Just two weeks after resigning his column at the back of MacUser, Tony Tyler has died. He was diagnosed with cancer 11 days ago.

His history with the magazine stretched back 21 years, all the way to the second issue, when he pitched an article on spec, was accepted, and started a career of over two decades that made him the magazine’s longest-standing contributor.

I didn’t realise, until I read the obituaries, quite what an extraordinary life he had. I knew that he’d given Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons their first jobs, and I knew of his time at the NME and in the army, where he was apparently the last surviving victim of a musket wound.

I didn’t know the army had had to build him a special bed to sleep in (he was very tall), and that it followed him around from posting to posting. Nor that he’d been a piano salesman in San Francisco, played cards with the Beatles, had a number 1 hit in Italy, sold a guitar now valued at £2m, and more or less lived off the royalties of his 700-page opus The Tolkien Companion.

His only regret was that he would die before the new Bond film was released in two weeks’ time, as he was the godfather of new Bond, Daniel Craig.

But, as his obituary in the Guardian explains, he wasn’t afraid of death.

His last words, addressed to his 86-year-old mother-in-law, were: “I just want you to know, for when it’s your turn, that this [dying] isn’t actually so bad.”

It is clear, from the number of emails we have received at the office, how much he was loved by those who had read his work over the years. And how very difficult he will be to replace.

Saturday was a day of work. Not in the office, but at Mac Expo, manning the MacUser stand, smiling, shaking hands, handing out free software, making tea and buying cakes for the ladies selling our subscriptions.

This year’s show was much better than it was in 2005. It was far less iPod-focused, and more about the Mac as a computer, rather than an entertainment platform. It was smaller – slightly – so easier to get around, and I got to talk to pretty much everyone I wanted to, picking up all the freebies from our competitor stands and hiding them under our counter where they wouldn’t be seen.

Chris of the Phin had picked up a copy of the Times on the way in and showed me the quarter-page BT ad on page 20, trumpeting their success in our Awards, which was good to see.

The only trouble with Expo, though, is that it’s in Olympia, like all the major London shows, which is a pig to get to. It took me three hours from leaving home to arrive at our stand, and at least that long again to get home after we’d finished breaking it all down and loading it into the back of a van after its three days of hosting our quiz.

Sunday, though, was a lovely day. The sun was shining from well before eight, and I buzzed up the A12 to head for the beach with Rich. Not for sunbathing, of course; it may have been sunny, but it wasn’t warm. Instead, we headed out with matching cameras to take pictures and spot for each other. Neither of us took more than a dozen or so, as we spent most of our time sitting on the pebble banks chatting as we looked out across the salt marsh with the waves crashing behind us.

For a while we cut away from the shore and out across what looked like drier land, but it was veined with streams and brooks that often blocked our path, and had us weaving an uncertain path through grasses six feet high that blocked out the wind, the sound and the flat, wide views around us. We walked to the next town up the coast with the sun slowly sinking to one side of us, faster than we’d have liked after the clock change. It was down to the horizon as we turned around to walk back, and we spent most of the next hour scrabbling along an unsteady ridge of pebbles in the failing light.

It was the perfect end to a hectic fortnight that’s seen me travel into London every day for the last 14.

Nik (editor of MacUser), Graham (editor of MacFormat) and Mark (editor of Macworld)

Last night, then, was this year’s Awards. 310 people in tuxes and ties to hear how many of the 31,410 votes cast they’d managed to gobble up for themselves. Then eat, drink and dance until two, followed by the after-party until fourish.

Incredibly it’s already my fourth awards at MacUser, and on reflection I think it was the best so far. Certainly the most enjoyable.

I had a feeling it would be, after a bit of an omen before it began. Somehow – scattiness – I’d managed to turn up without any cuff links, so my cuffs were flapping around like a seal’s limp wrists. I tried to stuff them up my sleeves, but they kept slipping out. By now it was already gone six, and after some unsuccessful fixing attempts with elastic bands and string I set out on what I thought would be a hopeless trek along Fulham high street.

Fifteen minutes later, I came across the only shop not selling pizzas, kebabs or haircuts still to be open. And it was a ties and cufflinks shop. That probably says a lot about the demographic of Fulham, none of which will be a surprise, but I leapt in through the door, slightly scaring the guy behind the counter, who ended up dispatching me again with a brand new set of yellow and black ones, at no charge.

In those colours they do look a bit like wasps, which perhaps explains the recoils whenever I went to shake hands, but at least it didn’t look like I had Victorian ruffs flopping out of my sleeves for the rest of the night.

Tim (editor of PC Pro), Claire (marketing), Jem (events)

So, anyway, we buzzed through the ceremony in record time so we could get on with the eating and the drinking, and the 15 winners could indulge in the traditional after-dinner game of losing their trophies under random tables and going home without them.

Tim charmed the ladies, our swing band entertained everyone who was still able to stand and at 2am we loaded ourselves into buses and went to some random place below street level in Chelsea to drink colourful liquids that tasted of pineapple from glasses so filled with ice you had to use a straw.

Adam (funny)

Any good gossip? No, I don’t think so. Nobody was sick in the venue. No-one started a fight. Everyone seemed to get home alright. Or, at least, we haven’t had any paniced phone calls today from anyone expecting a missing party-goer home.

I even managed to read my auto cue with only one slip-up, which I think is the best attempt so far, despite only one rehearsal. I was sitting on a table with nine Germans when the comedian started to make jokes about Germans (and for good measure two of them were female for when he started to make jokes about women drivers). That only got particularly uncomfortable when one of the Germans picked up the heavy metal award his company had won and, weighing it in his hand, said ‘there are fifteen people in this room who have won these who could batter him to death’.

Goodnight from Claire and Jem

Here’s the little fellow I ate my lunch with today in Bedford Square.

It’s that time of year when blogging goes to pot. Thursday night is our Awards night. Thursday, Friday and Saturday day times is Mac Expo, out in Olympia. We’re doing the magazine. I’m writing a labs test. We’re sending a book off to print. There’s marketing to be signed off, a script to be written, forward features to be planned.

In short, the days are too short to blog.

If I had been blogging, though, I’d probably have started around about Friday night, getting home after the first run-through of the awards show, and then quickly progressed to Saturday evening. By then I’d have just got in from a long wet walk through Hampshire with the walking group. A good turn out of 22 or so, meeting up either on the train out of Waterloo, or joining at various stations along the line, before clambering out again at Petersfield, with turns out to be very pretty and quite suburban.

We were quickly out in the middle of nowhere, though, among muddy wet fields churned up by the cows, which showed an unhealthy interest in our passage through their pasture. I nearly lost a boot on more than one occasion and, as we emerged from the woods into a wide open field we all got utterly drenched as the heavens opened with some of the heaviest rain I’ve seen in months.

With all the walking, though, and frequent stops for gin in the pubs we passed on the way, we all dried off by the time we took the train home from Rowland Castle which, it turns out, seems to be devoid of any kind of castle at all.

I only realised how caked in mud my trousers and boots were when I arrived home.

The next day – Sunday – around to Emilie and Luke’s for lunch with Kathryn. Ems works for Good Housekeeping, and had baked us a fantastic stuffed pepper meal with salad and potatoes. I always feel particularly grateful when eating at friends’ houses as, being a non-meat eater, they invariably sacrifice everyone else’s carnivoristic tendencies to suit me.

We went walking in the drizzle on Hilly Fields afterwards, then retreated to their cosy front room for coffee, chocolates and Scrabble. You’d think that four writers playing Scrabble would only lead to arguments and disputes, but we were all very well behaved. Even when Luke roundly thrashed us, finishing first with a clear lead of 100 points.

And then back to work, for two busy but wonderfully productive days. They say that any job will expand to fill the amount of time allotted, and I’m thinking perhaps that’s true. With so much going on, our deadlines seem to be approaching at high speed, coming out of nowhere, yet it’s all getting done without complaint.

To celebrate, we’re all taking off Friday afternoon next week to go ride the slides in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Can’t wait.

Best way to get your press release noticed? Shred the bottom half before sending it, and deliver it still sticking out of the shredder, like the one we received this morning.

Genius.

It not just a gimmick, either. This little critter has very sharp teeth, and we’ve spent much of the morning shredding CDs.

Moo, a British start-up masquerading as an American printing house (Dollar pricing, you see), does only one product. But it does it well.

These funky little calling cards have your own photos on one side, and your details on the back. Anything you like so long as it’s six lines or less. The pictures come straight out of your Flickr account and you can crop them with some judicious repositioning through the excellent Flash interface.

Mine arrived today; the packaging is almost as good as the beautifully printed, matt-finished contents.

Highly, highly recommended.

I was up before the sun this morning, as I wanted to go out and take pictures of the deer. It’s that time of the year when they start to get all frisky and the males fight for dominance.

Driving through the woods and the half-light lanes, I saw plenty. Sometimes in ones and twos – often a mother and one of this year’s offspring – and at times running through the trees in a large group, stopping only momentarily to poke their heads up and stare at me as I crouched in the long grass some distance away.

The best pictures of the morning, though, were the pheasants fighting in a field a couple of miles from home. I had to knock up the ISO and EV, so the pictures are grainy, but it was an impressive display in the flesh.

I came out of the tube at Liverpool Street this evening and walked straight into the middle of an enormous flashmob. The whole concourse was filled with people dancing, silently, to the music on their iPods. Thousands of them, on both levels, while around the edges businessmen in suits asked each other (and the police) what was going on.

A little bit of web digging, and I’ve turned up the rules for the event:

Mobile Clubbing returns on Wednesday 11 October 2006 at London’s Liverpool Street Station at precisely 19:24.

There are some rules to follow:

1. Bring your favourite dance music and walkman / mp3 / ipod / phone with you
2. Arrive at the station at around 19:15
3. No dancing before 19:24
4. Spread out throughout the whole station concourse
5. When the clock strikes 19:24 DANCE LIKE CRAZY!!
6. Try not to dance in one place
7. Dance like you’ve never danced before
8. Dance for as long as you can
9. Enjoy

Every minute they would all cheer, as though they were listening to the football on their iPods.

Those in the know say that the same thing was going on at the same time in Madrid, New York and Paris.

I’ve had, but not touched, a book of London bike rides for far too long. So, today, I set out with James-Paul to cycle ride five: London Bridge to Greenwich by way of the north bank, and back by way of the south.

Except we didn’t quite do that. We got to Greenwich in much less time than we expected: little more than an hour and a half, and so we carried on, crossing over the river by way of the Greenwich Foot Tunnel and, after a coffee in a side street from which we could look in through the open door of the poodle-perking parlour, on along the south bank of the Thames to the Flood Barrier, at which the 180m Thames Path begins. As such, we did much of routes six and seven, too.

No two miles of that route are the same. Sometimes you are passing expensive flats on cobbled streets; at times riding through battered industrial yards on battered, potholed paths puddled by the rain; sometimes cycling by factories and refineries, and at other times past the Dome, City Airport or the Barrier itself.

And, at one point, past a document storage warehouse with a stark warning.

We ate pie, potatoes and peas at a place in Greenwich so notable that it owns the domain pieshop.co.uk. The oldest pie shop in London, it would have been hard to beat. We both had Banks Pie, the vegetarian option, named after the late local MP, Tony Banks, who listed the building within mere hours of visiting, saving it from the scourge of town planners.

An idyllic Sunday, which has left me a little saddle-sore. It was well worth it.