Overcoming adversity

I don't think anyone ever said life was meant to be easy. It's definitely easier for some than others. Sometimes.

Sitting aboard a flight to Belfast and enjoying what was actually a good cup of green tea made the 5am start and the hideous experience of Luton Airport bearable.

You can either whinge and moan about stuff or you can just see it as a mean to an end.

I hate wheely suitcases, especially at airports and stations, when people don't seem to know where they're going. But you just have to negotiate a route around them.

Same with queues. Necessary evil sometimes.

A bit of stress is probably a good thing for a brief period, as long as you can follow it with a mini relax. And I console myself with the fact that there is always - always - someone who's worse off.

Why is your online profile important?

An errant apostrophe says a great deal about you and if your profile is a bit jokey and inaccurate, that's fine. It's how people will see you.

Which is fine, if you don't really care about accuracy and occasionally being taken seriously.

People will pay a LOT of money for a good profile picture. And then they write their own profile and it's just a bit rubbish.

Or they don't pay anything and even their profile pic is pretty poor.

We all know that first impressions are important and you don't often get a second chance online.

If you're not sure if your profile, brief as it must be, tells your story effectively, pay a professional to get it right. We're not always as expensive as you think and it'll be worth every penny!

Hot off the Press

For those of lucky enough to still work with printed magazines, the phrase 'Hot off the Press' means a love of that fresh magazine. It's not hot these days, but smells great.

The expression lasts despite many people having no concept of print and what the process entails.

It's similar to hearing people talk about 'upper case' when they've probably never seen a printer's collection of letters for the old typesetting process. I'm old enough to remember those days.

There's no replacement in modern tech. Unless you know better?

This made me smile

Sometimes, an office can look like this

My job takes me to interesting places and this hotel is just beautiful. Hogarth's, just outside Solihull.

I spent the day with a bunch of hard working people given a day off to celebrate success. It was worth every minute.

Don't tell me what you're going to do. Just do it.

Little is more annoying than a phone call informing you that someone is "just about to email" some vital information for an article. At least, it's annoying when you spend the next half hour (so far) waiting for the ping of said email.

It would have perhaps been more helpful for the source to email me the information and then call me to make sure I've received it.

Rant over. Just do it.

Weaning myself off gadgets - by accident

Gadgets make my life significantly simpler, but I do sometimes feel tied to them.

Force of circumstances separated me from all tech for six hours recently. That made me realise I have a problem. I hesitate to say 'addiction' but ...

Today I had a working train journey planned. iPad was nicely on charge and I knew the task I was going to complete. As I arrived at the station I realised it's still charging. At home. So that work will have to wait.

Although I'm now writing this and listening to music (Aretha Franklin, since you asked) on my phone, I'm going to wean myself off tech.

So if I don't reply to tweets, emails or status updates for a couple of hours once in a while, you'll know why.

Now I know why I'm so tired!

Looking back at my twitter feed and blog posts, I can see why I'm so tired - I haven't had a social media moment for over a week. Bonkers.

It's scheduled in, so there's no excuse, but I just haven't been able to find the time. Too many projects on the go. Not complaining, honest.

Ten minutes from my front door. Counting my blessings