My fast moving mate Cher Demonge is really exciting to know, his empire of shops is growing fast and I really admire the way he just goes for new ventures.  The London sim is becoming the trendiest place on the whole of the grid and will end up like a true copy of Central London as time goes on.  Cher asked me if I’d like to go with him to look for a new premises in SL London where he could add his furniture designs as well.  How cool it was when he found an address right in the middle of Knightsbridge, One Hyde Park, what a great address for his ‘Bonjour’ Boutique.

It’s actually just across the road from the so popular Underground Club which has its regulars there all the time, so a prime spot, the teleport area is also near the shop, so well done Cher.  Me, Drax and Cappy went over to see the shop on the day that Cher was fitting it out and we had a great time sitting chatting into the night.

I’d bought a lovely pinstriped jacket from Cher last time, that I can wear to work at the Daily Mail building and I asked him if he could make me a pair of trousers to go with it.  Well Cher was on the case and in no time at all he delivered them, giving them to me as a gift, thanks Cher they are great, now I have a lovely smart outfit for all those important meetings.

I have had lots of interviews with people over the last few weeks and it has been manic the last couple of days, I haven’t had any time to spare as I still have another three interviews in the pipline, so I need to get those done, I do hate to keep people waiting.  Anyway I had contacted Debs Regent who owns the whole of SL London for an interview and it so happened that she had time to talk to me the other day, so it was great.  Debs is ‘oh so busy’ but we had a good long chat and she is so friendly and nice that the time just went so quickly.  You can catch the interview at http://sllondon.blogspot.com/

Congratulations to the Linden Labs and IBM by the way, I noticed when I logged in that they have successfully managed to use one avatar to travel between two virtual worlds, something I had read that they had planned some time ago, imagine, won’t be long before my av can travel the virtual galaxy between 3D worlds, I’ll never have time for real life!!!!

Like to wish all our American cousins a happy 4th July yesterday, and I hope they all had a good time celebrating in real life and in SL.   Murray was packed last night and we all stood round chatting, even my mate Headburro turned up in his human guise which you don’t see very often (still love the red hair Head!).  As usual I stood answering a few IM messages whilst trying to keep up with the conversation locally.  I noticed Cher telling me to come and join the group for a photo and I saw that he had rezzed a big throne, so I went over to join the gang.

We all had a real laugh, Murray was buzzing!! As with all objects rezzed there, the throne disappeared after a while and we all laughingly fell to the ground.  It was getting late for us Brits anyway, so we were thinking about logging off.  Just as I was about to go, some Stars and Stripes boxes appeared in great numbers, flooding the area, must have been part of the USA celebrations going on.  I zoomed up out of the way and took this misty looking pic of Murray which I thought showed it in all its beauty, SL really is getting good for graphics.

I’ve been working hard lately interviewing people in the London sim, there is so much to write about there that I am never short of a story.  I still have a few interviews to go, but its been fun meeting so many talented people.  I met a really fantastic real life artist the other day, he already makes his living by his art in the real world and I must admit when I first looked round his gallery before I met him, his pictures filled me with joy, I could tell that this was no amateur and his work was to the highest standard I’ve seen.  His name is Ritchey Sealy in real life, and I met his av Ritchey Jacobus who showed me his brilliant work.  You can see the interview at http://sllondon.blogspot.com/2008/07/mayfair-artists-ritchey-jacobus.html

Met my mate Cher in London sim the other day and we looked round for shops for rent for Cher to open his 6th store.  Cher’s designs are awesome and he is certainly working hard at his designs and enterprises.  We had great fun looking round and he finally rented one near Harrods and not far from my houseboat.  I bought some outfits from him as well, they are beautiful and just what I wanted.  You can catch the full story at http://sllondon.blogspot.com/

I went over to the CNN meeting yesterday and there were quite a few people dropping in, including a couple of avs I hadn’t seen before.  I don’t know if its me being English, but I sit there getting very frustrated that we go to talk about the subject Nicole has said we are going to talk about, then someone talks all over her changing the subject and then they keep chipping in, so we never talk about what Nicole had in mind.  See I think this is very rude, but perhaps its a culture thing, as other cultures may think a ‘free for all’ discussion is ok.  Some clearly go there just to promote what they are doing and fill the whole text up repeating their own agenda over and over.  Others turn up on a fairly regular basis with no intention of putting a report in, or hardly ever, saying how busy they are with other things, then having a list of SL stories that they think the rest of us should go charging off with and do all the work.  I sort of lost my temper last night, one av was even rude enough to let off a particle cloud which was supposed to be a bomb when Nicole was trying to talk, she has a lot more patience than me, I think I would have ejected him away had I had control over the sim.  Headburro left early and I was thinking I should have done the same, instead I started bickering back saying they should all write something, sorry Nicole, makes me as bad as them!!!

I teleported over to my office on Saturday and as I glanced out of the window I spotted this massive building that had appeared over the road.  I decided to go and have a look.  It is one of the most luxurious places I’ve seen, great stairs lead up to a grand hall, marble floors with ornate handrails.  There was a picture on the wall of two guys and a notice board at the bottom of the stairs saying Wedding Anniversary of Kirk and Maddox.  Big displays of white roses had been put all round and it looked liked they were getting ready for a big celebration. 

I jumped in the lift and went up to the roof garden, what a beautiful place, there was even a peacock walking about and he opened his tail feathers just to show me how pretty he was.

Drax came on line and I asked him to come over and look at the roof garden and building, it was getting dark by the time he arrived, but the view of the rooftops is really nice from up there.

When I took Drax into the hall to show him how beautiful it was, one of the guys in the picture arrived. We said hello to Kirk and he was really friendly, he told us the party was starting at 11 o’clock the next day.  He said we could look round which was really nice of him.  Well the following day when I went over to my office I could hardly move, the lag was so bad, and then I saw why, the party was well under way and the place was crowded, someone told me after that there were 72 people there at one stage, it’s a wonder the sim didn’t crash out.  I didn’t go across but took some pictures of the ‘do’ and it looked as if they had a great time.

I sent a message to Kirk and asked if I could put a small report on the London blog and he said of ‘course I could’ so I just put a congratulations article on there.  London friend Kwame contacted Maddox afterwards and arranged an interview with them both for me next week, so I’m looking forwards to meeting them both properly.  He told me that the building was one of the ‘Virgin’ group buildings, and yes it does exist in real life.

Talking of interviews, I have just published a report about a great photographer called Papper Papp who has an exhibition in her Mayfair Gallery.  Papper was lovely to interview and so passionate about her work.  You can catch her story at http://sllondon.blogspot.com/

There I was standing chatting in Murray, when pal Dave Sparrow of Naughty Auties fame, came up to me and said hello.  Before I knew what he was up to he got out this giant caveman’s club and bashed me over the head with it, ouch!!!!  He was laughing away and gave me a club to bash him back with.  It was so funny, all you had to do was type the word ‘bam’ in text and your feet left the ground as you bashed the person in front of you over the head. 

Dave gave the clubs out to everyone and soon we were all laying into each other, even Ivan the coke can was bashing people and didn’t spill a drop of coke.  It was great seeing Dave so happy, he told me that the Naughty Auties is going extremely well and that he had just heard from an American organisation for Autism who had just read our original CNN report.

Sometimes its nice just to do silly nutty things in SL, we do have such a laugh with all the gang in Murray.

I just posted another Mayfair Artists report on the ‘Virtually London (lite)’ site, it was a pleasure to meet Alberto Salomon, he is so talented and is such a nice person who cares passionately about art and nature.  His work is exquisite, catch his story at http://sllondon.blogspot.com/

A little while ago I had met Teagan Linden as I looked around the haunted Asylum in Bay City with pal Headburro Antfarm.  Teagan was really friendly and took us for a little tour as she had already seen a lot of the building before we got there.  As I had been collecting Linden bears, I asked Teagan if I could have one of hers.  She said that she hadn’t made her bear yet, and she said she would send me one, as soon as she had made it.

Well today when I logged on there was a message from Teagan saying that she had sent, not only the bear she made, but some other lovely items as well. They were nicely boxed with a balloon attached and when I opened it there were two bears, a steaming coffee cup, a water bowl and a feeding mat.  Teagan is a Neko and the bigger Neko bear had a swinging tail and was dressed really great.  Teagan said that Contessa Marquez had helped to put things together, Teagan had made the cute baby bear and the Contessa had made the ‘Teagan bear’ (which is amazing) and the other accessories. 

I would like to thank Teagan (and the Contessa) for remembering and I really love the bears and the rest of the things.  I have taken my coffee cup to work and left it on my desk, as it goes nicely with my coffee machine there.   Big Thank you again Teagan!!!

It was one of those nice relaxing evenings standing in Murray, Cher had asked Alphonso to build him a plane.  It was a very desirable plane, very streamlined and with Cher’s favourite deep rich pink colouring for its trimmings.  

A little girl suddently teleported into the area.  I’m not sure whether she knew any of the crowd but she came round to each one of us giving us a greeting.  My little friend Nazna stood watching and I could see that she didn’t look very pleased.  Well the little girl made her way over to Nazna who backed away from her. 

The little girl made the wrong decision, she decided to call Naz a name and called out that Naz was a sissy.  Big mistake!!! Nazna produced the biggest gun I have ever seen in my life and I’m not sure whether she aimed it at the little girl or not, but by time I had taken the photograph the little girl was nowhere to be seen.

The little girl did reappear a few minutes later though, so she seemed none the worse for her experience.  Don’t know where Naz had that gun hidden, must have a giant pocket in her clothes somewhere!!!

It was a good CNN meeting last night, Nicole was back which was nice, so she took the meeting.  Henry had done a great job while she was away and it was good to see him there as well this week.  As I had written a story about the London sims, Nicole and Henry thought a field Trip over to SL London would be a good idea.  It was a lot of fun.  Only trouble was poor Rocket who was dressed as Shrek was Ruthed badly and everyones’ clothes took ages to rez.

The CNN journalists even paid the Daily Mail building a visit, you can read all about it at http://sllondon.blogspot.com/

As I’m at the London sims so much now, I thought I’d put a posting in CNN for people to see what’s going on with the fantastic building, replicating real life in SL Mayfair, Kensington, Chelsea and Knightsbridge.  Catch the CNN report at http://www.ireport.com/people/JaneyBracken;jsessionid=F951E105A7B36C9D5EC0C9A5E4D04496

I was standing minding my own business at a place called Hanson the other day, after being moved from another SL location, Hanson was packed with people, and I guess they had all been transferred from other places on the grid as well.  Suddenly this big guy with a giant cigar came up to me and started talking, here’s the conversation we had and I think I can safely say I’m a salesman’s nightmare!!!!

[2008/06/23 7:06]  PatrickAF: hello

[2008/06/23 7:06]  You: .

[2008/06/23 7:06]  You: hi

[2008/06/23 7:06]  PatrickAF : intereted in buying a trapolin?

[2008/06/23 7:07]  PatrickAF: trampolin?

[2008/06/23 7:07]  You: no thanks

[2008/06/23 7:07]  You: can jump without one thanks

[2008/06/23 7:07]  PatrickAF: interested in buying anything???

[2008/06/23 7:07]  PatrickAF: i sell anything

[2008/06/23 7:07]  You: well what are you selling

[2008/06/23 7:07]  You: elephant?

[2008/06/23 7:08]  PatrickAF: yes

[2008/06/23 7:08]  You: pink one

[2008/06/23 7:08]  PatrickAF: it´s it not easy but…

[2008/06/23 7:08]  You: with blue spots as well

[2008/06/23 7:08]  PatrickAF: lol

[2008/06/23 7:08]  PatrickAF : lol

[2008/06/23 7:08]  PatrickAF: lol

[2008/06/23 7:08]  You: lol only kidding

[2008/06/23 7:09]  You: so you got a shop in sl?

[2008/06/23 7:09]  PatrickAF: no..

[2008/06/23 7:09]  PatrickAF: i´m a “free-trader”

[2008/06/23 7:09]  You: oh right is business good?

[2008/06/23 7:10]  PatrickAF: at the moment no…you don´t buy

[2008/06/23 7:10]  PatrickAF: lol

[2008/06/23 7:10]  You: lol well you can’t just depend on me

[2008/06/23 7:10]  You: only feed you for one meal

[2008/06/23 7:10]  You: need lots of customers

[2008/06/23 7:10]  PatrickAF: of course

[2008/06/23 7:10]  You: look rich going by your cigar

[2008/06/23 7:11]  PatrickAF: do you need cigarrets?

[2008/06/23 7:11]  You: no stopped smoking bad for my virtual lungs

[2008/06/23 7:11]  PatrickAF: ok

[2008/06/23 7:11]  You: don’t need anything really

[2008/06/23 7:11]  PatrickAF: don´t need anything furniture?

[2008/06/23 7:11]  You: no make my own

[2008/06/23 7:12]  PatrickAF : i have a luxury house to rent

[2008/06/23 7:12]  PatrickAF: 450

[2008/06/23 7:12]  PatrickAF: weekly´

[2008/06/23 7:12]  You: no got a house and a houseboat and an office

[2008/06/23 7:12]  PatrickAF: have boats too

[2008/06/23 7:12]  You: no I have a speed boat

[2008/06/23 7:13]  PatrickAF: ohhh a speed boat…

[2008/06/23 7:13]  PatrickAF: can a buy it?

[2008/06/23 7:13]  PatrickAF : lol

[2008/06/23 7:13]  PatrickAF : i don´t have one

[2008/06/23 7:13]  You: no transfer I’m afraid

[2008/06/23 7:13]  You: you are very tall

[2008/06/23 7:14]  PatrickAF: lol

[2008/06/23 7:14]  PatrickAF: i have to go

[2008/06/23 7:14]  You: ok nice talking to you

[2008/06/23 7:14]  PatrickAF: bye

[2008/06/23 7:14]  You: bye

Thanks PatrickAF you were a good sport and I wish you well with your free trading!

I just put another great story  on Virtually London (lite) written by contestant Brie Janick.  10,OOO Lindens are still up for grabs, so get a story to me about the London sims by the 1st July 2008.  All entrants will not only get a chance to win the money, but they may also have their story posted on the Virtually London (lite) site which is run by the real life Daily Mail, so you will be read by a very wide audience indeed (competition rules).

While you are at the Virtually London (lite)site, take a look at the brilliant film that my boss Nikk Huet as made about the Daily Mail and General Trust SL Building (my office in above pic).  The Machinima has been used as a presentation to show the company about them entering Second Life.