Travelling Book giveaway!

So, the better part of 3 years ago I launched the Travelling Book project, sending blank journals to people around the world for them to write in, and then pass to other people to do the same.

However, I have a confession to make.

Three books never left me.

One was the trial version, that one is staying at home, but that still leaves two which are partially ready, but sat on a shelf.  And it's overdue that they went on their journeys too.

See my latest video to find out how you can get your hands on one! Responses by Thursday 6th April 2017.  I haven't decided but I may press my wife into action to choose the winners as she tends to make me do the same for her on her videos :)

Travelling Book update!

Well, I'm absolutely buzzing at the moment.

Long-term readers may recall the Travelling Book Project that I did back in 2014, sending blank journals to people for them to write in, and then pass on to other people, and so on until the journals were full, and hopefully they'd come back to me so I could scan them and put them up on the internet for all to see.

And the grey hairs were slightly less obvious

Anyway, I've just got a message to hear that one of the books, #tbook18, is alive and well and in Ontario in Canada.

Number 18 is a special one for me because whilst most of the books were mailed off to people to start their journeys, I dropped 18 off myself, starting its journey by leaving it in the Hull College library.  Since then it's popped up in Oregon, Illinois, and now it's crossed the border and in Canada.

I knew that it was always unlikely that all of the books would make it home, but I hoped that at least one would.  So it's great to see that at least one of them is still journeying around the world.

Travelling Book Project update

Apologies for the delay in blogging, but readers may be aware that it's been somewhat of a busy week in the UK, there's been a vote and apparently our little island is being relocated or something :)

Anyway, I wanted to make the announcement that sadly the Travelling Book Project website will be closing down in the near future.

Briefly, the Travelling Book Project was an attempt to connect people around the world by sending a blank journal from person to person, with each person contributing some information about themselves and their life.

Photo of me with one of the books.  I still have the t-shirt.

It was a hell of a project - I did an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to raise money, and despite all the mistakes I made (after all, it was the first time I ever tried doing one) I managed to raise over £200 from friends and family, but also total strangers that discovered the project and felt it was worth supporting.

I got to be interviewed on the local radio, which was very exciting, I've promoted the project at Hull College with my bespoke clothes hanger display, and I've made contact with people all over the world as the books visited places such as Ohio, Las Vegas (via Australia), Portland, Chicago, Dublin, Germany, and all over the UK.  And I thank everyone who took part in the project for helping that happen.

The website is still live for the next month or so until the subscriptions run out, but I've archived some of the key information (badly) on this blog at http://thoggy.blogspot.co.uk/p/travelling-books.html - I'll review and tweak the archived info so it sits better on this blog when I have chance.

But for now, thank you again to everyone that got involved, and I continue to hope that a book will make it back to me!

Regards, Mike

Laugh and be Disappointed

Have you ever wanted to laugh, and then feel disappointed in yourself?

Apparently this video makes you do that - it's a Dirty Dancing pun.  I'm not sure if there's a big demand of people wanting to feel disappointed in themselves, but here it is.  It's had quite a few views (for a video of mine at any rate)

Another video is on its way, detailing my struggles with a set of chilli infused beers...

Also, I got a tweet the other day about one of my travelling books - the book, last seen below:

This would be the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland

The book in question (#tbook10, aka the tenth travelling book) has been picked up in Dublin and is on its way to Amsterdam.  I do love to hear about the books and that they're still moving, my fear is that all of the books are lost or just sat on a bookshelf somewhere, and none of them are going to make their way home - hearing about them gives me a bit of hope that maybe they are still going around, I'm just not seeing them on the Internet :)

The Wedding

So, I got married last Saturday.

It was an awesome, awesome day, absolutely perfect - we were married at Lazaat hotel in Cottingham, which was a great venue and the staff there were really helpful.  My wife undertook a huge amount of planning for the big day, which made it run like clockwork and I just have to say really could not have gone better!  A lovely ceremony, brilliant food (the hotels' handmade profiteroles are worth a mention - generally hotels buy in ready made profiteroles, but these guys make literally hundreds of them), great guests - thank you to all the family and friends that made it on the day or sent their congratulations, I got to do a speech (I do love being the centre of attention), my wife is wonderful and looked even more amazing than she normally does, my son looked very cute in his suit, so many people came and helped doing stuff on the day too... it was just a brilliant day.

Plus, I keep discovering new bits about the evening celebrations, mainly due to the fact that I drank far too much on the night, and whenever anyone says to me "Hey Mike, do you remember when xxx happened?" only then do the memories start to come back - there was a lot of dancing going on that evening.

My mum wrote a brilliant blog about the wedding, if you want check it out at http://ravenmagical.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/a-wedding-to-remember.html

In other news, I slept with socks on.

For some reason for the last week or two the skin on my hands has been really dry, no matter how much skin cream I keep putting on, so my wife hit on the idea of literally coating my hands in cream, and put socks on to allow it to soak in.  My hands are actually healing a bit now so that's a good sign.

The good news is that the guest posts will be continuing for the near future, supplemented by the odd post by myself - we're going away on honeymoon at the start of July (a weeks cruise around the Norwegian Fjords) so fortunately the stack of guest posts people have kindly provided will keep the blog going in my absence.  Feel free to send me more! :)

And finally I heard today that one of my travelling books (#tbook18)is headed for Chicago, it's really nice to hear that they are on the move!  For more Travelling Book Project stuff go to the website - http://www.travellingbook.eu/, I might take the opportunity to distribute the last couple of travelling books I have when I go away next month.

Do You Like Meat?

So, I made a new video last week - let me ask you,do you still eat solid meat?!?

No longer.

Meet MEATYBANG!!

Apart from managing the miss the top of my head off the video, it's not too bad, and I hope to spawn a series of spin-offs - CRUNCHYBANG for iced liquid food, VEGGIEBANG for Vegetarians, and perhaps even SECRET VEGGIEBANG which looks like VEGGIEBANG but actually has meat in it.

In other news, Alyson Shane kindly featured the Travelling Book Project on her blog, talking about how the project was crowdfunded.

I've had a great response from people with guest blog posts which I'm lining up to go out in June, thank you to everyone that has responded.  If you'd like to perhaps get a post on here, let me know!

Travelling Book update - and giveaway!

So, as long-time readers may be aware, back in August 2014 I sent out a pile of "travelling books" - these were blank journals that would go from person to person, with each person writing a little bit about themselves, and when the journal is filled it's to come back to me, and I'll scan it so that everyone can see where it's been. (Check out the website if you'd like to know more)

Anyhow, in each book I put a Twitter hashtag, in the hope that people would tweet about them.  And I got a hit this week - one of the books, which I last saw last summer when I hastily dropped it on a desk in Hull College's library, is on its way to Portland, Oregon - I think that this makes at least four of the books that is going to have visited the US, which is awesome.  The whole idea behind the books was that I wanted to travel, and do all kinds of amazing things, and meet new people blah blah blah - but realistically I can't do that, I have a job, bills, a family, and I wouldn't want to give any of that up (well... maybe the bills I could skip) so the blank journals were a way that I could experience travelling without having to leave my home or do anything too drastic.

I'm toying with the idea of sending a few more books out - I have about four or five journals left over from the original exercise.  If you'd like one, drop me a comment why (awesome responses have a better chance!), and let me know how to get in touch with you... and you might give one!

Um... should I have rules for this giveaway?

Okay.

THE RULES

To have a chance of getting a free travelling book sent to you for you to write in and then send on, you may abide by the following:

• Leave a comment on this blog post saying why you want a travelling book, where you live, and anything else that you think might convince me to pick you. Do this by 11:59pm on Friday 20th March 2015, GMT.
• You agree to have your location (I'm talking about a rough location like New York, US, not your home address or anything silly) mentioned on the Travelling Book Project website
• My decision is final and may be based on anything including, but not limited to, your name, your comment, your location, my feelings, the time of day, whether I'm tired or not, and hunger. I haven't decided whether its good if you live a long way away of me, because then your book will be all exotic and exciting, or whether its better if you live in the UK because the postage will be cheaper.
• Multiple comments aren't likely to help you, and probably will make it less likely that I pick you because they annoy me.
• You don't need to like, share, +1 this post, or anything like that, and doing so won't count as an entry.  But I'm not telling you not to, either.

I look forward to reading your exciting comments!  If you want to find out more about the Travelling Book Project, go to http://www.travellingbook.eu/

Travelling Book Project update - book sighted in Ohio!

Today I'm doing a bit of an update to the Travelling Book project, following the exciting news that one has been spotted in Ohio!  I've been sent a number of snaps of the book, being held by a number of people (some of them looking suspiciously inanimate).

I'm relatively confident that this is a real person, however.

I've been trying to decide if "Liquor Control" is a genuine division of the local government in Ohio, or if it's actually in a bar.

Joe Haden holding a book.  Disclaimer: Possibly actually a poster of Joe Haden with a book held in front.

Andy Dalton holding a book.  Disclaimer: See previous disclaimer.

 Thanks to Tim for sending these through, I should say that it is quiet on the travelling book front (although another book has just made it to Las Vegas via Australia!), so if you have received a book, please do let me know where in the world the book is, and photos like this are much appreciated, we'll definitely feature whatever we get here and on the Travelling Book Project website!  Remember that at the start of each book is a hashtag, so if you tweet anything with the hashtag I will pick it up.

If you would like to get involved in the project you can reserve your own book by sending a PayPal donation on the Travelling Book Project website for £12, or if you're a student, up till the end of October 2014 just £5 will reserve you a book - this entails me making a book and sending it out to you, and doing my best to keep track of the book when its in the wild, then scanning the book when its finished and making it available on the internet for all to see.  Any funds received go towards the running of the website so they are very much welcomed.

Are you ready for Apple Dumpling Day?

September 17th is national Apple Dumpling Day!

To be brutally honest, I'm not entirely sure what an apple dumpling is, I understand that it's an American delicacy.  I believe that it is a peeled and cored apple, coated in cinnamon and sugar, cooked within some pastry.  Don't get me wrong - I'm very very keen indeed to sample one, I just don't think that I've ever had one.  By all means if anyone I know is baking some tomorrow, let me know and I'll happily take one off your hands!

Meanwhile for UK readers, (I may not be able to say that for much longer bearing in mind the Scottish referendum coming up!) I am very excited because on Sunday, Downton Abbey returns, and with it so does my Sunday evenings with a bit of supper, maybe a hot chocolate (depending on the syns - I have just started Slimming World after all!).  I've been deliberately avoiding any spoilers about the series on the internet as I want it all to be a great surprise.

Before that though, in twelve hours however I shall be at Hull College for the Higher Education Freshers Fair, getting ready to promote the Travelling Book project, I was there last week which went very well and I'm hoping for a good response from the HE students!  If you're in the area do stop by the college, I have a free competition going on, free sunglasses and sweets (although not a huge amount of either), plus students are able to support the Travelling Book project at a cut-down price for a short time!  We'll be open from 10am onwards.

Now I'm off for a quick half hour on Hearthstone before bed, apparently it's up to 20 million players and they're planning to release it on Android tablets and suchlike which is excellent news for a Android fan like me - Hearthstone does work on my laptop (just) but generally to play I have to be on my desktop at home, while a quick game when out and about would be grand!

My pyjamas

As I type this, I'm wearing pyjamas.

This isn't particularly unusual - it's 8pm, my son is in bed, the chores have been done, and I've had a long and busy day at Hull College's Freshers Fair promoting the Travelling Book Project - don't misunderstand me though, it was ace, and I think my stall was somewhat unique thanks to its ingenious "clothes horse" design:

Complete with trendy "peg" fixings

But right now I'm tired and aching a bit, and I welcome the opportunity to wear pyjamas.

Now, the set that I'm wearing is a sort of green and white, with a dash of red, tartan stripey pattern, and they are quite warm and comfortable.  But they do have one unusual feature.

Attached to the left leg of the pyjama bottoms is the security tag.

I have no idea how my partner got these to me without having the tag removed, all I can assume is that she bought the clothes, they forgot to remove the tag at the till, and then the security alarm didn't go off (or it went off and no one paid any attention).

I've worn these pyjamas for quite a while now, I don't know if I got them last Christmas or if it was before that, but I've certainly had them a fair few months.  The only issue the tag causes really is that I can't sleep on my left side, which isn't a problem as I always sleep on my right, but I do have the slight worry that one day the tag might trigger and spew out blue dye over anything nearby.

I feel a little bit like a kids game, like "Buckaroo" or something of the sort.

I'm imagining something like this photo, except instead of white shaving foam think of blue dye.  And less smiling.

But I'm at a loss as to what to do.  The pyjamas are otherwise fine, so I don't feel comfortable disposing of them, but I don't see that going into a shop and saying "Hello, here's some of your pyjamas, no I don't have a receipt but if you could remove the security tag it'd be much appreciated" would go very well either.

Suggestions welcomed.

Last thing - if you're not already aware, I am going to be defending football on my blog in the near future, against Tim Clark at Life, Explained, who will be championing the case for american football, so we can decide one and for all which is the better game.  Stay tuned.

I have dreams of an empty desk

I have dreams of an empty desk.

I've never been a particularly tidy person, and when I have to tidy, it's generally with the minimum of effort.  I remember when I was a kid tidying my room, which involved putting all of the mess on the bedroom windowsill, and closing the curtains.  This cunning plan survived scrutiny for about three seconds, after which point my parents said "Why have you got the curtains closed?", opened the curtains, and my ruse was discovered.

But my desk at home currently is a mess.  I'm right in the middle of making travelling books for the Travelling Book Project - about half of the books are now complete and are in bags to be taken to my parents who have volunteered to package and send the books out (thanks Dad!), while there is eleven remaining books which have been started but are yet to be completed.  As things are going I'm hoping to get the rest of the books finished by this time next week, so I can look at getting them sent out then.  For anyone that is expecting a book, I should warn you that they are being sent out by whatever is the cheapest delivery method available, so if you're not based in the UK it will be a matter of weeks before your book gets to you.

At any rate, in the meantime my desk is decorated with a pile of incomplete books, lots of cut out pictures to stick in the books, bookmarks, some "make your own snow" material (I have no idea why), paperwork, scissors, sellotape, and a stack of old collectable cigarette cards.

Speaking of bookmarks, thank you to the Not So Book Club Book Club for the cool bookmark which will be going in one of the remaining travelling books!

I am Locutus of Borg

Last night I took part in a sleep study.

Earlier in the summer I've had little a bit of trouble sleeping, and although I've actually been sleeping better in the last month, before then I was essentially sleeping all night, and then still being tired in a morning.  So, I saw the doctor who referred me for a sleep study.

For those unfamiliar with what this entails, I got a load of kit to wire up to myself while I slept.  Cannulla up the nose, blood pressure monitor on a finger, three hefty straps around my body, and lots and lots of wire and tape.

The superhero t-shirt was part of the kit too, honest.

Fortunately I am very good at going to sleep because it isn't the most comfortable arrangement for resting in, nevertheless the study has been completed (slightly worried because the blood pressure monitor kept dropping off my finger in the middle of the night) and I look forward to hearing the results.

Meanwhile, things continue to be busy on the Travelling Book front.  I met with Luke Arran of Hull College's Student Union yesterday, who is being amazingly supportive of the project - thanks Luke!  Fingers crossed I will have a stand at Hull College's Freshers Fair next month for the project, details to be confirmed but watch this space.  I did take the opportunity to abandon a travelling book in Hull College's library, so we'll see where it ends up!

I've also received a load of bookmarks from Jody at Chilli Promotional Products, many thanks to Jody for her support and these will be going in a selection of travelling books!

If you do want to find out EVERYTHING about the project I have recorded a hideously long YouTube video all about the current state of the project, exactly what is in a travelling book, and the guidelines for taking part.  It is ridiculously long - over 20 minutes in length - so I don't expect a huge number of views, but for those who are due to receive a book (I'm hoping to start sending them out by the end of next week) it says exactly what they're due to get.

As always, head over to the project website (www.travellingbook.eu) for all the latest information, and do pop on the forum there and say hi!

I'm writing a lot at the moment

I'm a geek.

To be precise, I'm a computer geek.

Not actually a very good one, I can fix computers but generally not very well, and I get stuck far too often to be a proper computer techie geek.  Nevertheless, I use computers a lot, and the vast majority of the time when I'm writing something, I'm typing it.  I'm one of those people that type up letters to friends and family and print it out rather than actually put pen to paper.  The rare time that I usually have to write a significant amount, for example in an exam, leaves my hand absolutely aching and begging to be put out of its misery,

Then I started the Travelling Book project.

And I now have a few books to write in.

This many.

And actually, slightly bizarrely, my hand seems to be holding up.  I'm preparing around 3 books a day - when I say preparing, I'm writing a page of guidelines inside the front cover, the title page, and the back page.  I still need to go back through the books and add in my piece about me, and then they will be ready to be distributed.  According to my spreadsheet, I have about 20 books confirmed to be sent out, hand delivered, or just left anonymously in odd places, so I hope to get these sent out by the end of August.  I am absolutely loving the project and am really looking forward to taking a huge pile of books to the Post Office for mailing around the world, as well as attempting to sneak into libraries and coffee shops and deposit a book, and get out again without being stopped.  I'm the kind of person that would never dare steal something simply because I would be so scared of being caught.  I managed to become scared just walking over one of these timber and rope bridges at the local park this morning because it rocks a bit when you walk over it.  So sneaking in and leaving a book will probably give me a similar level of excitement.

And I'll also say - Twelfth is a weird word!  Most of the numbers it makes sense, fourth, sixth, tenth, it's the word, plus "th" at the end.  Sometimes, where that doesn't quite work, a letter is taken out - nine become ninth, for example.

But twelfth?  Why isn't it twelvth?  I wrote "The Twelfth Travelling Book" in one of the books about half an hour ago (that gives you an idea how far I've got) and it really doesn't look right to me.

Now I've finished wittering about myself, go and take a look at Tim's blog, where he's talking about a psychological experiment with blocks and how people like to arrange them.  I appear to remember one at my work involving two teddy bears that kept being rearranged into questionable positions.  Tim's findings are much more wholesome, however.

Blogger statistics are a little excitable

I use a system called Blogger to operate my blogs.  It's owned by Google, so it integrates well with Googles advertising system, pictures, YouTube... all the various services run by Google basically, so it just makes everything a bit slicker.

One thing however I don't quite get is statistics.

You see, Blogger tells me how many people visit my website.  According to Blogger, I've had just over 140,000 visits since the blog started, and over 33,000 of them in the last month (so, very roughly, about a quarter of them)

But Google already has its own statistics piece of software, called Analytics, which will be familiar to pretty much anyone who operates a website.

According to Analytics, I've just passed 7,000 views of my blog, with 315 of them in the last month, which is about 5% of the views.  Bearing mind I started this blog almost two years ago (apparently my first blog was on the 3rd of September 2012 - maybe I need to plan something for my anniversary!), that would mean that on average I get around 300 views a month, which seems more logical.  As much as I'd love to believe Bloggers statistics, I do feel that they may be a little optimistic.

Why the huge difference?  Well I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's to do with spiders.

Wait!!! Not the scary version with eight legs, but instead these are little computer programs that basically wander around the Internet checking for updates.  Websites like Google use spiders to make sure that they're up to date and that a web page hasn't changed without their knowledge.

On Blogger, these spiders also post a hell of a lot of spam messages.  Luckily Blogger catches them and hides them away so they don't get in the way.

Nevertheless, thank you to every person who does visit my blog, it's much appreciated.

I am going to mention the Travelling Book Project (because it's my project!), as I write this there are 35 hours left to fund the project, and we've reached 46% of the target.  Not to say that this isn't great - it is, and it's paid for the website, and it's paid for 20-25 books to be sent out, I was out buying a pile of journals this morning - but there is still time to donate if you'd like to, or to mention the project to your social circles to raise awareness.  If you would like to support the project please get over to https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-travelling-book-project asap, anything is greatly appreciated.  If you've managed to evade the many many mentions I've made of the scheme in the past month, head over to the project website at http://www.travellingbook.eu/ to find out what it is.  We now have a forum on the website too so feel free to drop by and say hi.

I dislike YOLO

I dislike YOLO.

If you're not familiar with YOLO, it stands for "You Only Live Once" and means that you should make the most of your life.  Now as a concept, I do agree - I do believe that you only live once (although I have no argument with those that believe otherwise, I certainly have no proof for my beliefs) and as a result you absolutely should live your life to the fullest.

However, the use of "YOLO" I just find annoying.  It makes me think of a weird mash up of Yoyos and Rolos, and I don't see how a toy that I've never been able to master can really combine with a chocolatey toffee treat.

As a protest, I tend to use YOLO in the most inappropriate situations, for example:

• Does anyone want a cup of tea?  YOLO!
• Can you photocopy me this document please? YOLO!
• I think I need the toilet. YOLO!

And I urge you to do the same.

I'll give a quick update on the Travelling Book project - the funding campaign for the scheme ends in just 3 days, so if you haven't contributed and would like to, get over to our Indiegogo page now and take part!  If you want more information then do go to the website now (which I'd very much appreciate feedback on too) and find out all about the project.  The first Travelling Book has been released into the capable hands of the morning team at BBC Radio Humberside, who kindly let me talk about the project on Thursday, and I'm going to be preparing and releasing all the other books over the next few weeks.  I'm hoping to be able to release somewhere between twenty and twenty five books in total, depending on funds available.  Thanks again to Tim Clark who continues to support the project big style, this time putting quite a serious post on his blog about humanity and how the project could help us understand each other, which it certainly could, and I would hope at least that it has some kind of positive effect.  Fingers crossed!

The shot is fired...

In my last blog post I mentioned how Tim Clark of Life, Explained has kicked off a video production death match between the two of us.  Not being content with being the superior blogger, Tim is also looking to win on the video side as well, and started off the war with a very worthy animation about President Dawg.

Well, I have video editing software too Mr Clark, and here is my response!

Be warned - this video does include what some people could interpret as singing and dancing.

Badly.

In other news, the Travelling Book Project is entering its last week of funding before we move on to the next phase - making and sending the books out!  If you don't know what I'm talking about, get over to our new website now, find out all about the amazing international phenomenon of the Travelling Book Project, and please do consider sharing the project with your friends, and perhaps even supporting the project via our Indiegogo page.  Thanks!

The new website does appear to feature a death star, so all I can assume is that my design skills are equivalent to a nine year old geek.  Which is probably about right for my mental age.

I was going to write a blog post, but...

I made a website instead.

It's the new home of the Travelling Book Project, as the campaign for the project will end in 11 days (I can't believe how quickly time is going - almost halfway!) and I need somewhere to be the home of the project after the campaign ends.  www.travellingbook.eu will point to the new site in a few hours, but for now it still takes you to the Indiegogo campaign.

Actually, I do have something to blog about - I bought a rechargeable vacuum cleaner, as I need to go vacuum somewhere where there isn't electricity.  Had a look at the instructions when I got it back, and I'm very relieved that I learned from the instructions that you need to not only plug the vacuum into a power socket to charge it, but that the socket needs to be turned on as well.

Plug the adapter into a power socket AND turn the power on?!?  Easy tiger, almost lost me there.

I feel so relieved now that I know that.

Finally, Tim Clark over at Life, Explained has seen fit to challenge me to what he calls a "Death Match of Video Production".  I'm looking forward to it!

Markets

I quite like a market.  At a market you can often get some cheap goods, perhaps with slightly questionable logos (anyone else own a pair of "Adibas" or "Mike" trainers?), but nevertheless inexpensive.

Now, I don't know if this is a international phenomenon, but the markets near me tend to have a particular feature for one type of seller.  See if you can spot it.

People with fruit market stalls will shout their deals out.
People with vegetable market stalls will shout their deals out.
People selling meat meanwhile... have a microphone and speakers.

I don't know why meat sellers at markets get to have a microphone and get to blare over the entire market "I'M NOT GOING TO SELL YOU THIS LEG OF LAMB FOR TWENTY POUNDS, I'M NOT GOING TO SELL YOU IT FOR TEN POUNDS, I'M GOING TO SELL YOU IT FOR FIVE POUNDS AND THROW IN FOUR PORK CHOPS!!!", but they do.

And they don't even just use it to advertise their goods.  Whole conversations go on over the microphone.

"BAG OF BACON TWO QUID... HELLO LOVE, WHAT'S YOUR FANCY?  A POUND OF SAUSAGES?  HERE YOU GO, I'VE THROWN A PACK OF BREAD ROLLS IN FOR YOU TOO, NO CHARGE, ONLY SLIGHTLY MOLDY. THAT'LL BE EIGHT QUID."

And if they aren't getting enough custom, they'll pick you out as you walk past.

"MORNING MATE MORNING!!! HOW YOU DOING?  GOOD, YEAH ME TOO.  FANCY SOME STEAK?  NINE QUID FOR A LOVELY PIECE. NO?  SEVEN QUID.  OKAY SIX, BUT I'M ROBBING MESELF HERE.  YOU'RE VEGETARIAN?!? WELL DON'T WALK PAST A MEAT STALL THEN! GO AND WALK THE LONG WAY ROUND AND PRETEND TO LOOK AT THE ANTIQUES AS THOUGH YOU KNOW SUMMAT ABOUT THEM!"

It's enough to make you want to stay at home.

Quick update on the Travelling Book project - funding is now up to £135, which is great, I've had some brilliant support from various places, I've now bought a domain name (for about £2.50!) - www.travellingbook.eu currently takes you to the campaign page, but the plan is that, should funds allow, I'll have an actual website set up here that people can visit to keep track of books.  We're one third of the way through the funding round, which finishes on the 4th of August, as always I would really love people to check out the campaign, share it with your friends, and if you'd like to support the campaign, do head over to the campaign page and anything is greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

Happy Lucaria!

I'm ambivalent about this morning.

On the one hand, I'm a little rough.  I was out on the town last night, making merry, and today I'm paying for it a little bit.  It's the middle of the morning and I'm still in my pyjamas, waking up.

On the other hand though, it is the weekend, and generally things are pretty good - the Travelling Book Project is doing reasonably well (check it out if you haven't already), I should say thank you to the Watt Club at Heriot-Watt University for publishing an interview about the Travelling Book Project, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that some more promotion of the project which I've been working on will develop.  The campaign for the project ends on the 4th of August, so do check out the project before then and if you'd be willing to share the project with your friends, or even support it via the campaign page, it'd be hugely appreciated.

Historical note of the day: July 19th is the first day of Lucaria, a festival of the grove held on July 19th and July 21st by ancient Romans.  Unfortunately little information about Lucaria survives, and indeed even in the latter years of the Roman Empire knowledge of the festival had faded.  It is possibly a celebration of a battle between Romans and the Gauls, where a group of surviving Romans hid in a grove, or it may have originated earlier as a way of regaining the favour of gods and spirits when forests were cleared.

At any rate, to celebrate, here's a photo with a tree in it.

Apparently it's somewhere near the British Trust for Ornithology.

Happy Lucaria!

The Travelling Book Project - Update #1

So, my Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for the Travelling Book Project went live Monday night, and to be honest I was a little worried that the response that I'd get would be somewhere in the region of zero.

However, it is not the case!  Hurrah!

I've so far received 14% of the funds towards my £500 target, which is a great start, and the campaign appears to be getting a fair bit of attention, from some places that I wasn't expecting, which is brilliant.  It's been getting a good few views, but I think that I may have made a error initially with the perk levels set.

So - I've added more perks in, I've reduced the cost of a lot of perks, and I've added a load in, so now if you live in the UK (sorry if you don't, but international postage is pricey!) you can get a book in your hands for as little as £12 instead of the previous £20.  Hopefully the wider variety will entice some folk!

Me handing the first and so far only Travelling Book to my son.  You can almost feel the tension as I wonder if he's going to start ripping the pages out.

I am going to repeat myself from my last post I'm afraid - it's absolutely critical for me to get the word out about this campaign as far and wide as possible, if you do think it's a good idea (check my last post for a recap) please do stop by the campaign page and share it with your social networks, the more people that hear about the campaign, the more people become aware of it... it's all good.  Thank you for your help.