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Ever since we finished the ride there’s be an appetite to do it all again next year, and after mulling over the potential route for a while, I think I’ve finally settled on it…and it’s something of a cycling classic. While starting in England was nice to do this year, to a man the lads weren’t that bothered about including a UK stage in next year’s ride. More...

What am I saying? Last year’s event was a cracker. So it’s more of the same, just bigger and better. If you weren’t at last year’s awards, you can get a flavour for the evening here.

All the relevant details can be found on The Flackenhacks blog, but here’s a summary:

- The awards are taking place on October 29th at the Village Underground in Shoreditch (a stone’s throw from Liverpool Street station) starting at about 7.00pm

- Tickets are on sale here. More...

I’m in the US at the moment and, as you’d expect, the news is absolutely dominated by the Presidential race. This week, it’s the Republicans turn to gather and whoop a lot (though I think they’re less of the whoopy types than the Democrats).

All attention right now is on this lady, Sarah Palin, McCain’s choice as Vice-Presidential running mate. Everyone seems a bit down on her, ’cause her teenage daughter’s up the duff and not married and there’s a suspicion that being Governor of Alaska might not be the most thorough preparation for standing next to the guy with his finger on the button (which, luckily - or perhaps not - is a single-handed job). More...

I’ve been meaning to blog about Wolfgang’s Vault for a while and never got round to it.  First, some disclosure.  I do a bit of work for Edelman PR and Edelman does a bit of work for Wolfgang’s Vault.  These views are my own.  Not that they’ll mind, ’cause I absolutely love it, I tell you, I love it.

To cut a long story short, Bill Graham was the fella who, in the 1960s, changed the way that rock concerts were organised and performed, paving the way for the stadium-style concerts we’re all familiar with today.  He wasn’t always Bill Graham though.  He was born Wolfgang Grajonca in Berlin in 1931, escaped Nazi Germany and grew up in a foster home in the Bronx.  Sadly, Graham died in a helicopter crash in 1991. More...

Supping a cold beer on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in St Emilion…it’s remarkable how the pain and effort of a near 700km bike ride over five days melts away.

Regular viewers will know that for the past few months I’ve been organising a charity bike ride between London and St. Emilion. Well, last Friday was the day of reckoning as the ten riders gathered at Hampton Court Palace along with our trusty support vehicle driver Nuts (not his real name…).

To cut a long story short, we all made it to the finish. We had one crash - spectacular but no serious injury - two punctures, a little bit of rain, plenty of sunshine, a lot of laughs and some extremely sore limbs. More...

I’m only following 33 people on Twitter. Is that enough?

I think so. Other people follow loads more - like 783 - but I can’t understand how that doesn’t become utterly useless. Unless all you do all day is sit watching your Twitter account you’re going to miss loads of stuff aren’t you? Or am I mssing something?

I saw this blog post, see, from Todd Defren. I totally agree with Todd that Twitter’s a really useful tool for understanding what people are thinking about, writing about and doing…which can only help PRs do a better job.

Todd lists a load of Twitterers that are essential following. More...

I know, I know. I’ve been lax. Reasons have been (1) quite a bit of work on, (2) family holiday to Spain and (3) the impending charity bike ride.

Yes, this time next week I’ll be a few kilometres into the 650 or so that lie between Hampton Court Palace and St-Emilion, wrapped in Lycra resembling that in the picture to the right and accompanied by nine other like-minded middle aged fellas. Tension will no doubt be high…Lycra’s not designed to stretch quite that much after all…but I’ll actually just be relieved to get on the road.

I’m a relatively organised fella, but organising the ride has been quite a logistical challenge. More...

I think it’s a fair argument. The previous statistics have simply divided the amount of wine sold in a country by the number of inhabitants (presumably of drinking age, though that isn’t made clear) and doesn’t take into account wine bought that isn’t drunk (i.e. More...

At various times over the past few months I’ve been poring over maps (old fashioned offline ones, too) trying to finalise the best route for our little peloton to take on its way from London (well, Hampton Court) to St. Emilion.  Some aspects of the trip are set in stone.  For example, we’re on a ferry from Portsmouth to St. Malo and will also be stopping at my house for one night.  Beyond that, it’s pretty flexible.  Not too flexible, though, as my general route planning methodology has been based upon the flightpath of the crow. More...

I love Jeff Stelling. I’m in awe at his ability to assimilate live information and immediately work out its consequences to any number of other football clubs across the land. It also gives me an excuse to trot out a couple of Soccer Saturday clips. Here’s Jeff responding in typically impassioned style to a news story about Middlesborough being voted the UK’s worst place to live…and here is is starring in the funniest bits of Soccer Saturday 2007. More...