2012 in numbers

Just a tote of various personal numbers and statistics from last year. Could really do with being an infographic, maybe later.


Weight change
+6 Kg

Distance walked or run (exercise)
385 miles
(164 miles in 2011)

Distance travelled by car
8197 miles (5803 miles approx in 2011)

Petrol Spend
£1014.85 - 758 litres
(£724.00 in 2011)

Foot/car ratio
1:21
(1:35 in 2011)

Distance flown
2876 miles

CO2 emissions from travel
1587 Kg
(Air - @0.21 Kg/mile; Road - @0.115 Kg/mile; Foot - @0.105 Kg/mile)

Change in wealth
+£6393.93
(+£5389.49 in 2011)

Stocks & Shares change
+9.58%

Gigs attended
20
(15 in 2011)

Gigs played
1
(nil in 2011)

Songs recorded
3

Programming, markup and scripting languages used
8 (Java, Javascript, Python, html, php, SQL, R, CSS)

Xbox games completed
7

Websites created
4

Website unique visitors
13600

Items knitted or crocheted
5

Gender inequality at Indietracks: There I fixed it

Following on from yesterday's internet entertainment and also today's discussions on the Anorak forum, I thought I'd use the spreadsheet I made up of the past few Indietrackses as a force for good.

I have compiled a fantasy Indietracks lineup featuring all bands that have played there before, but carefully selected so as to be completely balanced by gender.

First a brief note as to what I mean by 'balanced by gender'. Rather than all acts being 50% male and 50% female, I've tried to figure what the make up would be if males and females were randomly distributed. So there are some all male bands and some all female bands. Considering we want about 55 acts to play in total, the mix would be as follows:-

All male	9 bands
Mixed mostly male	14 bands
50:50 bands	10 bands
Mixed mostly female	14 bands
All female	9 bands

With this in mind the lineup would be as follows:-

Disasteradio, Emmy The Great, Foxes!, Frances McKee, Helene, Kevin McGrother, King of Cats, Labrador, Loyal Trooper, MJ Hibbett (solo), Oxo Foxo, Roy Moller, Ste McCabe, Allo Darlin (2008 lineup of Elizabeth and Virginia), Berlin Brides, Burning Hearts, Everybody Was In The French Resistance.. Now, Lets Whisper (2008 lineup including Elizabeth Morris), Marshmallow, Kisses, Modular, Paisley and Charlie, Poppy & Friends, The Cannanes, The Lovely Eggs, The Middles Ones, Zipper, Gordon McIntyre (2012 lineup), Haiku Salut, The Just Joans (2008 platform lineup Dave, Katie, Rowan), Betty and the Werewolves, Teenage Fanclub, The Specific Heats, Art Brut, Butcher Boy, Cola Jet Set, Friends, La Casa Azul, Rose Elinor Dougall, Stereo Total, Tender Trap, The History of Apple Pie, The Red Shoe Diaries, The Smittens, Hong Kong in the 60s, Very Yours Truly, Stars of Aviation, The School, A fine Day for Sailing, A Little Orchestra, Withered Hand, The Loves, Little My.

This gives the following gender stats:-

Total female performers	90
Total male performers	90
%female performers	50.00%
%male performers	50.00%
All male	9 bands
Mixed mostly male	13 bands
50:50 bands	11 bands
Mixed mostly female	10 bands
All female	9 bands

Which is close enough to ideal.

You're welcome.

**UPDATE**
The list of bands was a little half-arsed, so here's the lineup by stage

FRIDAY
MJ Hibbett (solo)
Allo Darlin (2008 lineup of Elizabeth and Virginia)
Tender Trap

SATURDAY
Main Stage
Butcher Boy
Betty and the Werewolves
Everybody Was In The French Resistance.. Now
The Loves (2011 festival lineup with dancing girls)
A Little Orchestra
A fine Day for Sailing
The School

Indoor Stage
Emmy The Great
The Lovely Eggs
Hong Kong in the 60s
Gordon McIntyre (2012 lineup)
Little My
The Red Shoe Diaries
Berlin Brides
Haiku Salut

Church Stage
Helene
Roy Moller
The Just Joans (2008 platform lineup Dave, Katie, Rowan)
Labrador
Ste McCabe
Friends
Very Yours Truly

Train
Oxo Foxo
Paisley and Charlie
Loyal Trooper

SUNDAY
Main Stage
The Smittens
Rose Elinor Dougall
Teenage Fanclub
La Casa Azul
The Specific Heats
Stars of Aviation
Cola Jet Set

Indoor Stage
Art Brut
Stereo Total
Poppy & Friends
Withered Hand
The Middles Ones
Zipper
The History of Apple Pie

Church Stage
Lets Whisper (2008 lineup including Elizabeth Morris)
Disasteradio
Marshmallow Kisses
Burning Hearts
Modular
The Cannanes
Foxes!

Train
King of Cats
Frances McKee
Kevin McGrother

Sexism in indiepop band selection and Indietracks

Earlier today Daniel Novakovic and Jennifer Reiter posted an awesome blogpost on the So Tough So Cute blog about gender inequality of performers at Indietracks 2012.

Twitter erupted, Facebook erupted as band members and promoters denied their sexism. And cos Daniel and Jennifer had used statistics to make their argument it was all a great heap of awesome.

They had analysed the male/female/x make up of all the bands listed as performing at Indietracks 2012, then categorised the bands into being male, female or 50:50

This is how we counted performers at Indietracks. The process is based on the Ladyfest Malmö method.

• A female act is an act where the majority of band members are female
• A male act is an act where the majority of band members are male
• A 50/50 act is comprised of half females and half males or equal members of males, females and trans people

and with the help of lovely polkadot pie charts summarised the findings as

Summary:

• 56 acts were booked in total.
• 38 were male acts
• 7 were female acts
• 11 were 50/50-acts

Clearly since 51% of the population is female there must be sexism at work.


Similarly for individual performers at Indietracks 2012

• 159 were male
• 64 were female
• 3 trans or genderqueer.

It doesn't really represent the population.

But how badly should indiepop promoters feel about this? Is indiepop particularly sexist compared to other musical genres? I've always felt that indiepop is a broad musical church, inculsive of all genders and sexes. Compared to pop, punk, rock and metal, there are far more people in skirts in indiepop bands.

Anyhoo, So Tough! So Cute! only looked at the data for Indietracks 2012. Which could just be a blip, so I've poured over the old festival guides for Indietracks 2009, 2010 and 2011.


For performers, without investigating the privacies of trans and genderqueeriness

	2009	2010	2011	2012
Total female performers	75	58	59	64
Total male performers	138	143	120	159
%female performers	35.2%	28.9%	33.0%	28.7%
%male performers	64.8%	71.1%	67.0%	71.3%

Its roughly 70:30 male to female, how much variation were you expecting? About that much?

	2009	2010	2011	2012
Female bands	7	5	7	7
Male bands	40	43	35	38
50:50 bands	13	11	11	11

That is remarkably consistent, considering all the thousands of indiepop bands who could possibly play, more often than not there's always 7 female bands and 11 50:50 bands

Personally I think there's something a bit off about calling Allo Darlin' a male band, since without Elizabeth Morris, they wouldn't be half as successful.

So, as I have access to the raw data, we can categorised them differently, thus:-

	2009	2010	2011	2012
All male	19	17	17	15
Mixed mostly male	21	26	18	23
50:50 bands	13	11	11	11
Mixed mostly female	3	3	2	4
All female	4	2	5	3

Thrilling stuff that doesn't really change the argument much, except that if promoters were being sexist in their selections, there would perhaps be more 'All male' bands.

There are, of course, flaws in the methodology here. Flaws such as Dan and Jonny from Pocketbooks who as a mobile rhythm section play bass and drums in a couple of different bands, most of them featuring female members, when considering Indietracks, do Dan and Jonny only count once or multiple times or as fractions adding up to whole people. Likewise Remi from Electrophonvitage/Sunny Street and as a solo artist, the Colin Clary/Lets Whisper/Smittens, and Simon Love, cos he's worth ten normal men.

On the female side there's Emma from Knickers, Owl and Mouse and Darren Hayman's band who's trying to make up gender inequality single-handedly.

What's to do?

I can only propose that all women in general are forced to form bands and get on stage even if they don't want to.


Any musically talented women must join at least five bands.


I don't know.


UPDATE #1
As mentioned earlier the original piece didn't cover other music genres outwith indiepop, so I thought I'd venture into other worlds...
These are the details for The Didmarton Bluegrass Festival 2012

Total female performers	28
Total male performers	118
%female performers	19.18%
%male performers	80.82%

All male	19
Mixed mostly male	14
50:50 bands	5
Mixed mostly female	1
All female	3

So thats most imbalanced than Indietracks, with overwealmingly male bands.

A sickly nation, unable to provide for their children

Channel4 have a neat websitey thing called ChoPORNot, where viewers are give a series of choices between two cards representing things that could be cut to reduce the £152,000,000,000 deficit.

Choices like Reduce disability benefit or not to renovate social housing.

A lot of the options are a bit, well, crap. Like axing GPs when actually giving thema pay cut might be less destructive (considering their pay tripled in the last ten years)

Anyhoo, a neat thing is that you can see the charts of which items most people have chosen to slash and which items most people have chosen not to cut, to 'cherish'. After 500 or so people have had a go on the website the list of things to cut is like this:

1. Military - Don't upgrade Trident. Stop subbing the subs...
2. Military - Withdraw from Iraq. Time to watch our own backs...
3. Religious and other community services - Stop supporting churches. What about their collections?
4. Economic affairs - Plan a bank raid. Reclaim bankers' money.
5. Broadcasting and Publishing services - Cancel all government advertising. Stop ads...
6. Military - Pull out of Afghanistan. Stop digging that hole...
7. Military - Cut navy spending. Waive the rules...
8. Education not definable by level - Learning and Life Skills Council? Who's heard of that?
9. Military - Clip the wings of the RAF
10. Executive and legislative organs, finacial affairs, external affairs - Cut back on government. No such thing as society...

The overiding message seems to be that we hate the military, we hate bankers and the government.

Contrast this we the items most cherished:-

1. Primary and Preprimary education - Shut primary schools. Increased illiteracy? So waht?
2. Social Exclusion - Stop all home help visits. Leave unwell alone...
3. Medical Services - Axe, slash, chop or cut 50% of A&Es...
4. Medical Services - Close 20 hospitals. Keep 'em waiting...
5. Primary and Preprimary education - Sack 2000 teachers. More friends for each classmate!
6. Old Age - Shiver their timbers! Cut winter fuel payments.
7. Secondary Education - We don't need no education... Cut 2000 teachers.
8. Transport - Close branch railways. Everyone's got a car...
9. Old Age - Cut state pensions. No more golden oldies...
10. Secondary Education - Shut 40 secondary schools. Don't teach 'em a lesson...

We love the NHS, schools and old people! Wooh.

Personally I'm divided, I thank we should pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq, but other than that the UK should have a strong and well-funded military. But on the other hand, the more right-wing libertarian in me reckons that the government should have little to do with education, health and social care, we she keep our taxes and invest in our own private health insurance, and we should fund our kid's education first hand from our own pockets.

Maybe its just Chop or Not's jaundiced view, that only the state can provide teachers and schools and hospitals and if not the state then these things would cease to exist. In real life, rather than closing 40 colleges or sacking 2,000 teachers, they'd just transfer to the private sector. The jobs would still be there, the potential for educating is still there, its just the state have abandoned that as one of their competencies.

Regardless, the state has demonstrated that it is unable to run its finances adequately enough to fund health, education and social care. It could almost be like the government is to the UK, what Greece is to the EU.

**UPDATE**
Just to clarify and ruminate, this one time at my last job in the soup room, I was asked how old I was, thirtyish, and if I had any kids "nope" and why not, at the time I didn't answer, but the answer would be that culturally I'm unwilling to have kids if I can't provide for them, that is I can't afford kids, I'm thousands of pounds in debt, and either on minimum wage or unemployed. To have kids I'd want to be able to pay for them, to pay for their toys and trinkets and to some degree pay for their education, since I can barely afford these things for myself, I refrain from spawning.

Its part of my self-sufficiency thing, like growing my own potatos or not drawing housing benefit.

Although somewhere out there its an enshrined right to have a family, to have kids, this isn't a free right, its a right that the state has to provide for, so I refrain from taking advantage of that right.

A little bit of me thinks that to have kids and expect the state to provide for them is as bad as living an unhealthy lifestyle and expecting the state to keep you alive. My health is, for the most part within my own hands, however the defence of the nation and upholding law and order, that's for the government.

Blog Stat Pron - March

Good evening and welcome to my irregular start of the month look at the previous month's blog traffic stats review. According to google analytics, for March, this blog got:-

1,503 Absolute Unique Visitors
2,413 Pageviews

Compared to February's

1,336 Absolute Unique Visitors
2,229 Pageviews

Well, Absolutes are up a massive 170, total Pageviews up by almost 200, I think I've set myself a new record for days when the blog's had more than 100 views in a day, sure it mostly due to one rather popular post I did in February which google seems to love, but its all fair game.


Statcounter reckons I had 2,305 Unique Visitors, and an average of 92 pageloads per day, down 6 from last month. Still not quite breaching the 100 ppd barrier, but getting better man. Maybe next month.

Here are the metrics of of my RSS feeds on various feed readers:

26 subscribers - GoogleReader (same as last month)
4 subscribers - Bloglines (same as last month)
8 followers - Blogger (same as last month)

Boring, same as last month, why do I even bother?

These are my top referrers for March (not including google wanderers)

1. Facebook - 138 visitors (216 friends)
2. Twitter - 52 visitors (174 followers)
3. UK Bubble - 42 visitors
4. Mark Wadsworth - 26 visitors
5. Wikio - 12 visitors
6. Hootsuit - 11 visitors
7. Another Form Of Relief - 6 visitors
8. Liberal-Vision - 6 visitors
9. Quick as Rainbows - 6 visitors
10. Club Baby Honey - 5 visitors

Lets take a brief moment to consider which were the most viewed posts during March.

1. The Holly Greig Story - 589 views
2. What Have I gotten myself into - the TFTA scam - 91 views
3. Origami flapping bird animation - 69 views
4. Death Disco - 64 views
5. Project Streetview Racing - 36 views
6. Bookcase Dreams - 30 views
7. Impending Doom of 6Music - 30 views
8. Brent Central PPCs - 26 views
9. Some Videos to Watch - 25 views
10. Does Shisha Kill - 24 views

The top five most popular posts that I wrote in March were:-

1. Death Disco - 64 views
2. Brent Central PPCs - 26 views
3. Some Videos to Watch - 25 views
4. Latest Dirt on Brent Central PPCs - 24 views
5. Dancing in the Street - 15 views

That's it belatedly for March's stat pron, until next time, take care space cadets.