Excellent evening last night, at one of Robert’s Internet Peeps events. The theme was lessons learned, with an open-mic type of thing. Lots of sound advice and a stellar performance by Michael ‘Bebo’ Birch. I even made a contribution myself, as (very slightly) paraphrased on the Jemima’s blog over at Media Guardian

What I actually said is, when choosing a business partner, ask yourself one question [above all else]… are they someone you could go for a drink or - better yet - get drunk with? If not, probably don’t work with them. And if they say “oh, actually I don’t drink”, definitely don’t work with them.

It’s not a hard and fast rule, of course but when I look around Fridaycities HQ, I reckon I’m on pretty safe ground.

So, yes, I’m starving. Been in the office since the crack of dawn this morning (ish), finishing off our 10 London Commandments thing, dealing with banks, managing site things, fixing broken things and generally - you know - working. We’ve signed up a load of new people today and, despite one tiny glitch, things are holding up remarkably well. S’all good.

But one thing I haven’t done much of today is eating. Hence being starving. In a previous life, I’d have ordered takeaway at my desk but one of the things I like the most about my new flat is that it has a fucking awesome kitchen. If a kitchen is capable of filling one with awe.

When I moved in, I decided it was as good an excuse as any to learn how to actually cook stuff. I can’t tell you the sense of satisfaction I felt when I actually made an omelette. From scratch. With - like - stuff in it. Mushrooms and things.

But that was just the start. My plan this evening is for some kind of chicken and sauce type affair. Perhaps with wine and garlic in it. (You’ll note, by the way, that in my case, the egg came first.)

All of which means that, given the fact that I have to go home via Sainsbury’s, by the time I actually eat tonight I’ll have been dead for an hour and a half.

Ah well.

Well, where to start? I know! The very beginning. But I have to keep this brief, Savannah and I are meeting a journalist in a pub in a bit.

It’s been a heckuva few weeks. Fridaycities is beginning to go mental - everyone and their dog is signing up, and most of their dogs are upgrading to Premium membership, which is excellent. We’ve launched a new Commercial membership thing where companies can join in the community by giving away discount vouchers, special offers and the like. Everyone’s a winner.

Business-wise, I can’t say too much, save to say that we’ll be making an announcement on some things that are very exciting to us, very shortly. Huzzah.

Books: the Second Life book is out in a couple of weeks, on both sides of the Atlantic. Pond and I have advance copies and it looks awesome. By which I mean, we were filled with awe. Given the quick turnaround, Pan have excelled themselves. Kudos to all, particularly Jon Butler. And they left in my joke about the Second Life sandboxes being filled with sand and furries, signifying nothing as well as Pond’s ball-gag material. Super.

Other book: I mentioned one a few posts ago. And I’ve had emails ever since. In a nut…

I’m writing a book - for Weidenfeld and Nicolson (an imprint of Orion) about my adventures in the dot com world. First as an observer, then suddenly thrust in to the middle of being an entrepreneur 2.0. I’ve got the advance title info sheet in front of me and - I shit you not - it’s being described as Toby Young’s ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’ meets Chris Anderson’s ‘The Long Tail’.

Losing friends and alienating tail.

Story of my bloody life.

I just feel like it.

I’m becoming a fairweather blogger aren’t I?

Forgive me. Housemoving-book writing-site launching makes Paul an unreliable boy.

Oh, the Second Life book is on Amazon. Although they don’t seem to have put Graham’s name on the listing yet. Fortunately TFP taught us both only too well how much of a pain in the arse getting Amazon info right can be. I’m sure all will be fine by publication.

Oh, and the contract for my new book is - I’m told - on the way. So I’ll tell you all about that soon. Lucky, lucky you.

I’m in a funny mood today. But I have halogen hobs and wooden floors to go home to. Swings and roundabouts.

Good old Media Guardian…

A site for TV execs and tea ladies
James Morrison

Is that Groucho Club invitation still eluding you? Well, despair not: help is at hand, in the form of a new online private members’ club aimed at “smart, well-informed Londoners” from all walks of life. Fridaycities - billed as an “adult MySpace” - is being officially launched this month to coincide with the fifth birthday of its parent service, satirical email comment sheet the Friday Thing.

Though membership is invitation-only, the site’s founders are aiming to attract everyone from TV executives to tea ladies - their rather grand mission statement being to “do the impossible” by making London “the most friendly city on Earth”. Moreover, this being an online venture, there won’t be an oyster or champagne flute in sight (at least not initially).

“Our exclusivity is more down-to-earth than the Groucho’s,” explains Graham Pond, editor of the Friday Thing and one-third of the triumvirate responsible for Fridaycities. “It’s more of a party than a club. If you have a party and you invite people you like and say they can bring along people they like too, you trust their judgment - and assume their mates aren’t going to just drink all your booze.”

The starting-point for the site, Pond says, was the realisation that on every journey Londoners take there must be numerous people with whom we would get on if we met socially - though we would not dream of introducing ourselves to them in a packed carriage. With this in mind, he hopes Fridaycities will be seen as a “tool” for bringing people together in person, rather than a “destination” in itself. “There are positive signs,” he says. “One member has arranged a pub crawl based on the layout of a Monopoly board, and we’re planning a monthly event for all members once we’re up and running properly.”

Buoyed by the cult status of the Friday Thing and its sister site, London by London, Fridaycities is already attracting plenty of applicants - 5,000 people have signed up since it first appeared in “test mode” back in December. But all this is just the start of its plan for world domination. By the end of the year, it aims to have recruited a million Londoners, and opened an offshoot site for New York - with a further 10 cities, including Edinburgh and Paris, gaining their own within 18 months.

Inevitably, prospective celebrity members are also being courted. Pond and co-founders Paul Carr and Savannah Christensen, editor of the alternative London paper the Penny, have invited 150 luminaries to join - ranging from Ken Livingstone through Kevin Spacey to Vanessa Feltz. So far, the site’s star power is muted, though: its sole endorser being Rhodri Marsden, keyboardist with 80s band Scritti Politti.

· Fridaycities can be found at http://london.fridaycities.com

I’m slightly obsessed with Bebo.com at the moment. Or more specifically the profiles on Bebo.com.

I know this makes me a terrible old man but - seriously - not one of them is written in proper sentences or proper English.

It really scares the shit out of me. Either I’m really, really out of touch and today’s yoot have created an entirely new language, carefully designed to exclude people outside of their peer group; or teen-orientated social networks are breeding a generation of illiterate retards who are too fucking lazy to learn to spell.

The company received £8m in venture funding last year. Presumably they used it to buy a machine that removes all the vowels in sentences.

Last evening Pond and I ventured back to Victoria Street, and the old Friday Project local, the Victoria.

It was the first time we’ve been back there since leaving TFP so it was nice to see that nothing had chanced. Same smoke; same excellent sausages and mash; same queues of American tourists snaking up the stairs to see the portraits of every British Prime Minister there’s ever been (Tony’s is the only one that’s autographed. Go. Figure.)

We were there to catch up with Clare Weber who - while we were at TFP - was Assistant Editor but now, I’m very delighted to say, has been promoted to Editor. It was the first time Clare had been in the Albert since we left too. Things have clearly changed at TFP.

But anyhow, Clare ticked me off for not updating the blog often enough. Protests of my recent life-threatening illness; subsequent caffeine withdrawal and ongoing company launching carried no weight. I am, apparently, letting people down by not cataloguing the minutiae of my working life; the day-to-day bullshit of launching a new company.

So, ok, I’m sorry. From this day forth I shall blog with the diligence of Anne Frank.

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Now there’s someone whose Myspace page I’d like to see.

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I bet it wouldn’t have any of that loud music that suddenly plays with no warning when the page finishes loading.

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Currently listening to: footsteps.