Not really the things that matter

The website has really spoken for itself this week.

I've been building up the Salclear Marathon and Half Marathon and the Laxey Partners No Rest for the Wicked running series and it was very positive to receive confirmation from Kevin Deakes that the new website was up and running just in time.

I was pleased to send a cheque for £300 to Hospice this week as the first donation from the profits from my new photo website. It will probably be a while before I am able to make another distribution because the Scottish Widows Parish Walk is by far the biggest event for photos.

It was when I contacted the fund raising department at Hospice that I came up with idea of promoting their fund raising efforts in the Dublin Marathon - whilst we are enjoying marathon perspiration (well its hardly fever!) in the Isle of Man.

I'd been wanting to help plug the need for new blood on the organising committee of the Easter Athletics Festival for a while and I thought of a good link when I had the athletics on the BBCi Player whilst cleaning the cottage last Saturday. Seeing two of the top guys from recent Easter Festivals running in front of 20,000 people and setting personal bests reinforced the message that, although there is a lot of beer swilling and fun at the festival, the standard at the front is pretty high by British standards.

Virtually every day has seen my pension fund lose the equivalent of a month's salary but like most financial assets the real "value" probably didn't exist in the first place.

The things that really matter have been on our TV and computer screens all day. So many people deciding that they were entitled to help themselves to other people's property without making any contribution to society. In didn't appear to be inspired by drunkenness but the problem has been brewing for a long time.

Despite the weather it has been a week when it is a joy to live in the Isle of Man. We may have selfish people here too but surely we the events I have been featuring on the website -  the organisation of hospice, the  marathon and Easter Festival - demonstrate that, as much as anywhere I know the majority contribute to the society they live in.

The scanner is still working flat out on some of my late night sessions to digitise more of my old files and I'm continuing to work on face tagging my photos. This photo (double click to see the detail) has no face but it leads us to much of the sporting action in the North of the island. The marathon and half marathon runners will run past those houses on Sunday morning, the fell runners climbed the mountain just 12 days ago and in another 9 the bikes of the Manx Grand Prix will start climbing a good part of it.