Picture from Membrain

If I kept on top of my paperwork then it would be a piece of piss to keep organised rather than waiting until I have a pile of papers all over the office floor preventing me from walking properly across the room without either slipping or treading on one of the cats disturbing their nest. It will perhaps be one of those jobs that I always meant to do but will never get round to completing properly due to having other things to do. If I got someone else to do it then there is no way they would do it how I wanted thanks to my rather convoluted system. Each reason to have papers has its own lever arch file; bank statements, bills (each company has their own file), and the more important stuff like the printed Word version of my reviews and other newspaper writing (along with any handwritten notes), lists of songs played on my radio shows and podcasts (dated - the podcast notes have dates written in red stating when they were recorded and released), emails and notes relating to The Sunday Alternative Live and The Random Saturday Sessions, and a file called 'miscellaneous correspondence' which contains emails that are worth keeping but not worth their own folder. Yes, I print them as I don't have a lot of faith in keeping purely digital copies. Then there's the boxes containing various things such as a box of gig tickets, wristbands, flyers (only flyers for gigs I have been to), programmes and such stuff. I also have boxes of CDs with podcasts and radio stuff on, a couple of boxes called 'Nottingham music' (I have started updating my Nottingham music archive purely on USB sticks now), and most anal of all I have a box of receipts that come out of cash-point machines 'just in case'. That 'just in case' is probably the same reason people give for keeping takeaway menus, old batteries, and screws. My reason is that some discrepancy on my bank account will be ironed out if I have a detailed record of my transactions although I have never been called upon to use them, which is a shame because they are all in date and time order fastened together with a treasury tag. I have also made room in the box of Christmas editions of the Radio Times for this year's copy, you just never know when you might want to know what was on during the Christmas holidays on a certain day of a certain year and I can be the one to tell you. Maybe there's a business idea there, I'll write it down and then place the piece of paper in the box labelled 'Abandoned ideas, notes, notebooks' and never think about it again.

The Sunday Alternative Podcast #65 is available now from here

Please read my November newsletter about funding for new projects.

This week's episode of The Random Saturday Sessions is here.