The answer is in a book. Any book. Or maybe a CD.
For somebody (i.e. me) who can spend a whole plane journey gazing out of the window, watching the landscape below passing by, a book of aerial photos of the whole country is a bit like an amazing simulated flight over the nation.
The book in question is England: The Photographic Atlas and was bought for me recently from my Amazon Wishlist. It's an amazing book and I've already spent a couple of hours simply browsing, marking each page on which I've lived with a Post-It and placing small sticky stars next to all places of importance to me - hospital of birth, university, workplaces etc. Sad, but true.
Anyway, the book was bought for me by Jason Cyphus, who asked me a question I didn't know the answer to. I told him I could work it out, but it would take me some time and would cost him a gift from my Wishlist. He agreed, I fixed the problem, he bought me the book and now we're both happy. It's my new way of doing small-scale business transactions.
You might think I'm cheeky to even ask but I really don't think so. With an inbox of about 10,000 emails - each of which I've tried to reply to over the past 5 years - I think it's only fair I try and reap some reward.
If you ask me a simple question to which I know the answer you'll still get a free reply. If you pose a tricky situation and expect me to spend my time looking in to it, don't be surprised if I put a price on it. After all, it's better than a reply saying sorry, but I don't have the time. I do have the time, but it don't always come cheap ;o)
If in the past you've held back from emailing because you feel guilty bothering me, you can now feel better about it by offering some reimbursement. As an alternative you can also offer to donate some cash to a charity, such as MSF.
Already lots of you have repaid me for my email help using the Wishlist, without any prompting and I thank you all for this. In ways the Wishlist is partly the reason this site keeps running. It means there is something in it for me. Somewhere I've got a folder with all the receipts in for items bought for me. It's a big wad of paper, over an inch thick. Should go some way to filling the shelves I'm about to build.
For the record: I still love getting email from you all as much (if not more) than when I started. Keep it coming, whatever it's about.
Fairplay to you Jake that you would like to be rewarded for all the (free) help you have given us all over the years with Codestore. However, I wouldn't shout too much about getting paid in kind, those nasty men from the Inland Revenue will want to hear about it.
Cheers Justin. Coincidentally a letter arrived this morning for Rockall Design from the IR, which put the fear of God in me, as always. Turns out it was just to tell me my Corporation Tax collection office address had changed. Or something. Phew.