Blog: northern comfort

Ace. I love it when she's astonished at how few songs there are on it.

Yeah, 19 days too late. Like YOU care Rob. You forgot. Hey it's not like that, come back! Hey. There, there. Have a bit of chocolate. So yes, 2012. 2011 was cool, I set up as freelance completely, and we had a baby. So kind of busy. Bit sleepy. This whole site's getting redesigned soon, so ignore the whole 'photos don't quite fit in the frame' thing. I'll sort it soon. Here's some cool things I got for Christmas: [...]

Found at the Manchester Craft and Design Centre .

So tonight I went to Islington Mill to an event run by Beep Industries . It was a talk by Aaron Draplin – founder of Portland's Draplin Design Company and co-creator of Field Notes . Now - got to say straight away - I wasn't aware of him really until a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, I know. A friend of mine posted a link to a video of his, I then read his blog, then his twitter, then he posted that he was in Manchester this week. So I bought tickets, quickly passed on the baby to [...]

Some lovely stuff on here; letterpress printed goods, invitations and business cards, and hand made books. Really really nice. All from Maple Tea .

I've started getting back into playing Poker online - I used to play it a reasonable amount, though not online, about 10-12 years ago, when it first started being shown on UK TV, on the Late Night Poker show (hence the slightly obscure title to this post; they used to say that on EVERY programme much to our amusement). At the time I didn't have broadband (obviously) or a decent computer, so playing poker online wasn't a possibility. As soon as my poker buddies moved away, the thrill of playing for matches faded and I kind of forgot [...]

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Hey up. I've a had loads on recently; been working with ONEMcr coding up a WordPress site for them, another bit of WordPress coding work with Champollion , the design and build of a new WordPress site for copywriter Neil Owens , some design work which I can't talk about yet, an iPhone app which I can't talk about yet, and a new annual report for YPSF . Phew. It was an absolute pleasure working with the ONEMcr team; hopefully that site will be up soon and I'll be able to share it with you. [...]

Stop asking me to install your app on my phone when I'm looking at your website. Just stop. I don't want to. Whoever told you that "apps are the future, the internet is dead" was a 'social media expert' wanting to sell you an app. But I'm just a casual browser of your site, I'm not willing to stop looking for what I was looking for, go to the market, download the app, install it, then go back to finding what I was looking for. If you think I will, you're an idiot. Just make your website easily viewable on [...]

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Hey up. Here's a new site we finished last week for Juliet Shaw, a specialist in copywriting, PR and strategy based in Manchester. She's ace, so if you need anything copywriting, PR ing, or, erm, strategy-ing, give her a shout innit.

This is ace; icons/graphics made purely from CSS, no images. http://blog.graphicpeel.com/po st/740928981/ios-icons-made-in -pure-css. Really ace.

Hey up. Here's the latest bout of our radio show; episode 5 but this time Treva was ill, so Manchester soul scene veteran Andy Madhatter stepped in to spin some vinyl, and regale us with stories of the early MCR soul scene. As usual, I was drunk. I'm going to change. Click here to listen [...]

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but you know how it is. Like this site, it's much easier to do work for someone else than it is to do it for yourself - there's loads I need to finish off but it's always bottom of the list. Anyway. One of the great [...]

Yes exciting isn't it? First DJ 'gig' of the year in Manchester, with Barrie 'Striker' Leach. 73 vinyl only, 8-11, Bay Horse, Northern Quarter, Manchester. Free in, obv. Why not come down? Eh? WHY NOT?

And no thanks to the hackers. Fantastically, I got a malware installed on the website, which then went on to infect EVERYTHING on the same server. That was helpful, especially as, because I'm on a Mac most of the time I didn't notice. Thankfully the nice people at Sucuri sorted it out for me very quickly [...]

The latest podcast from me and Treva is up now on the podomatic site, with slightly less rambling nonsense than last time, but the same quality of ace tunes: Cymande - Genevieve Marcos Valle - Mentira Jon Lucien - Would you believe in me Kool and the Gang - Ouiji Barone-Burghardt Orchestra - Bumper thumper Joe Thomas - Mr Mumbles Pastor TL [...]

I got a promo email through today promoting another of Peter Hook's ventures, 'Hacienda Records UK'. Presumably because 'Factory Too' had already been taken. On the one hand it's fair enough that Hook is using his past to make a bit of money now, as if the endless Factory hype mill is to be believed [...]

This is pretty tremendous: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/w ebsites_stop