I book a day off and relax in the bath, only to mull over yesterday's Machine Mart stuff... typical!

I've been awake since 6.00am or was it earlier? Gilbert was quite niggly and my eyes weren't working properly, so I'm not sure of the exact time. But once he'd filled his nappy, his mood improved tremendously and then we were back to the roguish antics that are such great fun to watch.

Once Gilbert left with Clare and Harry, the house fell silent. It's been a quiet week, as the girls have been staying with their Mother for a few days. I look forward to them coming home on Sunday, even though I know they will trash the place with their girlie clutter.

Ah well, enough of the Blog... it's time to crank-up the broadband jazz and indulge myself in a slice of toast and marmalade before getting stuck into book production... it's an author's life... eh?

Links:

Machine Mart - go test drive the new navigation.

Washington Humane Society - Harry says check out these cool dogs.

Planet Earth - DD's nice looking site.

Soft Cell - new album out in a few weeks. A back to basics electropop treatment by all accounts.

Planet Sinclair - Some great innovations from the 70's and 80s here.

posted by Paul Fillingham at 10:33 AM

Email comments

Another late night editing session with Riff, when we spend hours clipping scrappy photographic facsimilies to sheets of lined paper in a swollen A4 ring-binder. This is the method we use to determine the final running order for the book.

This evening we had to move pics around a bit in order to accommodate material from ex-Clarendon Drama Students Sheila Clark and Melanie Rowing-Parker, and local vocalist Dawn Foxall.

We also watched a couple of live music videos from Dawn featuring our old pals Wayne Evans, Clive Smith, John Maslen and Mick Barratt. It was odd having that sound in my lounge as we poured over our 80's pics.

After we'd finished re-ordering the pics, I set the ring-binder up beneath a bright light and shot the page-spreads with my digital camera so that I would have a reference to work from. This archaic technique works well, especially when the pics are fed back into the computer as a slide show. You get a good impression of how the finished book will look. I can also print the pages out and scribble notes on them.

We talked about the forthcoming radio appeal. Riff's previous appearence for his Radford book was recorded, but I think Tuesday's show goes out live!

posted by Paul Fillingham at 1:56 AM

Email comments

A northern version of the well known society magazine is featuring exclusive pics of last weekend's barbeque bash. - Read all about it!

Also, the Nottingham in the 80's book deadline is almost upon us, with Riff and I being invited onto Radio Nottingham next tuesday at 11.45am to appeal for more contributions.

Last minute contributions continue to pour in. Tomorrow I'm travelling to West Bridgford to pick up some pics from Sheila Clark's Mum, and last Friday I received a bumper pack from Melanie Rowing-Parker, including pics of Martin Cook in his distinctive yellow shirts and trademark moustache. Martin just has to be included in the book, because he's about the only thing in Nottingham that HASN'T changed over the last 20 years!

posted by Paul Fillingham at 2:19 AM

Email comments