2012 gradually accelerating, New ideas and opportunities

At last, the winter inertia is gradually diminishing. This was prompted in part by an unexpected invitation from Germany to visit for exploratory talks. This came totally out of the blue and was due to the host remembering me from a 2006 event.

With the book "A View from the Lodge" now printed and Mr James the author actively pursuing sales, attention turns to "Dark Seeds 3AM" by Mrs Lowry which is close to completion, following talks with the cover photographer and designer of Perfect Yellow.

A message left on the New Scientist group of LinkedIn requested mentors for US High School science projects. One of these was in the area of molecular biology, an area in which I have considerable experience. Contact with the student resulted in a favourable response and i now await the project initiation.

A casual internet search on certain technology matters revealed a dramatic change in accessibility and cost-effectiveness in certain areas. This has led to the exploration of a new venture which I am researching further assiduously.

Sadly, Hermione Triops is now deceased. Triops, like all arthropods, grow by repeated shedding of old skin and expanding before the new skin hardens. Hermione had a small amount of old skin was not shed, around her tail after one moult. The subsequent moult proved laborious because the old remnant made it impossible to fully shed the next skin. I did attempt microsurgery which did remove most of the old shell, but the tail was now so constricted that food waste could not be ejected and after two days, Hermione passed away.

Sad though this incident is, the different forums on the internet suggest that moults are a known crisis point, leading to premature death.

I have set up a new hatch of Triops two days ago but have yet to see any sign of life.

The headlines are currently dominated by the holing and capsizing of an Italian cruise ship, the impugned conduct of the captain during the emergency and the continued search for the missing passengers, numbering 20 or so.

Skype conversations and annotating stained glass photos.

Gradually getting back into the routine of work, with a promising Skype conversation as well as the usual chats with Mr Heker as we drafted a new communication text together for his company.

Placed copies of both the Stereomicroscopy book by Mr Woolnough and the “A View from the Lodge” by Mr James as for sale on Amazon. This time I was offering to sell worldwide.

I also quickly generated German pages for the front and end of the Flash game and uploaded that as a separate entity.

Hermione the Triops has a carapace now around 1cm long, demonstrating the tremendous growth of this species. Spent a large part of the evening beginning to collect annotations and information on the stained glass windows of Worcester Cathedral. Began with the seven East cloister aisle windows. This has introduced me to the Saxon Kings and the gradual penetration of Christianity into the British Isles. 

Eve Arnold, photographer, died at 99. Spent some time browsing her pictures online. Rather than studio work, she appeared to photograph on location or behind the scenes at studios. The one that really struck me was a picture taken during the US integration crisis. It shows two girls, one black, one white, at an integration party eyeing each other with spontaneous smiles.

Start of Working year and finishing game design

It was a slightly later start to the first working day of the year. It started well with a call from Mr Straus for design task. Starting to work back through the e-mails, there was an unusual one from Germany, responding to my Christmas greetings and asking for a meeting out of the blue.

Not being able to find out much from a quick internet search, I replied suggesting the individual call me for a chat for futher information. This they duly did and it turned out that we had met briefly back in 2006 at the BIK business exhibition in Germany, where I had assisted my sister.

I had stated at the time that I was happy to meet up with people for idea exchanges if my visit costs were covered. My caller was offering just that. There also appeared to be synergies with another of my contacts in NRW and I put them in touch with each other.

In the evening, I could not resist working to finish the flash game that I had begun to design. Completed as “Your Business Startup”, I eventually published it on the StencylWork site, see http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/10438 and have a play! What was most amazing was that within an hour there had been over 40 clicks onto the site.

December in brief

• Alan James' book, “A View from the Lodge” published and printed.
• Contrast to the financial meeting in London – photography and filming of the public sector demonstrations in Cambridge see http://miltoncontact.blogspot.com/2011/12/nine-points-learnt-photographing.html. 
• Three trips to Hereford and back – family related. I used the opportunity to take a better set of all the available stained glass at Worcester Cathedral and spent time editing the images. 
• Also climbed up the Malvern's British Camp and Worcester Beacon with the SLR and tripod to try some panoramic views – images still to be edited. 
• Completed the total recreation of the company brochure for Jos-Reinigung Nord - http://issuu.com/miltoncontact/docs/jos-procedure-by-juengst. 
• Personal accounts and most of Company accounts done. 
• Timing totally out for my most recent speech at Toastmasters – need to tackle for 2012. 
• Had fun with Chinese Brush Painting, creating Robins and Holly for a video Christmas Card http://miltoncontact.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-do-robin-holly-feature-at-christmas.html. Originally initiated by a request by Ms Mix in Germany for an e-mail Christmas Card. 
• Saddened to hear of death of Gregor Scholz who visited the UK earlier this year and whom I acccompanied in London – article at http://miltoncontact.blogspot.com/2011/12/cheers-to-gregor-scholz-farewell.html. 
•  Saw a program about living fossils – Triops. Was so captivated, bought a kit to hatch at home and am currently nurturing a small specimen of Triops longicaudatus in a tank. 
• Had a lovely Christmas with the family.

From international finance to repairing a webcam dropped in tea

I visited Mrs Hales-Tooke, who's two books I had published, after my brush painting class. Her son, photographer, artist and author Mr H Hales-Tooke was visiting from the US and I heard of his narrow escape during the floods in Spring. Our discussion also turned to the merits of printed versus digital books and the different strategies for marketing them.

Wednesday was a day trip to London for a talk on The Future of the international Monetary System, part of the OMFIF Golden Talks series. It was held in the Armourers' Hall, Coleman Street. The talk  was illuminating – concentrating on the longer term – there is a blog article on it now, “The International Monetary System is to local crises like the climate is to weather”. It provided a marked contrast to the immediate dramatic fluctuations and contagion in the Eurozone area.

The Armourers' hall itself was worthy of note and I spent some time photographing there (see article “the Armourers' Hall of the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers”) before taking a walk through London from Coleman St to Holborn Station. The route was a slight meander, taking in the stained glass in Wrens rebuilt church of St Lawrence Jewry and the Occupy London tent city still outside St Pauls.

Thursday I visited Mr Woolnough, author of the Understanding and Using the Stereomicroscope. We had worked together closely on the book as I edited the design, layout, redrew some of the illustrations, added extra photographs and the quick start guide. The book is published by the Quekett Microscopical Society.

We were working together on the start of a new exciting project and made a lot of progress on the initial planning.

This morning began with a telephone call to Mr Ebert of Feinkaeserei Zimmermann, a friend from his previous visit to the UK looking for potential distributors of the Product of Designated Origin, the Altenburger Ziegenkaese. Today's call was a social catchup on mutual news.

The annoying and yet amusing immediate aftermath of the conversation involved my accidentally knocking off the web-cam from my PC right into a full cup of tea. Quickly retrieved, I could see the milky tea sloshing behind the lens. A search online gave instructions on how to open up my particular model and I set to flushing out the tea with water and then placing the opened web-cam to dry in a warm place.

Then it was an HBN day where Mrs Burbidge was notable for ensuring that every guest arriving was welcomed to the event.

Returning late afternoon, I set about ensuring that the visible and accessible parts of the webcam were clean before reassembling it.

With great anticipation, I reconnected the webcam and started a video. All seemed to be working well until I saw the picture on screen – the image was as blurry as viewed through cold tea. I had to admit defeat and order a replacement!

Losing a food reputation is all too easy. Spanish elections. Egyptian riots.

Drove to Hereford. Started in sunshine but soon hit the mists in the Midlands. Visibility was quite good, up to a kilometre or so. However, it transformed the autumnal landscape into flat shades of gray like monochrome watercolour layers.

Stopping at the halfway point of Corley service station on the westbound M6, I went for a meal. In the past year, the food and service at the Eat In had been great, contrary to the usual perceptions of a service station eatery. A fortnight ago, stopping there, I already noticed a slight decline in standards.

Today. The food in served was surely below the required minimum temperature, service was listless and indifferent at the till and the knives and the spoon in the cutlery tray were covered with crud. I asked the more positive helpful assistant to look at the cutlery and at least she immediately responded and clean cutlery was replaced.

It is so sad. Someone had previously made such a great effort to change the food quality and the perception of this particular eatery. Now it seems their effort is gradually being eroded away.

Internationally, Spain is now infected with the consequences of the Eurozone crisis. Coinciding with elections, it led to the fall of the socialist Government of Zapatero (who was not up for re-election himself) to the centre right opposition Peoples Party led by Mariano Rajoy. Austerity measures beckon.

The news of Gadaffi's son Saif being captured and likely to be prosecuted within Libya and the current crisis on Syria, on the edge of civil war have both been placed second place in the news by the increasing riots in Egypt’s cities. Major demonstrations are reported in Cairo's Tahir Square, protesting in advance of the coming elections as there seems to be doubt as to whether these will truly introduce democracy.

On making videos and writing about them

Was still thinking about the business networking event at the SJIC yesterday. On leaving I introduced myself to another visitor who asked what I did and the conversation turned to my missing out video.

A valid point as I had not generated any videos recently.

So today, I set about putting together a 1 minute video on just this point. The frustration was in achieving a white sheet background. The fun lay in incorporating additional elements in the editing, including the sound of breaking glass to accompany a point on breaking the glass ceiling for women.

Making that 1 minute video took about an hour to publication online. That set me thinking about giving guidance to others on the points that I found important in creating a video.

This resulted in a blog article “Making your own video: 10 points I found useful”. Just finished uploading it and now ready for bed.

Networking in person to learning more about Google+

Sunrise, and I was Nordic walking across the Jane Coston Bridge to the St John'sInnovation centre for a meeting of Mrs Garwoods Business Breakfast Network. A reasonable turnout for an 8am start, with familiar and new faces. Apart from business exchanges, the topics ranged from tropical fish (initiated by realistic tattoos) to breaking the glass ceiling for women.

A walk back home for a short break before departing for HBN, starting with the first committee meeting with Mr Foster, our new chairperson. I am now responsible for the newsletters and have written two, one a week, to date which have been favourable received. As an added hook, they include a soap based on business networking “Passionate Networking”.

Mr Downing returned to HBN after a three year absence in the follow on HBN networking. This opportunity was afforded by the fact that Gridsure, the company that he had been working for, had been sold outright, with the immediate loss of all staff, to Cryptocard, a major player in the field of card security.

As there was no tutorcloud meeting today, I gave Mr Wishart a lift back to his house where I profited from his greater experience with Google+, learning some additional tips and tricks. At last the start of the weekend.

Escalating Eurozone Crisis to watching a Magistrate's Court at work

These have been turbulent times economically. Since my last entry a couple of weeks ago we have had a change of Government in Greece. The Eurozone crisis then moved to Italy and resulted in the departure of Berlusconi as Italy's cost of borrowing soared and it was thought that only a change of government would suffice.

Currently the crisis has shifted to Spain. Germany and France, but mainly Germany, are trying to react to the crisis by suggesting further Eurozone political integration – but without much more financial commitment, whilst the UK is diametrically opposed to this policy. Prime Minister Cameron has already been publicly snubbed for his comments by the French Prime Minister. Mr Cameron is heading for a meeting tonight with Mrs Merkel of Germany where warning shots have already been fired across his bow.

The cubs evening treasure hunt based on science using light physics clues went extremely well. This was indicated by the general low level of noise as the cubs got into each activity. There were two activities that surprised us for the interest they generated.

The first was the fascination created by looking through 3D specs, front to back, as a laptop screen whilst rotating the glasses. The fact that suddenly the screen would turn dark (at about 45 degree angle) alone kept them occupied, even before we presented them with plastic film that would reveal colour effects.

The second was making periscopes and trying them out – the children would wander around the room with a periscope just fascinated by the fact that a different view could be seen.

Preparations for the Cambridge Open Studios EGM went well, the event itself being almost an anticlimax. I was complimented for bravery by demonstrating the COS website live. The failure of my first attempt at logging in demonstrating that even supposed experts are human. The key element was that at last the revised COS website went live yesterday.

Mr James' book is now with the printers. We have had a proof returned, the colour of the cover needs adjusting but it is close to completion.

Having helped Mr Heker with his dental technical business, it was now my time to receive some dental treatment for the premolar that had caused me agony in Egypt and that had required a second antibiotic treatment to calm it down again. The result was a full hour of root canal treatment. Strangely painless after the anaesthetic injections, it was still had an effect for the day psychologically.

Today, I had the second part of the treatment, preparation and generatation of an imprint in order to permit the production of a crown. Ironically, this affected me more than the original root canal treatment as the work was at gum level.

After some comfort shopping in Waterstones for two books, I found myself drawn to the Magistrate's court, situated where the city post office used to be. The staff were very helpful when I expressed an interest in the court. Using an empty court, the layout and roles of people within it were explained to me before I went into Court 1 as an observer. Only intending to stay for an hour, I was there for three watching the system at work. Fascinating and a great distraction from the dental treatment earlier that day.

DVD Spectrometer and waiting for EU to make a decision

Work on Mr James's book this morning, getting it print ready before passing it back to the author for a detailed word for word check. Then in the afternoon, start of planning for business presentation to Magdeburg delegation in London on Monday.

A brief but fascinating educational interlude via email from Mr Cooper, who had found a design for a spectrometer using a cardboard box and a DVD or CD (see http://www.scienceinschool.org/2007/issue4/spectrometer).

Rummaging in the kitchen non-food recycling bin, I recovered the tablet box from my antibiotics – a bit small but worth a try, I thought. Then took a DVD and followed the very simple instructions. Using a very thin slit, I could get an excellent spectrum from sunlight – with absorption lines! This is the first time that I've seen this phenomenon that I had only known from textbooks.

The different fluorescent bulbs in the house had their own unique spectra with clear peaks in intensity in the reds, greens and blues of the spectrum. Brilliant.

For once gripped by the news and following it during the day as EU leaders prepared to meet for a crucial meeting to dam the economic crisis. There are clear fracture lines between the Euro and non Euro members and also between the fiscally more prudent states, Germany, France and the UK and those suffering real problems – such as Greece and the threatened domino effect on Italy.

As usual such events bring along their own phrases and terminology. Writing off a proportion of Greece's debt has become “A Haircut”. The trillion is the new measure of financial backing required.

The currently accepted definition in the UK of a trillion is 1000 billion or 1 million Million. This is a considerable shift from the previous use of the word, because a British billion used to be a million million and a trillion was a million million million.

Phrase of the day came from one financial expert questioned about the summit “The EU has been kicking the can down the street for a while now, it's time for a decision.”

Earthquake and Floods

Yesterday was a day of rest, with a walk amongst the autumnal trees of Anglesey Abbey. Children running towards a mobility bus for the elderly and infirm were called back with and we heard the parents tell them earnestly “That's only for naughty people!”

Back home for a freshly baked cake and tea.

The major news of the day was the Earthquake in Turkey. 7.2 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre in Tabanli in Van province, near the border with Iran. Over 100 deaths so far.

On Monday, played catchup with e-mails for the morning. Received a visit by Dr Maunders, delivering a box of assorted microscope slides prepared by Mr Bailey.

MR Heker had arrived back home in Germany and called briefly. Corrected a few minor errors in the translated brochure for Mr Juengst via Skype and then looked at trying different fonts and line spacings for Mr James's book. Caught up with Mr Dodsworth on current international projects.

Today's catastrophe is the flooding of Dublin by torrential rain.

Friday, 21st October. NEC & Birmingham City Centre

I shared a room with Mr Viesteg, our stand's German dentist (who spoke with a delightfully impeccable Irish lilt) a circumstance which on German terms immediately put us on the informal Du. With us both being snorers, it also put us on equal footing for the night – in separate beds of course.

The Elmond guest room we were staying in had the remarkable feature of the bathroom being bigger than the sleeping area. Downstairs, we found that we were the first to breakfast – but soon the others joined us and we returned for the second day at the NEC.

It took a while for the visitors to trickle through from the main entrance and then it back into our routine. It was good that we had practiced yesterday as there was a greater flow and often all five of us would be busy talking to dentists, dental nurses, students, lecturers.

Towards five pm, the masses had disappeared and things became quiet again. I set out with the camera to take pictures of interesting close up details at other stands.

Tonight, we took a taxi to the centre of Birmingham, to the canals by Broad Street for a meal at the Handmade Burger. Afterwards, Mr Heker took us on a tour of the near vicinity, displaying an embarrassing knowledge of the area as a German, compared to myself as the only Englishman of the team.

At 11pm we returned to the agreed pick-up point where the canal crosses Broad St where people were massing for the pubs and clubs. In addition to the police who, in pairs, were keeping an eye on events, there was a patrol of City Pastors. They were there to also offer their own form af human assistance to anyone who needed it.

Both Mr Heker and I tried some photography; with the small camera, I was only really able to photograph two exotically dressed figures outside Walkabout, who were amusing the queue to enter to what they told me was a giant bouncy castle! I almost wanted to go in.

We thought it was busy, but one of the bobbies drily informed me that it would get busier, they were there till five am – and you should be there Saturdays!

Mr Viesteg and I had been moved to another room, which was, sizewise, the antithesis of the previous night's room; it was in the eaves and the bathroom was very much smaller.

We were amused first by a sign: “Notice to all Guests. Please do not take curry meals back to rooms as the sauce destroys the bedding”. Then we we could only fill our kettle for a late night drink from the shower – once we had worked out how to operate it.

The news headline of the day was the capture and death of Colonel Gaddhafi , apparently found hiding in a drain in Sirte.

Birmingham NEC with Mr Heker and Friends, from wine to beer

An hour into my train journey from Cambridge to Birmingham saw the sun rise briefly colouring the morning sky gold before a bank of clouds took over. A regular change of passengers sitting beside me occurred, beginning with a cycling student to parents off to Cadbury Worls with three young girls actively crayoning pictures to pass the time.

At the NEC I met up with Mr Heker and party at stand Y06, hall 5, BDTA Exhibtion. Whilst today was a gentle day in terms of visitors to the Hall, we had a sufficient number of dentists, dental students and journalists on whom we gradually honed our pitches on the benefits and examples of double crown attachments. With a dentist, two dental technicians, girl Friday and myself as communicator, we soon worked as a team,

Weary of standing by the end of the day, we checked into our Guest House in Solihull and then went out for a meal in the nearby Harvester.

Our conversation started soberly on Europe and the current crisis, to be enlivened by the arrival of wine in a carafe shaped like the urine waste collectors in hospitals and with a  straw coloured liquid that the service assured us he had filled himself.

As the wine and beer flowed, talk migrated around ever increasingly ludicrous tales of travel by air and sea to end on the serious subject of German beer.

The different beers and ales had been served in glasses frosted on the inside base with the mark of the brewer. This raised consternation amongst my merry German friends. Surely this would cause the beer to go flat quicker!

The German beer purity laws were invoked with warnings of dire consequences if such mistreatment of glasses and deflation of beer were attempted there. The outrage segued into a soulful reflection on the true origin of beer - as food for fasting monks - becoming the endnote of the meal and evening's putting the world to rights as we returned to our rooms for the night.

Short press release in the morning, book formatting pm

Mr Heker had sent through a previous text which had been used as a press release for past BDTA exhibitions. Taking into account all the publications he had written and I had translated in the past year and had published there was an opportunity for a rewrite. Additionally, Mr Heker had generated some roadsigns to indicate his “no clasps” principle.

To me, the dental clasp with a red bar through it looked like a cartoon velociraptor head. There was an excellent photograph of him with the sign. Since his stand at the BDTA was to introduce new techniques of telescopic crowns and invisible attachments to unsuspecting UK dentists this afforded opportunity for a play with meaning. The press release was therefore retitled “No Dinosaurs, No Clasps!” and a more interesting phrasing introduced to emphasise the expert nature of Mr Heker, his published articles and willingness to talk shop with dentists at his stand at the BDTA Dental Showcase.

For the afternoon, my attention went to Mr James's book draft, checking the amendments and finalising them. Then it was onto the next stage, ensuring that the text formatting was consistent throughout, including removing unnecessary spaces.

The page size was converted to Royal and the margins set for a perfect bound book, where the inner margins is larger, not smaller than the outer margin as is usual with a manuscript or stitched book. The reason being that perfect bound books are glued an the pages cannot be opened fully flat. Then different font examples were prepared as we began to look at the aesthetics.

Impregnation and Hydrophobization

Author Alan James and partner dropped by to pick up his watercolours that I had photographed for his book in production. The humour in his true biography of a college porter was reflected in conversation but we also discussed more serious issues such as styling and font to use.

At last I had a clear run to complete the translation and formatting of Mr Juengst's brochure, which did indeed take the rest of the day.

Two words stood out in translation, which rang as strange in my mind.  The first of these was “impregnation”.

The word was used in relation to impregnating the surfaces of historical buildings and monuments with protective agents. I looked up the definitions, I looked up its use in relation to restoration. The word is used in the industry, there is even a company called Impregnation Services that works in the area. Yet the word constantly niggled in my mind as I was working though the translation. I suppose it was the other use of the word, “to inseminate”, “to make pregnant”, with all its sexual connotations that falsely triggered my translator's instinct to say “are you sure this is the right word?”

The second word was “hydrophobization”. The immediate temptation was to replace the word with “water repellent”. But in respect to treating sensitive surfaces, façades and walls, water repellent almost implied a total sealing and waterproofing, such that a building might not be able to breathe.

Hydrophobization seemed to mean more a coating of particles within a structure, so that water would not penetrated into the particles, whilst still allowing the surface to breathe.

The problem with thinking too hard about a translation of a word can be that even the most obvious and appropriate words become suspect in the mind of the translator.

Battles with Wordfast and the importance of tattoo aftercare

The tribulations of modern technology came to the fore again as I tried to use the translation software Wordfast for the first time on the new computer with an existing file that I had started previously. All seemed to be progressing well until I tried to save the partially translated file back into the Word document as I had been able to before. - A dreaded error message appeared.

An internet search did not come up with a suitable answer, so it was back to the Wordfast site to use their help hotline – except that was not available unless an additional hefty fee of over £60 was paid. Well, it was either that or waste the equivalent in time, so I reluctantly paid. This was a software element I was paying for, so I was very surprised to find that it was not immediately available. Delivery time anywhere between 6h and two days!

Went back to basics and set up a fresh word file on the PC. I started a new Wordfast project with a new translation memory. This worked flawlessly. Eventually, by trial and error, I found that by creating a new project for the existing file and running it from a PC based folder, rather than a dropbox folder as I had done before, I could resume work without problems. Spent the remaining couple of hours working away on the translation.

A short afternoon walk was interrupted by an impromptu haircut at the local salon, which was empty when I passed by. The discussion centred around the cling-filmed arm of my hairdresser, covering a new tattoo to complement the already very aesthetic grayscale ones on his other arm. Apparently this was to ensure that the tattoo set. It turns out that having a tattoo is only half or even a tenth of the job as a good tattoo requires considerable after-care.

A tattoo is effectively a wound and therefore it is important to wear the dressing given to you for at least the time specified by your tattooist. This is followed by a gentle antibacterial wash, drying gently and then applying protective lotion or ointment very thinly.

Initially during the healing process, tattoos may appear cloudy as one develops “onion skin”. The trick is not to scratch or remove peeling skin during the subsequent weeks. Total water immersion such as in a bath or with swimming are also out of the frame for a couple of weeks as healing continues, though a shower can be taken as long as the tattoo does not become too wet.

Tattoos are also photosensitive, i.e. will fade in strong light. So to keep the tattoo pristine and dark as the day it was made, it should be covered up – or protected with factor 30 sunblock. Two excellent links are by Wiki How and About.com.

Early evening I drove to Soham for the first Cambridge Open Studios committee meeting looking towards the next year. Productive but long, I did not return home till just after 11pm.

Three weeks of Tweets, Blogs, Interviews, Travel and a new PC

I give in. I will never catch up the past three hectic weeks. A relative's need for assistance with a new central heating installation meant a journey to the cathedral city of Hereford. This time, there was no opportunity for photography. Instead, I returned to the Point4 centre run by the RNIB on a daily basis, because of the cafe with its free WiFi. I was able to at least keep up with work both on Ms Lowry's book editing and the press release for the German restorators. Tweeting about the facilities in between led to a chance meeting with the Marketing manager and an interesting conversation that in itself led on to a blog article (Blindness - disability or different life style?).

Returning to Cambridge, there was an opportunity for a longer interview on Huntingdon Community Radio, with its founder Bill Hensley, on the Sunday. Being part of a program where the interview extended over 40 minutes with breaks for music and snatched sips of tea was a more relaxed experience. A wider range of topics including HBN, Toastmasters, publishing and local authors was covered. I was able to speak more slowly and clearly as there was not the feeling of telescoped time prevalent in a short few minute interview.

The following week, I managed to get a last minute booking with the joint Inspired Group and Business Club charity event, a motivations talk by Evelyn Glennie. It was a rewarding interlude to the catchup and mundane work inbetween. I remembered Ms Glennie for her percussion performances. Her talk gave a much deeper insight into the determination and acumen she had to create a multifaceted career for herself that defied pigeon-holing as explained in the article “Who is Dame Evelyn Glennie?”.

The weekend was the beginning of four days of travel, with two days travelling to another Cathedral City, Lincoln, and back for a social call on Miss T. The evening included shadow games with the lights on the Cathedral. The next day began with a small cruise on the Foss Bank in the mellow Sunday sunshine before a lunch at the top of the hill and return back to Cambridge.

On Monday, I went to pick up a small van to help take University clobber to Lancaster and returned with a much larger one. This meant that the two hundred plus mile journey transported a considerably more air than luggage, but it was a comfortable ride to the city and back, again over two days.

Before leaving for the final university year, Mr T. had, on my request and with much prior consultation and deliberation, constructed a new desktop PC from bespoke purchased parts. I held off till the weekend before beginning the transition from the existing PC to the new one. The task included a dual strategy, ensuring that existing files were backed up and then beginning the transfer. I spent most of Saturday alone esuring that I had a complete e-mail record from 2004 to the Friday to export and then import onto the new PC.

Today, Monday, the new PC went live, beginning with the first e-mail download and replies. There was a glitch in sending that was resolved by a call to Mr Beal – a pesky little tick box in the account settings had not been ticked. Drove to Mr Beals afterwards on Cambridge Open Studios website business. The evening included the installation of most of the important programs that I expected to use in the near future. Then, in turn, it was the all important precaution of conducting the very first back-up of the new PC.

Thu, 15th Sep.: Quick response to web site hijack Then off to New Wood Green Business Exhibition

The last leg to complete a vital project report on a year's work to help with the invoice submission in conjuction with my other collaborative partner. Not a day for interruptions really, so naturally a major one had to come my way.

Mr Heker, checking out my company website, queried the e-mail. I went to have a look and found that my site had been hacked – e-mail address and telephone number changed and a whole set of articles on tobacco and cigarettes added!

I was onto the telephone to Mr Beal like a shot; his company hosts my website. Fortunately, we had already been working on an upgrade to my site. This was the time to change the site username and password and replace the old with the new upgrade.

The new site is not perfect, but I now have the impetus to work on it. Returning to the report, I managed to finish by about 5pm.

A quick change into business dress and it was off to Wood Green to check out a new Business Exhibition, organised by Mr Cooney. The ambition was to be a new concept, not only having businesses networking and educational presentations but also including entertainment acts.

Whilst there were a number of familiar friends and faces, exhibiting and wandering around, there were also a number of companies who would not have been at other business exhibitions. Returning back home, I wrote a short blog article - New Business Exhibition at Wood Green - to go on the Miltoncontact blog.

Wed, 14th Sep.: Small businesses pull together to help a friend

Packed laptop and projector, then set off for Huntingdon to take part in Mr Wishart's social media event, arranged at a new venue at short notice.

The invitation had been sent out via different social media on Monday, by this morning we were expecting 27 attendees. Ms Ashton and Ms Ekblom were already there in support and Ms Hawkins arrived soon afterwards forming the team that Mr Wishart had asked to help in his hour of need.

By the time all the attendees had arrived, we had 32, with one coming from as afar as Colchester, attesting to the power of Linkedin.

I had to adapt my presentation quickly before the event began as we could not achieve an internet connection via the WiFi which we usually used, as is typical for any technology required when things are critical. However, this was not such a critical issue as the content and principles could be conveyed equally well with a flipchart and pen.

The event went well overall and there was positive feedback both at the meeting and later in the Twittersphere. On my return back home, close to five pm, I wrote a quick blog article - Making social media relevant to your business -summarising the key elements of the event and providing useful links and keywords relevant to the content.

Fri, 9th Sep.: Back to QR Codes

Braved the computer to check the accumulated e-mails of the past week, seeking out the most urgent to respond to.

Saved by driving to the Friday HBN meeting, dressed in my galabeya, but without the headdress. Good turnout. For the first time see the usually imperturbable Mr W quietly fuming at the way he had been treated by another business. Group very supportive.

Travelled back with Mr Wishart to view the banner which I had designed as there were anticipated problems with one of the QR codes, one combined with an image. The original design worked on screen and when printed on paper, however, when printed on the banner material, it worked with my QR code reader but was very erratic with Mr Wishart's. Based on the technology underlying the QR codes, we thought that perhaps the problem was due to the lower contrast at one of the three key squares used by the QR software to recognise the orientation of the two dimensional code. Experiments with small strips of white sticky paper found a solution that worked without impinging on the impact of the design.

Spent the evening editing the 1000+ photographs taken in Egypt.