We knew it was too good to last....

One of the mildest winters ever was had at the end of last year and beginning of this one; and I for one was very thankful for it. I'm not a fan of snow, not when there are things to do, people to see etc. When it's snowing at Christmas you don't mind as much as you can barricade yourself in and forget about it, get yourself warm and drink mulled wine. Not so much when it happens in normal working times.

Luckily this recent cold snap was over a weekend so no major issue, and it's now melting very well indeed. The other good reason for it not being too disruptive for me personally is the fact that as I work from home, if I barricaded myself in, I'm not in a bad position. I can continue working as if nothing's happened, clients can contact me, I can still record voiceovers, send them off, & get paid all fine. (Especially as most people pay via BACS these days, no special trips to the bank!).

The people I do feel sorry for (slightly) are the ones who have to travel out for work to offices etc. I don't envy them one bit; it's not a life I would want to lead! There are pros and cons for all types of working environment, obviously, but this is my top 5 reasons why I think it's great working from home.

/Cue: Pearl & Dean intro music...

5.  An easy one, the 4 second commute to the office. It's a hard one to beat! No coats, snowshoes, wooly hats, or umbrellas. Bliss.

4. Uninterrupted supply of tea, coffee, soft drinks, lunch, snacks, all within a very short distance away. Also a nice 'break-out' area for downtime when not in a working mood. Namely, the lounge. And Netflix.

3.  To be able to have the house temperature at exactly what you want and is most comfortable - no vile air conditioning drying out your skin, throat and anything else it might reach! Also, not having to be around the rest of the human race means you're prone to a far fewer bugs and infections. In my game, not having a cold means I can work!

2.  Fantastically speedy broadband with very very low contention ratio! During the day, my provider, Virgin Media, offers me more than what the package actually states I'll get. This means that I'm never left hanging while 'Malcolm in Accounts' is hogging the bandwidth watching last night's 'Strictly' on iPlayer. I get super-fast speeds exactly when I need it.

1.  Slippers. I barely need to qualify that with any more information, but ok. I'm going nowhere, I don't need to wear tight patent leather shoes to look all smart and shiny. I'm poddling round the house and at my desk. I had some epically comfy slippers for Christmas which make my feet feel dreamy; and that, dear reader, is reason enough.

I stumbled across this video on YouTube the other day; a trailer for the film Puss In Boots (a spin-off from Shrek), but it's done in a rather unusual way; it's an homage to the now-famous Old Spice ads. You know the ones - if I say "I'm on a horse" you'll know exactly what I mean!

This kind of piggybacking has been done before with other things, so it's not a brand new idea, but I think in this case it's been done very effectively! And it's certainly done it's job and gone viral, as you'll see from it's YouTube stats. At the time of writing this well over 5.5 million views. As with all adverts/trailers, the content should be engaging, funny, informative, interesting; or certainly a combination of such. And this is one of the best trailers I've seen for a while. Made me chortle most heartily!

What are your thoughts? Is this the way the world is moving to get people engaged with films in this social networked world? Does it work for you?

Well, it's Olympic year, the big 2012. A great year. I think mainly because it's a nice round number, it feels 'whole' in a strange way.

I'm a believer that the prettier the number, the better the year will be! Although it's probably me just making it feel like that....Either way, I'm setting myself up to have the best year ever, and I trust you are too.

I don't know about you, but I found the Christmas break very relaxing; so much so that I found it hard to get going again earlier this month! I was able to just switch off and enjoy life.

And sloe gin. But that's another story.

So,  a new year, a new start, a year of new beginnings. I'm also geared up having joined a new gym which having already been twice now, I already feel better because of it. Well...it IS olympic year after all.....If I've got any hope of competing I better start now.

Whatever your plans for this year, as Captain Picard often said; "Make It So".

Live long and prosper, Earthlings.

Or, 'Why It's A Good Thing To Be Bah Humbug'

Now, this time of year our senses are assaulted by all manner of 'festive' atrocities, from glitter, retina-scorching flashing lights, bunting, blow-up snowmen and all manner of 'joyous' nonsense designed to make us feel good about ourselves. The trouble is, there is a distinct proportion of the population, me included, that simply can't stand all this rubbish, the song and dance it involves; and prefer to opt out.

Events in life should be like an email marketing list. If you don't like it - you should be able to opt out without being bombarded by niceties, goodwill and cheer in your face; conversely to also be branded a scrooge, a miser and an unhappy troll. And people who I have been speaking to recently, and people who have been reading my tweets with my favourite hashtag, '#bahhumbug' may, wrongly, assume that I'm such a person; except that I'm not remotely a miserable git. I'm actually a rather happy person! If I were one of the Seven Dwarfs I would be Happy.... (Or Dopey, as I once was in a school play, but that's not important right now).

Therefore, when it comes to all this 'festive cheer' that starts as early as September, I quite simply opt out. I don't get involved; I ignore it with every bone in my body. I don't want to walk around with a cheap nasty santa hat branded with glittery writing sending out fake messages of goodwill. I don't want to hear sleigh bells in the streets in October. I don't want to buy any of the tat you always find at the nationwide Christmas German Markets, which is just the same as the tat that was on offer LAST year but with the price raised a little bit further. I don't want to get sloshed on Gluhwein at 11am, nor eat an overpriced glorified hot dog that I'll surely regret the next day anyway.

But for some reason, people that don't want to do this are somehow 'miserable'....

Well, I want to tell you, people of Britain and the world, that that's just not on! I am festive in my own way; I'm a very positive person that sees the good in everything and everyone. Just because I don't dress it up in glitter is not a bad thing! I move silently, like a Christmas Ninja...I don't arrive with a fanfare; I do my thing, and I leave...I spread good cheer in my own way, usually subtly. And I'm not the only one like that; there will be millions of people out there that feel the same as I do, that could do without all the nonsense that the world makes us feel that we should be doing - so we can go about our daily lives and live it the way we want to without feeling we should bow to social pressure, whilst looking an idiot in a pair of velour antlers. (Because it's 'festive').

No, readers. I'm here to tell you that IT'S OK to be like this! It's positive! It's not a bad thing at all. Do not allow yourselves to be taken in by the much-hyped seasonal bull**** that it really is...

And you know what? Because I haven't subscribed to all the nonsense, I'm a MUCH happier person as a result! I have got on with things, I'm continuing working on voiceover projects on a day to day basis. In fact the last few weeks have been the busiest ever, and the near and not-so-near future are already looking incredibly positive indeed.

Why?

Focus. I've not allowed myself to be distracted in the ridiculously long lead-up to the Christmas break. I'll be working right up to next Friday, then I will be taking a break. (I'm not that stupid). However, if work came my way during that break, then yes, I am prepared to do it. Why would I refuse it? Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be chained to my desk every day, and I won't be proactive in finding work during the break; but if work comes to me, yes, I'm there. Absolutely.

So, ultimately, my message is simply thus, this Christmas. Do what you want. Do what feels right. Don't be pressurised into doing things you don't want to do 'because it's festive'. (One phrase I'll coincidentally ban when I'm Prime Minister.). Have fun, enjoy yourselves, and be kind to others. And as Metallica once said - 'Nothing Else Matters'....

Merry Christmas everyone....

x

Yesterday, I was exhibiting all day at Solihull's Business Growth Show. After speaking to people all day, many of whom were interested in my offerings, I ended up with a good handful of cards of people that I could easily work with in the future at any time. Now, I'm not one of these people that adds all and sundry onto a big mailing list and blanket emails everyone that I've ever met flogging my wares (Have already had that from a couple of people I briefly met) - I can't stand that. I just maintain a smaller list of people that I have either worked with, or could work with in the future. I don't 'do' blanket mails of any sort; what I'll do is follow up this handful personally.

So, what to do? You have a load of business cards that need adding into your database, and really don't want to do them individually. Well, (the immortal words), 'there's an app for that'. For a long time I've been a massive fan of the 'CamCard' app; I even paid for the pro version cause I thought it was so good. Essentially, for the uninitiated, you take a picture of the business card, and CamCard would scan and interpret the details, and reproduce it in an editable form for you to manually tweak it if it got bits slightly wrong; then press a button to add the contact to your phone's address book. I've used this setup for a couple of years and bar the odd few times when it struggles on a few cards and I've had to near as dammit enter the details manually in full, it's been pretty good.

However, I tried today a new free app that LinkedIn have produced called CardMunch. But the difference with this app, is that it integrates brilliantly into LinkedIn's database, so it will match the right person from the contact details, give you their full contact information to add to your address book, and also press another button to invite them to connect with you on LinkedIn too. Awesome little tool, I recommend it.

If you've recently watched the recent series 'The Choir - Military Wives' with Gareth Malone, you'll have seen he was training up a group of Army wives and girlfriends to be a choir. The series was superb, and has resulted in them creating a single. Proceeds will be going to two charities that help the families of active servicemen and women, and the British Legion.

The piece is called "Wherever You Are" composed by Royal Wedding composer Paul Mealor. The lyrics are taken from a poem, which consists of letters to and from the soldiers and their partners. It's a fantastically moving piece; and it's also a much more deserving cause to be this year's Christmas Number One instead of X Factor, so please do pre-order this track, and let's make a real difference this Christmas.

Order now:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/MWCAmazon
iTunes: http://bit.ly/MWCsingle
HMV: http://bit.ly/MWChmv
Universal Official Store: http://bit.ly/MWCUniversal

Official webpage: http://bit.ly/MWCOfficial
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/MWCfacebook
Twitter: http://bit.ly/MWCtwitter

Find out more about the wonderful charities they are supporting:
SSAFA: http://bit.ly/MWCssafa
British Legion: http://bit.ly/MWCbritlegion

I stumbled across this behind the scenes video today, of all the voice actors that feature in the upcoming Happy Feet Two film. The film itself looks rather adorable, and now makes me want to see the first one and this one! Can't believe I've not seen it....I'm such a fail at times.

As you'll see from the video, voice artists get up to all sorts in booths

On Tuesday 6th December I shall be attending & exhibiting at The Business Growth Show's inaugural event in Solihull. It's set to be a fantastic event with several hundred people coming through the door for you to network with. Over the last few years I've attended I think every single one of the Birmingham events (bar one when I damaged my back!) and exhibited several times too, and I've always found them to be one of the most productive events you could attend (and exhibit at).

I'll be there all day, so please do come along - come and find me and say hello, and we can 'do' coffee as it were.....

For all the information you need, check out the flyer below. (Click on the image for full size view).

This post is prompted by Amy, a voiceover colleague of mine, and a recent posting of hers on her fabulous blog - Voice Of Amy

The actual post this refers to can be found here - it's well worth a read.

It's all about the 'conversational read' as us voiceovers call it. It's possibly, arguably, the most common type of read we would get asked to perform; for something like an e-learning programme, corporate/promo video narration etc. Something which gives all the relevant information across, without it being a hard-sell pushy narration, just a friendly yet informative conversational style.

But as Amy describes on her blog post - the amount of times people like us receive scripts that require this kind of read, yet the language is anything but conversational, is bemusing. It's something most people are guilty of at some point during our lives; writing something and using synonyms to make it sound posher and intelligent. But it's totally the wrong thing to do for a conversational read, because as good as we are, you just can't make something that's not written in a conversational style - sound natural like it's conversational, no matter how hard you try! It'd be like trying to casually insert contractual legalese into a pub chat. It just wouldn't flow!

Ok, maybe an unusual example, but the point still stands. If you're writing something to be read conversational, make sure it actually is, otherwise it'll sound stunted and odd. Anyway, please read Amy's post, linked above - it's definitely food for thought!

Well, today is my birthday. I don't say this to encourage a flurry of "Happy Birthday"'s as I normally keep it quiet, but today is a bit different. This post is rather to draw your attention to, what I think, is the world's best birthday card! It was given to me by my mom this morning, who had an artist and card maker down in Cornwall create it just for me, from a whole host of keywords that define me and my likes and loves!

It's got everything from iPhone, Mac, Italian food, Cornish cream tea's, microphones, voiceover related stuff, cake, cider - you name it, if I love it, it's there!

So unusual, and there is absolutely nothing out there like it. Created just for me.......love it.

Thanks mom x

(Created by C3 Designs, Cornwall)

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