I received a parking ticket recently. I’ve received a few in my time. I’ve always been in the right, and the ticket has always been in error. My bro taught me the technique for dealing with the enforcement people… you write a letter explaining everything, then say, basically, “this is how it looks to me, if I’m wrong, please get in touch and I will gladly pay the ticket.”

They then never get in touch.

However, this month’s ticket is different. They have rejected my informal challenge to the ticket. Mainly because they are not so good at either maths or logic or both.

I was parked in a bay that allowed 2 hours, no return within an hour. I arrived at about 9:50, left at 11:10, returned at 13:15 and left again at 15:10. The letter I’ve received states that if I was observed at 11:06, then the earliest I could possibly return is 14:06. Um… that’s only if I’d only just arrived at 11:06. In fact, I was just leaving and observed the warden myself as I drove off.

A diagram to aid understanding…

Parking

Apparantly now (their capitals and bold), “FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE ON THIS MATTER WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE“. I have to:

a) Not pay
b) Wait for the DVLA to contact me about my unpaid ticket
c) Formally challenge the ticket

So… the question is… do I pretend I was in the wrong and pay £25 for an easy life, or do I stick to the principle? I’m thinking the £25 might be the best option, but boy does it grate!

Ok, so I haven’t really made a great comeback, have I? The intention is still there.

Last week was such a completely mad week, you wouldn’t believe it. Three launch events, all while continuing to look after clients and go to my networking breakfasts. Mental!

And then, on Saturday, we had an all-day pub crawl to see off my mate who I flipping love, Wayne, who’s off for a new life in Canada. He should be in the air as I write.

I’ve never had to say goodbye to someone in that way before. It feels strange, but clearly hasn’t quite sunk in yet.

But I truly hope he, and Susan when she flies out in a few weeks, have a brilliant new life, and keep the spare bed ready for when we come over to visit!

And let’s have a daft youtube video to finish. A real, genuine LASER CAT!

I went to a networking meeting this morning. They talked about writers’ block. They explained that nobody suffers from “Talkers’ Block”. So the best thing to do is just write. Write rubbish. In public. And slowly you’ll do more of it and get better.

Must try harder.

I really want to instigate a blog on my business portrait photography company’s website. So I’d better get my writing skills back up to scratch.

Had a great weekend at the Cropredy music festival. Favourite moment was ‘Walking Man’ by Seasick Steve…

One of the knock-on effects of the riots… good job the rioters are ‘showing the Rich People’… the big companies are fine, the small ones are going to seriously struggle…

This came in an email from the small company, Third Window Films.

The plea: We don’t have any new stock to send to stores, but there are still a few copies of our films on places like Amazon, Play.com and in high-street stores such as HMV and Fopp, so if there was a title you were thinking about picking up, please go out and buy it now so that we can convince stores that ours are worth restocking sooner rather than later.

The email:

Recently London and many other cities in the UK were hit by some of the worst riots in history, leaving 5 people dead, shops destroyed, mass-looting and hundreds of thousands of lives affected.

During these riots the Sony warehouse in Enfield was looted and burnt down. This warehouse was the main stockist for the majority of small to medium sized film and music distribution labels (along with some of the majors) in the UK. Third Window Films, along with Terracotta Distribution, Arrow Films, Network, Peccadillo Pictures, Dogwoof, BFI, Eureka and many more had most, if not all of their stock destroyed. We lost nearly 20,000 units of stock.

This is an undoubted tragedy and nobody is sure yet how this will affect the long-term situation for us and many of these companies, though what we can try to explain is that there will be a massive impact on the short term. While our stock was insured, it was only the number of units destroyed and units which will be replaced in terms of stock credit with Sony. Unfortunately with Sony’s minimum top up of 500 units (luckily they’ve changed from the 1000 as previously required) we will need to pay for all the difference in units replicated against credit. For example as we had more than 10 films which had under 500 units of stock in at the time, we need to pay the difference for all stock below 500 to top it up to the minimum number. While this may only equate to around 3,000-4,000 units, it still means paying that amount at a time when we won’t have been generating sales, which is another major problem with the situation…

This other major problem is that with this affecting so many companies, and right leading to the main Q4 campaigns, all other companies that are larger (we are one of the smallest in the UK) will have priority in having their titles replicated and put back into circulation. We should get a couple of our larger titles such as Confessions back into circulation quickly, but it may take a couple months before our catalogue titles get back into circulation, and with no units available for sale anywhere (Amazon is nearly sold out of all films across our whole catalogue) we will lose a massive chunk of our earnings over the next few months. Unfortunately as such a small company we don’t have business interruption insurance which covers companies in the event of such situations. Ironically the larger companies have such insurance and yet their stock will be replicated first despite the fact they’re covered for the eventual losses, so this will really hit the smaller companies the hardest (as is usually the case).

I haven’t posted a found shopping list for a good while. But this one was special; found half-way from home to town on Saturday morning.

Risuto

Items are:

ゴミ袋 gomibukuro – bin bags
化？水（小）- (not sure – something to do with small and water)
ベーグル beeguru – bagels
ハ？　（サニド　サラダ用） – something to do with salad
ホールズ hooruzu – halls? whores?
にんじん ninjin – carrots
ヨーグルト yooguruto – yoghurt
ブロッコリー burokkorii – brocolli
トマト tomato – tomatoes
レタス　retasu – lettuce
肉だんご nikudango – meatballs
サラダバックｘ１？ – ???
ホコリとり hokoritori – a chicken to be proud of*
？－イコグセット ?ikogusetto – a set of something

(*I may have mistranslated this)

Wow… less than a week between blogs. Must keep it up!

That was possibly the busiest weekend in the world, ever. Up at 5:00am on Saturday to be at East Midlands Airport for a tin-rattling fundraiser until noon. Then mum round for a cuppa, then off to a celdieldh… ceiliiydehd… cielee… barn dance in the evening. Willows stripped and does well and truly doceed the band then went on to a few covers. Having learnt a bit of salsa for a sekrit salsa surprise at a recent wedding, it was great that I could lead twizzles and untwizzles while we danced. Unfortunately the boots on grass meant that H’s twizzles were not quite so twizzley as might be expected.

Then off to London for Hyper Japan on Sunday. Increased my species count with Octopus Balls. Not something I’ll be rushing back to eat. And had raw, chilled soya beans for the first time. NOM! Great with beer! The ‘Maid Cafe’ experience was something else. Seemed very expensive for not very much (ok, so they wrote and drew on the plates with chocolate sauce), but it was saved at the last minute when one of the maids brought out a megaphone, shut the door and shouted PAFOOOOORMANSU! The whole place went bloody mental – loud music, maids were sprinting round and dancing, everyone made to stand up from their seats and clap along… I’m not quite sure I didn’t dream it to be honest.

Anyway… back home in the evening – out for curry, and finally dropped into bed. Phew!

Sorry. It’s been over a month. But the new business is extremely close to launch. I’ve been hob-nobbing with business owners the length and breadth of the … um … county, learning a hell of a lot about running a business as opposed to a job, and this one — The Business Portrait Company — is hopefully going to roll along quite nicely.

Visited a business coach who said that my number one priority is to get lots and lots of clients through the door, which I’ve done. I’ve also had one-to-one meetings, and coffees with marketing agencies, and lots of other businesses who may be able to use my services.

So it’s all coming together, but I am completely knackered. I have an early start at least seven times a month now, where I breakfast with other business owners and get lots done even before we go to work at 9am. Whoever said working for yourself is a breeze… well, if you’ve found a model that gives you a global audience to supply from the comfort of your dressing gown, then fair play to you (as, I believe, a certain freelance illustrator has done rather well). But as a local service provider, I’m afraid it’s not that simple.

Wouldn’t change it for the world though. It beats sitting at a computer, trying to make TV Stations behave themselves by a mile or two.

Incredibly busy at the moment. Launching a new business. Opened an office. Networking “my ass off” as Zack Arias might say.

But still found time for a few days away. My first trip on a hovercraft – one of those things I’ve waited for since the age of around three. Was it worth it? Yes it was; though disappointingly, there were no eels on board, let alone filling it.

Managed eight county tops, too. Four with walks, four drive-bys. We had intended to do Henry’s “Narnian Gateway” cache at the same time as nearby Black Down, but that turned out to be an interesting walk. It was a nice day when we left the car, and only 500 metres or so to walk (albeit up a very steep hill). About halfway up the hill, the heavens ABSOLUTELY opened. We laughed, we cried, we hid under trees. It absolutely bucketed down with rain and hail for a good twenty minutes, and then turned back into a beautiful day by the time we returned, drenched, to the car. Really didn’t fancy putting damp clothes and boots back on for the cache so declared it cancelled. Just like Henry, that. I think it was his little joke. Last time I did his cache I got completely drenched AND had left the lights on in the car so needed a jump start.

Anyway… the state of the county tops as of today. Green is done, red is todo. You will notice a theme! And also our Nemesis – Suffolk.

Tops: 17th June, 2011