A little while ago I took part in a fun little cookery competition. Needless to say my partner and I were hampered by the fact that I'm the sort of person whose cooking knowledge ends at the kebab shop door.

However we did get to blog about it, and so if you go to the Food2.0NomNomNom website you can find out more about the fun time I had.

There is also a little competition between the teams who took part, so have a look at this list of participants, read their stories and look at their pictures and vote for your favourite.

You can see my entry here, but please don't vote for me just because it's me - do read them all and pick the best web experience.

"Tom is asleep right now and cannot come to the website. He was going to write about what has recently happened to JonnyB, however Zinnia has beaten him to the punch I believe the Americans would say, 'You snooze, you lose', although perhaps not as literally as has happened in this case. Please leave your message after the bleep..."

Bleep.

Only a quick post today as I'm in an extremely busy part of my life at the moment.

Reading the comments on my last post reminded me that I haven't really commented on comments. Here is a rough FAQ.

1. I like reading comments, it lets me know that people are reading this site as I don't pay much attention to site statistics any more.
2. I value almost every single comment.
3. All comments, no matter how far back into the archives they stretch get emailed to me. I read every single one.
4. I delete all spam, just as a matter of principle.
5. I don't delete comments with three exceptions - If the person who wrote the comment emails me and asks me, if it breaches patient confidentiality, or if they are nothing but abuse.
6. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments, I like having to change my mind about something I've written or having to defend myself. It gets what tiny spark of academia I still have burning again. Just try to be polite and if you can bring evidence to the discussion I'll thank you for teaching me something. (See my post on Home births for example). I may completely disagree with you, but we can still be civil. So far I am so incredibly happy and proud that almost every comment thread has been reasoned and calm, even when discussing quite controversial subjects.
7. If you write utter twoddle then other commenters will stamp on you. I tend to ignore the trolls but others won't. The verbal beating you get will make me laugh.
8. You cannot insult me in the comments, nor upset me, nor cause me harm. I spend my day job being verbally and physically abused. Words on a website do not bother me in the least. If I have a sleepless night it won't be because of something you've written. I have no dark secrets in my past that you can bring to light and embarrass me. If you are a fool I will laugh at you.
9. I may use comments as inspiration for further posts. Sometimes far in the future.
10. If comments get silly (like calling other commenters Nazis) I will shut that thread down.
11. I try to answer direct questions, if I seem to have forgotten and it's important do feel free to send me an email - I'm awful at answering emails but I will get to it eventually. The timing depends on what shifts I'm working. Likewise if there is a good comment thread I'll get involved, but unfortunately I have little free time so please don't feel I'm ignoring you.
12. I love comments, I really do.
13. If you want to leave a comment you need to 'create a reader account'. This was put in place to stop the frankly astounding amount of spam I was getting (over 500 a day).
14. If you have a long comment to make and a blog of your own, post a précis of it here and direct me to your own site - we can continue the conversation between the two blogs, just like the good old days of blogging. I like getting comments of all sorts, but this means I can send some linky-love your way.
15. Keep commenting I really do love it. When I was promoting the book a lot of people asked me my favourite thing about blogging, and each time I answered, "my commenters". Really, each time I get even the slightest glimmer about packing in this blogging lark it's you folks that keep me going.

Yes, pretty much most of that list can be boiled down to, "I like comments and read them all, but don't be an arse", but it sometimes needs stating.

All comments gratefully received.

Having just spoken on how to market an idea to bloggers to MSF (short version, we like truth and we also like stickers to put on our laptops), I received an email.

Hello,

I was reading your blog and I see you have a very impressive way of describing things. The information you provide is very helpful. So I was wondering if you could take a look at our product *Pseudoscience deleted* and write a review about it.

this is a link to my site: www.*utter-twoddle*.com

I would really be interested to know if you could do an unbiased paid review for us.

Bad enough, but here are two other tips.

1) Don't use CC:, us BCC: when you send the email, then I won't see the twenty odd other bloggers you have sent this exact same email to.

2) Don't send it to someone who actually enjoys debunking fake science. Not me but the superb Black Triangle. I think they missed a trick by not also sending it to Dr. Ben Goldacre as well.

So - let's see what happens if I answer their email. The first thing I'll wonder about is if they'll have even read this blogpost.

The second is if they pay up when I test them and find them to but utter rubbish*

That's unbiased isn't it?

More seriously, if you really want to learn how to market to bloggers talk to Gia. She's my friend so it's an utter pleasure to mention her stuff on my blog - especially if it brings back memories from my past.

*Assuming they are - I have a scientific mind and am prepared to be surprised.

"Days in the MSF clinic can veer between hectic - seeing hoards of outpatients; over 4,000 a month) and unreal - truck upon truck of patients with gunshot wounds arriving within hours of each other. But the staff we work with here, who have unfortunately seen all this before, carry on with such continued compassion and determination that one can only feel strengthened by their example.

"The biggest challenge I've faced so far has been with the acceptance and stoicism of the people of Sudan. Recently I saw a boy of 13, with a horrendous dilated cardiomyopathy [disease of the heart muscle] who I could only encourage to go home and enjoy what remained of his life."

On Monday I was given the pleasure of speaking to Medicins Sans Frontieres at their meeting of their 'webby people'. I'd been warned that, based on the meeting last year, they were all rather sceptical of the use of blogging.

Unfortunately for me (who'd prepared for a fight), they appear to have come round to the idea nicely, there was a general agreement that social networking and blogging wasn't in fact a huge terror.

Also at this afternoon session was Karina Brisby of Oxfam and Tom Mansel of Justgiving.com (who have helped people raise more than £240 million for various charities). I was there as someone who (a) blogs, (b) has turned out to be quite sucessful about it and (c) has managed to do so without getting fired.

The general gist of the chat was essentially that you *can* trust people to blog responsibly, that people are more interested in what individuals have to say rather than PR departments and that blogs enable storytelling which interests people more than dry accounts of situations.

And that sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

They are a good bunch of people, and the stuff that MSF deal with makes my problems (and the problems of a lot of the people I go to) pale into insignificance.

They certainly gave me a lot to think about.

It's all the fault of Sony - they've turned me into a lawbreaker.

While I was America (nice place, shame about the government - although you may as well say the same thing about the UK) I spotted a demo model of the Sony Reader (PRS505). I'd been wanting to see what 'E-Ink' looked like so I had a bit of a play around with it and thought it was rather nice.

As I am a nerd and a shameful first adopter I managed to wrangle one into my grubby little hands.

It's really rather clever - the screen is easy to read, it's light and thin and it doesn't feel like you are reading things off the screen. You load the books onto it via your desktop/laptop system (and the software isn't Mac compatible, but there are workarounds).

So it came time to load some books onto it. First stop was the Sony Reader Ebook Store. It is from there you can pay for and download e-books. I quite fancied the Neal Stephenson 'Baroque Cycle'. I own them in 'dead tree' edition, but have never managed to read the whole three because the books are physically huge.

And then I hit a snag.

You see, you need a credit card that is registered in America to buy things from the store. Being a simple traveller from the UK I don't have such a thing. So my money is no good for them.

**Insert clever joke about current £/$ exchange rate here**

I want to give them my money. I give Audible my money for audio-books, I give iTunes my money for music downloads. But the rules of international marketing and the dumbness of Sony means that I'm not allowed to read their books.

What to do, what to do?

Well, I could scan the books in to my computer, perform OCR on them and put them on myself - but have you see the length of them? I could transcribe them myself, but then I may as well be reading them.

So instead I hit the bit-torrent sites and downloaded them.

I now have slightly wonky formatted copies of the books that I already own, books that I would have paid money for again for the ability to read them on my sexy new reader.

So lots of people have missed out on a sale.

Back in the day I used to illegally download music - now I have the ease of use of iTunes or eMusic, one day hopefully Amazon in the UK will offer music downloads. I'm happy to pay for these downloads because (a) Its the right thing to do and I'm no longer a skint student (b) It's just easier.

When video rentals for iTunes arrives on these shores I'll be using that, or a competitors service.

I like paying for my media.

I've downloaded books from Project Gutenberg and from Archive.org (including my own book), but I want to give real authors real money for the privilege of being able to read their books.

But Sony says I can't.

The counter argument is that I have no 'right' to format shift works that I already own - move, for instance, bought CD music into the MP3 format. Yes, if you've done this then you have broken the law and the record companies can sue you into bankrupcy. Allowing this 'format shift' is one of the key recommendations made by the Gowers report (even though the government is being slow to bring it into law).

Ethically I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, if I'm allowed to resell books that I've bought (which I am) then why can't I reformat them into another readable format for my own personal use.

But by making me jump through these hoops I'm reduced to illegality.

With no work until Thursday, and no stories in my 'big black book of interesting ambulance stuff' I'm stuck writing about other things. Oh well, normal service will be resumed soon.

I feel relaxed. I had time on holiday to rest and recuperate. I sat around and did very little, no writing, no thinking about writing, no picking up drunks. It was bliss and I'm rather sad that it has come to an end.

I feel re-invigorated.

I feel re-susc-i-tated.

I'm also going to release, that is to declare bankrupcy over my un-answered emails, any podcasts I have left to listen to and all the RSS feeds that I need to catch up with. I don't like doing it, but I honestly have no time to catch up on all the things I've missed out on during the winter doldrums. This is a failure on my part. If you are expecting an email reply from me and it's important then please send the email again and I'll deal with it as it comes in. For all those people who emailed me to thank me for the book or the blog, I do read them all and they do all bring a smile to my face.

What this will allow me to do is rebuild some form of workflow and get involved in some interesting new things, some of which you will see on this very blog, some will be at one of my other internet 'hang-outs'.

So, this break has given me the chance to catch my breath, absorb some honest to goodness sunshine, and restart with new vim and vigor.

Rebooting in 5...4...3...2...1...

(And of course, as soon as I finish typing this blog-post while at Florida airport they announce that my flight will be an hour late and so I'll miss the connecting flight back to the UK. Bollocks).