• No words?
• No miles?
• No news?

I realise I usually update a lot more regularly than I have been doing recently, which is down to a few things. Granted, I was never much into quantity over quality (apart from the early MSN Space days, perhaps), but I’d still like to make some excuses for your approval.

What a way to make a living!

If you’re a friend, a sleuth or a games shopper in the York area, you’ll already know one of the main reasons: I got a job. It’s not full-time so I can’t claim that’s eating up all my time, but it does mean I’m not the one in complete charge of my time any more. Fine with me – I love doing what I do.

Maestro!

I’m currently working on a soundtrack to a film called Tanner (official website), written, directed and produced by my mate Oliver Crocker, with some edits by Hannah. Far from being your typical student film, Tanner has some experienced professionals involved:

• Frank Williams (Dad’s Army)
• Tony Osoba (Porridge) and
• Bernard Wrigley (Phoenix Nights).
• It’s even got a “guest director” – Mervyn Cumming, whose CV includes EastEnders, Coronation St and Emmerdale.

The music is done by a man at home with a keyboard and a cheap version of Logic.

The film itself is well over an hour long, which is quite long to score, but so far I’ve got a good idea of what needs doing and how it’s going to sound. The best piece so far is probably Tanner’s theme, which you can listen to by clicking this link. Leave a comment on this post telling me what you think, or across in the Music page!

The tour

I honestly intended to get back on with this after returning home, but so far I haven’t done as much as I’d like for one reason or another. I did pop on the other day for 20k, and I’ll finish that off today (when I find my trainers!)

What all this comes down to, really, is this.

Since the start of October I have:

• Written over 25,000 words of my first novel, taking it from 6 pages to 71. It’s still some way short of being finished, but it’s a damn sight nearer than it was.
• Scored almost ten minutes of music for a feature film. This doesn’t sound like a lot admittedly, but it’s spread out throughout the film, rather than a continuous tune, so it’s more in reality.
• Cycled over 600 kilometres, or almost 400 miles. That’s a lot of exercise, yet I’m still quite unfit.

So, on the whole, this has become one of those blog posts in which I apologise for not posting and explain why. The site might be named after me, but it’s rare for it to be about me. That’s a bit strange really, because when I thought about it I realised I’m the unique point of this site: you can get reviews and game news in any number of other places online, and there are much better places for photos.

I never wanted the focus of this site to be me: I wanted it to be what I do and what I love, probably because I fail to believe people – other than my friends and hostages – would keep visiting a site just because it’s connected to me. However, as long as you keep coming back, I’m happy!

In other news…

Sodaware blog has just launched a weekly newsletter, which I thoroughly recommend you sign up to. You can read about it here.

Michael Jackson will perform on a UK stage tonight for the first time in almost ten years. He’ll be doing Thriller LIVE at the World Music Awards. Sadly it’s not on telly until next week (Channel Four, Thursday, probably about 9pm), but it will be.

Wii launches in the US in just four days. We have to wait almost another month, although I should get to play it before launch day with any luck. My first impressions here, of course!

Very old updates from my old MSN Space coming soon, including ramblings about Magical Sound Shower, how much a lungful of oxygen weighs and my awesome Animal Crossing diary.

Don’t forget you can subscribe using RSS or via email so you’ll never miss a thrilling post. Come back soon!