Surrey Life Editor's Blog

Lightbulb update

Going green...

As I've mentioned several times in the past, we work in a rather bizarre office with a very high wooden ceiling.

Consequently, replacing the lightbulbs is always a bit of a drama that entails getting in a professional electrician (Q: 'How many journalists does it take to change a light bulb?' A: More than work in the Surrey Life office... - sorry - I couldn't resist...)

Anyway, in the latest saga, we've been debating whether or not we should be going for environmentally friendly light bulbs, which supposedly last four times long than normal ones but are also a bit more expensive.

Now there's quite a few of us in this office who are pretty green minded and we've been banging on for ages about the virtues of the environmental bulbs - but in order to convince the doubting Toms we had to agree to conduct an experiment; namely that we would install four 'green' bulbs as a test while the rest would be ordinary ones.

Needless to say, by the end of last week, every single one of the normal bulbs had blown whilst the four green bulbs were still shining out like Blackpool illuminations. 

The moral of this tale? Environmentally lightbulbs not only last longer but are clearly better value too...

Anyway, thanks very much to Murray the electrician (who turned out to be a regular reader of this blog, bless him...) for climbing up into our perilously high roof to replace them all for us.     

Website wonders

Well, you'll be relieved to hear that I survived the website training and, dare I say it, even quite enjoyed it.

Website manager Drew House is an excellent teacher and, much to my surpise, I actually seemed to understand most of what he was saying (though I'm sure he gave me a special 'idiot's version' of the training).

I don't know about anyone else, but we just didn't really learn computer stuff when I was at school so it doesn't come very naturally to me. 

Anyway, I'll be starting to update the content on the website very soon, so it will quickly become apparent whether it's all sunk in - or not (for instance, if you suddenly find yourself reading a copy of my management report instead of a review of your favourite restaurant...).

Meanwhile, today has been another rather stressful day. I'm so snowed under as it is and then group editor Jon Keeble dropped the bombshell that he needs me down at our head office in Worthing for two days next week - aaargh!!

Apparently, he wants me to sit in on the interviews for the new deputy editor for Sussex Life, which I have to admit will be fascinating, but I just wish it wasn't now...

Anyway, enough complaining and more working - those pages aren't going to proof themselves (alas)...  

Health and safety - part 2!

Thank you everyone for your comments re the previous entry - it's reassuring to know there are so many people out there who believe in good old-fashioned common sense.

Thankfully, Matt's doctor turned out to be one of those people, too, and has given written permission for him to work from home, so we're one step nearer (no pun intended...).

Having said that, we may still need to conduct a 'work station assessment' at his home (just make sure there are no computer leads hanging around, Matt...), but I think we're almost there.   

In other news, just returned to the office after a very productive planning and review meeting at Gatwick with a grand total of seven of us in attendance.

Everyone seemed to like the April magazine - phew! - and we made some good headway with the May edition, too, including finalising the cover, which looks beautiful.

Still an awul lot of work to do on the next mag, though - gulp! Plus, wiith our resident IT expert (aka Matt) currently indisposed, I've also got to undertake a crash course in website editing from web guru Drew House tomorrow - wish me luck (and him for that matter...).

Health and safety

I've said in the past that I try not to use this blog to rant about things. However, I do make the odd exception when I believe it is justified and this time my big bugbear is health & safety regulations.

Now before you all whizz your cursors up to the cross in the top right hand corner of your screen, just indulge me for a moment, because this is worth knowing...

It all concerns my poor deputy, Matt Williams, who is currently laid up at home with a badly dislocated leg. Now, understandably for such a serious injury, he has been signed off work for six weeks - which is quite fair enough.

However, whilst he may not be able to move very far, he is still able to use a computer and had therefore kindly offered to do a bit of work from home.

But, oh no, because of this country's ludicrous health & safety regulations, it turns out that he's not allowed to work from home, unless he gets written permission from a doctor - and they, apparently, are always loathe to over-rule a sign off note for fear of landing themselves in hot water if the patient then sustains some kind of injury.

The upshot is that he probably won't even be allowed to fire off an e-mail for the next six weeks, let alone, heaven forbid, make a phone call.

And, of course, the irony of the whole thing is that the novelty of lying on the sofa is starting to seriously wear off and he's now desperate to get stuck into a bit of work to take his mind off his leg. 

Anyone else hate this litiginous society as much as I do?   

Happy Easter

Well, the BBC radio interviews seemed to go pretty smoothly this morning (see previous entry) - though, as ever with these things, I wish they'd made a few more references to Surrey Life!

Still, at least we got namechecked a couple of times, and off the back of that, one would hope that quite a few extra people may now go out and buy the magazine - fingers crossed!

In other news, spoke to my deputy, Matt Williams, this afternoon, who has been at the hospital all day after his horrible footballing injury; turns out he's going to be in a plaster cast for six weeks - poor thing!

Anyway, he said he was in slightly less pain now so at least that's a step in the right direction (if you'll excuse the pun). As ever, we all send our best wishes, mate - oh, and Helen has got you an Easter egg too, which will be winging its way to you shortly! 

Other than that, it's been a fairly uneventful day really as everyone kind of winds down for the bank holiday weekend.

I am hoping to take off the whole weekend too (well, aside from a maybe a tiny bit of work on the laptop) so this will be my last entry until Tuesday.

In the meantime, may I  wish you all a very happy Easter - and enjoy the long weekend - hurrah!

On the airwaves

As promised yesterday, just an update on our star turn on BBC Southern Counties Radio tomorrow morning (Thursday).

Looks like we're pencilled in for the breakfast show and you can catch our writer Philip Beresford, author of the Surrey Life Rich List, talking about the county's top 50 millionaires from 10.10am.

Our no.4 in the Rich List, Caterham resident David Gold will also be interviewed round about the same time, so make sure you tune in!

In other news, ploughing on with stuff for this issue and getting through it all slowly but surely.

Luckily for me, I think quite a few people have taken this week as holiday, so the e-mail and phones have been a little quieter than usual - a welcome respite!

Won't ramble on any more now but will report back to you tomorrow with how it all goes on the radio. 

Soldiering on

It's been something of a frustrating day today, as I try and get to grips with being a man down while my poor deputy is laid up at home with a badly injured knee (see yesterday's entry).

It does make me realise actually that you can kind of take people for granted - come back, Matt, all is forgiven!

Seriously, though, he does a fantastic job for me every month and coping alone is proving somewhat tough. It's been a long time, for example, since I've had to worry about finding celebs for our 'Spotted' section or a lead news story for 'County Life' - and where on earth does the list of farmers' markets come from?

Being a bit of a technophobe myself, Matt also oversees all the content on the website for me, so it looks like designer Donna James and I are going to have to do a crash course in CMS - whatever the hell that is...

I know I'll get there eventually, but when the phone is ringing constantly, the e-mails are flooding in and there's still all my other normal work to take care of, it can all get a bit trying.

Still, it's not all bad; the new mag came out today and, I hope you'll agree, it looks beautiful. Group editor Jon was a little worried about it being a tad on the dark side for a Spring issue (it's a night-time shot of the most expensive house in the country, Updown Court, in Windlesham) but I think it looks stunning.

In my opinion, the whole effect is really classy, and coupled with the fact that it's also our Rich List issue, it all ties in very neatly.

Oh, that reminds me - make sure you tune into BBC Southern Counties Radio this Thursday when the writer of our Rich List, Sunday Times journalist Philip Beresford, and our No. 4 in the list, Caterham resident David Gold, will both be being interviewed.

I've yet to find out exact times, but I'll report back to you as soon as I've had them confirmed.

In the meantime, back to those elusive farmers' markets...

No rest for the wicked

There I was having a marvellous time on holiday when I got a call to say that my deputy, Matthew Williams, had had a very bad accident on the football pitch.

Turns out the poor bloke has gone and dislocated his knee - a terrible blow for someone who likes nothing better than a good game of footie (in fact, he was captain of his team no less).

Now, though, he's got his entire leg in plaster - from the thigh to the ankle - and is having to learn the art of using crutches.

Anyway, Matt, we all send you our very best wishes for a speedy recovery and hope you are feeling a better very soon.

In the meantime, the upshot of the whole sad affair is that I have had to cut short my holiday to return to work early.

Hopefully, I can manage to take a break when things are back to normal again. 

Bye for now

Well, the meeting with the National Trust turned out to be a resounding success - thank goodness!

There's nothing like sitting down over a coffee, rather than anonymously communicating by e-mail, to help people see eye to eye.

We made a complete truce and have now committed to supporting each other as far as we can -including them agreeing to help us out with pictures.

Anyway, no time to explain more now; my mum just rang to tell me that the Celebrity Apprentice has just started so going to dash  home to try and catch the end - not only is Surrey Life colmunist Max Clifford on it but so is Jacqueline Gold - our celebrity interview for the April edition, which comes out next Wednesday!

Speaking of next Wednesday, don't faint, but I'll be away now until then, as I'm going to take a few much-needed days off. 

I'm leaving everything in the capable hands of my righthand man, Matthew Williams, so you know who to blame if it all goes wrong... ;-)

Facing the music

Just off to a meeting now with the National Trust at Polesden Lacey.

Given my last dealings with them (see Fuming... on Feb 4),  I am a little apprehensive but am hoping this will be an opportunity to smooth things over and improve the way we work together.

I'll let you know how it goes...   

Going awol

So sorry for the lack of entries over the last few days - we went to press last night so it's been been pretty hectic to say the least.

As ever, it ended up being a fairly frantic rush to get everything finished, but we got there in the end, and I have to say,  I'm thrilled with this issue.

Our big hitting features this month include the Rich List (which I've already mentioned in some detail in previous entries); an interview with the chief exec of Ann Summers, Jacqueline Gold, whose family home is in Caterham; and a fascinating peak inside the country's most expensive house (yep, it's in Surrey).

We also have some beautiful photo led features this month, something we've not really done much of before, but which I hope you'll agree really make the magazine look stunning. Sometimes, it's lovely to be reminded just what a fantastic area we live in.

Other highlights this issue include an interview with the principle of the world renowned music school, the Yehudi Menuhin in Cobham, and Michael More-Molyneux, the owner of Loseley Park, in Guildford, tells us how he likes to spend his weekends. 

Anyway, fingers crossed, that'll be enough to whet the tastebuds and you'll be rushing out to buy the mag when it comes out next Wednesday.

In the meantime, already getting stuck into the May edition (no rest for the wicked...) but hoping, fingers crossed, to take a bit of holiday towards the end of the week.

The picture gallery

We have just pulled the cover for the fifth time, lost two features, gained a new one, and there's a mountain of proofing on my desk the size of Reigate Hill. Great...

As ever, it's turning into a monumentally hectic deadline week so I'm afraid there's just no time to write much today.

Instead, may I suggest that you pay a visit to our picture gallery, where we've recently added some more lovely photos to our stunning range of images from around the county and beyond.

What is more, all the photos were taken by our readers, so if you fancy seeing some of your own pictures showcased in the gallery, why not whizz them over to us? Just send us an e-mail to feedback@surreylife.co.uk and we'll endeavour to get your pics on the website within the next couple of days.

In the meantime, back to the mayhem!

Hope for us all

Just a quick one today I'm afraid as we're in the thick of deadline week - again (is it just me or does anyone else feel like it comes round far more often than just once a month?).

Plus, we're all so busy with the monthly 'proofreading extravaganza' that there's not actually a great deal to report.

One thing I will say, though, is that the Rich List - written by Sunday Times journalist Philip Beresford - is an absolutely brilliant read this year, with a number of interesting new additions to the county's top 50 wealthiest residents.

On a personal level, what I find hugely encouraging is that most of the people in the list are self made millionaires. There's one who started off at Abbey National; another who was an office junior at BA; someone else who was a sandwich and hamburger salesman...

In short, this means there's hope for us all (a pleasant thought during the chaos that is deadline week...)   

Back from the dead

Okay, I’m the first one to admit I have a pathological hatred of “workshops” (see previous entry), but even I wouldn’t resort to food poisoning to get out of one.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened to me at the editors’ conference up in Stratford last week, which led to me having what can only be described as one of the worst days of my life.

There I was in the middle of a working group (tasked with revamping everyone’s fashion pages if you’re interested), when all of a sudden I began to shake like a leaf, developed a banging headache and knew with sickening certainty that I was going to have to make a mad dash for the toilet.

Granted, we’d all had a bit of a late night, and yes a couple of glasses of wine were consumed, but I’d woken feeling absolutely fine, tucked into a vegetarian cooked breakfast (while chatting to our regional managing director no less) and happily sat through all the morning sessions.

It was about lunchtime when things began to go wrong, and from thereon in, I wished that I was dead. A hangover this was not - this was hell on earth…

I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say, being violently ill at a conference centre, where you have absolutely nowhere to hide, is not fun.

At my darkest hour, I have vague recollections of random editors from all over the country, who I had met only minutes earlier, cheerfully popping into the toilet with glasses of water. God only knows what they thought. Needless to say, I resembled something out of the living dead…

By the time the afternoon session resumed, I was lying slumped on a sofa in the lounge area half unconscious.

Mind you, that was a walk in the park compared to the four-hour journey back in my boss’s car, head buried in a brown paper bag.

I won’t go on, but thought I would share this with you in case you are having a bad day – because, rest assured, dear reader, nothing – and I mean nothing - can be as bad as what I went through on Friday…

PS Heartfelt thanks to group editor Jon Keeble and editor of Kent Life Sarah Sturt for helping me through the whole thing with their usual good humour (even if they were convinced it was just an excuse to get out of the workshop...)