London Bloggers Meetup: Summer Spectacular

It was that time of the month again when I rouse myself to go to the London Bloggers Meetup, it gets me out of the house and meet new people.

This month's theme was travel, the event was sponsored by Europcar and BMIBaby and featured a talk by a travel blogger called Heather. It was a very informative talk for travel bloggers and people interested in starting a travel blog, also there were a few important points that apply to bloggers with broader subject matter, like how is you want your friends and family to read the blog you write about yourself, what you did on holiday, that sort of thing, but if you want to appeal to a larger audience you have to write about things that anyone can do.

It was interesting stuff, I saw lots of people taking notes.

BMIBaby and Europcar had provide prizes for a competition, once again I didn't win, but this time it was cos I didn't enter. Instead it was won by a fellow called Bernie.

Gor, its been years and years I've been going to these meetups, and I think in that time I've run about ten different blogs. Most of them I've given up on, and right now, its kind of awkward when people ask me about my blog, cos I have three that are currently updated:-

• This one which is quite safe for work and has the most un-snappy url ever xrisglmv14.blogspot.com - Mostly I blog about plants in my back garden and BT phoneboxes that have been converted into libraries
• My secret blog full of posts that people can argue with over on posterous illandancient.posterous.com - like rioters in London and leftwing and rightwing newspapers
• And my anti-PR company blog PishPoorPR.tumblr.com - where I mostly complain about things, like people pooping in the doorways of Sainsburys

Anyhoo, I think I racked a good spread of bloggers and meetup attendees I chatted to this month:-

• Murphy - has a website thats something to do with publishing books on Kindle, sounds kind of neat, straightforward and easy, although I admit I'm struggling to locate it online
• Kate(?) Swedish travel Blogger - she quickly retreated to find a place at the bar where service was a bit quicker
• Anthony Fresh Plastic - Blogs about gadgets, twitter and internet stuff, not industrial plastic extruders which I feel is a subject lacking in the London blogging scene
• Joseph Real Monstrosities - I love the expression on people's faces when he tells them he has an animal blog. I like the idea of animal blogs, that its a perfectly valid niche blog, as valid as travel-blogging, and whilst this evening's talk is about travel blogging, it could just as likely be about animal blogging. How to make money from your animal blog, what works and what doesn't. The meetup could be sponsored by London Zoo and the National Geographic
• Mehrdad - Blogs about art and interesting photographs
• Heather - was rather concerned about the Virginia earthquake
• Selena - Well, I was briefly introduced but we didn't chat or anything like.
• Steve social media for Europcar or something - Pointed out that a lady stood nearby was the boss of Europcar
• Tamara from Europcar - My car hire anecdote, the other week I was on holiday in the highlands of Scotland, Scotland is great for driving in compared to London, no traffic, no motorways, just long easy drives, me and my ladyfriend had hired a car, not sure who it was from, and we had a great time. We'd picked the car up from a representative at Inverness train station and were to drop it off at Inverness airport. I've never been to Inverness Airport before, and although we'd arrived a bit early to catch our flight, there was a bit of anxiety, we wanted to be at the departure gate on time, not faffing about in the carpark, and it wasn't clear where to leave the car. There's about three car parks, one of them had clearly marked bays for Hertz and Avis rental cars, but nothing clear for the car we'd hired. So, after frantically driving round the car parks a few times we phoned up the customer careline, who answered very quickly, and was a little bit helpful, explaining where to drop off the car, where to put the keys and where to put the car park ticket. But that bit of anxiety could have neatly been avoided if in the car hire document pack there was just a little business card sized set of instructions, maybe with a little map, just something with a bit of certainty. Even now I fear that some unpaid parking ticket from Inverness airport will arrive in the post.
• Shash the entrepreneurial consultant - We had an in-depth discussion about how high-end audio equipment can improve sound quality, by not degrading the recorded audio information as much as low-end audio equipment
• Tom Flashboy - Media type person/journalist/timelord, occasional hat-wearer
• Radiokate - Knows about space shuttles and Walthamstow respite centre
• Inspector Winter - Police chap who tweets during the riots and got a lot of newspaper coverage, seemed like an okay chap

Also, people who I saw who I've like chatted to before, or vaguely recognise off of the internet, nodded at but didn't necessarily make eye-contact with

• Shimelle - she teaches the fine art of scrapbook making
• Andy Bargery - he organises these blogger meetups, a sort of benevolent dictator
• Doreen Abandoned in London - photos of things abandoned on the streets of London
• pinata lady - sells custom made pinatas
• A Lady in London - blogs about being a Californian lady in London

Me, I love graphs and stuff, so here's a little chart of how many people I speak to and see at all the London Bloggers Meetups I've been to over the past couple of years and the total number of people at each one.

So this one was one of the larger meetups, with about 85 people there. I did okay talking to 13 people, not quite the heady heights of the seventeen folk I met in November 2009, but not too shabby, still percentage-wise it was a bit poor, this one time I knew almost 30% of the folk in the room, but now barely 20%, must try harder. Who are the people on the other side of the room?

Is it some kind of observer's bias that when I look on Tweeter at the #LBM hashtag I barely recognise anyone, or am I just downplaying the folk I do recognise?

Privatisation for better or worse

There was a letter in the Guardian on Saturday, some anti-cuts group pleading to stop the government privatising public services. I read it when I was in the pub, drunk on my own on a Saturday afternoon and a particular line stuck in my head.

If the plans go ahead, companies will be able to make a profit from services previously run by the state and local authorities, while taxpayers subsidise them. This approach has not worked well for passengers on our railways or for many sickness benefit claimants assessed by the private company Atos.

Cos of course everyone knows that the railways have gotten worse since they were privatised.

I recently went to a music festival called Indietracks, at a railway museum in the Midlands, I go every year, its great, you get to play with steam trains and see the same familiar faces every year.

One of my favourite acts is The Sweet Nothings, a four-piece lead by Pete Green, they have songs about indiepop, football, politics and one special song about the railways called Hey Dr Beeching.

At Indietracks I was a bit miffed atHey Dr Beeching and Pete Green, cos the final verse is about how Pete Green dreams about going back in time and killing people who he disagrees with, like the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, former British prime minister Maggie Thatcher and from the song Dr Beeching. I was a bit miffed cos in Norway a few weeks before, some gentleman had similarly taken upon himself to try to execute an entire generation of politicians he disagreed with.
It just seemed a bit distasteful.

Anyhoo, in the preamble to the song Pete Green described how the evil Tory government of the 1960s had employed Dr Beeching to downsize the UK rail network, and close down more than 4000 miles of railway line.

That happened whilst the railways were under state control, not privatised.

Wikipedia’s great, let me remind you, there have been public railways in the UK for over 180 years and for much of that they’ve been run by private companies. Although there were first calls for the nationalisation of the rail network in 1840, it wasn’t until the first world war that they were nationalised. The state controlled them from 1914 to 1921 when they were returned to private companies, that is, after seven years.

They remained in private hands for another 2 years until 1947 when they were nationalised again, and remained so until 1994 when they were privatised a second time, that’s another 47 years.

Anyhoo, this got me thinking, maybe the anti-cuts people who’d written to the Guardian were right, that privisation of the railways had adversely affected the passengers more than the nationalisation of them had, or maybe it had benefited the passengers. I dunno, I’d have to research the matter a bit more. Maybe try to dig up ticket prices and see how they’ve changed depending on ownership, that would be a cool graph to demonstrate the benefits to passengers, if not to taxpayers.

Sadly it was too much hassle to find train fare information stretching back a hundred years, without popping along to the London Transport Museum and leaf through the old timetables and fares. Although wikipedia did have a graph which is useful.
One of the clearest things one can take from this graph is the long steady decline in passenger journeys after the railways were nationalised in 1947. Sure there was a rise in numbers after the depths of 1980, but it wasn’t until after privatisation that numbers climbed back to the heady heights of the 1920s and 2010.

Clearly, passengers voted with their feet and freely chose to use trains for more journeys when they were in private hands, somewhat contradicting the anti-cuts letter in the Guardian.

Not necessarily so though, as this graph only shows passenger journeys, not passenger miles. It could be that due to privatisation longer rail journeys have been broken down into many shorter journeys to make up the numbers. But in the light of Beeching’s axing of shorter rural lines, this seems unlikely.

In closing, I would like to ask what would convince the anti-cuts letter-writers that they are wrong and privatisation has benefited rail passengers?

Man shouts in street

Last night there was a bit of shouting out in the street

Thrilling stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. Not quite up to the same levels of mass civil disorder that we've come to expect in London, just shouting.

I like to think that the chap with the crutches has discovered some kind of conspiracy, possibly involving an internation crime syndicate and corruption that strikes at the very heart of Waltham Forest's civic elite, who have since conspired to bring him down and silence him.

"No one wants to know! Watch now, watch now."

Rather than just an ill and paranoid gentleman who neglected to take his medication, making his way home.

He's probably right, that no one does want to know. But I'm less sure about his warning to watch now, watch now. I watched the street for another twenty minutes or so, and nothing out of the ordinary occurred. Maybe he meant I have to watch over a longer time, and in the next few days there'll be something I should have watched out for.

The Voices of Tottenham

I've done a blog post over on my boring blog, and I'm going to explain myself here.

There've been riots all over London and the rest of England recently. It all started a few moments after I drove home through Tottenham Hale the other Thursday. This is what I reckon happened, armed police had been following Mark Duggan who was in a minicab. They stopped the vehicle, two officers approached the car from either side, it looked like Mark went for the gun he was carrying in a sock, one of the officers shouted, the other officer fired two bullets, one killed Mark, and the other went through Mark's arm, and hit the other officer, embedding itself in his radio.

Mark Duggan, Starrish Mark as his street name, was reported in the papers the next day as being "a well-respected family man", which I'm going to assume is journalistic shorthand for "scary gangster".

"family man" = gangster
"well-respected" = scary

As happens whenever the police kill anyone their investigation stops and the Independent Police Complains Commission conduct their own investigation. The main thing to remember about the IPCC is that they are independent from the police, you may be sceptical, but that's what they're called, they are not the police, for all intents and purposes, they are the Scooby Gang, a bunch of amateur investigators who aren't good enough to be proper investigators.

It was about a week after the shooting that a 'Fatal incident' board was put up at the scene, asking for witnesses.

So on Saturday when a crowd of folk from Mark's gang turn up at Tottenham police station demanding answers, all the police can say is 'no comment', cos they're not doing the investigation, they're not even allowed to investigate.

My favourite Xbox game is The Warriors, its based of the 1979 movie of the same name, about gangs of New York, some big gang leader organises a meeting and city-wide truce, pointing out that the gangs vastly outnumber of the police, and if they wanted to, the gangs could rule the streets, fortunately for New York, the gang leader was killed before it happened. In real life we were less fortunate, and Starrish Mark's death was a fine opportunity to declare a London-wide truce.

The violence was co-ordinated a little bit, folk arranged things on blackberry messenger, but by the second night it just spiraled out of the hands of gangs.
Anyhoo, in the weeks since, thousands of people have been arrested for violent disorder and looting and stuff. I reckon most of those people arrested are dopes, who didn't run away fast enough or cover their faces, or get the message broadcast that the police were on their way.

I don't honestly believe there's any deep-rooted reason for the rioting, none of the 150 reasons expressed in the media really explain it. The reason for the breakdown of the rule of law that feels most accurate is the one given by Kevin Sampson in Comment is Free in the Guardian, and that is cos its fun, its a buzz. Its the most honest reason there is, anything else its just someone else's agenda overheard and used as an excuse. Those drunk girls on the BBC clip who said it was fun, it was a giggle, oh yeah and its cos of teh government, the conservatives or whoever.

Bollocks.

Anyhoo, my local MP in Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, is great, she was on a Young Voters Question Time Special, arranged to help give young people a voice in the debate about the riots. The program was a disaster, everyone shouted over everyone else. The panalists were shouting over each other and shouting over the folk in the audience, the folk in the audience shouting over each other, and interupting everyone. It was terrible.

All it said to me was that young people don't know how to debate or how to express themselves.

Some young in the audience, tried to justify it "It sounds like we're angry, but we're just passionate." That's great but its no way to debate or expect people to listen to you, come back when you've read Robert's Rules of Order.

One of the things that came out of the garbled noise of the debate was that young people feel they don't have a voice.

Well, I think that's just as much bullshit and people trying to use the riots as an excuse to force through their agenda as any of the draconian measures the Conservatives are trying.

I'll explain, I feel I don't have a voice either, I can't make a difference, I'm just a victim of circumstance.

But then again, if you're reading this blog, then I do have a voice, and people are listening.

So to prove that not having a voice is a bullshit excuse for the rioters, I have this idea which I have blogged about in my boring other blog:-

Its been a bit exciting round our way these past few weeks. I saw on telly, young people complaining that their voices were not being heard, and I empathized, sometimes I feel my voice isn't heard either.

I want to change all that, I want to help the young and neglected of Tottenham to have their voices heard, their opinions counted, and I have an idea.

I would get a some kind of grant from the government or Arts Council or some charity and I would open a shop on Tottenham High Road, and it would get a fresh lick of paint, some cheap computers and a sign that said "The Voices of Tottenham".
It would be like an internet cafe, but with a purpose, one singular purpose, I would invite in the youth of Tottenham and show them how to start blogging, how to sign up to blogger, or wordpress or tumblr or posterous. How to use hyperlinks, and upload photos, how to send email posts from their Blackberries. How to put in statcounter and see who is reading their blog.

I would be a mentor, a father figure, I would suggest things to write about, how to respond to comments, how to attract more visitors to their sites to get their voices heard far and wide.

What are your dreams, what are your aspirations, what do you want?

Been stopped and searched by the feds again, write about it, put up your side of the story first, get the badge number of the officer who stopped you. Graphs and tables.

What's on your mind? What did you do today? What are you going to do tomorrow?
Do something, write about it.

Nah, not setting up workshops in a library, or opening some kind of job center, connexions things. No, just presenting a tool, showing those with no voice how to get one, and then the whole world opens out.

It would give those disaffected the same voice that I have, the same means to express themselves, the same way to create and debate and engage.

I'm willing to give it a try, but I don't think it would work.

Sure we'd get free internet access from Haringay council, and a load of donated crap last decade computers, and the leccy bill and rent would be covered by some charitable grant, but I reckon within a month the computers would be nicked, the window smashed and the blogs and voices barely a murmur.

Dreams: The Voices of Tottenham

Its been a bit exciting round our way these past few weeks. I saw on telly, young people complaining that their voices were not being heard, and I empathized, sometimes I feel my voice isn't heard either.

I want to change all that, I want to help the young and neglected of Tottenham to have their voices heard, their opinions counted, and I have an idea.

I would get a some kind of grant from the government or Arts Council or some charity and I would open a shop on Tottenham High Road, and it would get a fresh lick of paint, some cheap computers and a sign that said "The Voices of Tottenham".

It would be like an internet cafe, but with a purpose, one singular purpose, I would invite in the youth of Tottenham and show them how to start blogging, how to sign up to blogger, or wordpress or tumblr or posterous. How to use hyperlinks, and upload photos, how to send email posts from their Blackberries. How to put in statcounter and see who is reading their blog.


I would be a mentor, a father figure, I would suggest things to write about, how to respond to comments, how to attract more visitors to their sites to get their voices heard far and wide.


What are your dreams, what are your aspirations, what do you want?


Been stopped and searched by the feds again, write about it, put up your side of the story first, get the badge number of the officer who stopped you. Graphs and tables.


What's on your mind? What did you do today? What are you going to do tomorrow?


Do something, write about it.


Nah, not setting up workshops in a library, or opening some kind of job center, connexions things. No, just presenting a tool, showing those with no voice how to get one, and then the whole world opens out.

Demographics of the rioters

The other day, during the riots of London, I created a Venn diagram to promote my theory that the folk rioting were doing so for a whole load of different reasons and were from a whole load of demographic groups. I used pretty colours.

Then yesterday and today, the courts started processing people who'd been caught by the police and the demographics started to get fleshed out, some were in their 30s, some were teachers and some were middle class. So I opened me a spreadsheet and started logging, ages and occupations.
Cos I like visualising data, I thought I'd put together a distribution chart of the ages of people who'd been charged.

Currently the average age of a rioter charged is 23.4 and the median age is 20, that is to say that half the rioters are over twenty and half are under.
Anyhoo, this kind of demographic analysis is really important.

What's the point of re-opening youthclubs closed by government cuts, if it turns out that most of the folk charged are too old to go to youth clubs. Similarly, what's the point of changing laws to withhold state benefits from rioters, if it transpires that a large chunk of them are middle class folk who don't claim benefits. These councils and MPs pledging to evict rioters from social housing, what if it transpires that a great chunk don't live in social housing.

The government, parliament and councils can't really do anything useful to affect rioter's lives without knowing more about them.

Anything else if just pushing forward their own agenda's and biases.

Not to say there's owt wrong with the government taking the opportunity to push forward their own agenda, that's what they were elected to do in the first place any way.

Indietracks 2011 in video

It is the weekend after the Indietracks music festival in Derbyshire and I have finished editing my videos. I've made three videos, one is 14 minutes, one is 5 minutes and one is 3 minutes. Please watch whichever one you feel is most appropriate to your time.







More about Indietracks here
Their blog here
The Indietracks flickr photopool here

For those with an interest in the history of my videos of Indietracks, here are some of the videos I made in 2008 and 2009

Indietracks 2009 in 7 minutes
Indietracks 2009 in 3 minutes
Indietracks 2009 in 1.5 minutes

Indietracks 2008 in 7 minutes
Indietracks 2008 in 3 minutes
Indietracks 2008 in 1.5 minutes