Lets see - time for a general catch up.

I feel like someone has punched me in the face. I'm actually waiting for the anaesthetic to wear off from having a filling done. I have a lovely dentist who doesn't hurt me at all.

So long as I pay promptly.

Yesterday on Amazon 'Da Book' peaked at #66 overall ranking and at #2 on the pre-release chart. My ego is coming along nicely.

Tomorrow I'm being picked up by a car from ITN News in order to do a TV interview. Yes - I am joyful. I just need to find something suitable to wear. If some bright spark could digitise it for me I would be eternally grateful. (Unless I make a prat of myself, in which case I'll find a cave to hide in).

I'm on annual leave for the next two weeks and a week of that will be spent sunning myself by the pool in the Dominican Republic. Therefore blogging may be a bit few and far between depending on any access I have out there. I think I'll need the holiday so I can deal with the book launch the day after I come back.

I'm also doing an email interview with Time Out, and various radio and print bits are planned for after I come back. I am _loving_ whoring myself for publicity and I'm extremely glad that I chose the Friday Project as my publishers. I chose them for exactly this reason, that it would be *fun*.

The Mac is coming along lovely, especially now it has a battery that works (and no, it's not a 'Pro').

Now I just need to run around like a loon getting everything sorted before I fly off for my anticipated relaxing week.

UPDATE: The interview will take place between 12.45 and 1.30pm on 'London Today', ITV1. It will be live. I will be nervous. I won't see it unless someone tapes it for me. This may be for the best.

'Girl With A One Track Mind' is an anonymous blog, concerning itself mainly with sex it has recently been turned into a book. The anonymous blogger behind it has since been 'outed' by the Press.

The 'Blogosphere' is built upon a number of things, reputation is one, conversation is another. It is also built on a form of respect, an 'honour amongst thieves' if you will.

I know 'Abby' in 'real life', she is a clever, funny and honest person. For quite some time she has been concerned that her real name would be found out. I know for sure that this outing is not a bid for more publicity.

She trusted in me to uphold the unspoken honour between bloggers. If I'd 'outed' her I would have increased the number of people reading my site, but I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror. It is these unspoken rules that help bind us bloggers together into the community that we have. For many of us it would not have even crossed our minds to reveal something about another blogger that wasn't in the public interest.

It appears that the Press have forgotten this honour. There is no 'public interest' in discovering the true identity of an anonymous blogger who happens to write about sex. Yet the Press seem to feel that it is their 'right' in order to sell more newspapers to the important female 18-30 demographic to invade someone's privacy in this manner.

The Press Complaints Commission's Code of Conduct states,

i) Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence. A publication will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual's private life without consent

I would be interested to see what reason the journalist who wrote this piece about her has to say about the justification of this intrusion.

We bloggers are not special, we have the same expectation of privacy as everyone else in the world, yet it seems that, at least for some journalists, we give up that right when we start writing. We bloggers examine every word on our blogs for their effect on our privacy, we edit what we write to reveal as much, or as little about our true selves as we desire. To start investigating those of us who want our privacy surely needs more of a reason than that of simple titillation.

So it seems ironic that when I am in a newspaper for all the right reasons, another is in the papers for no reason at all.

It is shameful and I hope that the journalist is disciplined for this breach of their code.

Hello,

If you have just come here from the Mail on Sunday you may be interested to know that you can reach over three years worth of writing from the archive links on the right of your screen. If you are looking to find a (very) cheap offer on my book then Amazon are doing a very good deal.

Despite the impression that the article may give, I have a whale of a time doing my job and I tend to write about it on an almost daily basis. East London is an interesting area and while I don't do anything 'heroic' I do try my best to help as many people as possible.

Feel free to explore this site, and the many more blogs that are even more interesting than mine.

-Tom Reynolds

I often go to people who have attempted suicide. I've learnt that I shouldn't really push to find out why they have attempted to kill themselves, either the cause is the typical, 'I've had a fight with my boyfriend/girlfriend' or, 'I'm depressed'. Sometimes though the cause is something unusual and reliving the thought processes that led them to their decision only serves to upset them.

So my standard way of handling such patients is to be a nice as possible, let them know what is happening and their likely treatment when we reach the hospital and then to keep them calm and as happy as possible.

Poon has written about his parasuicide and the alcoholism that led to it. He is a brave soul to write about something that still has a large stigma attached to it.

While I'm always interested to read about the other side of the patient/ambulance divide, it's not something that I can often get a handle on because of the acute nature of my work.

Blogging is built around reputation and I don't want to get known as someone who is conning people into buying his book. So here comes the sell/anti-sell that will let you make up your mind as to whether to buy the book or not.

Reasons Not To Buy The Book.

1) Almost all of the material is taken from this blog. If you look back into the archives it's pretty much all there. There are 'commentaries' on some of the posts but If you've read the archives, then you've read almost all of the book (and probably any sequel).

2) The book will be freely available for download under a Creative Commons license. It is, as far as we know, the first CC licensed book from a British author/major publisher. So you can read it on your computer screen for free, or even print it out for taking down the beach.

3) You don't think you should be encouraging my ego to grow any more than it already has.

Reasons To Buy The Book.

1) It's a good way to get your non-blog reader friends and family to read my stuff.

2) Lots of people prefer reading a book rather than reading something off a computer screen.

3) It has already passed a few 'mum' tests, where it has been given to someone's mother and they've loved it - so it will make a nice gift.

4) It physically looks lovely. The design of the cover and inside the book is really top notch. It's a good-looking book.

5) You'd like something to read on the train and are frightened of being mugged for your PDA. Also you will look dead sexy reading it.

6) You can read the stuff from here, only with better grammar and less spelling mistakes. Also you get the 'DVD Extras' of the commentaries on individual posts.

7) It's cheap, it lasts longer than a film and costs less so you get more 'bang for your buck'.

8) You love me and want to give me your money. Or you want it to rocket to the top of the charts so that I can go to all the top parties and write about it here. Or you like The Friday Project and would like them to make lots of money and lots more great books.

As an author I get some complimentary copies of my book. As a pretty basic way of saying 'thank you' to the London Ambulance Service for letting me write this in the first place I am auctioning off one of my copies.

All the proceeds will go to the London Ambulance Service Benevolent fund, a charity that looks after sick and injured ambulance workers. They do good work and survive on donations that many of us make directly from our pay packets each month.

So if you would like a signed, first edition/first printing copy of the book, go here on eBay and bid away. The money goes to a good cause.

And it will send you good karma.

Because I say so.

UPDATE:Tim Worstall has added his 'Blogged 2005' to the auction, so now you are getting two books for the price of one. And can I just say *Gahh!* at the price it is already at...

I've just spent an hour or so at my Station during my day off having pictures taken of me by a photographer for the Mail on Sunday. I'm going to be a 'feature' this Sunday. There is, I believe, a special offer on the book. I was told not to smile for the photos.

Actually there was a bit of angst involved in this as the Mail wanted photos of myself in my uniform playing around with an ambulance. The thing is, the book is very much 'unofficial', so I didn't know if LAS management were going to be happy to have pictures of me looking like an 'official spokesperson'.

A couple of phone calls passed between myself, the LAS press office and the Mail on Sunday resulting in our press office asking me not to say anything too stupid and giving the go ahead for the photographs. I am very thankful to our press office as I'm enjoying being a media whore, its fun and it might make my bank manager happy.

So the Mail on Sunday has some stern looking pictures of me, extracts of the book written up and hopefully I'll sell loads more books making me, and my publishers buckets of money.

I live in hope.

I would like to apologise for the constant mentioning of the book, but I thought that you may be interested in the fun I'm having over it. Don't worry, my fifteen minutes of fame will soon be up.

(I wrote this yesterday, but forgot to 'publish' it. So you get it now. You may thank me for my kindness later).

I am absolutely knacked - twelve hour shifts followed by running around taping TV for my traveling family has had me sleeping around five hours a night in a strange bed, in warm weather that does not aid a restful night.
During todays shift I have had an ominous feeling that I am in some sort of trouble, just waiting for the call from management to come into the office for 'a chat'. I had no idea why I was feeling this way until I pondered the stimulant effect of the four cans of Red Bull that I have drunk in order to remain upright. I'm suffering from fatigue and drug induced paranoia.

Not fun.

At least the work I've been doing has been pretty stress-free. Nothing too much like hard work. Todays trickiest job was a demented 96 year old with serious difficulty in breathing. Living in a nursing home we noticed that the staff were keeping well out of arms reach. The FRU who was already there warned us that she was a bit 'punchy' and he was trying to sneak some medicine under her nose to open up her airways.

'Hello dear', said my crewmate, 'we need to take you to hospital to sort out your breathing'.

'F**K OFF!', came the rather loud reply.

We tried to persuade her to come with us but she was having none of it. A couple of times she tried to grab us but experience has taught us to keep all vital bits of our bodies away from these sorts of patients.

I often tell patients that I can't 'kidnap' them, but when the patient is demented like this then they lack the 'capacity' to refuse our treatment. Using our super secret martial arts techniques (grab her arms and wrap her in a blanket), we managed to safely transfer her to the ambulance. She was cursing us all the time.

We 'blued' her into the hospital as, although we couldn't get any vital signs on her, we could see that she was seriously ill.

It's all a bit sad really, she lives in a typical 'nursing home', is demented and angry most of the time and ends up feeling very unwell and being kidnapped (using as soft a force as possible) by two men in green. No matter how bad my day is, hers was worse.

Five cans of Red Bull today just to keep me sane and vertical. Too tired to write. More tomorrow. Nighty-night.

A police inspector brings us up to date on the forest Gate shooting.

I was reading The Independent today and one of the stories was about how single men in their thirties (i.e. me) are generally worse off than their happily partnered off colleagues. Then I saw that single people use 13% more energy and take up more space.

Finally there is the front page of Time Out.

I wonder if the government will soon start forcing us to have partnerships and I wonder if I should be 'regretful' about having not found the right person to share my flat/life/health concerns/power usage with.

Well if Blair and co. want me to partner up, then they better make shift work illegal.

A couple of days ago Ben Hammersley took some photos of me, for use in various publicity bits.

On the day we did this he had been fitted for his bulletproof vest. He's now over in Afghanistan both writing and publishing beautiful pictures.

Go take a look, he's a top bloke (and bloody clever as well). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he stays safe.

Can you imagine the ambulance response...

We are driving along on blue lights and sirens, traffic is heavy and we are on our way to a potentially life-threatening call.

From the side of the road we see a member of the public gesticulating angrily at us. He is shouting, swearing and indicating something to us.

He is angry because our sirens are so loud they are disrupting his mobile phone call.

Obviously a more important phone call than our emergency journey.

One member of this ambulance crew may well have made a rude hand signal at this pillock, I wouldn't like to say which one.

I happen to think it was justified.