Merry Chav-mas

Remember the poor this season.

Merry Christmas peasants!

(Image found on the L magazine website)

Norfolk 'n' chance of an easy journey

Like everything pathetic about the UK, my work closed because of the deep snow and imaginary travel chaos (even though the main routes were open and buses up to the University of Sussex were still running). A relief for those with hang-overs and great for my plans of visiting my dad in Norfolk. I say working from home but checking emails and adding a web page to the site that I manage hardly qualifies as a full day's work. In the background, the TV news was permanently on checking for the weather and travel. Could I even make it to Norfolk by car? I had to check out my mum's old house, which the tenant had moved out, and to see my Dad but with at least 6 inches on our street and Norfolk being affected by the snow it was a tough decision. With no one else 'working from home' I left at 3pm and ignored the media doom-sayers.

Getting to Norfolk was actually easy with the main motorways clear. Norfolk was just as bad as Brighton though the temperature was getting lower and more snow coming down. My dad's house had been left empty whilst he was travelling back from Malaga. It actually felt warmer outside with no heating been on in the past week. With an night's kip under two duvets, an electric blanket, snowboard long johns, a long-sleeved t-shirt and the heating on I woke up to more snow and having to dig the car out of the drive.

My dad's place is in the middle of rural Norfolk so roads were pretty dicey and the air temperature refusing to shift up from minus 2C and actually reached as low as minus 6.5 degrees C at night. These conditions made some fantastic icicles especially where the drainpipes and guttering had broke around my dad's workshop. See my Flickr photos for more.

White Quizmas

Yesterday was an interesting one. It was my work's Christmas meal and night out with luke-warm meat and veg (I blame it on the half-cut catering staff who could double as Victorian cockney ladies of the night from the language they use) followed by a charity raffle. Prizes ranged from a night's stay at a Lewes hotel (half the staff live in Lewes!), some dodgy wines, pulp fiction books to the strange contribution of an AC/DC in concert blu-ray video.

The evening was held at the upstairs of the Open-House near London Road station starting with a well put-together quiz then into a disco. I made my excuses quickly and didn't stick around for the music as the last Pond pub quiz of the year, nay decade was also on. Bit of a crap turn-out really with only three teams entering. My out of the blue team name won us the fake, stick-on moustaches with "I ain't getting on no B.A. plane fool". Unfortunately, this was the only thing we won as our arch-enemies who always seem to win were also in. Whilst the questions were being answered, outside North-easterly wind had picked up and snow was falling.

After some seasonal fluffy ducks at Paul and Sarah's we stepped out to a couple of inches of whiteness with a blizzard of snow laying on more. Some people had already made snowmen whilst others in their mischievous drunken sense were attacking innocent others (i.e. us!) with balls of white fury. As fun and amazing as it was for the first 5 minutes there were no buses or taxis around for our journey home so hiked it back from town with the snow pelting our legs for another 25 minutes. Eventually I got to bed about 1am with the expectation of working from home the next day.

Latest Tron movie picture

 

Picked this up from following Daft Punk on Twitter. They seem to be breaking new photos and the odd bit of news about Tron:Legacy which comes out next year.

Ginger vs. Tescos at Christmas

I see the retail version of Beelzebub, Tescos has got itself into trouble over the Christmas card pictured above. Too right I'd say. BBC news story explains all.

Bangin' Belgians Birthday Bash

What a night at Soulwaxmas! First of all I must thank my amazing missus, Kerry for getting me some excellent gifts this year. I must be one of the most difficult people to buy for but she's done it again and again. Presents awarded this year were: Charlie Brooker's new book, The hell of it all; Star Trek on Blu-Ray; a B+W kasemann polarizing filter (an inspired idea) and Nikon SB900 flash (thanks Kev for the technical advice). I'm a lucky, lucky boy. I tired the filter down at the seafront taking some photos, and although it was raining I was rewarded with a rainbow behind me.

The evening started with a quick buffet and friends (thanks again Kerry) before the mini-bus up to Brixton Academy. An 8 seater with a return journey worked out at £250 (about £35 with 7 of us). So much better than the thought of waiting on a cold platform and multi-taxis. Shame we had to put up with some dull Radio 2 sounds. Amazingly, even after turning up 15 minutes late we arrive in Brixton 10 minutes early.

SW9 bar was our pre-gig venue but our table reservation didn't happen. It wasn't really a problem our Soulwaxmas crew swelled to 13 (with Julian turning up later). It was nice to feel popular! The Academy was just as busy with their cloakroom queues heaving with punters. Just as our group turned the corner, the management closed the cloakroom and diverted us to another having to join the back of the line. Plan B was to stuff them into a wall near where we were dancing.

On Candide's advice we fought our way to the front where there was ample room for us all to swing a kitten and have a half-decent view of the stage. The warm-up DJs (Zongamin Soundsystem I think) before Soulwax weren't anything special. The main reason for us being were Soulwax having seen 2ManyDJs back in June and had missed all their previous gigs so the anticipation for a good one was high. They came on slightly late dressed to impress in sky blue suits starting with either some very new material or remixed pre-Nite Versions. Either way it wasn't what we and the crowd wanted. A couple of familiar tracks went down well and revived the crowd however it all ended so quickly as if to get back on schedule.

Erol Alkan came on to fill the Belgian sandwich. He's always been a bit hit and miss for me and that night was still a dancer's frustration. However much of a technical wizard with a mixer you can be, tricks can easily bore a crowd and the quick-cutting from tune to tune never flows right. Maybe he was being selfish wanting to play all his planned playlist condensed into a fraction of a time.

2ManyDJs thankfully came on in good time with one of the Dewaele brothers riding what looked like a suitcase/lawn-mower shaped motorbike then he tuned in his stage-prop radio. A small set preceded the VJing which everyone was expecting. Both parts of their DJ set were better than their live session. It made up for the night but I just couldn't help that they hadn't made the night anymore special than their gig in June. A few too many obscure and minimal bleep house tracks annoyed me and the VJ set was almost identical to the last one with only a couple of videos we hadn't seen before including Paul McCartney's A Wonderful Christmas Time. Vitalic's Poney and Justice's Waters of Nazarath were the highlights.

The last hour was a surprise really, Mixhell looked like the White Strips with female and male DJing, then drumming live dressed in red and black. A lot of people went home after 2ManyDJs which gave us more room to kick away the plastic rubbish under-foot. The tunes spun were just the tonic and the live drumming brought everyone up into a frenzy especially when another drum kit got rolled on with the Soulwax drummer, then another kit with a Dewaele brother and then a fourth! A great finish for a good night out.

My Soulwaxmas photo set can be seen on the Flickr website.

Web habits

Work's been a little slack lately waiting for others to do their bit. Ever since the volunteering I did in November and meeting a number of local 'social media' experts I've been addicted to Twitter. It's quite handy having a job that means I can experiment with these web technologies. I've never needed to worry about getting caught on Facebook as I can say I'm 'researching' though others would probably say 'stalking' or the industry technical term of 'lurking'. The video below (think of me as the bearded, baseball hat-wearing guru) lampoons this new trend of marketing though from the Twittering I see from such experts I really wonder whether the industry is getting away with offering these services or if their clients are really wearing the emperor's new clothes.

I've been to a couple of interesting web/social media seminars and presentations lately. Switch off now if you're not really bothered. First of all its worth noting that my working life deals with developing world issues and that any relevant training courses, seminars and the like I attend are aimed at charity types like Oxfam, Christian Aid etc, etc. It's amazing how many organisations out there that specialise and provide training in this sort of thing. Dean Russell of Precedent was one of the seminar speakers I saw the other week. His company is a design agency specialising in branding, digital communications and strategy and coincidently designed the new University of Southampton's logo - my old employer! We had a good laugh at how much of a nightmare academics are to work with. He'll also be remembered for his statement that MySpace was 'a bit chavvy'.

The second and most recent event I went to (Wednesday) was a presentation on 'how the public uses the internet to find out about the wider world'. This was a research project commissioned by a government department to find out how the British public find out themselves about developing world issues, charity, disasters, poverty etc. online. With shopping sites, social networks and news sites dominating their online time charities feel they are competing against a closed mindset. It's only when big news stories like disasters, large charity events like Comic Relief and media coverage on sweatshops for high street fashion when the public will research further than reading a news item. Traveling to another country may also raise awareness of world issues. All this just brought home at how ironic this all is to me trying to promote an organisation which researches these issues yet has the same habits as the gerenal public.

As well as the government department, DFID (Department for International Development), an organisation called the International Broadcasting Trust (IBT) were involved, which struck me as one of the more unusual outfits I've come across. There's probably a lot more broadcasting related groups around but this one tries to get TV producers and broadcasters to add more developing country content into their programming as well as producing their own programmes such as dramas about human interest in Africa etc. (to be honest, the ones I avoid watching). You could compare this to US media being pressured by Christian groups to make their programming more sickly sweet. Anyway, good for them I say and if it does raise awareness where its due then maybe it will make my job easier.

Bunny and the Bull - the Boosh it isn't

I ignored the rumours and believed the hype (and some of the media reviews). But it was mainly down to pledging my support to the Boosh family being produced by Baby Cow, the producers behind Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett's surreal Mighty Boosh. Only the Duke of York's was showing the flick and as we entered the foyer I nearly stepped on local Oz legend and cinema patron, Nick Cave. He didn't hang about as I think he saw the previous Australian film.

Turnbull or Bull to his mates has been stuck in his flat for over a year, refusing to come out and begins thinking back to his Eurpoean road trip with Bunny. Cue elaborate scenes and visuals integrating Bull's flat and contents with the holiday that would make French director Michel Gondry green with envy. It was good to hear Rich Fulcher (Bob Fossil) voice the seafood restaurant chain phoneline but the humour highlights are few and far between. Another Boosh regular, Richard Ayaoade (Saboo) appears as a very dull museum curator but although the concept should work, the humour just didn't quite click. Only Julian Barrett's dog-loving tramp steals the show later for my personal highlight. Unfortunately the script and plot don't get the same commitment and imagination as the visuals. Even when Noel turns up as the Spanish love-interest's matador brother he plays it straight and the story takes a serious turn.

To summarise, it was as beautiful and strange as a Bjork video - great for 5 - 10 minutes but without a decent story it was just an expensive gallery entry fee for one pretty landscape

Wave hello to Google Wave

Image by jlori via Flickr

After all the web hype and lurking at others commenting about it I've finally got to use Google Wave. I'd registered my interest a couple of months ago but only got an invite via a kindly Brighton New Media member. Two days after that I was sent my offical invite from Google so now have a work and personal account.

Bear in mind that this is still a beta release so there should be some final tweaks to come. Here's some very initial thoughts:

If you're not a web geek here's a quick explanation as to what Google Wave actually is. At the moment most people will see it as a web email service similar to Hotmail but you create 'waves' which can act as messages so you can attach files, photos and links etc. The Wave itself can develop as a conversation (think Facebook comments on a status) as others can add their own comments or files, images etc, etc as well as correct or add text to the original message you started. If you're familiar to wikis (think Wikipedia where editors can go in and change text etc.) then this is a great collaborative tool. If all those users involved with the 'wave' are online at the exact time you can see the edits and messages happen instantly i.e. you can see someone type letter by letter on screen!

Google has put together a few videos and from the demos shown you can add varioius applications to enhance Wave. Obviously Google is already good at search and maps which as apps are easily added taking a little trial and error to get the best results. Having my own blog I was keen to see how the Google service of Blogger would be incorporated. From the videos I thought you could easily link to Blogger but instead of adding the application as you'd think you would, you have to find a URL out there independently from another website then add 'Bloggy' as a contact - very odd. This was supposed to be the first attempt at blogging from Wave but it hasn't worked.

Twitter was another web service I constantly use and has its own app within Wave. Another pathetic, cutesy name, Tweety has to be added as a contact. I tried this out whilst 'waving'(?, god I hope that won't be the expression) with Steve Wilde. As I added both Tweety and Steve to the wave and tweeted a message, I discovered that Steve could tweet as me! Bit of a security issue if you're not careful.

As well as the blogging fail whilst preparing this content on Wave after navigating to another page by mistake I lost all the previous work and contacts and had to give up. Now I'm back into work its all returned but even still a lot of confidence has been lost.

Wishlist

• Perhaps a Delicious app
• Bloggy to work

Resources

• Mashable's Google Wave: A Complete Guide
• Ultimate List of Google Wave Gadgets and Tools
• 10 More Google Wave Gadgets to Play With