied something simple to use that I could upgrade easily. It took me a matter of minutes to set the site structure up, and modifying CSS / Widgets was so simple. Plus the deisgn was a big winning factor. I’ve wanted a site design like this for ages.
You’ll also notice on the right navigation I’ve included a new Amazon widget. I read so much I thought it was only fair to share with you in more detail what I’m reading. That and I’ve signed up for an affiliate account with Amazon. I’m also a “vine voice”. I’ll get to that in detail in another post. Perhaps it’ll be one of the first posts on my new blog.
I’ve decided to split out everything relating to writing (yes I know technically this is writting) over to a new blog. Why? Well I really want to try and write more, and I thought a proper medium for it would be the best solution. I’m thinking of it as my writers notebook. I shall be working on polishing it up over the next few days and getting it up and running. When it’s live, I’ll post a link so you can go and have a look.
Right, I’m going back to the pottering around I’m doing on my laptop this afternoon.
Well I’ve decided to push the boat out and migrate to Word Press… It’s still a bit rough around the edges and there’s some changes I want to make to the code. Mainly I want to change some of the colours of the fonts that are used… they’re not quite, um, me.
The bad news is, anyone who was registered on here, needs to re-register. I’m really sorry but I can’t migrate user accounts onto here. It’s a bit of a PITA, but hopefully the site design and functionality will be a lot better.
So… let me know what you think. Well anything except how the side bar is a mess and the bright green is a bit lairy… this I know and I will be working to resolve the issue over the next few days. I’ll also publish a link to my writing blog. Well when I’ve had a chance to update it a bit more.
So I was pootling along the M4, on my way back from Wokingham, and I was stuck behind a security van which had a sign on the back of it that said:
“POLICE follow this van”
Now does that mean that police follow that van, or does it mean that police should follow that van. I know it should have a comma after “POLICE” if they were inviting police to follow the van, but the capitalisation of the word “POLICE” made me think that it was an invitation. I really couldn’t see any police following the van, I think that was an out right lie.
My mind works in funny ways, what can I say.
I’m setting up another blog on my other domain, for writing purposes. I keep saying I’m going to do more writing so I really should get on with it and make an effort. More details to follow when I’ve finished fiddling with the template.
Well interesting few days. I spent Friday and Saturday in London attending the Nielsen Norman Group conference on Intranet Usability. Really interesting, best thing I’ve been to in a very long time. Hopefully I’ll get to apply some of what I learnt to my job. Still it was exhausting, lack of sleep the night before, and staying up late talking to my best friend, all but did me in.
Today I’ve done a mad dash to find puppy food (as she’s stopped eating the food for older dogs we were told to feed her), done the food shopping, watched the Grand Prix and baked a cake. Yes, all in that order, I’ve still got the housework to do yet.
Brilliant Grand Prix today, Lewis deserved to win. Which leads me onto something interesting I read on auto blog. Apparently, Richard Hammond is going to be the F1 presenter when it goes to BBC next year. If it’s true, then rock on! Now all we need is someone like Suzi Perry to do the pit commentary. I wonder who will do race commentary, I hope Martin Brundle moves, I like his commentary. Perhaps Murray will come back? Who knows.
Anyway, I’m thinking of some blog posts on usability following the conference. More soon!
Blogging is an interesting subject matter, and one that is topic du jour. More to the point, the use of blog content to sell newspapers. At the moment it seems to be the Daily Snail (Mail) who either steal content or defame people who have blogs. So, NML, who has been defamed by those idiots over at the Daily Snail, has put out the word, that she wants to set the record straight, and so she should. Shame on reporters who make things up, just to try and sell papers. Papers that are worth nothing more than floor covering for puppies. Anyway, below is the post that Natalie has published. You can get to Natalie’s site by clicking on the link under the post.
I will admit this does feel a little like the bit in Hackers (yeah I know) where the word goes out to “Hack the Planet!”. Blogs are a right for all those who have them. Freedom of speech reigns in countries that permit it. So we should all stand together united.
On April 30th just after 3.30pm, I snatched up my phone and bit the bullet. I called up the journalist that had ‘interviewed’ me (I say this loosely) and expressed my upset at her not actually stating that she was interviewing me and my concern that I would be included in a feature about revenge, which is not what I, or this blog are about. I told her quite shrilly (I was stressed for fecks sake) that I did NOT want to open the paper and see something like “Blogger gets revenge on ex with her blog!” or some other pathetic headline.
I went onto the Daily Mails supposed section for women yesterday and actually nearly threw up in shock!
“Don’t get mad, get E-VENGE!”
It’s even worse in the paper where just in case the Daily Mail hadn’t quite put the full boot into misrepresenting me and featuring me in article full of TWENTY SIX inaccuracies about me, they added a sub header of “It’s the new mantra for women using the internet to take revenge on cheating men”.
Really, I don’t think I have EVER been so angry!
I want to categorically state for the record that I did NOT set up this blog to take revenge on my ex. I set up this blog after a bad date with PC Plod, the extremely nice guy but incredibly boring copper. God that was almost four years ago!
I found out that my ex had been cheating after I started the blog - actually it was the following day. But actually, you don’t need me to tell you this because anybody can read go back and check the facts and see for themselves!
Just to show how inaccurate the Daily Mail are, let me give you some interesting figures:
In June 2004, my first month, I wrote 23 posts (yeah, I was single and used to update frequently!)
Out of 23 posts, only one post is dedicated to him which equals 4% of the content.
There are 2 more posts that make a reference to him. 1 post is a positive reference and 1 post is about men peeing on toilet seats and I wisecracked that he missed the rim.
In July 2004, I wrote 27 posts. 0 were dedicated to the subject of him. 2 made a reference to him and 1 made a reference to our engagement which I just realised that I have still forgotten to sell after FIVE years!
In August 2004, I wrote 22 posts. 0 were dedicated to the subject of him. 2 made a reference.
That means that out of 72 posts written in 3 months, 1 PERCENT of the posts were dedicated to him!
8% referenced him.
1% referenced the engagement ring.
Now what they don’t know is that FORTY THREE PERCENT!!! of posts in June 2004 seem to mention toilet seats and the fact that I was living with that strange man boy who literally couldn’t p*ss on a toilet seat to save his life!
Now, how the hell did the Daily Mail come up with the idea that I set up a revenge blog when I wasn’t even writing about him, never mind taking revenge? What was I doing? Taking revenge on toilet seats and men that can’t pee right?
Oh and I went from being engaged for 14/15 months (I forget now after soooo much time has passed) to being engaged for FIVE years! We’ve been broken up for five years and I’ve lived in London for seven… I’m only thirty so did they think I was some sort of frickin’ child bride?!
Twenty frickin’ bloody six inaccuracies or just outright fabrications about me in one poxy article and to add insult to injury, they didn’t even mention Baggage Reclaim which was the only reason why I had initially agreed.
Of course I have written to the Press Complaints Commission, the editor and yada, yada, yada, but the fact remains that their papers become someones loo roll the next day but that pile of shite that is their article is up online telling anyone and everyone that I am an e-venger. It’s pretty disgusting and what’s most appauling is that they have reduced four years of this blog, two and a half years of Baggage Reclaim, a year of Bambino Goodies, and various other blogs plus my contributing…to an act of revenge….against someone who didn’t even mean enough for me to even fully dedicate the one blog post about his cheating. I even said “The revelation last night doesn’t hurt, but it does anger me, but even that has passed.” and then in true me fashion, I rambled on about my period….
Oh and I know for a fact that they stopped publishing comments on the story yesterday as I was contacted by several people who said that they had commented to set the record straight. So not only do they want to put up 26 inaccuracies about me, but for some reason, they don’t want anyone to know about it…
If this was pre-internet days, I really would be up sh*ts creek without a paddle but thankfully the internet which has made me connect with thousands of people, make quite few friends and acquaintances, and even a stalker…has meant that at least I can respond.”
Well it’s one thing in particular. When people give you an RSS feed but they clip the feed so you still have to go to their website to view it. Now this isn’t so bad when you’re at home, but when you’re having a crafty read of a load of blogs when you’re not at work, an RSS aggregator is a god send. It’s a bit on the frustrating side of things.
Anyway, enough moaning, I’ve got the new Harlan Coben book to entertain me this weekend, and it’s guaranteed that it’ll only last the weekend, well if I don’t play any Ratchet & Clank.
For those of you who don’t know, I’m very anti global warming and carbon footprint. Why? Well it’s the latest thing for the government to get taxes out of us and force us to do things for the wrong reasons. If you’re going to use less energy, it should be because it saves you money and most things are a finite resource. If you’re going to recycle, it’s because we produce too much waste and we’ll run out of natural resources. How do they know that the planet’s heating up is anything to do with us? Hell cows produce more carbon monoxide than we do, so lets kill all the cows eh?
There was a news item on The Register that talked about a blogger bullying the BBC into changing a news report because it was a little unfavourable towards Global Warming. I don’t know where this person’s blog is so I’m unable to link to it, but I would if I could, mainly because I’m sure she wouldn’t take a comment I’d have to make about using your own blog to bully people into changing what they’re reporting too kindly.
So what also amuses me is this article http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289 on how there are no reported sun spots at the moment. The last reported time like this resulted in a mini-ice age. They’re not saying this is going to happen but it’s worth considering that Global Warming is yet another tax on everyone.
Something else worth considering is that whilst a large chunk of ice fell off in one part of the world, another part is reporting 400km2 of extra ice this year. So then, where exactly is this global warming they speak about? I think the earth is just going through one of it’s many cycles, of which the last one we didn’t have government policy makers shaking their fingers at the population saying we should be ensuring our flock of cows doesn’t poo too much.
I’m keeping an open mind, I’m doing what I need to do because it saves me money and recycling is the right thing to do to ensure there are future supplies of finite resources. Oh and I’m not going to change my car any time soon, it has a catalytic converter, it produces less Co2 Emissions than a car made ten years before. Sod the government and the cow they rode in on.
I found the site to the Times Oxford Literary Festival at the start of the year and was amused, when I managed to get this year’s list of people who would be speaking at the event I was over the moon that John Connolly was going to be there, so I rapidly booked myself a ticket to go.
I’m not sure if I blogged about it, but last year I had the choice of doing something utterly glam on my Birthday, or going to Bluewater to meet John Connolly. I chose glam, I don’t remember if it was tbh, I think brunch in Browns at Canary Wharf and then home, should have gone to Bluewater. Anyway, I phoned up and got John Connolly’s book signed for me, saying “Happy Birthday Emma”.. I wish I’d gone to meet him, it seems like a complete cheat.
I’ve only ever met one author I liked, and ended up hating him so much I refuse to read his books any more. I’ve met Iain M Banks, but that was for R. He was a top bloke, really nice author. So anyway, I’m off to see John Connolly (and Mark Billingham… but I’ve never read any of his books) do a reading on Sunday. It should be a nice cultural experience. Well I’m hoping it is.
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