The Holy Pasty?

I know that there was a chorus of “aaahs” (from both readers) last week when I mentioned that I had been in pain, well I am pleased to say that my pain in my foot has largely gone. As is normal now my foot is fine I had a consultant’s appointment with regard to my joint pain, last week they would have been able to see exactly what the problem was, this week it wasn’t so easy. You’re never sure of the cheapest car insurance until you’ve come to us direct! However I now have a diagnosis which is gout (surprise, surprise), but there is also an underlying problem that may well be Osteo-Arthritis. However the consultant has decided to try and get rid of the gouty problems first, something which I have been trying to do for some time. This time they are starting off on low doses of Allopurinol and building up, we shall see how we go! So that’s one thing on the way to recovery, hopefully. My cat loves Whiskas, I love my cat. Of course as soon as I am free from one illness I am struck down by another, this time it’s a cough, dizziness and headaches, but this one I will have to live with! Asda would have saved you money on this many products!

I have spent the last week working flat-out to get the magazine finished to go to the printers. Soteria is a magazine that we are now proud of (in a right way!) and I want to try and maintain the quality of what we do, however a lot of that falls on me to do. There are only 3 team members who regularly work on the magazine itself. I am not just an ordinary cat, I am an Iams Cat! We meet to plan the magazine deciding a theme and working out how to approach that, when we’ve mapped out who’s writing what I give them a deadline and wait. This time I was amazed they both almost made the deadline. Jon submitted at about 11:30 the night of the deadline and I got Greg’s articles the next evening, this is very good going for Greg! So then I take their articles and insert them first, and then I normally write my articles to fit in and fill any gaps. Go compare, Go Compare, Go Compare! Of course there is often a fair amount of rearranging etc. Then I build the graphic work around the articles, trying to pick something that compliments what we are saying. Often it is the items like the puzzles and The Holy Pasty (my blog in the magazine) that are the hardest to fill in. One of my last tasks is to try and work out something to go on the back page of the magazine. Normally it’s a take off of some kind of advert. This time I flicked through my Sky channels for nearly an hour trying to get some inspiration from the commercial breaks. Dedication to duty is one thing but an hour of commercial breaks is enough to send anyone barmy! I don’t think it’s affected me though. Simples-tch!

Anyway after all of this the magazine has been sent to the printer. It will take a week to turn around and I’ll have a nice, juicy, crisp magazine to hold in my hand and send in the post. Lifestyle Worth Living!

Tags: Adverts, Consultant, Doctor, Gout, Illness, Madness, Magazine, Medication, Stress

OK so I haven’t updated this blog since I got home from Bracknell. Needless to say this is because I have partly been catching up on work that needed doing and partly because I have been creating new work for myself. D’oh!

It was exceptionally hot on moving day to bring my Sister’s stuff from Bracknell back to Cornwall, and I’m still not quite sure how we managed to get everything done in time – there was mountains of boxes, at least that’s what it seemed like to me. Between the four of us we managed to load the lorry with the furniture and boxes and all the other stuff that needed removing and left just about lunchtime, although we had been for an early lunch at the local KFC! I came down with dad in the lorry, leaving Mum and Sis to clean and then follow us down a bit later. We made good time, it was very hot and the window was down all the way, meaning I got Van passenger’s arm. Windburn and Sunburn and now that is peeling, not an attractive look!

Since then I have had shows to go to, another trip to organise and I have managed to redesign the Soteria website (www.soteriamag.co.uk), and also had meetings about redesigning the Redruth Baptist Church website (www.redruthbaptist.org.uk). I spent Monday helping Dad and trying to catch up on some review and then until Thursday I had the time to work on Soteria.

Thursday the 4th June was Royal Cornwall Show, a huge show in Wadebridge which Greg and I attended. It was very nice, with lunch provided in the press office by Royal Mail for members of the fourth estate! We went around many of the stalls looking at ideas for youth lifestyle for future issues of the magazine or website features. With this year being the celebration of 200 years of Darwin it was unsurprising that both the Seventh Day Adventists and a group of organisations both had displays on Creation and Evolution, promoting the idea of a literal creation. While I agree with the Biblical understanding of Creation in six literal days, I have to confess that more often than not, it’s a red herring for most people. However I couldn’t complain because when it came to Murdoch Day on Saturday our church was running a stall promoting exactly the same thing.

I think all the stalls, including our own, missed the obvious links with todays culture as well! If I were planning a stall I would want to get to the idea of “why does it matter to me?” The question is are you a random chance or are you a being planned by God with a purpose? If you are the first one then nothing I say will matter, but if God created you then what is the purpose of humans, what is the purpose of me. My way in of choice at the moment would be something like Wolverine and the X-Men, mutants, the next stage of evolution – or actually characters created by Stan Lee and others with a specific purpose?

I have to admit that our stall at Redruth’s Murdoch day was considerably better than those I saw up at Royal Cornwall! However it’s not a competition and each were being faithful to God using the gifts that they were given and should be commended. The other

stalls that represented Christianity at Royal Cornwall was a glorified Tea Tent for Churches Together and the Christian Surfers were also out talking to people and promoting the Creation Festival which will be held at Royal Cornwall Showground (7-13th August for further details see www.creationfest.org.uk)

Murdoch Day was very busy with the stall in town, which was well manned, and selling coffee, tea, cakes and patchwork fabrics in the church. I naturally gravitated towards the food and drink, but I was not there to eat, instead I chatted with people as they came and had their tea and coffee, making sure people felt welcome, and where possible sharing the message of Jesus with them!

So yeah it’s been a little on the busy side. I need to get some pictures up on the website of all this stuff, so hopefully that will be part of my job tomorrow, as long as I get some peace from Saul, my youngest boy, who is currently teething!

Tags: Creation, Darwin, Evolution, God, Gospel, Jesus, Journal, Magazine, Murdoch Day, Website

Yes it has been an absolutely couple of weeks, with the Daphne DuMaurier Festival at Fowey (more of that in a second) and trying to get the magazine put together once again. I couldn’t believe the weekly e-mail came through and I had only added 2 items to the website in the whole week, frankly I am surprised I got that many done!

So yes I have managed to get to Fowey for the Daphne Du Maurier Festival a few times in the last couple of weeks with one final run up there tomorrow to see Comic Book author Tim Quinn. 

Last week I saw Colin Dexter talking about his experiences in the writing and the filming of Inspector Morse. Colin was incredibly funny, and although he was an older gentleman the audience were riveted! Then I had to skip seeing Adam Hart Davis, which was a shame but I had no way of getting to that event. Then on Tuesday was the fabulous Roger McGough. I never really ‘got’ poetry when I was in school. It never inspired me and studying the sonnets of Shakespeare was never a big draw for me. However Roger really brought the poetry to life really well! He was funny and interesting and the poems weren’t bad either.

Tuesday afternoon was the Early Edition which describes itself as being “like TV’s The Late Edition, but live” and they’re right. Marcus Brigstock and Andre Vincent, along with guests discuss the papers and everything else they fancy. They encourage audience participation too! Although some of the comments were a little sensitive to those of a religious persuasion, most of it was very funny and topical, especially the bits from the local newspapers. You can catch “The Early Edition” at the Hay On Wye Literary Festival, The Latitude Festival and Camp Bestival Festival.

Today I have got back from seeing Arabella Weir from “The Fast Show” and “Posh Nosh”. I was a little disappointed with the fact that she was mainly reading from her books rather than doing a talk or giving other observations. I have nothing against her books, I haven’t read them which meant I found it interesting, but I would have prefered something different. She was quite rude in places too, and to be honest my least favourite show of the festival.

The Du Maurier Festival takes place in Fowey every year in Mid May and seems to attract some of the big names. So next year if you have some holiday then check out the line-up, you never know who will be there. This year I bumped into Lenny Henry and Dawn French!

Tags: Authors, Comedy, Du Maurier Festival, Magazine

I have recently upgraded my mobile phone to a Nokia E71. So far I am very pleased with it, but I thought that the best test of whether I can use the full qwerty keyboard would be to enter a blog entry. Surprisingly even though my thumbs are huge compared to the key size I haven’t made a mistake yet!

As it is Wednesday we are once again waiting for Greg. Anyone who has ever been in our group for YL, Still, Soteria or anything else will probably be well aware of this phenomenon. It seems the guy is pretty much late for everything and anything! I have known this guy for more than half my life and spent a good tenth of that time waiting for him to turn up!

So while we wait I am watching other people play on the Wii, before Greg arrives to play Uno.

On other matters, the magazine is coming along nicely. I don’t want to say too much about it just yet though!

One final thing; you can follow updates for Soteriamag website on twitter. Find us at www.twitter.com/soteriamag

Tags: Greg, Magazine, Soteria, Twitter

It’s been another busy week with lots of stuff to be getting on with again. I had a quiet weekend last week (not yesterday, the week before) and it would have been great apart from the fact that I ate something dodgy on the wednesday and spent most of the time feeling ill, running to the toilet. It was a shame because Louisa and the boys were away and I would have liked to use the time much more to get the office tidier than I managed to get it. I had been promising myself for weeks that I would do it then, but I did what I could. I also moved some bits and pieces around in other rooms and cleaned the kitchen completely (including the oven!) My stomach was bad until Tuesday and I still felt quite drained after all that time ill!

I didn’t feel like I had much energy until about Thursday and then I had a new challenge. I have to layout the new magazine. However last time sending the magazine to the printers was difficult because I use the wrong page layout, and although it printed PDFs, it didn’t allow for what are called page bleeds, at least not easily! So we have stepped up to the defacto standard of Adone InDesign, along with other members of the CS4 family. There’s only one problem, I haven’t really got a clue how to use them! I have bought a “For Dummies” guide to help me, but I have about a week to get the layout sorted and I haven’t even got the longest article of the magazine yet! (Thanks Greg!)

I have managed to watch some of the video tutorials online and changed the magazine logo to compliment the front cover image and I’ve made a text effect in Adobe Illustrator thanks to a online guide! I think I will be spending a lot of time in the coming months trying to get to grips with this software! I’d better do, it cost a fair bit! So hopefully the magazine will continue to evolve.

One thing I have also added in the last couple of weeks is the ability to subscribe to the magazine for free on our website! If you aren’t a subscriber then make sure you sign up. As I said it’s free, although donations are gratefully accepted as I’ve just spent loads of my own money on the software!

Tags: adobe, Magazine, software, Subscriptions