Names and sole tradership

So... I'm not going to be JuicyFly limited. At least not at the start.

It's a shame because I love the name and the designs Oli did for me. But for financial and administrative reasons I've decided to go down the route of being a sole trader, which means I have far less paperwork and far fewer costs like accountants. I could be a sole trader "trading as..." but that looks a bit fly-by-night.

So say hello to Maltpress Web Consultancy.

JuicyFly will remain, however, as will the JuicyFly Empire. It's going to be a far less formal "thing", where I'll be playing with new toys, trying some PHP stuff out and having a creative outlet. Maltpress.co.uk will become the official company website and the redesign work will commence tonight.

It's very exciting. Timelines are set, goals are set, stuff is moving along nicely... it's all I can do to stop myself jumping up and down with glee.

Plus I've decided that - if I'm having to sell my car - I need something with which to impress girls. So I'm getting a MacBook. Much drooling will occur. I'm watching the phone, waiting for them to tell me they have some in...

As of tomorrow...

HM Revenues and Customs recognise me as self employed. Well, back-dated, they will.

I am now a sole trader, trading as "Maltpress Web Consultancy".

And what's happening to JuicyFly? More news tomorrow.

Filling forms

Following a restful weekend during which I watched an inordinate number of films (X-Men III is quite good - not brilliant, but quite good) I am now doing set-up with a vengeance. I've had some good advice and the point at which I say I am self employed seems very, very close.

So today it's contacting the Inland Revenue and DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) to register for VAT and to register as self employed. That way I get to pay tax, but also get to claim back the VAT on my capital outlay, like a laptop and business cards.

On the subject of laptops, the Mac option is looking really good at the moment. Especially when VAT is taken off. I'm going to get some advice, but I really do think I'll get one - after all, I'm going to be working damn hard for it, I may as well enjoy it.

Anyone got any experience of working between PC and Mac and care to talk me out of it/advise me further?

My poor brain

I am incredibly hurty at the moment. Beer festival. Ow.

Today I will be mostly laying in bed watching Alien on DVD and feeling sorry for myself. This will be an enjoyable hangover. Hurrah.

Gosh, what a rotten occurence

I'm trying very, very hard not to say rude words.

Bad car things:

• Metro has failed MOT and is costing me a bomb to have fixed. Bottoms!


• Midget needs new points and the only way they could be harder to get to would be to put them in another country. Flip!


• Tax is due on Metro as well, which is even more money. Crivens!

Please replace the above non-expletives with real swears. Real bad, bad, swears, which would make women blush.

Wow

Sparkly things, eh? They're so ace. This is what the future should be like - floaty displays and thinks you can control by waving your hands about, like the Nintendo Wii (ha ha ha).

Just thought I'd post that in a short break from writing a business plan and doing cash flow forecasts...

Live like a monk month - the strategy

So, my brother and dad are signed up for this. Dad's going to take my cards from me (with strict instructions not to buy things off the internet with it) and my brother's joining in. I've been trying to work out strategies. Here are some of the ideas, in no particular order...

• Only "done a poo" at work - hence removing the need for loo paper.


• Stop going out for lunch. It's not something I do much - in fact this is only going to save me about £10 over the month - but that's enough.


• Bike in to work. I've been doing that out of necessity the past few weeks, because I didn't have the Metro, but I have to remain strong and not be tempted to drive any more than I have to.


• Do a proper planned shop - maybe even sharing lifts with my brother and getting stuff together.


• Eat all the stuff I have in the freezer. Not all together, of course, because that would be nasty. I'm going to start tonight with the quiche I have. Mmm, cold egg pie. Love it.


• Eat more biscuits at work. I put a pound a week into the biscuit kitty; I don't think I'm getting my money's worth at the moment. Although I doubt they'd appreciate my idea of bringing a doggy-bag.

Any other ideas? Use the comment thingy. No-one has for ages. I'm starting to think no-one reads this.

June - live like a monk month.

In my quest to not owe money any more and - of course - to fight the evil of capitalism and other higher aims (actually, just to get out of debt - it's purely selfish) I am declaring June to be "live like a monk month".

At the start of the month I'm taking a wodge of cash out of my bank account and then handing my debit card and credit card over to my dad. If I need something which is outside my budget, I need to make a case for it with dad. If he's not convinced, I don't get the money. Obviously, some things I'll have to pay for - the MOT's due on the Midget and I need to get that done before I sell it, and I'll have to pay to advertise it, too.

I hope I don't alienate my friends. If they ask if I want to go out and the week's budget is nearly gone, I'll have to say no. Certainly at the start of the month I'll be saying no to everything, and I'll be more likely to treat myself at the end.

It's been inspired by lots of things, really. The Motley Fool is the main one, with lots of stories from people who've saved loads and are now financially far safer (not necessarily rich, but sorted). Alvin Hall's book Money for Life, which I got from the library, is another one. But mostly it's because I have to sell my baby and that sucks, and it's my own damn fault for spending money on things.

It's also going to mean I'll be out less, which means more time on business set-up. Which is good.

It'll be an interesting experiment and one I'll blog relentlessly.

EDIT - I've just had a look at Moneysavingexpert.com and - as well as the advice being good, the copy writing is brilliant. Design isn't great, but the use of headlines, call-out boxes and so on makes it easy to read. Plus the language used is nicely colloquial, simple and structured.

Pity it's so FireFox unfriendly though.

I'm such a sucker

For shiny things. I keep trying to justify getting one. There's utterly no way - while the business is going to need a laptop of some description, being realistic a Windows box would be more convenient all round and a lot more affordable. If someone at the bank said "why a mac?" I doubt "because it's shiny and looks nice" would be a good enough reason to spend twice as much on a computer.

Bah.

Leasing, finance and so on would be an option, but I want to pay for as much as possible at the outset and have a minimum of ongoing revenue costs. While I know I can get at least some work at the outset to pay for things, whether I can sustain enough work long term to keep me in shiny things is another matter. If it all goes wrong and I have to get a "proper" job again, at least if I buy outright I'll still own - or be able to sell - my assets, and I won't be saddled with longer term debts. As it is, the cost of setting up looks like it's spiralling anyway - business cards, registrations, insurance, accountants... frightening.

Oh, and discussions this weekend led me to believe making and selling t-shirts for my imaginary band (which I can't help but refer to as "we", as in "we have no members or songs") might actually be a little bit more mad than I thought. I like to think of it as a whimsical eccentricity.

Spry

No, that's not how I feel - far from it, in fact - it's Adobe's new AJAX framework.

Basically a JavaScript library for building AJAX pages, it's a good preview and intro to AJAX, which is something I've not used but have seen being put to work on some excellent web apps. Flickr's a prime example of this - beautifully functional and looks incredible. The applications of AJAX are limitless, especially for people who want to empower users to add, edit and sort information.

Building a website is becoming less about structuring information the way you think your users are going to want it - it's more about putting in place technologies which allow them to structure the information for themselves. Exciting times with some interesting challenges on the way.

EDIT - I've just seen my visitor stats. Someone was referred to maltpress.co.uk from the searh term "bad haircut mistakes".

Great. That's cheered me up no end.

Sob

I've sadly had to reach the realisation that the Midget has to go. I can't afford to keep it - not only am I insuring it, paying running costs, and renting a garage from the council at over £40 a month, but the money I could get from selling it would pay off my credit card and get me nicely set up for starting the business. Perhaps in a couple of years I can replace it; perhaps even with something nicer. But as it is I have a month to prepare it for the MOT and then it's going up for sale.

It's such a sad thing to have to do. I'm so utterly in love with that car. But the situation's just wrong. As it is, I have to think about moving anyway, possibly even back to live with my dad. Realism sucks.

Still, I need to look for the positives in this. It'll put me in a far better financial situation; the business can really take off; I wouldn't have time to look after it anyway; and I've had a couple of incredible years driving it and playing with greasy things. In another couple of years, as I said, I'll probably be in a position to replace it - with something nicer.

Maybe I'll start putting my mechanical energies into the Metro. Maybe it's time to mod it up. Lower it, flames over the wheel arches, tune the engine up, that kind of thing... ha ha ha.

Mod it hard!

I rock.

I rock.
Originally uploaded by Maltpress.

I made this.

Cheesehelmet Nosebleed are... well, a phenomenon. I'm not sure what to do with them. It's like a one-man flash mob but without the mob and certainly without the flash part of it. Something like an art "happening" but comedy instead of art and it's not really happening.

The original plan was that they'd be the biggest band that never was, but now I'm thinking that perhaps they should be.

Regardless, it's a fashion icon already. Even though I own one of only two t-shirts made so far, and my mate Phil has the other.

Come on - be a 'bleeder:
http://www.cafepress.com/juicyfly

Yay! On sticks!!

Hurrah! Maltpress.co.uk is back up and running. My images are back on this blog, and it's running smoothly again.

All is good with the world.

More updates soon.

BONK!

Bonk seems to be my favourite word at the moment and I'm not sure why. Not in the naughtiness sense of the word, just as a word... it just makes me laugh. I'm going through something of a childish phase at the moment.

So I thought I'd tell a story of terrible physical injury today. I have to admit I actually have no recall of the events I'm about to explain - for reasons which I'm sure will be apparent - so I only have other people's word for this. And a whopping great dent in my forehead.

When I was about 4 and my brother about 6, we decided to cut down a tree. As you do. I'm not sure if it was inspired by the Monty Python lumberjack song, or a need for wanton destruction, or just boredom; as I said, memory eludes me for this escapade, so I can only guess at the motives.

We found dad's hatchet in the shed. It was a nasty little thing - sharp, curved blade on the front and spiky hooky bit a the back, something like an ice-pick but not sharp. Very solid, however.

Now, for some reason the logic of a 4 year old isn't all that. Being too small to heft the axe myself, I let my brother do it. I wasn't *that* stupid though - I did at least try to find the safest place to be. Using the popular theory of opposites, I figured the most dangerous place to be would be in front of my brother - and therefore the safest place to be would be behind him. Directly behind him.

He went for the first blow. He swung the hatchet back.

Bonk!

My parents came into the garden to find my lying on the grass, blood gushing from my forehead, an axe lying beside me, and a somewhat concerned brother standing by me.

I went to hospital but the queue was very long. By the time I was half way down it I'd stopped crying and the bleeding had stopped so we went home. To this day, if a queue's too long I'll just give up on something. Although that's a somewhat different story.

I had no permanent internal damage I know about; perhaps one day a brain scan will show otherwise (I'd love to see my brain). Scar-wise, I sadly don't have a big manly white line down my forehead like Harry Potter, but if you'd care to feel I do have something of a dent in my forehead. Go on, ladies, feel my head.

And what did my brother say when my parents came out to find me lying there? As he stood over my prone and bleeding body, the axe lying next to me on the grass, he looked up at my parents and uttered the immortal line "he did it to himself".

And they believed him for years until they worked out I couldn't even pick the axe up myself.

Service update

Still no maltpress.co.uk or juicyfly.com sites at the moment, which is a shame because I've been working on a Cheesehelmet Nosebleed site. I'm planning to make them the biggest band that never was. It's a pointless little fun project I'm just playing with. Part of it is making t-shirts and things using Cafepress, which turns out to be easy to use, incredibly fun, and - because I'm not charging markup at the moment - cheap for people who buy my stuff. I ordered a t-shirt and badge from my own stuff and it worked out at about £15, including postage from the US. Hopefully it won't be too long before we get a UK based one as well.

I also used the Shell Livewire site the other week and got my free startup CD this weekend. It's very good, with a couple of basic ideas generation tools, plus some handy reading material (which will be helping me format my business plan properly over the coming weeks). Next week I'm seeing a financial advisor; I'm going to try to get an appointment with either my appointed Shell Livewire advisor or some other startup advisor soon as well. Then I need to find a solicitor and an accountant.

I'm getting worried about the amount of paperwork there's going to be. Sole trader or limited company? I can see the benefits of being Ltd, but there's all that accounting and stuff...

Bang bang bang!

Metro rear wheel arch
Originally uploaded by Maltpress.

Hammer + Metro = bad. That's what I learnt today. Hardly rocket science, I know, but there you go... I was trying to clean up the rusty bits a little. Somewhat encouraced by the bit at the front which I though would be awful being OK, I went at the bad rear wheel arch and found this... it's more rust than metal, I have a feeling there's quite a bit of MIG wire in there, and there's certainly already some filler.

Metros do this, though. Rear wheel arches are the main weak spot.

Tomorrow dad will come round. We may hit it some more, swear a bit, and then try to fix it. Hopefully. If not I'm buying one of these.

Weekend, weekend, la la la.

It's nearly the weekend! Hurrah. Only not. Only maybe hurrah.

Weekends are a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I'm not at work; on the other, I get bored. So I'm trying to plan ahead and make sure I have lots to do. More so this weekend as my brother's away and I have the house to myself all weekend. Just me and the moggy. We'd have a party if I had any friends who'd come and he knew how to write the invites.

Plans for this weekend then:

- hit my car with hammers. That's right - it's MOT time for the Metro, and I have a feeling the rust is going to fail it. Again. And I don't want to spend weeks welding again. I think it's just cosmetic, but it does mean I need to knock out the rusty bits and fill it. It also means it's off the road for a couple of weeks and I'm cycling everywhere.
- business set-up stuff; I'm seeing a financial advisor next week, and this weekend I'll be working on getting my company registered and all that malarky.
- fun things. Er... um... Tracy might come over and watch a DVD tonight. Better still, she might bring Michael with her and I'll seem even more popular, although I won't get such a good reputation with the neighbours as I would if it was women visiting me alone. Other than that I'm open to ideas. There's a classic car show on Monday me and dad may go to. Look out for Flickr updates following that.

I'm going to wrestle the cat and get his collar on, too. Someone at work who appeared to be jingling just reminded me of that.

We had books at school

And it never did me any harm

Actually, we had books at university too, and I much preferred doing research like that. Why should schools be internet connected anyway? The internet can be a reasonable research tool but it's only a small part of it. There's so much rubbish out there that I don't think kids should be using the 'net for research until they've been taught how to critically evaluate the information they're given. It's a complete minefield - even governments use the wrong information from dodgy internet sources (academic essay as justification to invade Iraq, anyone?).

Taking internet connections away from schools isn't censorship. It's teaching kids how to actually think for themselves, and saving them from a lifetime of crippled, RSI hands and chronic dry eyes.

Blood and guts

It being the end of the day, I was reading some of the blogs I peruse and decided to have a flick through the Best of Scary Duck (Grauniad blog award winner) - and came across this story.

It's reminded me of a similar story once told by my a-level biology teacher.

Now, Cambridge is a lovely flat place and as such the cycling capital of the world. Our biology teacher cycled in every day; as did many teachers. He'd also nip out on his bike on errands.

That's set-up fact number one.

Biology is sometimes a book-taught subject but is best when it's a practical one. No, no, not like that. Honestly - minds in the gutter. I'm talking dissection, as demonstrated by That'll Teach 'Em (starring Jeannie, my mate Pete's ex).

That's set-up fact number two.

Now, let's combine them.

Disection of bits of cow works best when they're reasonably fresh, so the smell doesn't affect the delicate constitutions of the pupils. A deal had been struck with a local butcher; in return for getting rid of the bits he didn't want, we got fresh bits and pieces to chop up. The only problem was picking them up. The biology teacher offered his services one lunch time and set off to get some nice fresh guts for the afternoon's lesson.

The offal safely stowed in a plastic bag, which in turn was safely stowed on the panier rack on the back of his bike, off he set. What he didn't notice, however, was the bag slipping from the rack behind him and dangling ever closer to the back wheel of his bike.

One thing - as they inevitably do in a good anecdote - led to another and the bag got caught in the spokes. Not only did the bag rip open, but off came the teacher into the road, his bike landing on top of him. Injuries were negligible - a couple of bruises - but the offal was ruined. It had gone everywhere..

And that's where passers by found him - lying in the road, seemingly mortally wounded, covered in blood and entrails. There were screams. Oh god, were there screams. I think the therapists of Cambridge still get work from it.

My dad, my rabbit, and my first girlfriend

I just have to tell this story. It's one of my favourite anecdotes.

There comes a time in a relationship when you have to meet the parents of your partner. Now, most people dread this time, but not me; I get on well with parents. To be honest, I often get on better with parents than I do their daughters (not like that, you filthy buggers). But there was a time when I'd never gone through that, and my dad had never met a girlfriend of mine.

So the day came that Dad invited my first girlfriend round for tea, and she nervously accepted. Once she'd arrived, the nerves dissipated; both my brother and dad are easy to get on with, and they soon all found the common ground of winding me up over which to bond.

All the old stories came out over tea. One of the favourites - and one for another time - was my brother hitting me in the head with an axe. Oh how we laughed at my potential brain damage. This got us on the subject of scars, which inevitably led to the story about my rabbit.

Basically, I had a pet rabbit which one day went utterly mental and bit me, hard, on the end of my finger. It went all nasty and I have a scar to this day - some 20 years later. Now, the details are lost in the mists of time; my brother insists I must have been poking it, while I insist it had gone insane in some way. This theory was backed up by the fact that during the night of the incident, the rabbit managed to escape the run to go to live in the woods.

It was at this point in the story that my dad interjected. "You don't still believe that, do you?"

Well, of course we do. That's what you told us.

"Actually," explained dad - and please bear in mind at this point he's sitting right next to my first ever girlfriend, who's still a little nervous - "I was so upset the rabbit had hurt you that badly I went out that night, wrung its neck, and buried it in the garden".

There was a clatter of dropped cutlery at this point.

Now - brushing aside the possible cruelty aspect here (if it was a dog, they'd have put it down) - what was most shocking was that my dad was sitting next to my first love, basically saying to her "this is what happens if you hurt my son". It was both incredibly reassuring - my dad cares for me enough to kill to protect me - and yet incredibly scary. My dad cares for me enough to kill to protect me.

We had to quickly check the fate of some other pets - we've been assured that the dog really, really did go to live on a farm. All gerbils died of natural causes, and having received nothing more than a nasty suck from our goldfish, I wasn't worried about them.

Still, we did see Dad in a new light - as some kind of bizarre fen-based Mafia enforcer. Rather than "sleeping with the fishes", his enemies "went to live in the woods".

All my exes are still fine, although I can't be sure if future breakups will coincide with a new patio at Dad's house. You just don't mess with Don Maltpress's sons.