I really should record The Sunday Alternative in advance of the release day from now on, as it really takes the pressure off what is supposed to be a day of rest. Obviously I still need to do the promotional stuff but that can be done while I’m listening to Radio 4 and having my morning cuppa. A couple of days ago I accidentally found a public footpath that runs along the tram track near to where I live so we decided to go that way to my dad’s. We had a moment when some idiot passed us with a dog that wasn’t on a lead, who accused us of being in the wrong for some reason, but apart from that it was a nice way to start the morning.

On returning home, Mandi wanted to watch Frozen on DVD and I didn’t, so despite it being Sunday I decided to do some work (no double time for working Sunday for the self-employed, you could reward me with the PayPal button though if you want to help a good cause) in my office. Apart from some emails and general admin I couldn’t really be bothered doing anything massively productive aside from posting a few blogs as I had fallen behind in publishing them, (I write them up in Word but leave them until I have edited them properly). Blogs don’t count as work though, unless you wish to make a donation via the PayPal button, or subscribe to the blog on the Kindle for only 99p a month (although I don’t make a lot from that once Mr. Amazon has taken his tax-avoiding share), or by downloading one of my books or audio books. If that doesn’t appeal to you then by all means carry on reading it for free, I don’t mind. Maybe you could buy me a pint or a cup of coffee when you see me out and about.

All writers have an activity that they take part in when they want to look as though they have had a productive day but can’t be bothered doing any actual writing; tidying the office. My office is like the Forth Bridge in that once I’ve tidied one part of it I have only succeeded in messing up another part. (That analogy doesn’t work these days of course as the Forth Bridge no longer needs constant painting). The first problem is the dozens of boxes and bags containing Christmas decorations that occupy one corner of the room. My records and CDs have been knocked out of order in transit so I have been arranging them back into alphabetical order by way of a brilliant new system I have devised; simply open a new folder on your desktop and name it ‘CD’ or ‘LP’ (or whatever you want to alphabetically arrange) and keep adding new folders called ‘Artist – Title’. When you close the folder and reopen it, everything is in order; I wish I’d thought of it sooner. I still need some shelves because I have books and DVDs in piles all over the place, but I have lined the stairs leading up to my office with stacks of video tapes that I’ll probably never watch again.

I did at least one useful thing today and sorted out my audio archive. It was nice to go through and see what a body of work I have collected in a relatively short time. My Sherwood Radio shows are in a CD wallet, as are my American shows. I have every edition of The Sunday Alternative podcast but there are gaps in the radio collection thanks to the death of my old laptop, they are on Mixcloud so I can record them but it is a ‘real time’ job and I simply don’t have the time. I also don’t possess any editions of NottinghamLIVE apart from the first anniversary show and Mike Atkinson’s final show. I do however have all the live music sessions on CD, a collection I should be proud of (and deep down I am) although my memories of that show have been soured somewhat due to recent events so I can’t look through my mementos of my time on that show with the same fondness that I once did.

So tomorrow I have to crack on back to work, and my office is still a mess.

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