Figuring out the meaning behind that headline should give the grey matter some exercise over the Christmas Holiday period. Send in your answers - in pencil on a large denomination used banknote to Wyenot News, 1, Hillview Road, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. HR9 7EY (Sterling or US Dollars preferred). If you need a clue - dyslexia always was my strong point!

If you prefer to watch television over the holiday period, the solution can be found in the 'Z' section of the A to Z Index page. (That is not another clue - just somewhere to hide the answer.)

Continued . . .

I realize that I am prone to being quite cynical about Christmas - Ross-in-Bling and all that but I sincerely would like to take this opportunity to wish all readers of Wyenot News a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I have a photo job at the Ryfield Centre on Christmas morning but after that, I'll crack open a bottle of Tizer, open a nice tin of Spam and celebrate the day in true, traditional Wood family style. I understand that there's a new 'Spicy Pepper' flavour of Spam available this year. Bernice, the boys and Sarah will probably be coming to visit, so between the eight of us, we'll really enjoy that!

Actually, I'll probably call in at the Hope and Anchor for a pint or several on Christmas Eve, photograph some loonies playing Rugby on Boxing Day and catch you all on camera, being silly at the market on
New Year's Eve.

However you celebrate your Christmas -
leave the car at home if you're drinking and have a great time!

Please forgive me if this week's edition of Wyenot News is extremely heavily biased towards Topical Photography rather than proper editorial material. Due to the time of year, this past week has been so incredibly busy, both photographically and on web site maintenance itself that I am simply dead on my feet and suffering from news editor's block. I kid you not when I say that the longest night's sleep I have had this week is four and a half hours and all of my waking hours have been taken up with work on this web site in one way or another. Apart from a very rushed trip into Clinton Cards on Saturday afternoon, in between photographing the carnival and because my Dad was coming to visit briefly on Sunday, I have not even begun to think about my own Christmas. That 18 Watt bulb in my office, which I photographed last week in jest is quite literally the closest thing I have to a Christmas decoration in my own house.

Tonight, Monday I find myself battling to keep my eyes open as I prepare this week's edition of Wyenot News for Tuesday's publication deadline. Apart from items prepared earlier in the week, I am going to have to just put brief captions rather than write articles for most items or I will never get it on-line. My first photo job tomorrow is at 8:45 am at Cornwall's and I am absolutely desperate for some sleep. Can't remember what the job is in aid of but the place and time are in my diary.

When I first added Wyenot News to this web site, I did it to try and ease the work load and worried that I would not have enough to fill a weekly news magazine. Now however, I am actually wondering if it might be worth making it a daily or at least a twice weekly publication. This might even out the workload over the course of a week. Failing the arrival of my news editing fairy godmother, I'll have to give that one some serious thought.

My apologies to all those people who over the past two weeks have said, 'Why don't you stay to the rest of the gig/carol concert/party?'. It has not been that I have not wanted to - it's just been that I can't remember what my living room looks like.

I'm not complaining here. Wyenot is my life. I enjoy it, I love photographing your events and besides which, I need the work - I am just trying to think of a way to make the web magazine publication a little easier. I may take a week off in January and catch up with all those episodes of 'The Bill' I have recorded . . .

Late info added at 2:07 am Tuesday. Apologies to the regular southern hemisphere viewers who read the news during the early hours of the morning (GMT) for the non appearance of Wyenot News and the temporary disappearance of the whole web site. After finally finishing the prep at 1:58 am, I went to upload the news only to find that the server in Docklands is down. I notice that the last viewer hit the site at 1:19 am, so I guess that is when it went down. I have just spent 19 hours solid to get this week's issue up on time and then the xxxxing (euphemism for blasted) server decides to go and shut down, all by itself. Final upload time: 7:35 am GMT. Life's a bitch and then you die!

Ed.