I've been a big fan of Hugh MacLeod, cartoonist over at Gaping Void for many years. I find his cartoons refreshingly honest, sometimes challenging - but always amusing.

He now sells his cartoons as limited edition prints, but allows anyone to download them off his site for free for people to use them for whatever (thanks Hugh!). Turns out lots of his followers do this, including me, and he's coined the term "Cube Grenade" to describe their use as disruptive social objects - printing them out, putting them up somewhere and using them as conversation-starters.

Mine are in the hallway at home, rather than in a cube, but I love the fact that people do find them interesting and they are a conversation starter:

I've also used Hugh's cartoons to illustrate newsletters I've sent out at work - always selecting an appropriate cartoon from the huge back catalogue to summarise the mood of what's going on.

And Hugh's right - in the future I might very well upgrade some of my favourites to a limited-edition version in much higher quality (than my tatty printouts) so that I can always enjoy his art and continue to start bigger conversations...

I was cycling home the other night, about 11pm, along a luckily deserted stretch of road near home, when this happened:

For the uninitiated, that's the seat post off my bike and yes the saddle just sheared off...

Other than being further evidence that I must be fat, this was a pretty nasty incident - because the bike shot out in front of me and I landed on the tarmac on my coccyx.

For the first few moments I was winded and could hardly breathe - then finally I came to my senses and got off the road - my back was in agony and I thought I might have broken something. Luckily I hadn't but I've been walking round like an old man for 3 days now and it's very painful to sit down in the wrong way!

Anyway, bloody painful experience and I'm lucky it didn't happen on busier roads earlier in my journey. Am wondering if I should report this to the bike manufacturers as it seems the seat post might have been defective for it to shear like that.

We had a lovely time over the bank holiday staying with J & K at her parents in Cilgarren - a tiny village on the West Wales coast near Cardigan.

We completed the course last weekend and came 8th out of 40 teams - improving on 13th last year. We covered the 30 mile course in 10 hours 49 minutes (over two days) and we pushed hard so we made sure we beat the two other teams from Holiday Rentals. They did great too - one team coming 11th and the other 27th overall.

We were especially pleased as the 7 teams in front of us ran a lot of the way and had done a lot of training - and we managed to tail them all the way without either! However, our efforts have left us weak and feeble old men this week and it will be a few days before the stiff limbs and blisters subside.

Thanks so much for your generosity - the event itself raised over £40,000 for Shelterbox.

Wonderful safari

So here they are. My favourite 16 pictures from our fabulous holiday in Tanzania.

I am an amateur photographer and subscribe to the theory that the more pictures you take, the greater the likelihood of taking a good one. So I was disappointed that of the thousands of frames we took, only a few were really serviceable - they were good but not as great as I'd hoped from the amazing subject matter we got!

A combination of low light conditions (early morning and late afternoon), ~300mm lenses at full stretch (leading to hand shake at even decent shutter speeds) and rapidly moving targets (sometimes) led to a prevalence of blurriness. Dust also made keeping expensive camera gear clean and functioning tricky.

Anyway, as memories of a fabulous time, they serve good enough and I look forward to going again one day to Tanzania to try to improve on my score!

If you are in the market for a safari, I heartily recommend WayoAfrica - they're a small, Tanzanian company with a focus on high quality and on customised safaris to suit you.

I was in Paris this last couple of weeks - something I hope to do more of in the near future as I work with a new part of our business.

I stayed in the "Soft hotel". This is an anti-recommendation.

All "mid-priced" hotels in big cities tend to be terrible. London and Paris are no exception. But the soft hotel managed to be "just shit enough" in a number of areas to warrant me actually blogging this "don't go there" message.

The Soft Hotel happens to be closest to the office where I was working. It was cheapish and someone else had already stayed there from the company. She said it was "ok".

First experience: standing on the doorstep for 15 minutes, waiting to be let in to the hotel. They very nearly didn't get me as a guest, only the punitive cancellation policy stopped me from walking to find an alternative hotel nearby. I had phoned them once (no answer) before I was finally let in.

The staff were decent, if apologetic. Reception was being renovated. I felt like I'd arrived in Beirut.

The room was tiny. Close to the minimum that would classify as a "hotel room" in my mind. The bathroom was miniscule. It smelled of damp.

The wifi network worked in the chilli lobby downstairs. It did not work in my room. Nor did they fix this in the 3 days I stayed there.

Lift was like a carpeted coffin. For one person only. Buried alive when the cable finally rusts through.

Breakfast was in a tiny guest room (in lieu of the reception/downstairs being renovated). Horrible.

Don't stay at the Soft Hotel, Paris.