Finally, something all right thinking people can agree on…

Last week james and I were chatting on MSN about how many downloads we had had of the latest podcast, after I told him the months figures he seemed a little surprised. So armed only with a calculator, spreadsheet, analog web reports and my quick wit I sat down to work out how many downloads we have had recently.

My host only keeps records for a year, but I had a blog post from last year with the figures as they stood then, so I added them all together, and came to a figure. Now before I say the figure there are a few flaws which I will detail later. Since June 2006 we have had, in total 18,814 downloads of our podcasts! Hurray us!

Now this figure is a little on pessimistic side as I don’t have several months figures, (i.e. from when we started and also 4 months from the end of the stats on my last blog post until my host reports start)also we have no stats for the Rock Lobster episode as that was not hosted by us and I have no idea of those figures. Also my host reports only show the highest requests, so some of them will have dropped off the bottom. I think it is fairly safe to say that we must have had in excess of 20,000 downloads since we started, which while it does not make us BBC standards, it is pretty good.

Thank you to all of you that have listened, it means a lot to us to know that people are liking what we do.

Hello, sorry not to update this before but I am a busy little bunny at the moment. New NSD, more on this later, and a new PC to build soon. Tonight is a hectic riot of backing up files from the desktop PC to my network drive. Then when I get the bits I should be building ahoy! I am also getting a valve (tube for our American readers) preamp, so my mike should soon sound sweeter. My new PC should be much quieter too.

Anyway, NSD you say?

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Linkies for downloading are:

http://www.trevs-shed.net/divide/NSD-08-sky-96k.mp3

http://www.trevs-shed.net/divide/NSD-08-sky-192k.mp3

Flash is finally in there, with his erstwhile companion Lestrade. More to follow I feel. I am going to start work on the next one and my own Podcast, Flux. Work on both will start when shiny PC is finished.

L8ters t8ters.

So then, a few things to catch up on here. So in no particular order here we go:

Firstly my main site at http://www.trevs-shed.net/piggy/ has been hacked by the Albanians. It turns out to fix it all I needed to do was update Joomla and then fiddle about with the password settings. I didn’t do that, as you can see, I took the whole bloody thing down. I have been wondering what to do with it now anyway, and I always think a clean slate is the best place to start.

Next, er, ly – I spent last night writing the main script for my first solo podcast – Flux. It is still a work in progress, but I am basically happy with it, needs tweaking yet though. If you know me, I am not the kind of writer that can bang stuff out and be happy with it.

Talking of banging one out, the next North South Divide is almost with us. It is called Sky, for no real reason, don’t try and make sense of the names as some people have done. There is none. Or is that an elaborate double bluff? No. Well….

james is doing his editting and FX magic, and a few final bits of recording for some guest voices or two. More news on that later I would imagine. I have started work on the next one, I have got a name, which is how I start usually. Don’t ask me why, I don’t understand my writing methods anymore than you do.  I make a conscious effort not to think about that sort of thing too much. When it comes to comedy, that is not a good way to be heading, I learnt that some time ago. For now Flux has to take precedence for me, until at least the first one is done.

Other writing related stuff now, I have used Open Office Writer for some time now. (Hint: Don’t Google Open Orifice, and don’t email the Open Office team and refer to them as that either. Not a good idea, just helping you not make the mistakes that I have there.) I have been a big fan of it, partly because it is free yes, but I have a legal version of Word, so it isn’t just that. My main bugbears with it are simple, firstly it is now approaching bloatware status, not their fault. It is part of a suite, but I do not use the rest of it. You can just install Writer I am aware of that, but you still have to download the whole bloody thing.

Secondly, and more important, it is slooooooooow. So into the trevs writing arsenal (I won’t make any jokes about that word, oh no.) come two new contenders, both very different and both getting a lot of use from me.

Abiword – a fully featured, cross platform and free word processor. Most of all though, it is quick as it is bared down to the minimum features. I heartily recommend this if you need a word pro, that is MS Word and Open Office compatible.

Dark Room – A very different thing, I am the worlds most easily distracted wri… Oooh look at that! Sorry, where was I? dark room is a simple idea, a very basic text editor that fills up the entire screen, no tabs, no extra features, no word count or internet access. I love it for sketching out ideas, which is when I am usually at my most…. Oooh, I didn’t know it did that.

I am sure that I have forgotten something, but I will return. Lot’s of stuff from Trev’s mind coming your way soon. You poor things.

Hello, I have been away for the most of the last week in Luton with james and Beth. We went to Legoland

It was a lovely day, plenty to see and do, and I managed to bump into an ex of mine who I hadn’t seen for about 15 years.  In the words of Harry Hill – “What are the chances eh?”

That pic was taken on my new phone which I think is great, I am not usually a phone type person but this is my new phone. It has Wi fi, a passable camera, 3G and loooooads of other stuff. I can listen to online radio and watch Youtube videos, so ner ner ner to your iphone, this cost me about £100!

Anyway, thanks to Beth and James, and their lovely kids for putting up with me.

I came back to find that I am still no closer to getting the money that I am owed. For anyone that doesn’t know I am due a large windfall which will mean I can think about moving house and paying off my debts. It was supposed to take 4 – 6 weeks back in May…

While we were there james and I pretty much nailed the next North South Divide even writing and recording a Flash Ramsbottom bit. His first, long awaited outing. I am now taking my chance to do some work on my own side project FLUX. Which will be a while as I have a lot to do, but it is a start.

Ta, you gorgeous slice of internet you.

so that I could get on with some writing. That isn’t going to happen as I am very very angry. Why, I hear you say? Well I don’t hear you say that, as if I did  I would have some other more important issues. For the sake of this narrative though let’s assume that you did, and I heard you. Okay? Okay.

To precis the beginning bit of the story for people who have only just started following the world according to trev, I work in Rotherham, and I live some considerable distance away from there and so I have been requesting since before I started that I be put on the transfer list. All good so far. Well my boss at my test centre informed when I started that there was no point putting  my name on the transfer list straight away as I would not get one while I was in probation (which lasts 7 months), so being the good boy that I am, I waited.

Until, I got a text from one of my colleagues who started the same time as me and he told me that he was transferring test centres, which meant two things:

One, as he was based in a test centre nearer my home, there would be a space there (In fact there were several.)

Two, my boss had lied, or more charitably perhaps, misinformed me about the chances of transfer under probation as my colleague was transferring, and he was on the same course as me…

About two months ago I got asked (after I had kicked up a bit of a stink about the above) if I would like to transfer to the test centre in question, I said yes, and was told that it would probably be Sep/Oct which I was more than happy with.

Nothing more happened, but I thought little of it except trying to get a definite date, as like anyone I have to make plans.

This morning I mentioned it in the office as one of my co workers asked about it, my boss was not in and another examiner from another team was in, and he obviously overheard us chatting, and I get a feeling knew the answer and he had a look at the system that shows where we are working and so on. Which we do not have access to. What did it show?

It showed that I start at the new test centre the week after next! Yes you read that right, next week is my last week where I am working. Now this is where it starts to get really weird though, as I obviously called our section that deals with where examiners are based and she told me that it has been arranged for weeks, and that my boss definitely knew about it as she has talked to him about it over a month ago…

Now again, some of you may be thinking that he made a mistake, forgot etc. he did not, he has form for this sort of thing, he has done something like this to almost everyone in the office, stuff that I could not possibly type on here. The only conclusions I can come to are that he is either completely forgetting things or he is doing it on purpose.

The good news though is that I am moving test centres soon, so that will be big savings on fuel for me!

As you can see, up there to the left I have added Twitter. I thought that it was about time to drag myself into it as lots of people I know are doing it, and I can update it from my phone. Which is handy being as I am driving examiner, I don’t tend to have internet access at work…

I am nearly finished writing the next NSD after a splurge last week, and plans are afoot and indeed, ahand, to get my new podcast up and running. More news as it warrants.

I just want to say thanks to my good friends James and Beth, who have made sure that I had a great weekend at their house even after I felt very poorly last week.

Ta ra for now.

As I am sure that you are aware, we are as always,  a little behind on the next NSD. I openly admit that this is my fault, I have been finding it very difficult to motivate myself. I also want to get some stand up done soon, but again I was struggling with this and all of the other stuff going on in my life at the moment.

Then it dawned on me, I am going to start a new podcast, it doesn’t have a name as yet but it is basically going to be short bits of stand up style comedy done totally by me. I was intending for it to be fairly regular and also fairly short, probably in the region of 5-10 minutes each.

It is still in the very early stages at the moment, and it might not happen, but I think that it might as I am very excited about it. I am hoping that it will give me the kick up the bum that I need to get on with the next NSD too.

Have fun people, and remember wherever you are in Britain, you are never further than 10 feet away from a rat… (Insert a hilarious Darren Day joke here, using the EC joke insertion scheme.)

Hello you, you look like you have lost some weight. You are looking great, really great.

Me? Oh really? Okay.

Well firstly I have a back door now, it has only taken over a month to sort that out. But now I have something that will keep the outside, outside.

As for FTLFM, I no longer look after that. Don’t ask me why as I am really not sure. Della decided that he wanted to write a new board and host it. I came on MSN one night to find that they had done it. Which was odd as I knew nothing about it. I have mixed emotions about it to be honest. I spent a lot of time getting that board working well, I am not a programmer after all. And it was working and was in a state where I didn’t need to do much maintenance, but I did keep checking on it. So in that way I am quite glad to have it taken away as I have plenty of other stuff that I should be doing. The new board is here: mebelihttp://igor.ifaze.nl/ftlfm/

I think that this gives me the perfect time to back out of FTLFM, I have not done a show for a long time anyway, and I am not enjoying it anymore. I promised myself that when something like that stops being fun I will stop doing it, as I have a habit of hanging on to something for too long and it bringing me down. I have left FTLFM before, but that was before most of the current listeners and DJ’s were even involved. That was under different circumstances, in that there was a large difference of opinion between some of the other DJ’s and myself. Not this time, just time to leave with some fond memories. Thanks FTLFM and all that have sailed in her.

Anyway, on a similar note, I haven’t been writing the next NSD, and I am sorry for that. I have plans to start writing the remaining bits very soon. I am writing some new stuff for stand up too, although I am finding that quite hard to consider.

Right, bed for me. Night.

Lots of things have happened of late, but let’s start with the latest first. At roughly 6.00pm today there was a really loud banging on the door. I went thinking that it was my friends who only left a few minutes earlier who had forgotten something.

Outside there was a bloke that I didn’t know looking terrified with a bit of 2 by 4 in his hand and a one eyed dog. (I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried, could I?) He said that some lads who were driving around illegally on motorbikes had punched him and attacked him, and could I call the police. Outside my garden there was another much younger fitter looking lad shouting that he had attacked him as he was the man that had burgled my house. You know how sometimes you make an instant judgement on someone, I just had a gut feeling that the lad on the street was lying, too cocky by half. So I called the police, but refused to let the man into the house, but kept an eye on him while he was in my garden. I wasn’t letting him in as the girls were still here and I have only just been burgled and I really didn’t need someone else coming in to see what had been replaced…

So the police talk to him and it was obvious that he was telling the truth, so they turn up and take him home. Problem is that I am now very clearly marked out in the area, everyone was standing and watching. No one else helping though, I noted. I hope that I can move soon. I still have no back door by the way.

On the positive side, the money from Jen’s house should be sorted soon, and then I can think about moving. I cannot wait now, it is getting like a demilitarised zone around here these days.