What a difference a day makes

OK, I admit it, I was fishing for sympathy. I know, I'm pathetic really. But I was totally bowled over by the wonderful comments of Mr C and Tennyson. Mr C, I think you're right, maybe it's time I patched things up between Mum and I.

Before I got on the phone to Lincoln though, I checked my emails and was thrilled to see two amazing emails offering me cash for blogging!

The first was from someone called Arrica Lee who said:

Hi,
I would like to advertise in your blog for USD25 for 3 months. It is just a text link. Please let me know what you think.

If you have any other blogs in these category:insurance,finance, travel and auto which are higher than PR1, please let me know too.
P/S: Do you have any blogs above PR3 for sale?

I was excited and intrigued to say the very least. However, it reminded me of the time that Wu Travel approached me with an offer that looked too good to be true. Thankfully, my good friend Mess pointed out that the Wu Travel are bunch of fraudulent scumbags (my words, not his) intent on robbing innocent bloggers of their hard earned cash.

I have yet to respond to Arrica anyway, because the second of the two emails I received looked even more amazing. It was an email from someone called David who works for something called Blog Distributor. Here's what he said:

Hey Blogger - My name is David,

I have been searching the Internet for the most well-written blogs and was impressed by yours. I wanted to invite you to become a paid blogger at Blog Distributor. (please understand that I do not send this invitation to every blogger I come across.)

Here is a link that describes how it all works in a little more detail: https://www.blogdistributor.com/bloggers.php

Our system is set up so that bloggers can make more money with us than with any other blog-for-pay firm. In short, we are the middle man between you and the advertiser. We match the correct blogs with the correct advertisers, who pay us to do so. And then we pay you, the blogger on behalf of the advertiser. You only take the advertisements that you want and are comfortable with. In no way does this alter the owersship of your blog. You simply get paid to write postings on your blog that you choose to write. You do what you want, when you want.

To submit your blog, go to https://www.blogdistributor.com/bloggers_signup.php If you have any questions, do visit the FAQ's area of the site: https://www.blogdistributor.com/bloggers_faq.php If you have more than one blog, you are more than welcome to sign those up as well. If you have any other questions, please contact me at:

blogdistributor@hotmail.com

Thanks, David

Email – blogdistributor@hotmail.com

Phone - 702-317-4256

Amazing stuff eh readers?? Guess I won't be giving up on the blog just yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I'll write the personified onion story for the Secret Seed Society afterall.

Baz

Feeling blue

Hey ho. Apologies for my lacklustre blogging performance of late, I've been feeling a bit down. It's only natural I suppose, I was on such a high after the bike ride and when Mr C got home safe and sound, that I think I've been suffering from some sort of come down.

I think this is probably how mothers feel when they finally give birth. After years of waiting to find Mr Right then settle down, couples 'try' to have a baby. Conception happens, then after nine long months, they're presented with a sleeping, shitting, thankless brat.

Matters weren't helped greatly when I went to the cinema at the weekend and saw Meryl Streep's latest movie Julie and Julia. I don't want spoil it for you guys, if you're planning to go and see it, so if you are, look away now!

It's billed as being based on two true stories. One follows the life of Julia Child, she was basically the Delia Smith of America. She helped write a book called Mastering the Art of French Cooking and then become a TV super chef. She was married to Gandhi.

The other true story follows the life of New Yorker, Julie Powell, who is fed up with her rubbish job, and the approaching doom of turning 30. She decides to write a blog in hommage to her hero Julia Childs. She sets herself the goal of cooking all of the recipes in Julia's book in the space of one year.

Amazingly, the blog of her simply ripping off someone else's recipes becomes an online sensation. She gets revied in the New York Times and then her blog is made into a book and then a film.

FUCK ME. All she did was copy someone else's work?!?!?!?

How is that fair? How? Where's the art? The craft?

In the film, Julia is reported to say that she's not best pleased ith Julie's blog. Julie is crestfallen, for about ten minutes, then her long suffering boyfriend tells her it doesn't really matter, and so she gets over it and forges on regardless.

Where's the bloody justice eh? eh? I toil, night and day to bring the blogosphere high quality Citizen Journalism and what do I get?!?!?!?!?

Well, granted I do get some lovely comments from among others Mr C, Mess, Tennyson and Mr London Street. But even so...surely I'm more worthy of a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep as Mum!

AND - to top it all off, my blog following has diminished in number by one! I'm down to 25 followers. How can I make this blog more popular? I'm struggling to come to terms with my mediocrity. I've bared my soul to the blogospehere and been roundly ignored.

As you can imagine, I've been feeling quite low about it all. I'm not sure I can be arsed any more. I was going to write a short story for Peter Parsnip and the Secret Seed Society, but what's the point!??!?!?!?!?

Home sweet hemo

your'l have to excuse my typing readerxs I#m a little but drunk. I've been celebrating about a momentous moment in the lief of Barry Newsdesk ewsq, that's yours truly!!!!!!!!!

CELEBRATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, you've probably spotted why we're celebrating. Whhile I was flying back to blighty after what can onlt be described to be a pretty cool and successful business trip to LA, the blogosphere pushed my hits to over 2000.
TWO THOUSAND.

THey said it wouldn't amount to anytihg, well, Gill said it wuldn't anyway, who's laughing nwo???? Eh GILL, whos laughing now??

I was alerady in pretty positive mood after single handedly getting my leg over some of the hottest crumpet in Hollywood, they the flight back in Virgin upper class was absolutely cool too, flat beds and bedside booze deliervy. THANK YOU Mr BRANDON.

I like to think that I'm a bit like Richard Branson, he knows how to run the shop, I've got an entrepreneurial bent myself, you've only got to look at this blog and my successful career in meduia sales to see that I, Barry Newsdesk, am bloody well going places.

i GOT BACK TO THE FLAT AND dAN HAD GOT IT LOOKING REALLY NIC E, oops Caps Lock is a nightmare isn't it? I mean, what is the point of Caps Lock? I have never had recourse to botrher using is, yet it sits there on the ket board taking up prime real estate right next to the Shift key. I should probably change my SHift key options and start using the one o nthe right habnd, but you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Where was I? Ah yes, I got back to the flat and Dan had got the place lookign really nice. He'd tidied it right up and even had some tea on the go.

I should probably explain something, while i was away I had a communication with Dan, he was at his absolutel wit's end looking for somewhere to stay, so I suggested he could have the spare room at my place, it's been doubling up as my study, but I suggesyedf he get himself a bed frmo Ikea and move in.

I know it's sudden isn't it. but I was thinking about my finances and now Mum's not paying the mortegage for me, I needed to think outside the box. I'm charging Dan a veritrable bargain. AND because I'm on a tracker mortgage, he's pretty much covering the entire thing.

WHAT A BEAUTY eh? I'm living pratically rent free ,and my lodger doubles up as a cleaner, and he's my bloody boss to boot - so I'm well up on the brownie points there.

We split an 12 pack of Cobra earlier sitting in Clapham Common (they've got a new one with ginger in, it's a bit pricey, but it;s fucking lovely), I didnt tell him I was celebrating the blog's achievements, I don't think Dan really knows what Blogs are really, he's not the creative type, although he's ver ygood with colour, he is always impecably turned out.

I'd best slow down, got work tomorrowe and I'm suffering frmo the old jet lag a bit, so I'm gonna take it easy now, I might have another can as a little night cap.

I remember Mr C suggesting we have a party to help celebrate the 2000 mark, way back when the 1000 hits party was cancelled, due to the fact the my good friend Dave the roofer had informerd me that he's bedded my recently ex'd Gill. I was so upset that I cancelled the party.

Who would have thought that only four months later, I'd be sitting so pretty? Sure, Gill left me and is now expecting Dave the roofers' baby, sure Dave the roofer is off to Canada, but I've got a new job, a brilliant new boss, the blog follower ship has grown from 13 to a whopping 26 (actually, it's been at 26 a while now, I think I might have to go on a recruitment drive soon!!!!) and I've also got some regular comments, also with excellent blogs of their own: Mr London Street, Tennyson ee Hemingway, The Vegetable Assassin, Mess ( I love ya buddy) and Other Worldly one. Sorry if I missed ya.

Though, (and I don't mean any offence to you other fine and lobely commenters, my favourite commenter doens't even have a blog! Mr Coleaman. I know as a former retired teacher you'd probabably advise against having favourites, but I can't help it.

Dear readers, Mr C's got a dodgy ticker and is at the mercy of the NHS, he's got an op coming up and so rather than me suggesting we all have a party to celebrate a personal achievement of mine, why don't we have a virtual party to help Mr C celebrate whenever he's had his op?

It's be great. I'll set the party mood (probably won't have anything to oexciting like strippers or a bouncy castle, even though he'll have a new heart he'll probably be under doctors orders to take things easy, so we can get some gentle Paul Simon tracks (Mr C is a big Paul Simon fan) and maybe wath a movie (The Graduate is one of Mr C's favs, which is a little bit racy, and puts me in mind of my recent Stateside conquest!) and we can have a live comment section, where we all make virtual small talk via the commen section of that blog post at a spcified time.

Sounds awaesom and the least that I could do for sucha great guy.

gotta fly
word

Twitter is rubbish; discuss.

It's a Bank Holiday today. At the moment though, it seems as though every day is a Bank Holiday. In more ways than one! Sounds like Heaven yeah!? (Not the gay nightclub.) But when you're looking for work the Bank Holiday just means yet one more day you can't spend looking for work. The things is, I want to work, I really do, but there are so many obstacles standing in my way.

After my disasterous date with Gill I decided that I'd be the bigger man and text her first to see what was up. I didn't get a response within the hour so I texted again, then again, in the end I practically begged her to respond. 'U all rite? Everythin OK,' I said, 'Positive' came the one word response. Guess that means she's OK and just needs a bit of space. So I've decided not to call or text her for a week or so, just to let the dust settle. Women are a slave to their hormones.

With that in mind, I guess it's time to put the focus back on me. I don't like to just talk about me all the time, I'm just not that vain, but if you don't look after yourself, who will?

I've decided that I need to go on a recruitment drive for the blog. Because if I can demonstrate that I have lots of regular readers than I really can take up some genuine sponsorship opportunitties or possibly, as Mr Coleman says, I can turn my blog into an award winning sitcom like the utterly hilarious Two Pints of Lager. However, there are some strange anomolies in Webland, as also pointed by Mr C.

"It is indeed hard to explain why such a gripping blog seems to be the exclusive pleasure of a Frenchman and a semi-retired schoolteacher. You have almost 1,600 followers on Twitter yet only 11 for your vastly more entertaining life-drama blog. I just can’t understand it – just what is wrong with people these days?"

I'm not sure Mr Coleman, really, it's a mystery to me. My blog posts are rich and enlivening, I'm bearing my sole to the world, there are nice pictures, genuinely informative and entertaining comments, a poll and links to other sites, whereas on Twitter all I really do is post a link trying to bring people to the blog and I occaissionally send a quick reply to Jim (my most recent blog follower) or Mess. Still people seem to be signing up in droves to receive adverts driving them to my website. ODDLY, the people who follow me on Twitter all seem to have mini-pitches of their own attempting to bring me to their website. I'm starting to think Twitter has been highjacked my self-promotionists and is full of nothing but spam.

The thing is, when someone comes and follows me on Twitter I usually follow them straight back again, so while nearly 1600 are following me, I too am following over 1500. It's a bit like when people follow this blog, I always follow them back. It's just that not many people have the time, talent or ability to create blogs, while creating Tweets is as easy as coughing up phlegm. Perhaps, if I'm trying to get people to follow this blog, I need to follow a few other more likeminded intellectual Blogists. Maybe when I follow them, they'll check me out and follow back! I've got nothing to lose. If they don't follow me back, I'll just ditch them like a used lover.

This sounds like a disingenuous method of upping my numbers, I know, but that's advertising for you isn't it?!

Gotta go, meeting Dave the roofer for a few pints in the Imperial.

l8ers
Newsdesk

Swings and roundabouts

Hey guyz. Bit of a funny one today, some mixed emotions defo going. I'm back down to 12 followers. My excellent half Polish/half Irish follower Mereck has done the off and removed his colours from the Newsdesk mast.

It's always bad when I lose a follower, but I'm particualrly distraught about losing him (no offence to the rest of you) becasue he is a proper journalist and so his follower status gave me real kudos.

Lots of people think that blogging is just vanity publishing for writers who are simply not good enough to get paid for their copy. Mind you, most of the people who say that, are journalists running scared that the mystique of journalism is being removed, the barriers to entry lowered and the new paradigm of news will do them out of a job.

When Mereck joined the ND gang, heloped me stick it to the big commercial publishing houses. Here I was forging out a lone trail. Now he's gone, it's almost as though he's aggreeing. That bloggers are just a bunch of lonely diarists spouting ill-informed, half-baked views into the ether.

As regular readers know, I never get angry when people leave me. Just disappointed.

And, besides, Mereck and all the other doubters out there can suck it and see, because I just received this email:

Hi, Barry Newsdesk

We are contacting you because we have seen references about your work online.

We would like to include you in our directory of interviews with professionals in the field of communication.

We invite you to take part in this interview. It is free.You will also be able to include any web links to samples of your work on the internet.

To start the interview just go to this web address and start responding to questions:http://www.whohub.net/interview/JOURNALISM

You can also respond to questions in any another category that seems appropriate for you. Here, you can find some examples from other professionals:http://www.whohub.net/en/authors.php

Best

Elsa Wide

Whohub is a directory of interviews with professionals in the fields of communication, arts, technology, and marketing.

Amazing eh!?

I went along to the website and completed the online interview. I really do think it's only a matter of time before I get spotted and presented with the wider credit that my Citizen Journalism deserves.

You can find my answers to WhoHub's questions here.

What is journalism?

The blogosphere has been literally a blaze with the news that Chris Wheal a leading light in the National Union of Journalists went onto another journalist's blog and slagged off blogging, saying it wasn't 'proper' journalism, becasue the blogging journalist had slagged off the NUJ.

It got me thinking. If blogging isn't journalism, then what is? Is it newspapers? Is it Sian and Bill on the BBC in the morning? Or Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight?

Is it newsbabe Sunta on XFM?

Yesterday, I revealed that journalism isn't just news. Sometimes it's features too. So clearly journalism also includes magazines. Now that opens up a whole new segment. Magazines come in all shapes and sizes. Well, actually most magazines are roughly A4 size. But they certainly come in a myriad of subjects matters.

You've only got to step inside the doors of your nearest newsagent or even WH Smith to realise that you can buy a magazine on pretty much any subjects you fancy. From fishing to photography and everything in between. And if your eyes wander north, you'll soon see just how much in between there really is!!! ;-))

Is it TV Quick?

Then you've got the whole issue of people like the people I mentioned earlier. 'Proper' journalists who write blogs. Are they simply taking a brief haitus from their chosen career in order to blog or are they still journalists? I take the view that if you're doing this career nine to five, you're doing it wrong. So these guys are still journalists. Ergo, blogging is journalism.

You need an analytical mind to be a journalist. Something Mr Whear clearly lacks. Perhaps that's why he joined the NUJ!

Food for thought.

Hello blogosphere

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. So the saying goes.

I was made redundant yesterday. I don't know what this means with regards the rest of my life.

In my heart of hearts I knew it was coming, but that didn't lessen the blow of receiving the dreaded call from the basement meeting rooms.

"Hello Barry, it's Emma Chaff from human resources."
"Hello Emma."
"Barry, can you come down to the basement meeting room please?"

Descending the steps into the office basement, cold sweat beading on my brow, I suddenly knew how Peter Anthony Allen must have felt as he climbed up the stairs of Walton Prison's gallows.

What followed was standard fair in these times of economic turmoil. The credit crunch has come home to roost, my glittering career in media sales was over. My legs went wobbly, my mouth dried up and a tear trickled down my cheek.

I was out of job.

A washed up dinosaur.

The internet is the future, I was told and I'll freely admit it's not one of my strong points. To be honest, I thought the internet was a flash in the pan, people will always want good old fashioned Hard Copy I'd always said. Maybe I was wrong all along

I might have been wrong, but I'm big enough to admit it. If the internet is the future, I would need to get up to speed. I went to PC World this morning and invested some of my redundancy package in an Apple Macintosh iBook.

I've been setting the damn thing up all day, and now I've set up this blog. With 15 years' media sales under my belt, I've decided to cross over the divide and become a journalist. How hard can it be?

You can't keep a good man down.