My nice little chat with former
X Factor winner Shayne "Big In Asia" Ward is in the
EG supplement of today's Nottingham Evening Post -
and it can also be found online.
(Complete with some strange punctuation; those triple question marks are supposed to be dot-dot-dots.).
OK, so perhaps Shayne wasn't the most scintillating of conversationalists (although not as script-perfect as his People would wish him to be, as careful reading between the lines will reveal) - but at least I got a decent amount of phone time with him. In contrast, my editor was granted the grand total of
forty-six seconds to speak to Beyoncé Knowles -
and yet he still managed to spin an entertaining feature out of it. I'm looking, and I'm learning.
Labels: celebs, eveningpost, interviews, popmusic
Hmm. It has been a busy week, but it hasn't been the sort of week that has inspired much in the way of bloggable thoughts. Nevertheless, since I'm sick of the sight of that vainglorious ONE MILLION PAGE VIEWS! post perching at the top of the page, I've been feel an increasingly burning urge to bury it with something, however content-free.
So what's been on my mind these past few days?
Lots of music-related stuff, for starters. I've been taking on work for t'local paper to the point where I'm in danger of over-committing, but it's all been good fun so far. Interviews are imminent with Duke Special and CSS, and I should have a couple of pieces in Friday's entertainment supplement.
I'm also hoping to squeeze in some time to pen a few reviews for the
Stylus Jukebox, which has recently re-launched itself in a blog format, updated daily. Under the new regime, contributors won't be lumbered with vast numbers of singles to review in one fell swoop, which means that weekends are no longer in danger of sinking under the pressure of deadlines.
And then there's the Nottingham kitchen project, which lumbers on into its second week, coating all of our surfaces in a light film of dust. But we're nearly there now, and it will be good to have the additional floor space.
Meanwhile, over at the cottage, we've been doing up the "snug" area which leads off the kitchen, and which we had never got looking quite right. Thanks to a generous cash donation from my aunt and uncle on the occasion of their golden wedding, which came with specific instructions to spend it on something lasting and beautiful, we've purchased an old wooden sideboard (or "server", to give it the correct technical term), and an old Windsor chair, and a weathered leather chest which is being put to use as a table. (Hand-made by the man who makes similar pieces for Ralph Lauren at vastly inflated prices, but ours was sensibly priced.)
We've been benefitting from a renewed spate of hospitality in the village, and have strengthened some friendships in the process, widening our social circle beyond the usual suspects.
The dressage-to-music sound collage is slowly assembling itself, and I shall look forward to seeing it being put to practical use during the spring.
Oh, and I've re-instated the "We Listen" chart on the sidebar, temporarily retiring the "Recently Spotted" section in the process (we have Post of the Week for that sort of thing now), and have made the long-dreaded switch to New Blogger, which turned out to be mostly painless. Gotta love those labels! I could become obsessed.
And now it's time to head off to Saltwater, to celebrate
MissMish's birthday.
This has been my week thus far.
Labels: journal
It is 11:10 on Sunday morning, and my stats counter is currently showing
999,804 page views. This means that Troubled Diva will be passing the
one million mark later today.
To mark this intensely ego-gratifying occasion, I'm going to run a quick little competition.
The first person to e-mail me with
a screenshot of this page, showing a Total Page View count of 1,000,000, will win - what else? -
a Troubled Diva mug, in any one of the three popular designs: Classic, Novelty or Personality.
On your marks... get set...
CLICK.
Update: We have a
winner. Congratulations to
Lindsay, who grabbed a screenshot of the millionth page view at
13:42.
Labels: competition, ego, merchandise, meta
