It was a really strange experience – and whilst it seems that some aspects of the comics industry have changed a great deal in the last few years (i.e. city centre stores, such as Forbidden Planet now only focus on current issues, not back issues. Amazon sells graphic novels cheapest, thereby commoditising everything etc) some things just haven’t changed at all.

There were only seven or eight stalls there, some fairly large, some very small. I went really for a bit of a memory trip, to have a root around and see if there was anything that I fancied buying in sequence.

Whilst there were some of the new titles from Marvel and DC, the vast majority of all stock on show – certainly more than 50% and perhaps more than 70% – seemed to date back before I last attended one of these events. Whilst a certain type of comic enthusiast does go for silver age comics from the 60s, my own interest is just in anything remotely decent, irrespective of style.

So, having spent 20 minutes realising that there wasn’t a huge amount just waiting to be discovered, I thought I’d ask one of the guys who undoubtedly knew more than me about what had been going on for the last few decades. Effectively, I was looking for comics such as those mentioned here – from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, to Cerebus, or even decent Batman story arcs.

There was actually very little on show. There was just one recent Walking Dead issue and a couple of broken sequences for things that I may have fancied – such as Alan Moore’s Necronomicon, which is only available in trade paperback with The Courtyard, which I already have and a couple of issues from various Dark Tower arcs, with amazing art by Jae Lee.

Eventually, I just bought two sets – a full run of 1602, primarily because it was written by Neil Gaiman, and Pigeon’s From Hell by Dark Horse. So, a bit underwhelmed really.

So, back to Plan A then – which is to pick up trade paperbacks of titles such as Walking Dead, The Boys, Preacher etc as and when. There were a few of the aforementioned Alan Moore Swamp Thing books, but as hardback, UK reprints – and for some reason I just can’t bring myself to treat them quite like comics as they feel like they belong in the same category as Christmas annuals and just haven’t been presented with the care that they deserve. Sandman is another case in point – I’m reading some of my old books, alongside a couple of new ones that I’ve purchased to plug the gaps – and the new ones are beautifully presented on decent paper and have been recoloured, which makes the old ones look very dated by comparison. A purist wouldn’t care but i have to say that it does affect my pleasure of reading them, much as I wish it didn’t.

So, no plans to go to another fair for at least 20 years or so.

and turned into the soundtrack for the day and also a book that they had always wanted to read and never quite managed to – which they then received at the event.

I am back to reading quite heavily again – I think I’ve read more this year than in the last four or so, now the kids are a little older than babies – so rather than a book for myself, I opted for a comic.

Having read comics pretty much all my life, including the tricky period as an adolescent when it’s deeply uncool and potentially even a matter of some derision, I have more than a few. In fact, if I’m honest, I probably have several thousand, ranging from old Hulk and Silver Surfer comics to more edgy titles, such as Pete Bagge’s Hate and Dan Clowes’ Eightball, through to less well known outside the comic hardcore, such as the amazing Cerebus.

Recently I cleared out my office and brought in a bunch of old graphic novels to create a comic library.

Whilst I’m pretty comfortable these days with the fact that I know my Plastic Forks from my Stray Toasters (both superb), I thought about a couple of big series that had passed me along the way. Of all of them, I can only think of two (that I know of) – the first, arguably career defining, work by Alan Moore on Swamp Thing. Also, although I have a couple of the graphic novels and have this year read both Neverwhere and American Gods novels, I’ve never managed to read Neil Gaiman’s much acclaimed Sandman from beginning to end.

So, the book that I’ve always meant to read but never have was ‘Preludes & Nocturnes’, the first book of the Sandman series. I have books two and three, along with five and ten – and think I’ve only read books 2 (Dolls House), as I understood it to be something of a stand alone. So, in the last few days I’ve finally managed to read book one. It’s a little weird – I sort of wish Sam Keith had made it as artist beyond issue 3 as I’m a big fan of his style and he would have given it a completely different feel but at the end of issue 8, I found that it had won me over. So, I’m now going to revisit Dolls House, then read Dream Country and I have this morning picked up Season of Mists (book 4).

I have the small matter of Christmas and a re-read of the first eight Walking Dead graphic novels to get through first – but then I’m going to revisit Alan Moore’s Miracleman, which I have in original comic form somewhere up to about issue 25, and then see if I can track down the Moore/Bisette Swamp Thing books in the new year, which are currently a little scarce

Whatever the case, as I sit in my newly tidied office, with kids pictures, old surf photos and now a wall of comics ranging from Joe Sacco’s works to Garth Ennis’ Preacher staring me in the face, I have to say that I’m pretty happy to be able to quickly rediscover some of these old comics when I have a spare moment, rather than have them all locked away in boxes somewhere.

Inside work is one thing – although it’s certainly debatable as to whether being super reactive and responsive, which is a trait that I value greatly and I’m told has been something that those that work with us also view as a significant benefit, is sometimes at the expense of greater mental clarity. That’s a balance which is hard to strike and something that I continue to work on. However, I’ve now come the the conclusion, which I’m sure is obvious to the rest of the world, that the battle with the inbox can never be entirely won. OK “battle” might not be the right term, as it implies divisiveness and clearly many of us, myself very much included, would now be lost without email (although this was an interesting experiment by MG Siegler). I’m really referring to the fact that part of my training was that the working day is never done until there is at least white space in the inbox – and preferably that everything needing attention has been actioned.

I’ve written about this subject before. I think that there are two types of users and there is just a few years between them. Those on the slightly older side of the divide have had the above ethos beaten into them through years of doing so. Those a little younger, that have grown up with first Hotmail and then Gmail offering seemingly endless supply of storage, don’t ‘action and delete or archive’, they ‘action and leave it there’ in case they need it later. Clearly this is a broad generalisation but I find it to be true again and again. Those that ‘action and delete’ really only delete from the inbox as they tend to keep important info in some type of folder structure, whereas the second group are more comfortable keeping everything in an amorphous, ever growing, inbox. This tends to govern how people feel about email – with the former group (myself included) needing to ‘be on top of email’ and the latter group being more accepting of the fact that they are merely swimming within the flow.

The realisation that the demands of my current role are such that I can never have a clear inbox at the end of the day have meant that I do feel like I’m continually wrestling with it. The more I do so, the more it eats into my life, both inside and outside work.

So, just prior to going on holiday a few weeks back, I made what will seem like a tiny change to most people but which was certainly a big one for me. Whilst I have several gmail and hotmail addresses, they are not used as personal mail – instead for purposes such as back up of other mail and to sync contacts with my android phone.

However, when moving this blog across to it’s new home at www.petegoold.com, I thought I’d take the opportunity to set up a personal email which I then gave to just immediate family and close friends. Not work.

Effectively this allowed me to turn off my work email to go on holiday yet still have email and the internet to hand, without fear of getting smashed with 500 work emails per day which would doubtless have resulted in me feeling the compulsion to action the important ones.

In short, this small change has meant a major separation between my personal and professional lives.

To be honest it has been a long time coming and it has been essential. The business has been developing whilst my kids have been growing up. I like to think that no one has suffered – quite the contrary, I think the decision to do what we have done was exactly the right one – but being able to choose when and whether to work, rather than it being a reflex action from the moment of waking to the last thing I do before turning the lights off at night and all points in-between, is where I want to be.

Inside work, nothing changes. A number of things have happened this year which have allowed me to reflect on what I love about what I do – and as a result I’ve realised that it’s the freedom and flexibility that is most important to me. If something major were to change in my professional life tomorrow, I’d still work as I do, simply because it’s the way I’m hard wired, so I have no problem with that. But it’s nice to finally feel that I have some power over it and I no longer need to go on holiday to switch off and recharge.

So, I’ve had a bit of a play and am quite happy with the end result – I hope you agree (and if not, please tell me below). I’ve also finally managed to get around to moving the site across to petegoold.com, admittedly with a little help from a friend (thank you).

Whilst I’m under no illusion about the modest readership figures of this blog, it is a great playground to get to fiddle with WordPress in a meaningful way. I have had a fiddle with Tumblr recently too, out of both professional and personal curiosity, and whilst I love some of the more contemporary themes, I’m not wild about the interface and the servers keep dropping out. So, I’l stick with what I know.

On the subject of facelifts, I saw that Delicious – a service that I still use daily – has just relaunched, with some aesthetic tweaks and a little new functionality (Stacks, which seems like a cross between G+’s sparks and the categories that are used here). The new page design tells me that I set up my delicious feed on 27th March 2006 (when I recall, I also set up my Digg profile at the same time – a service that I no longer use and never really fell in love with, hence no link here).

So, I thought I’d do some investigation, to see exactly when I joined a couple of services – and was surprised by quite a few of the findings:

Twitter – 5th March, 2008 (found via this service)

WordPress – 22nd August, 2008

Facebook – 11th June, 2007 (found via Facebook’s new timeline functionality)

Delicious (& Digg) – 27th March 2006

LinkedIn – 14th May, 2004 and…

Punchcomms.com – 21st July, 2003

So, there you have it. At some point I might investigate Friends Reunited, Bibsonomy, Magnolia, Bibsonomy, Posterous, Xing, Plaxo and the many others that have come and gone, in terms of my usage – but as a broad chronology, those services above, along with Instapaper, my current favourite for reading on the go, are a pretty good representation of my personal affair with social media to date.

It’s unsettling that I’m starting to think I looked quite young in the first Facebook photos that were posted – which says it all really.

Although the plot and situation are clearly very different, I thought that the theme borrowed heavily from Blade Runner’s source material – the Philip K Dick book ‘Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?’ – ie whether something artificial has the same value as something natural – specifically in terms of emotions and the soul. At the end I couldn’t help but compare the set up of whether Dekkard is really a replicant to the feeling of loss by the main characters in this film – and the guilt of the viewer.

I have been meaning to read the book as I’ve enjoyed a few Ishiguro novels, not least The Remains of The Day, of course. Not sure i feel i need to now – others look higher up the priority list.

However, if you can face it, I would strongly recommend this film as something that is genuinely life affirming and a piece of artistic entertainment.

However, events have taken an unexpected turn.

We recently celebrated Punch’s 8th birthday, which coincided with an expansion that involved knocking through into next door and, in the process, we decided to keep aside one area of the new space (which has become known as ‘the creche’) for a wall mounted telly, some beanbags and a console, for some light entertainment and banter in between manic bursts of activity. Oh and we’ve gone for a retro Asteroids motif, obviously.

All very lovely. However, we bought a console and I had it at home for a few days before the grand unveiling/office party, so as to keep it under wraps until we were ready. And, in the process, I had a couple of quick goes on the odd game which, having not really played much since second generation consoles and the likes of the Dreamcast, I couldn’t but notice how much of a huge leap forward it was in terms of the overall experience.

On the obvious front, there’s the motion control aspect. Not only does that mean that the console is no longer just for those who want to sit and shoot zombies until the early hours – but it’s now (apparently) a legitimate exercise tool, dance class tutor and all around family entertainment device. Clearly I’ve not been living in a cave for the last ten years and, having myself worked in the gaming industry on several occasions, was well aware of what the latest generation did – but what was surprising was the was that gaming really has genuinely taken a huge new step in terms of embracing a far, far wider demographic than it did just a few years ago.

So, the upshot of all of this was that I ended up buying a second console, having been strongly advised by a friend that moving the latest machines from their natural habitat more than once or twice in their lifetime was nowadays akin to shaking a baby over a six floor balcony in terms of the risk factor (and to think, I used to take the Megadrive all over the place in order to play Sensible Soccer and Golden Axe at various mates’ houses – that thing was indestructible).

I confess that I’m still up for the fighty/shooty games personally, probably because of my gaming heritage. But, having spent a few housebound hours with my eldest daughter this evening after her sister fell asleep earlier than expected, we spent a super fun 60 minutes with her wiping the floor with me at bowling, followed by me beating her (just – it was sketchy) at track and field. I’m currently too scared to take her on at Zumba.

And, having done that, we then read together for half an hour before bedtime.

Time remains a huge consideration for me – and specifically how I prioritise what I do with what I have ‘spare’. Ironically (and, perhaps predictably), since having bought the second machine about ten days ago I haven’t turned it on once until this evening, simply because I’ve been working around the clock and/or with my family every other waking moment – which is how it should be. But having had a few conversations about this over the last month or so with various people in a similar situation and of a similar age, I’m reliably informed that ‘an hour or so a week’ is not uncommon – which seems absolutely fine to me.

Interestingly, I write this on the eve of the launch of a major new social game in Facebook. The next step for the industry surely has to be to move away from the superficial social games that have proven so popular and introduce some of the gameplay factors that hook in the gaming community? More on that to follow.

**UPDATE – It’s called MonsterMind, and launches today on Facebook**

Right, kids are asleep, I’m home alone – I might sneak a quick game in…

As my colleagues will confirm, I had been banging on about going to the Big Chill for weeks in advance. Having gone with my wife once before the children arrived and once subsequently with just our eldest a few years back, we thought we’d give it another go this year. However having been previously – and knowing that it’s also known as ‘the big hill’ on the basis of the walk between car parks and camp sites – we thought we’d do ourselves a favour and stay at a local hotel.

The event was great. I’ve seen lots of detractors this year based on the acts and attendees – but personally I went with different expectations.

Firstly the fact we stayed off-site meant no drinking. Also the mild parental terror associated with the potential for small people to wander off in large crowds whilst one’s back in turned for half a second meant that I was just planning to be 100% attentive to them throughout.

Moreover, I was fairly indifferent about having to trek from one place to another to be in a certain place for a certain time to see a specific act, with the full entourage in tow. To be honest, I’m not even sure this is about being laden down as, in my experience, trying to be somewhere you’re not at a festival is a recipe for ongoing disappointment.

So, we just settled into it, with the occasional loose plan that would be happily sacked off at a moment’s notice if something else remotely attractive (i.e. a bacon butty, or spot of papier mache) was closer at hand.

We did have some great highlights, ie my youngest running around to some reggae with a little guy she’d just met at DJ Food on the Friday. Aloe Blacc was terrific – the little one was asleep in the pram and I bounced up and down like a trooper with my eldest on my shoulders for an unprecedented ninety minutes, whilst my wife wobbled about on a crash barrier, desperately trying to catch his eye.

Late Friday night we walked back via the main stage and caught ten minutes of the Chemical Brothers, which was crazy. By this point we were all wiped out – but there were lots of high fives aimed in the direction of my sleepy child (who, it’s fair to say, loves a bit of Hey Boy, Hey Girl) from the assembled mashed-up ravers.

Saturday was a bit of a washout, although I’m proud to say that we left a few hours before Kanye – who we later learned was vilified by pretty much all in attendance for his ego-centric postering – and Sunday was another good day, topped off by dancing around to Norman Jay, again whilst carrying little people around on the shoulders.

I did have a few drinks on the Sunday but otherwise we waited until getting back to the room each day before treating ourselves to a nightcap (nb – I think I may be the first person ever to have a glass of port at the end of a day at a Festival). The kids have come home thinking that eating crisps whilst soaking in a bath to get rid of the manifold substances under their fingernails is the height of luxury. And we have found a new passion for making sharks, fish and star wands out of soaked willow, tissue paper and cling film. No really.

As we hoped would be the case, it was one of those weekends where you can look back on loads of happy memories about family life. But my god, it was hard work. Pushing a pram with one dead weight with another on the shoulders for 12 hours a day takes its toll.

But that all fades of course, whilst the pictures that feature big grins and our respective memories all endure.

So, would I recommend it? Yes absolutely – but only if you’re prepared to go as a parent, not to try to be a festival go-er in the sense that it’s typically thought of, as that way lies madness in my opinion. Also, I’d strongly advise you to start thinking about weight lifting training some time in advance.

(NB – Normally I don’t write about my kids here or anywhere else – I just choose not to until such a time as they can decide for themselves – but I’ve justified this to myself on the basis that this post is more about being a parent, rather than my kids specifically. So I guess it’s OK.). See more pics here.

Whilst it was fairly dramatic at the time, what with morphine, paramedics, ambulances, late night hospital visits for my family etc, it was taken out the next day and that was that.

We had the op Monday afternoon at about 4pm, I came around briefly that night but then promptly passed out again until about 4am the next morning, at which point I jumped out of bed, pulled the tubes out of my nose and wandered down the hospital ward with my drip, much to the bemusement of the sisters that were on hand. Despite clearly not knowing where I was, what with more drugs in my system than Hunter S Thomson on a stag weekend and having had nil by mouth for 36 hours, I still managed to argue my case with the nurse for wanting a shower, who eventually caved. Fortunately for all concerned, I didn’t collapse in the shower and, moreover, felt instantly better as a result of washing away the leavings of a brief stay in a hospital bed.

From that point it has all been fairly plain sailing – I particularly enjoyed listening to The Orb and The Chemical Brothers whilst clearly still feeling much of the effects of the general anaesthetic, which was humorous, even at the time. Then I was kicked out of hospital, presumably because I was bouncing off the walls by that point, later that morning – and the only subsequent hangover has been my heightened ability to fall asleep given minimal prompting for the subsequent three weeks. Still, every cloud…

So, I’m now back and have had a full week at work, albeit in the office throughout and with no travel.

In the intervening three weeks G+ seems to have set out its stall and looks like it has the potential to really shake up the status quo within Social Media – which itself is something of a constant of course. What appeals most to me about the service, based on what time I have had to play with it to date, is that it seems to take the best of services such as Instagram (one touch photo upload), Twitter (follow rather than befriend), Delicious (the sparks social bookmarking tool), Skype (hangouts for multiple video calls) and of course the design and layout owes much to Facebook. This feels both considered and appropriate – and what’s more, the fact that G+ links are denoted ‘do follow’ rather than the typical ‘no follow’ links of social networks (although some, like Digg, started out with the former and switched to the latter, presumably to avoid the service being used for SEO spam), coupled with the obvious association to the benefits of ranking in Google’s search results, is likely to incentivise users such as myself to frequent the service more than they otherwise would.

There are already some great third party services – I’ve used Gplus.to to create a ‘vanity url’ (which is really a redirect) to be used in email footers etc and Export.ly allows users to import additional fans and followers from Facebook and Twitter.

What is most interesting is that unlike many other services – including GoogleWave – there is a genuine and palpable excitement about the potential of G+, which might well move the social media sector in an entirely new direction.

If nothing else, one thing is clear, social media and search are becoming ever closer and, if one agrees with the general premise that PR skills are the ideal basis for any external communication, then our integrated PR, Search and Social Media approach looks to be a good bet for the future.

Here’s my Google+ profile.

UPDATE: Please see a post on the Punch site about the rapid rise of G+.

It’s true that things are a shade on the busy side, what with trips to Istanbul, Dubai, Sweden and Munich in the last few weeks, on top of recent visits to Moscow, Budapest, Athens and others – but obviously that’s no excuse. Nor can I fall back on the needs of our busy and growing agency, as we’re extolling the virtues of an integrated approach to PR, Search and Social Media.

No, the real villain here is my bookshelf, which I must admit I have become reacquainted with in recent weeks. You may not like it – but we have a long and cherished history and frankly I’m glad that we’re back together again.

Sure you’re important to me and yes, I still love you – but I’m afraid that my loyalties still lie with my beloved paperbacks. The fact that Amazon’s digital sales now outstrip the printed form, coupled with my innate inner geek, don’t sway me from the truth. Whilst I’m the first to admit that there’s a time and a place for digital – there’s also a time and a place for paper. Or rather paper books.

So, you’ll have to accept that if I do take my e-reader on holiday, it’s not for the purpose of sitting by the pool getting amongst the pages of a novel. I prefer instead to carry the five books that I chose to read whilst on holiday and enjoyed the experience all the more for it.

Despite all this, it would be fair of you to accuse me of neglect in recent weeks. I can assure you that you have been on my mind, but of course, that’s not enough.

So, WordPress, my goal is to continue to feed you with my thoughts as often as possible whilst also doing the same for myself. If I go a little quiet then it’s safe to assume that what I’m doing may well be to your benefit in the longer term. I hope you can live with that…

We’ve also hit the point at which the cost of travel is the same as paying for four adults. That, coupled with the school holiday price increase means that what should be a fairly cheap and cheerful junket to Spain becomes a fairly serious investment.

One thing is sure though, whilst I may not have appreciated the value of holidays that much in the past, they have now become absolutely essential, both in terms of everyone spending unbroken time mucking about together and also to catch up on sleep and recharge.

Our holiday lego tradition continues to unfold. Subject to Amazon’s delivery – hopefully later today – we will be taking a new Belville lego set in my suitcase to surprise the girls with on arrival.

It’s pink, involved dogs and horses which, I suspect, should fit the bill.

To quote a friend: down periscope…