The only issue I’m having at the moment is getting mail to work from my local installation - I think I need to set up a local mailserver, but I’m reluctant to do so. Other than that it looks a good system to use - if a little complex until you learn the odd terms for pages and navigational elements used.

Any readers with experience of Drupal - and things I should be looking out for - please let me know. I may need help. Serious help.

This year’s charity is the Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow Samaritans “New Room” appeal. They’re working to raise £60,000 to build new training facilities and visitor’s room. I don’t live or work near Ealing, Hammersmith or Hounslow, but I know the person raising the money, and it’s an incredibly worthwhile cause. I’ll let him explain why:

Why are Samaritans here?
- One in ten teenagers is affected by depression
- Samaritans receives contact from someone in distress every seven seconds - which comes to 4.6 million a year. 64,000 of these contacts are made by email
- 38% of people admit to feeling depressed by stresses from work, family or finances. One in ten feels so lonely and isolated they think there is no one they can turn to for help
- One in four of us knows someone, personally, who has died by suicide
- Two young people self-harm every hour in the UK. 427 people self-harm every day

Our vision is for a society where fewer people die by suicide. Please help us turn that into a reality.
Why you are so important?
By donating today, you will help us better reach the communities we serve - over 1 million people who live and work in west London. With better facilities, we can create more qualified volunteers than ever before, and we can support more callers as and when they need us - day and night.

I’ve been affected by depression myself and know lots of other people who have. It’s well recognised that “talking therapies” are the most effective long-term method of dealing with depression and while the Samaritans can’t give everyone the therapy that they need, with NHS resources over-stretched and long waiting lists they play an incredibly important - and life-saving - role. Which is why they’ve got what little I can give and why I’m asking you, my clients and suppliers and friends, to give what you can as well. Go to http://www.justgiving.com/newroom to donate now, securely, online - and don’t forget if you’re a UK tax payer you can give gift aid and make your donation go a little further.

Now, don’t get me wrong; while some of the points I’m about to raise may seem negative, the overall experience is incredibly rewarding. For every down there’s one of those moments when a mahoosive cheque drops on the doormat (rare), when you feel like you’ve made a real difference to a project (reasonably common) or when you just feel wonderfully smug that you’ve got an utterly ace job and don’t have to bother with office politics, appraisals, or getting dressed.

I’m trying to remain objective about the following points; to some people these will be bonuses and to others real deal-breakers. More realistically, though, they’re a bit of both.

Babies

My world, at the moment, seems to be populated by young mothers and retired couples. The occasional student - especially if I go in to Cambridge - but mostly those groups. It’s quite a stark reminder just how fecund the UK is, to be honest; before now my life has been largely baby-free, even when I was in work. Now the vast majority of my social contact - or at least my observations of it - are of 30-something women with babies in tow.

It can make me pretty broody at times; I certainly feel (although I know this is incredibly naive) like I could fit a baby in around my work. I’d not be able to afford to feed it, clothe it or whatever else you need to do; but it’s still quite a tempting thought. Having a baby just for some company, though, is probably not the best motivation for bringing a little life into the world, especially because I’d have to wait a good few years before it could hold a conversation with me. I’m also lucky because I don’t have to deal with the poo or the sick, which means I have quite a romanticised view of it.

It has made me appreciate how boring and lonely it must be for many young mothers; at least I have my work. But to go from constant social contact to being stuck, largely alone, with a little life utterly dependent on you must be terrifying. More than this, most of the contact you do get is with people who only share one thing - the fact they’ve recently become parents - with you. Now, I’m sure if I did have a child I’d love to talk about all the new noises it had made, how it left me a dead mouse and how it chases its tail (sorry, but I only have cat ownership as a point of reference), but I wouldn’t want that to be my only conversation. Every day. More than this, at least I can leave my work situation; I can get a job, I can go out and get drunk and forget about it, I can have a day off. But you can’t just pop a baby back in for a few days.

Young mothers: I salute you, but I do wish you’d get pushchairs which fold up a bit smaller.

Coffee

I never used to drink coffee. Now coffee is a three-hour excursion into Ely or Cambridge for me, a chance to do a bit of people watching, a major recreational drug (I’ve discovered the fun effects of too much coffee in too short a period of time) and a drain on my finances. Damn you, bitter little bean. Damn you.

Mocha has become my weapon of choice; like me, it’s sweet, expensive and thick. With quite a bit of time on my hands, I’ve coined the term “mocha lipliner” for the phenomenon of getting sprinkled chocolate all over my chops. I have discovered it’s not as bad when it’s lukewarm as tea is; I’ve discovered I can make one last for up to 2 hours.

Coffee is becoming my life.

Social contact

Human contact - by which I mean having other people around, not necessarily talking to them or squeezing them inappropriately or anything - is surprisingly important, and particularly important to maintaining motivation. I can get more done in three hours in a coffee shop than in a day at home. In part it’s because at home I’m easily distracted by crap on the internet, putting stuff in the washing machine, getting post, sending post, wallowing in a dark pit of self pity and despair, playing with myself and so on. In public, however, many of your normal, home distractions are impossible; some are quite seriously frowned upon; and there’s the matter of projecting an image.

I don’t want to look, in public, like a shallow rich lush who just drinks coffee and never works. I don’t want to look like I’m unemployed (or unemployable). I don’t want to look like I’m playing with myself. So I like to look like I’m working. Although I know it doesn’t, I feel like working makes me look interesting, so I get lots done. “Look at him”, I imagine attractive rich people saying, “he’s obviously a writer, and a very intelligent one at that”.

Of course, what they’re probably saying is “look at that bloody poser with his fancy laptop. Is he wearing brown lipliner?”.

Still, social contact - people watching - makes me feel far more like part of society, less lonely, and more motivated.

The internet

The internet is bad for me. It’s very easy to forget that other people have better things to do than to reply instantly to emails, Facebook messages, text messages and so on. It’s easy to take it for granted that everyone has the computer on all the time and, like me, is desperate for people to talk with. This leads to sometimes quite overwhelming feelings of paranoia when a response doesn’t come within an hour; especially given the problems associated with interpretation of written communication. Did I say something wrong? Have I overdone it with sending them emails? Can they magically see through my computer screen that I was naked when I sent that email? Did I CC that “you’re a very good friend, would you like to keep me company” email rather than BCC it? Did I accidentally send the email before I deleted the half joking “would you like a bonk” line?

Even spam starts to get attractive. What? Someone loves me? Hurrah! I need to be loved! I crave love. Love is the only thing which can save me. Oh, no - somebody doesn’t love me. They think my winkle is too small and would like to sell me something to make it bigger. And are installing horrible things on my computer. And won’t reply to my emails. Did I say something wrong?

This lack of contact can make being single seem like a big problem when - in reality - it isn’t. Last year I wasn’t single and it was lovely. This year I am single and it’s horrid. Why? Is it because I feel unloved, destined to die alone surrounded by cats? No - it’s because when I wasn’t single I had human contact on tap, and now I don’t. I also have other things different this year - less money, a different house, I’ve stopped fencing for a while… also, without wishing to be crass, lack of conversation and other human contact manifest as a desire for more loving contact than you actually need. While more conversation and contact would probably be enough, I often feel that what I really need is a good hug or something. I’m also starting to wonder if there’s an innate human sense that if there aren’t enough people around then you should get busy making more people to be around. This feeling dissipates as soon as I have a good night out or spend time with friends.

Getting out of the house - again - helps with this. With limited internet access I check emails less, I get to see other people around me, I feel more part of a busy, populated world.

Anyway, I’d like to apologise right now to all those people I bombard with emails, texts, Facebook messages, letters, giant cookies with messages in icing, telegrams, balloons and other communications. But why haven’t you replied? Why?

I don’t need to do as much as I feel I need to

Bear with me - the thought processes here get pretty complex.

Now, because my turnover is low - I spend on average over a year a lot of time looking for work and doing speculative work - I charge what feels like a lot of money. I can survive on about five days a month’s work. Seven or eight days a month is pretty good going and means I might have a little left for luxuries like food. Also, when I have a lot on, I can fit 12-14 hours - nearly two days - work into one day.

So I can, when work is around and I’m not spending all my time looking, get by doing the equivalent of a few hours a day, perhaps compressed into a week or so. It doesn’t quite work like that, but it does mean that some days (especially when I’m project managing and waiting for other suppliers to deliver) I don’t actually have to do anything. Of course, other days I don’t have time to think, or I stay up until 3am getting something done. Admin takes up some time, too, and never feels like real work.

Now, I could fill every waking hour with work and looking for work. I could earn a lot more than I do. Maybe I should. But I’m still finding the compromise between this and having the life I want. I’ve worked hard in previous jobs. I’ve worked 70 hour weeks without getting paid overtime or getting flexi-time. I don’t get paid holiday - I’m probably having one weekend away this year and that’s it. So I have no reason to feel bad about spending an afternoon reading a book, writing a rambling blog post or teaching myself how to count cards (I can get up to 20 now if I take my shoes and socks off).

One day I’ll need to grow up and get back to working extra hard, but for the time being as long as I do the work I’m getting paid to do, I do it to the standard my clients expect and to the standard I expect (which is generally much higher than my client’s expectations), and I’m able to pay my rent and live the life I want, I shouldn’t feel guilty.

But I do. I feel guilty now, sitting in Costa Coffee, writing this. I feel guilty when I lay in bed until 9am, even when there’s nothing to do. And even when I work very hard, put in more hours than I quote for, and a cheque lands on the doormat - and I have to give a third of it to the tax man - I feel guilty that I’m earning too much or charging too much.

Thinking about it rationally, though, people are happy to pay me, I save people more money in the long run, and I pay my bills, mostly on time. I have no reason to feel guilt. If I wasn’t working hard enough - if I was taking people for a ride - I’d not get more work and I’d not get paid and it would be my own fault, which is by far the best situation to be in. My choice is simple. Work and get paid or don’t work and don’t get paid. I can make that choice every day, which is more than most people.

Doing things to excess

I’m doing a lot of things to excess at the moment. Because of long periods not getting paid and needing to be frugal, when I am paid I binge; binge drinking, binge reading, binge CD buying, binge paying off debts. I think this is probably the least healthy part of my lifestyle. Given time I’m hoping this will settle; I’ll earn regularly, be able to maintain a steady social life and become better balanced. In the mean time, I think it’s time to go with the flow a bit - but perhaps stop spending so much on coffee…

I need the loo

I could keep going. Freelancing has changed my life utterly in every aspect. Am I happy? Overall, yes - but the ups and downs are far more pronounced. It’s not the easiest life. Unpredictability is what most people fear about freelancing, but in reality it’s the lack of human contact - meaningful contact, certainly - which can be the most difficult part, and has the most impact on other people. I’ve changed - a lot - and my relationships with other people have changed a lot too. To the point that I feel I need to explain myself to them a bit. And I think, with the above rambling monologue, I have.

It’s a good system, but at the moment I’d like to be able to automate updates from iCal to Google Calendar - I can do it with Apple Scripts or the automator, but is there an open source/free solution out there I can download?

I’m also about to look for a PC-based calendar solution - probably a Mozilla one - which can automatically sync with Google Calendars. I’ll let you know how I get on.

First of these was “it always takes more money than you think” - which it did. I cannot now stress enough the importance of a decent war-chest before you go it alone.

The other bit of advice I had was to put together job bags, job folders, job sheets or work logs - whatever you want to call them. At their most basic they’re just a folder which you keep all your documents for a job together, but mine have evolved through necessity to something a bit more sophisticated. They’re a good idea for any freelance writer or project manager - even if you only ever have one job on the go at a time. With a well organised job bag, all you’ll ever need for a project is in one place, and you can easily log everything you do. Old job bags can be kept and referred back to when you next have to do a similar job.

When I start a new project, I print out a job sheet. This includes the following information:

• Project number: based on the date and client code in my case. As long as it’s identifiable by you it’s probably OK, but be aware of sorting folders on your computer: I’m stuck now with a system which lists everything by date order because those are the first characters of the code. Because of this I need to remember when I start each project rather than something simple like who the client is.
• Client: often not really needed, but if you’re being sub-contracted it’s useful to keep a reminder of who’s involved in the full supply chain.
• Project name: Sometimes you’ll have several projects for the same client.
• Start date and deadline: so you always keep an eye on when you need to finish things. Deadlines can suck, yes, but they can also drive you to complete something you’d otherwise just spend weeks procrastinating about.
• Brief: a quick summary of the brief. It’s easy to go slightly off-scope if you don’t have a concise reminder to hand. Summarising a long brief can also help get it straight in your head.
• Notes: as appropriate. Keep a record of email addresses, things that come up - it’s a good idea to print this out with enough space to hand write notes in here.
• Quote detail: total cost, VAT, total payable, details of any instalments it’ll be paid in, and what drawings you’ll be taking. This will help you with month-by-month financial planning, and will stop the temptation to take too much from a project as drawings. Remember to put about a third of every amount you receive aside for tax.

On a separate sheet, print out a blank table with columns for date, task, times and notes. Use this sheet to keep a log of the actual work you do on a project. That way you’ll soon find out if you’re under or over quoting for work, and - if you’re working to a set time limit or charging per hour - you’ll be able to charge properly. It will also help you get a better idea of future quotes.

The job sheet and the time sheet go together in a clearly labelled document wallet or - for bigger projects (especially when there’s a lot of research) Rymans and other stationers do nice solid plastic document boxes. Stick a label on the front, keep your notes, research and other documents with it, and Bob’s your uncle - nicely organised projects. At the end of the project collect everything up, back up all your electronic files to CD, and put it all in a folder and keep it on your book shelves for future reference. When you get a similar project, be sure to go back and check what you learned before.

• Go south of the equator
• Drive at over 100 miles per hour
• Ride a motorbike
• See the northern lights
• Be on TV again
• Meet someone famous
• Drive to Scotland
• Change my car
• Pay off my credit cards
• Get a pension
• Get a six pack.

Hmm. I’ve not done any of those in the past five months… although some I’m less bothered about now. I think I should update the list to reflect reality - I’ve missed the Northern Lights, and I can’t realistically expect to get south of the Equator before I’ve sorted out my finances. So here’s the new list, getting in to the mindset of the old boring man that I have become:

• Have a holiday of some sort
• Drive at over 100 miles per hour
• Ride a motorbike
• Drive to Scotland
• Pay off my credit cards
• Get a pension.

I’m currently thinking of having a holiday for the week of my 30th. I need to start saving now if I’m going to. I’d like to have friends with me, but I can’t expect them to have a whole week away with me - that’s pretty expensive. So I’m thinking of going somewhere close enough that we can go out for a weekend and I can stay a few days extra - if, of course, I can afford it by then and it fits in with whatever else I’ll be doing at that time. It’s got to be cheap, hot (or at least warm) if possible, with very good food and wine and no young people. Well, no yobs. And some culture if possible. Statues. I like statues.

Any ideas?

It’s another thing ticked off my “things to do before I’m 30″ list and - much more than that - it was a really nice night out with a couple of friends and hearing some good local poets.

I may return to the stage again this year if I can write some more - and find another slam…

Future developments of the site - with Heather’s permission - may include an AJAX based image gallery, which is something I’ve been looking at lately and would like a play with. I’m also thinking of better ways to embed multiple YouTube videos - any ideas gratefully received!

View the site at www.heather-baker.co.uk

Was brilliant. All that changed when the excellent, affable, knowledgeable Gideon Coe got moved to the graveyard shift to make way for George Lamb. When it happened, I emailed Coe to tell him how sad I was, but I did hope that Lamb would be a good replacement. Oh dear god was I wrong.

Lamb knows little about music - at least, about the music on the playlist and within the remit of 6Music. His banter is inane, his ineptitude painful, his blatant disregard for the artists he plays mind-numbingly apparent with every sound effect he plasters over the songs I want to hear… his idiocy really is beyond belief. He embodies the kind of lazy, arrogant “personality” DJ who stopped me listening to Radio 1 years ago. He is dumbed-down, lad-culture, work-shy dross, surrounded by a baying pack of sycophants who - it has to be said - would be far, far better off without him.

He is, as far as I can seem, analogous to the worst kind of stand-ups I used to see - those who wouldn’t write their own material but would tell “pub jokes” and Peter Kay routines and would become aggressive and bemoan the intelligence of their (obviously intellectually superior) audiences when things got rough. It’s as if a friend who wanted to make Lamb feel better said “why not try DJing” and he did, pulling strings left right and centre to ruin my mornings, even though he has no discernable talent whatsoever. His jokes are recycled, aimless, unfunny. His passive-aggressive stance towards his listeners is excruciating. He does no research, he is unimpeded by little things like fact, sensitivity and pathos.

He has a place. That place is either on the surface of the sun or Sunday morning idiot-box TV, both of which are places I never wish to visit.

Please, if you read this, try listening to his show on the BBC’s iPlayer or live. See how much you can get through. Then listen to Gideon Coe, Steve Lamacq, Guy Garvey, Nemone, anyone else on 6Music - and sign the Get Lamb Out petition.

This one is the one currently catching my eye. A part time course, over six years, is a pretty big commitment. By the time I finish this one I’ll be ready for the third one…  it’s also a big commitment to freelancing, living in Cambridge, and all that sort of thing. But what an incredible aim to have… I’d love two degrees. Always wanted them. A BA and a BSc - it’s like having a baby boy and a baby girl, the best of both worlds.

So, over and above my other commitments, I now need to find an extra £1600 a year. Would anyone like to help out?