The Sheddi

The BBC have a news item about women and sheds today. As if it's breaking news. Well, pah, that's old news to me and to those in the know. Women have always loved sheds. My shed's on the Reader's Sheds website and I've long been a member of the sheddi.

PS: This is my shed which I share with my lovely man, so really it's our shed and we have joint custody of it. You can read more about our shed here.

How to upload your blog feed to facebook

I've recently joined up my Coronation Street blog feed to facebook. I didn't have a clue how to do it so I googled a few sites for help, none of which were helpful. In the end I followed facebook's not-very-easy-to-follow directions using the notes facility. Facebook's guidelines said to wait for three hours for the feed to come through. After much longer, the feed still hadn't appeared and despite two emails to the facebook help centre, I didn't get a reply.

In the meantine, I set up the blog feed using http://www.twitterfeed.com/ which feeds your blog into twitter and/or facebook. You can choose to have your blog feed enter your facebook profile page, or in the case of the Coronation Street blog, the feed went direct to the Coronation Street blog facebook page.

Twitterfeed works brilliantly and I highly recommend it.

After a few days of the feed coming through fine with twitterfeed, I'd forgotten all about the facebook notes thing I'd set up, assuming it wasn't going to work, when it started, without warning, pushing the blog feed through not just to the Coronation Street blog page but also to my personal profile (which I hadn't requested). I've now gone in and deleted that feed from the facebook notes.

So the point of this blog post, should it be helpful to you, is not to use facebook notes for bringing in your blog feed to facebook. Use twitterfeed. It's easy, it's straightforward and the people who run the @twfeed help on twitter.com are helpful and they do reply, not like faceless facebook...

Frisbee fun

Just back from a fun, fab, family weekend in Scarborough. Nice chips.

PS: That is not my leg.

Seaside smile

Life's lately been a bit, well, you know. I won't bore you with the details and besides which, it's none of your bleedin' business, you nosy parker, you. But let's just say we've had a problem hanging (literally) over our heads for the past couple of weeks. And to make things better and put a smile back on our faces, we're off to the seaside for the weekend. Nothing else beats it.

Coronation Street Weekly Update, June 21 2010

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week the update's got a vuvuzela.

The nine year itch

It's the ninth anniversary of my move from up north to that London.

This is how I blogged about the eighth year.

Amazonian

The Coronation Street Saga novel I was asked to update will be on sale in all good book shops from October 2010.

Even better news is that I'm now listed as an author on Amazon.

So I am, now, officially a writer. It must be true 'cos it's on the internet.

The Death of Bunny Munroe

Just finished another book that's had me in tears. I won't spoil it for you but I do recommend it. Reading that is, not being in tears.

The book's The Death of Bunny Munroe by Nick Cave. Yes, that Nick Cave. Bunny Monroe could possibly be the worst kind of anti-hero you'll ever read - and care - about. It's a nasty piece of work that will twist your heart around.

Buy it and read it now.

Magic Madrid

Just back from a fantastic few days in manic, magic Madrid. I feel like I've been hit over the the head with a big stick marked "Full-on Spanish experience". It may take a few days to come back down to earth.

Speaking of coming down to land, the holiday was spoilt but only briefly, with a 7 hour delay in Madrid airport before British Airways cancelled our flight.

We were given little information other than to follow the man in the red coat to a bus that would lead to a hotel for the night. And so, a horde of hungry, tired travellers followed the man in the red coat, like a stampede of bulls chasing a red flag. Some of the stampede waved irate copies of the Daily Mail at the BA matador, throwing down insults and complaints, but he brushed them aside. We followed the flock onto the bus and were driven to a 4* hotel at BA's expense (and this at a time when the company reckon they can't afford to pay their staff a living wage). Shame on you, Willie Walsh.

It was late, time for dinner and we sat down in the hotel to a 3 course feast and a bottle of plonk. The food was edible, but only just. Breakfast was better, and then it was back on the bus, back to the airport and finally back home to a decent cup of tea.

Madrid is truly magic and if you haven't yet been, go.