And so it grows....

We have been overwhelmed by the responses to our pleas for help with the launch of FR2DAY. It’s war as far as we are concerned, with time running out on us, so it has been really heartening to get such great feedback and positive responses from the people we have found.
Flo Flozard, a talented artist and singer, has come on board as creative director and Susana Iwase Hanson, a Japanese-American writer based here, will be a valuable contributor to Food and Travel. These people, amongst many others, are all agreeing to work for nothing to help us get FR2DAY off the ground. And once the dosh starts rolling in, they will be amply rewarded (by us, as well as by God.)

Wicked Whispers

I love email – probably the best means of quick, effective communication there is – but sometimes it can get you into trouble. Tonight I was emailing various potential contributors to FR2DAY and as is our habit, Wayne and I were forwarding the emails from various people we’d found across to each other. I got in touch with a girl down in Cannes who organises parties for like-minded single social butterflies and instantly thought she would be a useful person to meet. Then she let slip that she also runs a global gay internet site. BINGO! Our gay contacts down here are currently thin on the ground so this was mannah from heaven.
‘Found a great girl in Cannes who is big on the party scene,’ I wrote above her email to me ‘she also runs a wordwide gay site and think she is probably gay herself (but people will probably say that about me and you!)’ then I merrily pinged it off to NO, not Wayne, but said networker!
Two minutes later, her email shows up with ‘Hey Karen, I haven’t stopped laughing yet, somehow don’t think that was meant for me, was it?’ I couldn’t wait to tell Wayne how stupid I’d been, and he promptly sent me back a similar looking email from a French forum he’d been trawling. He’d found an American woman in Cannes who seemed to know everyone, and thinking he was mailing me said, ‘See below, this bird knows everyone, especially the Yanks, so could be worth a punt.’ But he’d sent it back to her instead, only for her to come back with ‘Hey Wayne, now I’m confused...are you after my email address list?’
Très spooky, as Dame Edna might say.

Why are we doing this again?

I have a feeling one of the highlights of this job will be getting the heads up on all the latest parties, events and gigs. Currently, unless you are a fluent French speaker and can find the listings in Nice-Matin, or happen to pop into FNAC once a week, you have no way of knowing what is going on down here.
I can think of many events in the last six months – the International DJ festival, featuring Roger Sanchez, the great Stephane Pompougnac of Hotel Costes fame and the sublime David Moralis, the World Music Awards, Jamie Cullum playing to a half capacity audience at Mipcom, Oasis playing in Marseille – where most people have only known what’s going on after it’s happened. A bit pointless really and one of the reasons our What’s On guide will change things forever on the Cote d’Azur.

TWIT ter...

I have been Twittering since Sunday and already am addicted. This is quite something from a Luddite whose idea of keeping in touch is to pick up the phone or write a letter (ok I do email, but Facebook MSN messenger and Myspace, sorry you still leave me cold.)

Jonathan Ross is a Twitter, it has taken over from insulting grandads on air as his favourite new pastime (how he manages to find a minute for his day job is anyone’s guess.) Luckily, my partner Wayne (yes Karen and Wayne, we have just ordered the furry dice and the windscreen sticker) is to technology what I am to the written word - a gift from God - and we reckon this could be a valuable promotional tool when FR2DAY is up and running.

I’ve noticed that a high flying BBC contact of mine uses Twitter to talk about dramas and series that are coming up on Auntie (complete with transmission times and days, shameless huh? That one is on C4 though) so if it’s good enough for Pablo Almondo, it’s good enough for me. A joyful bonus is when an email pops up telling you that someone from your dark and distant past is following you (so far, my best schoolfriend from age 11, two very cool ITV prs who made my job a pleasure in London and inexplicably, a bus driver called Dan who seems quite amusing but doesn’t know me from Adam). Mind you, navigating my way around is a nightmare, so I might be doing the same as the chick above very soon.

look out Trip advisor....

On Friday we cracked open the champagne at Lucy and Wayne's to celebrate the launch of our new online lifestyle magazine FR2DAY.com. It’s grown from a dinner party conversation fuelled by copious amounts of wine to several meetings a week fuelled by cappuchino and enthusiasm, no mean feat when you’re knocking on the door of jaded post -40^th birthday cynicism. We are going to cover all the hottest news, events, comings and goings, festivals, fashion, shopping, restaurants, bars, beaches and anything else you can think of on the Cote d'Azur. It’s not just about providing a public service to under serviced ex pats here (although that is our top priority dear reader) it’s also about the VIP backstage passes for Madge, Lenny K and Oasis…joking) Lots of work to do and the site should be up in April, so all very exciting. I went to the loo and found myself in a pitch dark hallway, three glasses of Champagne down, tripped over the giant dog basket and found myself splayed across it complete with bruised shins (will that be enough to get me out of running the London Marathon in April?) Cue three worried partners racing out to said hallway to check I was okay. ‘Thank God you’re all right’ said Lucy, ‘Wayne’s sister in law tripped over that last Christmas and broke two ribs!’ Rumours of my growing up, slowing down and maturing are vastly exaggerated.

Dealing with elephants

Wikipedia says.....the elephant in the room is an English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there might be concerning themselves with relatively small and even irrelevant matters, compared to the looming big one of trying to get some money out of Iain.

Deal done.....

After weeks of protracted negotiations I finally agreed a deal with Tim @ LA2DAY last night. It is a great compromise with him remaining involved for the foreseeable future. It will obviously be a great help having someone with so much web experience involved in the project. We just need to finalise the contracts over the next week, pay the money, get the site and voila we will be web-entrepreneurs on a mission, albeit with an ENORMOUS amount of work to get done before our aimed 'live' date sometime in early April and the inevitable party/launch during the Cannes Film Festival.