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.

Recession Ghost fleets and contemplating a long bike ride

A Skype call to Australia to talk to the author, Mr J, of the document that I was proof reading and to go through the textual recommendations, the decision being up to the author whether to accept or reject them. We also talked about the impact of the global recession and I was directed to a 2009 image of a ghost fleet of ships mothballed around Singapore and the Straits of Malacca. Apparently people living on nearby islands cannot see the horizon anymore due to the number of ships moored there.

This reminded me of the still ocean going ships at anchor in the upstream waters of the river Fal, away from Falmouth harbour. We saw these, again in 2009, when on holiday in Cornwall and taking a boat trip from Truro to St Mawes.

Mr Heker was back from his holiday in Spain and looked suitably bronzed when Skyping me over lunch time. He had had three viable enquiries for work from UK dentists, a positive homecoming result. We talked about the possibility of chasing that bane of any business, the client forgetting or delaying payment as long as possible. I promised to make a phone call on his behalf in this matter.

Mr H had interrrupted a search on Google Earth to try and gauge the distance from Milton to St Ives via the guided busway and from there to the Huntingdon Indoor Bowls Club. I am severely tempted to try and cycle the stretch tomorrow and to do so in a time equal to or shorter than the 126 minutes taken last Friday when travelling by public transport, including the guided bus itself.

The distance is 22km to St Ives P&R and from there 11km to the Huntingdon Indoor Bowls Club. To achieve the objective, I would have to cycle at about 16km/h. The one concern is that I would have a headwind of roughly the same speed on the way there, and a lot of the trip is across open country.

I will see how I feel tomorrow morning!

The world unites today in asking President Assad of Syria to step down, after the brutal crackdowns against protests in the country are reported to have resulted in the deaths of 2000 or more civilians. The other worrying news was the stock-market plunging over 4%, the greatest fall for two and a half years.

White paper and kindle book development

Monday, 1st August: Completed the conversion of Mr Juengst's discussion document into a fully formatted White Paper and sent it to him.

Went through numerous formatting and reformatting stages of the business startup booklet until I had a version that looked satisfactory on the Kindle. This was then uploaded and published on the Amazon Kindle publishing page. Now, I just had to wait for it to appear as accepted and published on Amazon, “Your Business Startup: Twelve pillars of advice in brief”. Finally climbed into bed at about 4am in the morning.

Battling with Kindle formatting

Sunday, 31st July: Having established yesterday that the formatting of my trial Kindle booklet using illuminated capitals was unsuccessful, I chose an alternative solution, where the illuminated letter and the title, available in the book designed originally in Scribus, was converted into an image that would span a kindle page width. Simple in concept but a time consuming process.

The stages were: exporting the Scribus pages individually as images; Editing these in the image processing software, GIMP - first cropping to the headings alone and then sizing the images to be 520 pixels wide. The images were then incorporated into Sigil as an e-pub format document with the correct text underneath.

The original cover that I had designed was a bit bland too. Since the title was to include the phrase twelve pillars, I set out to design an ionic column, following Greek proportions of column height being eight times column height nine times if including upper and lower units). This was achieved using the software Inkscape, whilst sitting on the garden bench.

Then it was back to editing and extending the text in Sigil that Mrs T kindly proof read for me.

A working Saturday

Saturday, 30th July: Mainly a work day, concentrating on translating a discussion document for Herr Juengst.

Revisited the notes on Business Startup prepared for the radio interview of the previous week with a view to converting it into a Kindle book.

I had prepared illuminated letters for each of the twelve sections that I wished to include. I used a software, Sigil, to do the editing in the computer language HTML. Here they could be aligned with the remainder of the chapter heading text alongside. However, when converting into a mobipocket book using Calibre, the formatting was not as desired when exported and viewed on a Kindle e-book reader.

Last Open Studios day and completing work for Business Startup interview

Sunday, 17th July: The last day of my Cambridge Open Studios was accompanied by a steady stream of visitors, with a break over the lunch period. Today's guests were more sight-seers than serious buyers and it was good to see some younger families too.

At the end of the day, I was astonished to find that I had had about 120 visitors over the Open Studios weekends. Now it was over and the pictures came down, the studio turned back into a garage – until the next year.

The startup business notes expanded into 12 separate pages of an illuminated book. Writing a couple of relevant paragraphs took me into the night. I used the BBC i-player to view the Apprentice Final. This allowed me to skip over the filler repeats within the program. It was interesting to see the business plans by the four finalists be presented and taken apart. I was delighted when Tom, inventor and the one person who seemed to almost be out of place due to his positive, constructive and just plain likeable attitude, actually won on merit.

The notes were finished as a PDF book, sent a copy to the Andie Harper Show and uploaded to Issuu for good measure to share with anyone interested. I'd watched the Apprentice Final and, at 4am felt sufficiently well prepared for the Monday Radio interview.

Ms Lowry and the Eurythmics

A fresher day than yesterday,with clouds scurrying overhead and threatening the occasional shower. I hurried to the Cafe Diem in the Milton Country Park to meet with Ms Lowry, with whom I had become acquainted at the Huntingdonshire Speakers at the beginning of May. The occasion was an initial exchange of information with regards to book publishing.

We sat on the terrace overlooking the ruffled lake with the wind rushing through the nearby willows, sipping our teas. I had read a short extract from her planned introduction to her book, currently being reworked after editing and found it immediately interesting. Our tentative initial conversation developed as we discussed the books content (to be revealed at a later date perhaps) and explored potential synergies. Indeed, what had initially been intended as a potentially brief conversation continued for several hours until the call of my desk and other work led to departure.

That evening we were also graced with the presence of Miss Shaw, a longtime friend of Miss T, who stayed for a family viewing of the third Harry Potter film, “The Prisoner of Azkaban”.

However, the other delight of the day was the arrival of the music DVD “Eurythmics Greatest Hits”. It formed the background music track of the afternoon and late evening, with the chameleon features of Ms Lennox and manic Mr Stewart underlining the music and reminding me why the alto voice of Ms Lennox, with its incredible range and volume was such a joy to hear when her songs were originally released. “Here Comes the Rain Again” was a solace on gloomy days; “Gloria”, a haunting air; “Women are doing it themselves” an exuberant celebration enhanced by the presence of Ms Franklin. I am ending the evening with the wonderful “Its all right, baby's coming back”.

Translation, E.coli and Hunts Speakers

Started the morning with a German – English translation for a Columbian company, which was completed and returned by midday. Edited, formatted and uploaded a second video, demonstration of painting roses by Mrs Evans before conducting more mundane letter writing and some internet research. Registered Mr McArthur's book Ka Sefofane with PubMed, having established its weight (650g), the last detail required before registration.

Radio news focussed on the E. coli contaminated cucumbers in Germany, which now are believed not to have originated in Spain. Cases in Northern Germany have risen to more than 2000 and the source is still unknown.

The evening was enlivened by attending the Huntingdonshire Speakers group of Toastmasters International. An event full of emotion as two members had recently suffered bereavement and each gave an eloquent and moving speech. My role this evening was to introduce and then evaluate Mrs Ekblom, who gave an inspirational presentation on “Killer Islands”. She was referring to the continents of plastic waste accumulating at mid oceanic gyres, where the detritus is mistaken for food by sea-birds and other oceanic denizens, thus causing lethal damage.

An unusual fact that I was unaware of – the storm drains of Bangladesh were found to be blocked by waste plastic bags, contributing to the devastation caused by floods and this has led to the use of plastic bags being banned in cities in the region and in India.

For the second time in recent time, drawn outside by the noise of a Helicopter circling over Milton for a couple of minutes before departing.

DLR restores Human faith. On e-books with author. Night photography

Excellent news from Mr Martin Straus, who recovered his lost bag from the Dockland's Light Railway Lost Property office, with all cash cards and valuables. In particular, Mr Straus stated that the staff at DLR could not have been more helpful. Congratulations to those staff at DLR who restored our faith in human nature!

The days international work was interrupted by a visit to Mrs Hales-Tooke, to assist again in the renewal of her internet connection via a mobile dongle. Our conversation drifted back to books, as Mrs Hales-Tooke was the first author I assisted with publishing, her book being “Journey into Solitude” under the pseudonym Ann Petre. Although in her eighties, Mrs Hales-Tooke has been most dedicated in marketing her two books, having sold over 500 to date.

I mentioned my first foray into ebook publishing and found a kindred spirit in seeing it's value for her existing titles. Mrs Hales-Tooke took time to read the childrens book that I had used as an educational tool in the matter, namely the tale of “Monty Bear and the Chocolate Egg” and it was most gratifying to see her enjoyment and feedback that this was indeed a worthy first title for a very young audience. We resolved to return to the matter of ebooks at a future date.

Yesterday's pineapple crown had a satisfactorily dried base and was now placed in a large jar, such that the end was suspended, ut not touching, the water.

The afternoon tackled the question on assisting a blind or severely visually impaired visitor to London, this being a possibility next week. Whilst an internet search was initially fruitless, the call to the RNIB asking for advice was extremely useful, with a word document being sent to me with guidance on accompanying such an individual.

After the innumerable checks during the day, “Monty Bear and the Chocolate Egg” became live on Amazon in the late afternoon, around 6:30pm!

This being the third Wedneday of the month, there was a Milton Photography Club meeting in the evening. Today we took part in an outing to Cambridge for some evening and night photography. A small but select group of four met up on Magdalene Bridge. We began with some time photographing river scenes, then migrated slowly through the Ships Passage, onto New Park Street, then through Portugal Place. Onwards to the Round Church before ending at the junction of Trinity Street and Green Street at 9:30pm.

My practice was in taking monochrome photographs with the occasional portrait of a passer-by – including an Australian gentleman with a bushy moustache.

Video editing and a potential Balsam Post article

Another gorgeous day. A quick glance into the aquarium revealed the the barnacles were actively feeding, so a quick stir (mimicking the returning tide) to make the water turbid for them and the small molluscs that were now almost 2mm in diameter.

Domestic chores were completed with the mowing of the lawns and then onto editing the videos taken on the beach yesterday. I had a range of short films, covering birds, starfish, hermit crabs and others. Their editing with Corel VideoStudio began.  It is amazing how what might seem reasonable when recorded would turn out to be too poor to use on a larger screen. So each recording required editing where only a fraction might end up being used. The other element is also to try and arrange a series of short scenes into a thread that might have little bearing on the chronological order of their being taken. A fit of nausea and headache in the afternoon put paid to completion today.

Feeling better in the evening again, there was another task to complete; an article for the Balsam Post, in response to Mir Ives', the editor, request for entries before the submission deadline for the next quarterly edition. I chose to write about the invitation by Miss Fleming and Mr Snoswell to investigate the small threads in their pond as these turned out to be the fascinating giant single celled organism, Spirostomum ambiguum. A suitable subject for the Balsam Post, the quarterly newsletter of the Postal Microscopical Society. Article written and posted to Mr Ives tonight.