Licence to Roam

I like F1, a fandom that has crept up on me over the last few years, but my experience of in-person car events has been limited to work related trips, the Paris Motor Show (which was far more shiney than any tech show) and a McLaren F1 test day at Silverstone (the benefit of working for a sponsor at the time).

However, this past weekend, there was an opportunity to change that, with Motorsport at the Palace, a sprint event being held for the first time in Crystal Palace for the first time in 10 years. It’s a timed event, run over a short course open to cars of all kinds, from a 107 year old Humber through to this year’s Tesla, an all electric car. The crowd in general skewed older than the average tech event I’d usually go to, but perhaps with a similar gender ratio. There were a lot more families though, many of them Dads passing on their passion. I had a great time, so looking forward to my next trip to something similar.

The Humber, built in 1903. Definitely a case of sitting ‘on’ the car.

The Tesla, 2010. Many, many comments overhead in the crowd about this, mostly astonishment at its acceleration without any noise at all, except wheel spin.

With all the political shenanigans, I thought I’d wander down to Westminster to take a look at the media circus and see what was going on. All the news groups have mini studios set up and lots of politicians, ex-politicians and other commenters were coming and going. I was busy just taking in the atmosphere and grabbing the odd photo.

Loving this one of Alastair Campbell who got grabbed by a bunch of Glaswegian schoolgirls for a photo op.

Then two old political adversaries, Tony Benn and Douglas Hurd, called in to do a round of interviews.

This year, I’m not making any New Year’s resolutions, but am stating some ambitions for the year. I’m only starting with 2, although more may be added later.

1. Be able to run 5k. It’s been a long time since I could do this comfortably, so the ambition is to get back into shape to be able to make this target. It involves eating better and doing more exercise, but it is all tied into a achievable goal instead of more nebulous aims of ‘exercising more’ or ‘eating less’.

2. To visit 10 new cities this year. Some of these are already planned in, I’m planning to see Melbourne and Adelaide in my trip to Australia so will count these. Following on from last year’s cathedral trips, I’m planning on going to Canterbury and Ely. Everything else is up in the air, so any suggestions would be welcome. The only condition is they need to be low cost to get to by public transport (or a cheap flight) and be doable in a day or 2 at a weekend.

How about you, are you doing resolutions this year?

According to the Guardian they have been prevented from reporting on a story concerning a question that is going to be asked in Parliament this week. They say:

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

According to Guido Fawkes at Order-Order, this falls foul of the 1689 Bill of Rights. According to Wikipedia, the right is:

Freedom of speech and debates; or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.

As the Guardian says:

The right to report parliament was the subject of many struggles in the 18th century, with the MP and journalist John Wilkes fighting every authority – up to the king – over the right to keep the public informed. After Wilkes’s battle, wrote the historian Robert Hargreaves, “it gradually became accepted that the public had a constitutional right to know what their elected representatives were up to”.

Accordingly, the UK Parliament site shows what appears to be the question in question.

ref(292409)
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

Yes, a gagging order really works when the government website publishes the story, It just makes me want to know what else the Guardian know

Update: Here’s the Minton Report (pdf) that Carter-Ruck don’t appear to like people seeing. It’s on Wikileaks

Last night, I went along to The Telegraph to take part in a focus group, about various aspects of the paper. A completely mixed group discussed values, requirements, possibilities and likes and dislikes (yes, I’m being vague, they’re doing research and it’s polite not to mention what on) It was a surprisingly fun 90 minutes as we all got a chance to express what we thought of the paper. Then we had a quick tour of the newsroom which gave me an insight into what happens.

• it’s a hub and spoke mechanism, with the editors meeting taking place in the centre. the closer you are to the centre the more ‘important’ you are in making editorial decisions.
• The working environment looked great but they seem to cram a lot of people in. When we walked through, it was extremely quiet but I’m guessing noise can get loud when busy
• Despite all the technology present, there was still a layout board with a bunch of papers and a scalpel sitting there.
• The news and information input is large – as in huge screens. They have screens showing all the major news channels, the website and a updating list showing the most visited pages on the website, to generate soem healthy competition
• They have what looks to be Twitterfall running continuously on a big screen, with an eye on the trending topics.
• I loved the reference library; I want one

The other week, at a dinner, I volunteered for what sounded like it could be an interesting trip, taking 2 launches (small, motor driven boats) from Putney up to Wallingford. can’t be too hard, we though.

The deal was that some friends were coming down river over 3.5 days, coaching a couple of women’s 8s and they needed to get the launches back up river, whilst the rowing boats and crews were bussed back. Sounded a good idea, in the diary and ready to go.

Now I’ve started doing a little detailed planning and it’s a little more epic than I though. It’s 80miles, through 25 locks, with a speed limit of just under 5 miles an hour for the majority of the way. It looks like it’s 9.5 hours on Saturday to get to our desired stopping place (although we may have to stop short and camp) and at least 12 hours on Sunday. That’s a LOT of time to be sitting in a small boat.

Practically planning, food and clothes are easy. Bathroom breaks are easy – there’s public toilets at most of the locks. The difficulty is the electronics, or rather the phones. I had planned on tweeting and videoing and picturing my trip, but as the N95 battery lasts less than a day and I’m not guaranteed the ability to charge up the phone, it looks like I need to buy a spare or not bother, which is annoying.

Anyway, if you’re out and about the Thames over the weekend and see two launches being driven at the speed limit, give a wave. I’m not going to have time to stop, but I can always wave back.

Thames Map (screenshot from National Trails site)

Image from National Trail

Survivors, a re-imaging of the 70′s series devised by Terry Nation, started last night on the BBC and there was a minor Twitter flurry of discussion about it. There’s been mixed reaction to the episode, including these from Jason, and from Savage Popcorn.

One common question that popped up is what would you do in that situation, how would you rebuild. Well, the odds are that you, or me, or most of everyone would be dead anyway. The show said something like 90% infection, which would still leave 6million in the UK alive, but the impression was there were a lot more dead than that. Even if you weren’t killed in the first infection, you’re going to have to be lucky and good to escape ongoing death from disease, cold or starvation in the first year or so.

The first episode ended with our group of heroes finally meeting and wondering what to do next – only one of them had done any thinking and collecting of goods to get to the next stage. The rest seemed woefully inadequate in their outlook. But, if, by some chance, you did survive, would you have any idea of what you would have to do? I thought I’d throw up some thoughts – and these have been done with no research, just mulling around what would need to be put in place. I’m pretty sure if I looked, I could find a whole bunch of websites giving me the information I needed. One assumption is that there is enough stuff around to survive the first month or so. Canned food, bottled water and transport with available fuel, to get to somewhere. This is about longer term thinking.

• Key things are shelter, water, food and sanitation. You’ll need a place to live, which has its own water supply – a well or a spring – and has arable land to grow food. Ideally, it should be defensible; law and order won’t be around and humans tend to fight a lot, especially over resources. A septic system would be a advantage.
• Ideally, you’d want to be away from any nuclear plants and from prevailing winds that could bring radiation. I’m not sure how safe these plants are with no electricity, no water and no manning, but some may go boom.
• You’ve found your farm, castle or where ever it is. (I fancy Windsor Castle actually, but probably a little too close to major population centres for the start, so it would be smelly and potentially disease prone in the beginning.) Now you need to start stocking it. First of all, work out where to get fuel, stock up some tanks so you have transport as long as possible. Go and raid supermarkets and get enough food (tinned, dried) for at least a year.
• Find a library/book store and grab lots of practical books for the things below. Also writing things and lots of paper, so you can start recording the new history.
• Hope the farmer had a shotgun and rifle, if not, go find some. You won’t be the only one, you’ll probably have to defend your place and you can go hunting.
• Tools – axes, knives, carpentry, farming, scissors. As much as you can
• Find some generators. You’ll need to have the option as you build up for the longer term
• Clothes and linen- stock up with tough stuff, it’s going to have to last. Store a lot for future use – including material. You’re going to have to learn to weave at some point but t may have a lower priority than starting the food supply.
• Growing things. Find agricultural suppliers and get everything you can – seed, fertiliser, pesticides.
• Animals – sheep for wool, cows for milk, meat and leather, pigs for meat, chickens for eggs and meat. Rabbits, guinea pigs and all the small stuff could be good.
• Farming. you may have a tractor and enough fuel for one year, but longer term I’d be looking for a plough and some horses. You should probably grab some horses for transport as well, along with some bikes
• Medicine. It’s not going to last, but grab what you can. Antibiotics, diarrhoea medicine, painkillers, antiseptics. (Stock up on soap as well). Iodine tablets may be useful as well

Now, you have to learn how to use all these things, how to farm, how to metalsmith, how to manage sanitation. A bit of medicine.

What have I missed, what else would you add to the list to gather and control in the first year?

It’s the Great British Beer Festival this week at Earl’s Court, a huge cavern of a place that is full of beer and beer drinkers. As part of their ongoing campaign to widen the appeal of beer CAMRA are running some free tours, a Girl’s Guide to the Great British Beer Festival. They’re curated by Melissa Cole, who’s an independent beer journalist and member of the British Guild of Beer Writers. Tonight was their first run of the tour, a group of about 12 of us were the guinea pigs for this attempt to spread the word about beer to a different audience.

My first impressions of the place were not exactly brilliant. In one corner, there was a huge group of what I assume were Cornishmen singing their national songs. Elsewhere, there were a lot of stereotypes, beer bellies and silly ‘real ale’ t-shirts that on the surface did not make this a friendly place. But first looks were deceiving and as we wandered round, we got nothing but good humour and support.

Melissa had put together a list of 40 beers to take a look at, however the tour only covered 5 of them, in 1/3 pints, to ensure we were all drinking responsibly. Here’s what we tried.

• Wells and Young; Youngs Waggledance.. a honeyed sweet ale that was a great start. For me, it only had a very slight honey smell.
• Copper Dragon; Golden Pippen Ale. Lovely and fruity, with lemony overtones.
• Dark Star Expresso. Wow. a stout porter with a strong hit of coffee. As one of the party said, you could drink this for breakfast. It would go great with something like Chille Mole. But I could only drink the one at any sitting I think
• Fuller’s Discovery.. This was a reallyy refreshing, designed to act as a bridge between lager and ales.
• Iceni Raspberry Wheat. the first taste of this is very, very tart, but overall, it slips down a treat. I’d love this with cheese.

I liked all of them, only a small tasting, bt it’s given me new things to try. Thanks for CAMRA for organising this.

Last weekend, a friend suggested a trip to Barcelona for a long weekend – some of his friends owned a boat in the harbour there so we could have somewhere to sleep.

The boats somewhere in the middle there. Easyjet flights were booked and so I set off for 4 days in Barcelona. I’d visited the city back in 2002, so knew a little about it. I basically spent time wandering around, on foot and on the Tourist buses, taking photos and taking it easy.

The weather was not brilliant – one really good day, 2 days with rain, but it was a great break; i got a little bit of a tan and a few mosquito bites. One thing that was fascinating was the marina culture – there’s a lot of British people with boats there, many living their on a long-term basis, others popping back and forth from the UK. They hang around together on the boats and in the bars, not with the locals.

I love this city and have only covered a small amount. Got a whole lot more to do the next time I go

I’m feeling the itch to do some studying again, so looking at the OU for courses. So far, I’m liking this lot:

• Strategy
• Archeology
• Biological Psychology
• Ancient and Medieval Cities – a technological history
• Exploring the classical world
• Robotics and the meaning of life
• Elements of forensic science
• Exploring psychology

Pretty sure that does not make a named degree, nor even a degree in total, but it looks a fun lot. FOr most, I need to wait til next year to start, but it’s good to plan.

I’m now back in my flat in London, stuff from the US delivered and slowly sorting through the admin. Currently I have no web access from the flat, so I need to sort that out. For almost all ISPs I need a BT phone line, so got that sorted but it’s going to take 11 days for them to transfer an existing line to my name. No lines, nothing to physically do, just change a name on a database. That’s bad, bad service. So I can’t get web until then, which means I’m going to be living in cafes and friendly people’s places until then. I have access to mail via the phone and that’s getting changed to T-Mobile which gives me access to all of their hotspots as well.

Meanwhile here’s a review of the places I’ve tried that offer free wifi in Chiswick- and will try,as I will update the post with different places.

The Breakfast Club – OK, not in Chiswick, but the first place I tried as I’d been using it when I was commuting to London for interviews. Good food, gorgeous smoothies and a relaxed atmosphere to grab a seat and work away. There’s enough power points dotted around, but get there away from the rush at breakfast or lunch in order to find a place as overall it’s a bit small. Open 8-6.

Shackology. This is new since I was last here (they’ve taken over what used to be a pub) and is a brabar/cafe/brasserie. Open 9am-11pm, it offers good food and drink, with liver music in the weekends. Interestingly, one part is advertised as a buggy-free zone, so you can get away from the yummy mummies that abound in the area. Friendly staff, who made sure I got connected (you need to ask for the password) and didn’t seem to mind me hanging around. There were not that many power points around though that I could see (I used one behind a sofa), so may be short term use only

Sam’s Brasserie. At first glance, this was not as friendly. All the power points were covered up and I was not too sure of the waiter’s reaction to getting out the computer. But first appearances are deceptive; there’s a few others sitting around using the network now (who appear to be regulars) and they just came along and uncovered the power points, so now I’m all plugged in. To use the system you have to give them email and phone number so they can send you RM stuff. Food wise, the place is pretty good.

The question of course with using these places is what’s the bargain you make. How much do you have to spend, what’s the rate per hour? For myself, I tend to say up to 2 hours is a couple cups of coffee. If over that, then food is included in what I pay for, especially when I want to return!

Not really resolutions as they cover more than that, but here’s some of the things I want to do.

Work

First up, find some new work. I know what I want to do – deliver transmedia experiences – but finding the right place could be a challenge.

Money

Sort out the long term stuff. I need to do a little bit of planning and bring together all the bits and pieces. Plus some boring stuff like a will and all of that.

Travel

I’ve only got one bit of travel planned so far this year, and that’s conference based. I’ve not been on a ‘holiday’ since I went to Barbados, so I want to go somewhere to laze around and do scuba diving for a couple of weeks.

Conferences

I’m off to SXSW, where I have a panel. Reboot and Gnomedex could also be on the agenda. I’d like to do at least one other speaking event this year.

Health

I have to get the gym. Preferably to classes. So looking for a gym buddy in London for when I’m back down there.

Technology

I need to buy me a new TV. I had a Sharp Aquos in the US and quite liked that, but I’ll see what is in the shops at an affordable price once got the money together. I need to get a voltage transformer for the XBox and work my way through my games. I’m working through the Orange Box at the moment which will probably keep me occupied for a few months.

Blogging

Behind the Buzz is going quite well, with traffic steadily increasing. I’ve got a few other blog possibilities, so we’ll see whether they pan out.

I think that is it for this planning session.

I said on Seesmic today this place is out to get me and earlier this evening we had another example of it. Sitting in my room I hear a bang, a whooshing news and then a fair bit of swearing and shouting. I went out to find that one of the sprinklers had gone off and was pouring water into the apartment. The sprinkler was next to the only source of heat in the place, a ceiling mounted gas heater, as there’s been no central heating since Friday, so that may have triggered it, but we’re not sure.

Anyway, what we have now is water pouring in at about 35 gallons a minute and no way of switching it off. We can’t close the valve as it has a padlock and chain on it preventing them being shut. Between us we managed to get things done. Clear away the stuff and get a bucket brigade going with the 3 garbage cans. Everyone gets soaked with the rusty old water. Luckily there were 7 people here so we managed to contain a lot of it, but there is still an inch of water spread in many places. John phones 911 and the Fire Brigade turn up in about 10 minutes. One chain cut, one valve closed. They found another sprinkler head to replace the broken one, so we still have fire protection.

The water was in the public section, so most of the stuff is OK, except a lot of the paintings done by John. We’ve spent the last hour or so cleaning up, mopping and pushing the water out of the place it just needs to dry out. Hopefully the heating will be back soon to help that along. Not the most pleasant way to spend a Sunday evening!

I spent last week in London, the first time I’d been back since I moved to New York. A great week was had, a combination of work and pleasure.

• had some interviews and met up with some headhunters. I’m back in London permanently from January and this was setting up some things. No idea how it will pan out yet.
• had drinks with Suw where we chatted about life, work and all things weddingy.
• Had coffee with Jeremy, one of the panelists with me at SXSW, just connecting and chatting.
• Had coffee and yummy dimsum with Adam, where publishing was onthe agenda.
• randomly bumped into Rebecca and had coffee later, looking at the workshops she has been running. I also randomly bumped into Lloyd whilst going to meet Adam; the development of the Tuttle club looks interesting.
• Went to BarcampLondon3 and had a blast. I was staying with Ian Forrester for that part of the week and ended up having a unsettling scooter ride through London to get to and from the camp. I’ve only ever been on the back of a bike twice before, so not the most comfortable experience – enjoyable in hindsight but a the time I got rather worried for my knees! There were around 130 people at the camp, hosted by Google. Did not make too many of the talks as spent a lot of time just chatting with cool new people. Gave a talk on Games in Advertising and things to watch out for (using this year’s Court TV Save My Husband as an example). Had my first ride on a Segway. Indulged in the food and drink that was provided – definitely the best ‘work canteen’ food I’ve ever had. Watched multiple games of Werewolf. All in all, a superb weekend, thanks to Ian, Amy, the BBC and Google for putting it on.

I think I’m getting paid back for having a good time though. Suffered a a bad nose bleed and nearly managed to not pay for a drink as I was dealing with that instead of thinking of paying. The servers were not too sympathetic when I got back, even though I was dripping blood! They were far more interested in getting their money. Broke the screen on my phone – bad news as it is on load from Palm, so am going to have to pay for that. Have a horrible cold. And the toilet flooded all over the bathroom this morning so spent an hour cleaning that lot up. I think I need to just hibernate for the next few days

This week I got to meet up with zeroinfluencer, or David as he is more normally known as. I’d first come across him as part of the team behind Where are the Joneses? and then followed him on Twitter. When I saw he was popping across to New York, for the OMMA awards (they won by the way) I tool the opportunity to grab lunch. A great chat, where he proceeded to confound my brain with information theory and possibilities!

Next up was a CenterNetworks meetup, for drinks, food and a couple of presentations from Outbrain and Hakia (at least one write up to follow). A hole bunch of interesting people there. Finally, last night, was a Gawker drinks thingy..or at least Owen Thomas was in town and having a wee get together. Connected with a few people there and had a good time.

Update – corrected the spelling Where are the Joneses?

Two years ago this week I made the decision to leave Diageo after 14 years – I then proceeded to give 4 months notice! My initial plan was to do freelance social media consulting, an area that was just starting to gain wider traction across businesses. This was slightly scuppered by a chance meeting at SXSW, with someone who’d been part of the team at an agency for some Smirnoff work we did with them. They were looking for someone to help support on digital for a client they had, so I agreed to come across to New York for 10 weeks to do this. This eventually led to an offer of a full time role, with a visa. After a lot of thought, I decided to accept – New York was always somewhere I had wanted to work and had been trying to do so with Diageo for a while. My reservations were that this was advertising and my expertise was more in the marketing/social media space. I mentally gave myself a year.

That is what has now happened; due to a tightening of belts, my services are no longer required. Very little of my time was against clients, a lot of what I did was education and internal stuff and they could basically no longer support that. I’m not surprised, I’d been looking for more work internally for a while and not getting much luck. The result is I no longer have a job and am looking, most probably back in the UK as the visa I have won’t work at another company. Unless somewhere else takes my fancy (I’ve always liked Sydney ).

Next steps..a short period of misery (I’m allowed, this is the first time it’s happened to me), a take stock and then a push to get a new job (whilst moving countries again!) Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of my time here, enjoy the company of the many new friends I’ve made in the city

The Rugby World Cup has started and so has my task to find somewhere decent to watch it. It does not appear on the usual cable channels, it only seems to be on Setanta, something primarily found in pubs, even though the USA has a team that seems to do OK. So the challenge will be to find a nice pub, showing the rugby, not too crowded and that doesn’t switch over at the slighttest provacation to American Football. My first attempt is at Nelson Blue, a New Zealand place down near the Seaport. Good food, good staff and a mixed crowd of ex-pats and USians. But this will not have all the matches on, as Setanta seems to not to want to provide them with the matches, even though they want to spend the money. Apparently, the company is restricting supply in the city, to certain Irish bars!

After the first England game, I’m pretty sure they are not going to replicate the success of last time. There was no flare, little excitement. I vividly recall watching the final last time, getting up early and going round to the local bar, full of fans, for breakfast, the absolute joy of that last minute kick. The victory parade went past the office and so many people just left the building to cheer the team as they went along Oxford St, an exhilarating moment. Unless they get a lot, lot better over the next week or so, it won’t be repeated.

PS if you do want to watch the rugby in the US, Setanta seems to have the monopoly, so here’s their handy tool to find out which pubs may be playing the games.

Caught a drink with Jeremy Wright last night at the end of his rapid-fire trip to New York – he demonstrated his new cap bought on his recent trip to the UK, a flat cap in black corduroy. His trip seemed to be full of incidents and surprises, not going completely to plan, but you need to wait for him to blog that to get all of the nuances!

One thing we did end up discussing was the different way that English and North American women walk and carry themselves. Apparently Jeremy was breasted more in his trip than ever before – breasted being his description for a woman getting by you and brushing you with her breasts. Now, he was in pubs, raves and the Notting Hill Carnival so there were plenty of opportunities for close encounters due to crowding but he felt that presenting the breasts first was far more prevalent in the UK. Anybody with a comparable experience?

My ex-boss, who left the company the other week, was interviewed in the Wall Street Journal (subscription req.) about the challenges facing her in new job and those facing a traditional advertising agency as it tries to integrate digital. Some key points from the interview:

• an agency appointing a ‘digital czar’ is not enough, you need to have the people to implement the plans
• you can’t just drop a bunch of digital people in the middle of a traditional agency as they’ll all just wonder what they are doing. Digital needs to be more than an extension of the ad campaign.
• to understand digital you need to live it, otherwise you will never get it as a creative medium. it’s not something you can just read about

The points rang very true, it’s difficult in an agency where many live TV but few seem to live digital.

Last night I had dinner with a few people at Red Bamboo, a vegan restaurant. This place seems to make it’s name from the fake food it provides – soy protein shaped and flavoured to pretend to be meat. We had ‘Chicken’ wings, ‘prawns’, just ‘meat’ in general.

There you see fake prawns, shaped and painted to look just like the real things. If that was not surreal enough, it got even weirder as the talk turned to Star Trek (it was a table full geeks) as one of the party discussed an out standing question he had about Wesley Crusher at the end of his tenure on the show (names and actual question hidden to protect them). Luckily, another guy had Wil Wheaton on IM and proceeded to ask the question. So our pondering friend finally got the answer to something that had bugged him for years.