So another trip home ends and this time with sad news whilst standing on the tarmac at Heathrow waiting to disembark. News that a work colleague has met an untimely end to his presence in Saudi Arabia.

Whilst I didn't know him all that well, I have known him for almost my entire time out here. I'll remember him most as being perpetually enthusiastic, always with a grin on his face, if anything slightly wired and as an obsessive exercise fiend. It was the latter that ultimately resulted in his death, the manner of which, if reports in this mornings' newspapers are true, are quite horrific, though entirely credible. As I sit here on the BMI flight into Riyadh, I have never wanted less to go anywhere in my life, but this post isn't about me or what I want.

Instead, I dedicate this to John, as the most fanatical Manchester United supporter I have ever met, and despite my own affiliations, I hope most fervently that his beloved Red Devils win the Carling Cup this afternoon. Wayne & Co. you owe him that much.

John, you will be missed and along with you, a small part of all of us died. Rest in Peace

Last evening saw the return to print for Abby Lee a.k.a. Zoe Margolis as the 'Girl with a One Track Mind'. Her new book focuses on what happened after The Times chose to out her and destroy the anonymity she had sought to protect when her original book was released.

Choosing to reward her many Twitter, Facebook and blog followers with a semi-private event, around 100 people assembled in an upper room of Canal 125 in London N1. A varied mix of "real* readers", some sitting in a circle on the wooden floor, gathered to hear Zoe read selected passages from her new book 'Girl with a One Track Mind Exposed', following which she took questions and signed advance copies of the book for those present.

As her debut effort had been intended to be a wholly incognito affair, it transpired that the evenings' event was to be Zoe's first time at reading her own work to an audience. She needn't have worried though, as spurred on by the presence of an audience that was clearly on her side, it flowed effortlessly. Taking first a piece recounting a conversation on gender politics, then a guided tour of London man, she warmed to the task with consummate ease. She then moved on to what she saw as the limitations of the Rampant Rabbit, before finishing up with a section from what is the crux of her book, being outed by The Times. At this point, the room was so silent, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop were it not for the sound of Zoe's voice itself, the mood around the room was almost reverential and the applause following the close was as warm as you are likely to encounter anywhere.

Given the opportunity to question Zoe in person, there was little reticence from those in the room and the possibility of a return to the film industry, the 'Zoe Margolis Seal of Approval' and many other topics were covered, before she settled down to a well earned single malt and the signing of many, many books.

As she later commented on Twitter, she returned home "drunk, happy and totally gobsmacked by how nice everyone was"; I would struggle to argue her point having been there. I'm looking forward to reading the book immensely.

*geeks

There are many things one can learn on a train, firstly how easy it is to doze off in the gently swaying carriages, secondly how much more difficult it is to write in a notebook. Sway as they might, they are considerably less stable than an Airbus A320 for example. Lastly, I have learned that canals do indeed have bottoms and that they're not as far down as you'd think.

AM and I are most of the way to London via Virgin. Kind of apt really, as we are on the guest list for the launch of the next book to be released under Zoe Margolis' pseudonym "Abby Lee". At least I think it's a launch; it's certainly a very select event where a small number of people will be able to listen to a reading by Ms. Margolis and also get the opportunity to buy a copy of the book ahead of its official release on 5th March.

Given my normal place of abode, it was something of a chance affair for us to attend. Not having been in the UK during February for over 10 years, I'm assuming that it must have been a piece of divine intervention that has seen a friends wedding coincide with an an event by a sex blogger. Admittedly, I have had Zoe listed on Twitter for months and so know of such things in advance. One email and I'm on the list, two emails and AM can join in too. Does that count as a ménage a trois? The raised eyebrow to my right says perhaps not.

Outside, it's grey and overcast, no bright sunny day this, and the train still sways. An empty line to our left glistens with moisture from the drizzle. We rattle through some tiny outpost so fast, its name cannot be read, followed quickly by a platform that identifies itself as Kings Langley. We can't be too far away now, 25 minutes at most.

Other than an 18:30 event, what to do in London? We have around 6 hours to kill and it's not much warmer down here than it was back in Thornton-Cleveleys, though granted, the Big Smoke can beat the place we call home for choice, even if it doesn't have a beach that I'm aware of.

Harrow & Wealdstone... we're definitely getting closer. The train stations say it, so do the increasing number of walls that have been tagged. From what I can see, the graffiti in London is of a slightly higher quality than back home. I'm hopeful the rest of the day will match.

Time to go, lunch is calling me clearly....

This could be interesting, I received an invitation this afternoon to attend a book launch down in London. It is convenient then, that this morning I arrived back in the UK and am therefore able to attend. This will I think make for an interesting piece of reportage some time during the middle of next week.

Rarely have I had the olfactory experience in an enclosed space, as I have been provided this evening - it's actually gone 04:00 in the morning, but some licence must be allowed at this point. I'm on a plane, I'm always on a plane when I write thus.

On the most rare of evenings, I'm travelling back to the UK with AM by my side, so rare in fact that in the 6+ years she's been with me in Saudi, this may very well be the first time we've journeyed back to the UK together. That much is immaterial to my story this night (see, it's later already)...

We find ourselves behind the subject of the story by a row, he being in 23A, and us in 24A and 24C, with me holding the aisle. To get to the point, there is a problem, a gastro-intestinal problem that is gaseous in nature, and it's not mine. No, this is for Reek-O-Man alone. I'd quote Nursie and use lines like "great and fruitsome flappy woof-woofs", but one's "tiny noseling" believes that Messrs Elton and Curtis were referring to something rather more akin to vanilla and rose petals than I try to describe here. Let's face it, this guy smells like you wouldn't wish to believe. I pity AM, I really do. She has a sense of smell that can out detect the average bloodhound, where I suspect I may have been abducted by aliens who chose me to return me minus all nasal sensory equipment. When I begin to detect there's an aroma in the air, it's already searing steaks on the range for all others in the near vicinity.

The iPod kicks in as it often does at such moments with Chris Rea's "You Must Be Evil" - never has a truer word been uttered. Whether he knows of the offence he causes is unknown, and I won't ask; and of course there is the unwritten rule that says "What goes on plane, stays on plane", but enough already. I can take it no longer... for fucks' sake, get yourself a butt plug or something! Have I spoke too soon? I think he's headed to the bathroom - I'm not following. Not that it matters much, he's left the damned stench behind him anyway. I'm going to sleep, more later...

There is virtually nothing about this cartoon that I have not seen for real in my time here, only the guys on the road sign gantry would seem to offer a taste of poetic licence.

After creating "21 Things..." a few days back, and I do mean creating, I'm wondering. The mix of reactions I got, mostly challenging the image, suggest that people either have a fairly pre-conceived notion of what it should be (wrong light, not following rule of 1/3s, subject not clear etc.), or they responded quite heavily to the title and tried to draw it into some deeper meaning of how it related to the image itself. "21 Things..." is an Alanis Morissette track by the way.

For the record, the title was randomly selected from iTunes on the basis that it was on the screen in front of me and it struck me as about the most perverse title I could see, and importantly, it was the sort of title that was likely to attract attention - a bit like sending our emails with 'free sex' in the subject line. There was also a small hint of "let's see what they do with this then" in there. The title was an exercise in attention seeking, pure and simple.

The image came about following a thread posted on a photography forum discussing why there seemed to be a view on the forum (and elsewhere) that everything had to be razor sharp or it wasn't worthwhile, whether that be lenses, sensor resolution, film resolution, images, focus and so on. Conclusions as to the reasons for this varied, but largely settled on the idea that we were probably brainwashed into that view by the manufacturers who want to keep selling us the latest and greatest and even better than the last product, the limits we've barely tested since last time we succumbed to breaking out the credit card. OK, so 1-0 to the marketing guys.

Within the discussion though, there were a few who were prepared to test whether it had to be that way, whether photography had to comply with the prescribed rules, fed regularly by any number of publications on the shelves of WHSmith and Waterstones. It's a discussion that's been around since the dawn of laying down images on sheets of paper coated with silver salts - it's probably a tired discussion at that, but each generation of photographers seems to find it anew. I did my Ansel Adams phase a log time ago and whilst his works stands to test of time in my view, it's not a style I wish to emulate, as it seems to lack any emotional content. To me these days, it just appear to be a straight documentary record of what was in front of the camera.

Increasingly these days I find myself looking for images that seem either to ignore, or more often never really learned 'The Rules". With the advent of the digital camera, there has been an explosion of creativity released into the hands of people who have probably never read a photography magazine in their lives. The results are intriguing. Add something like Photoshop into the mix and all of a sudden, the most unusual things start happening. Now there are those who will say that the tools available in Photoshop are just a mimic of stuff that people were doing in the wet darkroom, and that's true. Those sort of result could only be achieved though through a hugely complicated and equipment intensive apprenticeship, and wrecking your household plumbing into the bargain. What digital has done is make it oh so accessible, especially when any technique you care to mention is tutorialised in 5-easy-steps on the internet - that certainly didn't exist when I pulled my first roll of FP4 out of the dev tank. But I digress...

I wanted to try and come up with an image that departed from the rules, but could not be loosely termed 'a snapshot'. It also had to lend itself to having some sort of treatment applied to it that would be at least in keeping with the image and was very definitely deliberate - I certainly didn't want anyone to perceive it as an accident. The image I found was taken whilst waiting for the Kowloon to Hong Kong Island ferry last April. Unlike virtually everything else I took whilst there, it was shot on a little Panasonic P&S, rather than the DSLR. Inevitably, the quality of the image wasn't that great, but I'd looked at it a number of times and had wondered whether it would ever [pompous moment] reveal it's true nature [/pompous moment]. OK, so I linked what was essentially a crappy snapshot with not much going for it. It was blurry due to camera shake, it was blurry due to the focus being a bit off and the subject matter was of dubious interest value to anyone but myself. It wasn't going to render up any pixel sharp masterpieces, so I went all grunge on its ass. Inspired by some of the personal stuff I've seen of Aeric Meredith-Goujon (him again), the image was battered into something approaching submission, but still came out the other side, stronger I suspect than it went in. It looks dark, it looks gloomy, it looks like something has been brooding down there and is only biding its time until it can catch you unawares. The result you can see further down the page.

There is a good chance that it would be utterly meaningless to most people, but to me it represents a moment time and a place that was good for me. Sitting waiting for that ferry gave a few minutes of reflection in what had been a rather hectic holiday, we'd just had a high tea at the Peninsula Hotel and we were back off to the island to collect some stuff before heading back to the hotel, a quick clean up then back down to Lan Kwai Fong. The image sums up that peaceful moment for me and presents me with a sense time and place - a notion I keep coming back to.

Is it a great shot? Never in a millions years...

Do I like it any way? Certainly do...

Is it art? You can be the judge of that when I'm dead...

Did it get a little attention along the way? Hell yeah!

Is it a photograph? What else would it be if it wasn't?

Listen

With izdihar currently stuck in a holding pattern whilst I work on some stuff behind the scenes (should be good, I promise), I thought I'd give you something good to look and listen to whilst I'm getting things sorted. It's something that came on the iPod whilst out in the car this morning. I'd not really listened closely to the lyrics before, but a couple of lines caught my attention. If this is what infatuation sounds like, it's perhaps not such a bad thing...

Depeche Mode: In Your Room