Yesterday, my uncle died.

On a day when I was 5,000 miles away from him, my uncle and lifelong, dearest friend, Peter, chose to leave his pain and suffering behind.

My late father’s youngest brother has always been there for me. And since my father died, eleven years ago, we’ve been there for each other.

It was a long weekend in the UK last week. So I got to spend some extra time with Peter. I was talking about my new and exciting opportunity with Bruce Clay. He told me to go for it and wouldn’t hear a word about me not travelling until he was well again. Of course, both he and I knew, he was never going to get well again.

I loved you all my life uncle Peter for being such a great friend and counsellor. And I should have checked my diary. You knew I would be away on the eleventh anniversary of my father, your brother, dying. The exact day you chose to go and be with him again.

Wow. How lonely a hotel room can be when you are so far from home and alone with your grief.

Tony Bennett, the Queen and William Wallace.

Earlier this year (February, I think) I spotted that the legendary singer, Tony Bennett was playing Glasgow. Now, Tony doesn’t know this, but he’s been a breakfast guest of mine on many Sunday mornings in my living room while I read the Sunday paper. Fresh coffee, orange juice (up until recently, the odd slice of bacon) and Tony Bennett. Or some Sundays, Dino or even ole blue eyes himself. Sunday mornings are usually polite jazz or cool jazz, for me.

Now, Bennett is in his eighties. And I kind of figured, this may be his last tour (not wishing anything bad at all, just he’s getting on a bit). Anyway, he came on stage at the concert hall in Glasgow and blew the roof off the place. And when he sang It’s A Good Life, everyone in the building sang it with him – me included.

But wait for this. At 81 years old, he asked the sound engineer to switch off all the microphones. And then, just totally naked voice, Tony Bennett sang a note prefect version of Fly Me To The Moon. I’d like to see someone current try that!

So, as I was in Scotland. And living so close to Scotland, it’s very close to my heart, I decided my wife and I should hit the highlands. At first, the idea was to head for Loch Ness. My youngest son, Joe asked me if I was going looking for the monster. But I told him no, I’m taking her with me 🙂

Anyway, Loch Ness never happened. Because as it was a long drive, I looked for a nice hotel between Glasgow and Loch Ness and found the Dalmunzie Hotel. And yes, there is a heaven after all.

I stay I lots of hotels. But few could beat this one. Set in a huge estate of its own (complete with golf course) Dalmunzie is a 200 year old mansion. And it’s superb. So I took the “lairds” (that’s Lord in England) room (that’s a suite, actually). Wow!

Now this is not cheap at about 500 bucks a night. But, I guarantee it’s worth every penny.

And, it being another day, another country, I thought a window shot was in order.

Of course, I realized that, at Glenshee (the skiing resort where the hotel is), we were virtually next door to the Queen. Well, her highland castle, that is. And so we hit the highland roads. And in the highlands… you really can own the road!

And so, there we were at the gate to Balmoral Castle on a beautiful sunny day. So quite why the fuck I look so miserable, I’ll never know. Maybe I just always look miserable and haven’t noticed over the past fifty years or so 🙂

I did manage to get such a wonderful pic of Tatiana, under a tree on the front lawn of Balmoral. We sat there together for a while as it was just so peaceful and relaxing.

But my most favourite pic I took standing in the river Dee, just behind the castle in the Queen’s back yard. Somehow, it just captured the moment. And at this time is the wallpaper on my desktop.

When we got back to the hotel, I spotted a nice paining of Dalmunzie in the library. So I took a shot of it.

On the way back south to Newcastle, T and I decided to stop in Stirling. The famous battle place of William (Braveheart) Wallace. It’s not a big (or pretty, for that matter) place. But there is a a national monument to Wallace.

Having said that. When you visit the monument (a very steep walk to the top) you’ll find that the Wallace statue is half way up the outside of the monument! And he looked nowt like Mel Gibson!

Why does Google have a supplemental index?

Well it has to take a dump somewhere!

Another day… another country…

Time to get back on the road again. Life goes on and we must go on with it. So today I opened the curtains to find I was in… Warsaw, Poland.

Yes, me and my buddy Thomas Bindl are concluding our European tour after my short break. It’s back to work and back to airport lounges, flight delays, language barriers and everything else that goes to make the life of an international search marketer… er… interesting!

I switched hotels on the second night and moved into the brand new Warsaw, Hilton. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I was upgraded to a junior sweet. Very nice. Panoramic views of the city lying in bed. But then I looked down from the 25th floor… and what did I see… Yes, another construction site! Try sleeping through that.

Had to sneak a peek at the King’s palace.

And nip into the old town for a dinner of traditional Polish food. Meat, with meat, with another two layers of meat across the top and a little meat on the side…

It’s good to back on the road!

Another day…

The day before my brother died, I was at the eMetrics Summit in London.

First chance I’ve had this year to hang with my great pal, Jim Sterne. Me and Jim tend to bump into each other a lot as we criss-cross our way around the planet. He really is one of the smartest guys in the industry. And one of the funniest, too.

eMetrics Summit is one of the best organized conferences I get to speak at. The venues are always excellent and the catering always top notch.

Strangely enough, Jim was in Ireland speaking at a conference at the same time as I was speaking at SearchMarketingWorld2007 I mentioned the church of search thing and told him I’d be writing into my speaking contract that I needed oil paintings and chandeliers at every gig.

He must have been paying attention. eMetrics Summit was up there in the chandeliers and oil paintings realm.

Well done Jim and matt for pulling together another great conference.

I bumped into David White from Weboptimiser who seems to have changed career to movie director. He was interviewing anything that moved… me included. I popped downstairs to join Jim for a coffee, and whoosh… there was David White. You can see my completely impromptu interview here:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-6590703574167254588

Tonight my brother died…

I tried to contact as many people as I could on the phone. But there are friends of mine and both my brothers I couldn’t get in contact with.

Paul died playing a game of squash tonight. So unfair, with my lifestyle, it should have been me first, he was only 53.

I love you Paul. You were (like our father) a very great man and a great story teller. But, most of all, as my older brother, you were a great protector and my most loyal friend when we were growing up.

Isn’t the internet a great way to tell people about the greatest things in life… and the worst.

Another day… and… another day.

Three conferences back-to-back and a proper job in between. No wonder I’m feeling knackered right now (knackered is an English word for… knackered).

I’m having a late lunch break on a train from Newcastle to London. Whenever it’s possible, I prefer the train into town as opposed to flying. It’s nice to watch the world go by out of the window and catch-up with the tons of email I haven’t had time to attend to. It’s so convenient being able to get an internet connection on the train. But can anyone tell me why (on the east coast line) I get redirected to Google, Sweden?

Last week I flipped from Czech Republic to Irish Republic. I was invited to speak at SearchMarketingWorld2007 where I was able to catch up with Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman. I swear, that’s the first time the three of us have had a chance to have a drink together in two years. I mean, we do see each other frequently, but rarely is there a time when the three of us are not a little swamped at conferences.

It was also really good to catch up with my pal Jon Myers, from Latitude. He’s the only other Geordie I know in the industry. Although he’s based in Manchester. Maybe it’s about time we started a Geordie SEM club. It may turn out to be just Jon and me in a bar having a beer together though… which is pretty much what happens when we bump into each other at conferences!

Anyway, I woke up in the morning with my usual sense of “where am I.” It became quite clear when I drew the curtains and discovered a giant Leprechaun (I know, there’s no such thing as a giant Leprechaun!).

And then there was no doubt at all when I stepped out of the hotel where I was. There’s the Liffey, so it must be Dublin!

The conference venue was really unique. Actually, Jon Myers has a good post on his blog with a great picture with the caption “The Church of Search.”

Here’s Jon with Shuman Ghosemajumder from Google. Shuman (AKA ClickFraudMan!) flew in for the event. We had a pretty interesting conversation about people claiming to be making huge amounts of money out of click fraud/arbitrage/affiliate type activities. He was pretty philosophical saying that, people who try to figure out all of these odd ways to game the system could probably earn more if they turned their efforts to strictly legitimate biz. Good point.
It was good to catch up with Jeffrey Rohrs (he of the sausage manifesto fame, amongst everything else). And yeah, what a great little conference and excellent venue. I think I’ll write in to my speaking contracts that I need oil paintings and chandeliers for every gig now 🙂 And here’s token audience pic.

It wasn’t long before I was waking up in another country, another day. Munich!

I flew in on Sunday and was taken out to dinner by my friend and colleague, Thomas Bindl. Munich is Thomas’ town and he’s a very useful guy to know if you’re visiting Munich for the first time. He knows the place inside out; restaurants, clubs, bars, the lot. On Sunday night I was treated to the most wonderful dinner atop Munich’s Olympic Tower.

I like SES, Munich. It’s one of the smaller, intimate conferences with a really nice atmosphere.

Funny, I usually get to meet Danny here, as he has family in Munich. But since his departure from Incisive (except for the final American shows) no sign of him this year.

Thomas (Bindl) had arranged for a special party to launch his new company. Yeah, I know, with him and I working so closely together, I’ll have to have a party to launch my brand. Except there are no search marketing conferences in Newcastle… but wait a minute: There should be!

Thomas go the party off to a flying start in his new office premises. Not only did he have gallons of Clicquot shampoo for us all to drown ourselves in (me mainly, as usual 😉 He also had gallons of Merlot! The food was perfect. All traditional and Thomas and his guys did traditional Bavarian dress too.

Here I got to spend a little quality time with my pal Adam Lasnik from Google. Adam used to rank in the top ten at Google for the name Adam. So he couldn’t resist asking if I ranked anywhere for Mike. Actually, at home I rank at number one for that name 😉 C’mon guys, gimme some more anchor text 😉

We all ceremoniously inscribed our names and good luck messages on the wall in Thomas’ new office. And here’s my pal Sara from Global Strategies leaving a message in Swedish. I like Sara a lot, she’s very, very smart… and she has a very cute ass too.

What?

What??

I’m an old guy… I noticed… sorry. Have me arrested!

I also got to spend some quality time with the inimitable Jimmy Furland. It’s not possible to go for a drink with Jimmy if you intend getting back to your room before 6.00 am And so it was that he and I were left on our own, in a downtown bar in Munich, the night before, to invent some of the most amazing SEO tools you could ever imagine. Tools which would put SEO into the hands of children as they’d be so cool and easy to use. If ‘only’ either one of us could remember what they were later that day 🙂

And then, the piece de resistance… Thomas announced part two. He’d only hired a street tram and had it loaded up with booze, bar and barman for a two hour spin around downtown Munich. So we packed on board and really had a party on the move!

Rand brought his own special brand of yee-hah! To the party, as we stopped at the public restrooms for a party pee! Note men racing to urinals in the background!

So it was that we continued our journey and drinking, and drinking and… And later, back on the tram, Rand looked deeply and romantically into Geraldine’s eyes… and said: “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Not tue at all. I just made that up. Because we rounded off a fantastic night with my own little ceremony with Bill Hunt: the emptying the hotel bar of Jameson, Irish whisky. And, of course, my famous “odd people in SEO” impersonations. Always goes down a storm 😉

Okay. London next for eMetrics summit and then… Another day, another city!

Another day… Another country.

Yesterday, I woke up and looked out of the window to see… Praha (or Prague, as we tend to know it).

Not a very nice view of a city I’m so fond of, I have to say. Prague is where my wife and I met for the very first time. In fact, this is the very first picture I ever took of Tatiana.

Not a particularly flattering shot, really. Although it did capture the atmosphere of the old town quite well. But it’s an important shot for me. Because, the truth of the matter is, I had no idea when I took it, that less than 48 hours later I’d be back on the Charles Bridge, ring in hand, proposing to her.

Of course, my wife tries not to think about it too much. She’s been kicking herself for the past eight years because her mind went blank at the very moment I proposed. She couldn’t remember the English word for ‘nyet’ and said yes by mistake.

Sorry babe… those are the breaks!

Hehe! Actually, we went back last year and had a little reminisce (and a lot of Dom Perignon).

A beautiful place… Wonder where I’ll wake up tomorrow?