Life

I am listening to the most amazing autobiography by Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones. That man should not be alive; the things he's done! That's one wild, amazing man, and what i love about the book is it's so honest and frank, sure he's had some great times, lots of great times in fact, but he's been through hell too.

The book is an audio book, unabridged and read by Johnny Depp, this other guy who sounds like Keith Richards, and Richards himself. It's a great, great book.

I've started listening to a lot of unabridged books recently, and it's made a big difference to me mostly i guess because I'm out working on the farm a lot. I've got this old MP3 player and i download a book and it keeps me going. I'd be lost without it, to the point that I've become a champion for Audible, which is the audio book arm of Amazon.

As a champion i get to offer friends and people who know me a free audio book which you can't get through their regular site. Here's the link

www.audible.co.uk/championsd

If you can remember a time as a kid, walking to school and day-dreaming about buying a guitar and starting a band and getting a gig and touring and getting laid and having a wild time, then get Life by Keith Richards, because he did it for all the rest of us who went on and got boring jobs.

If that doesn't appeal, then i think there are something like 50,000 other titles to choose from - if you find a good one, please let me know.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Okay, to bring you up to speed with the story of the year so far…

Well, I kind of held off pitching articles out to magazines because lots of people fix their New Year resolution to becoming a writer, and editors are bombarded with article ideas in early January. So I held off for the first week. Since then I’ve pitched a few ideas and been commissioned to write three different pieces for three different magazines, so that’s okay.

I was on Radio 4 last weekend. It was a piece I recorded before Christmas for Open Country. I was bloody terrified, as you can hear at the beginning – or so I’m told, because I can’t listen to it, no way.

Here’s the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xgqwz/Open_Country_15_01_2011/

However, on the back of doing that, I pitched to BBC Radio Devon for a regular spot on their drive-time show to talk about self sufficiency and money saving tips and ideas, and only got it. So now I’m going to be on the Shep and Jo show on the first of every month.










http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005xcng

I’m currently stressing over two book pitches out with publishers. Serious finger crossing time!

I know this is just a fleeting overview of things so far, but combine them with the farm and animal work and it’s been a busy start and things don’t look like tailing off.