editorialgirl

Tag (the game)

2008-06-20T19:15:00.009+01:00

The other day I noticed something strange in my blog stats - I was getting referrals from the Birmingham Mail website. Turns out my old pal Victoria Farncombe, journalist, new mum, blogger and all round nice girl, had linked to me in one of those "answer these questions and pass it on" posts. A pleasant surprise, considering I had no idea she even knew about my blog, never mind read it.

In all honesty, I don't normally like these sort of things, but for the last couple of days I've been off work, sick. (I don't mean feeling-a-bit-poorly type sick, I mean actual-physical-pukey sick. Horrible-moany-want-my-mommy sick.) I've no idea what it was, but I'm very glad that it appears to be over, and today I'm just moping around trying to get my strength back. And I'm bored, bored, bored.

So here we go.

What were you doing five years ago?

Oh. Actually this isn't as cheery as I was hoping. Five years ago, I'd just been made redundant. It wouldn't have been as bad if circumstances were different, but a year or so before, I'd moved to Glasgow with my job and even bought a flat there. I'd yet to make many friends and suddenly being out of work made everything a whole lot trickier.

So five years ago I was temping - doing admin at a company that makes deodorant and fly spray - and wondering what to do next. It would be another six lonely and confusing months before I decided I wasn't going to make it work up there and managed to sell up and move back to Brum. In hindsight, my move to Glasgow triggered the biggest bout of depression I've ever suffered (it lasted for about four years). No offence to Glasgow - it's a fantastic city and I miss it in many ways - but I'm very glad I came home.

Right. I'm sure that wasn't really what Vic had in mind when she tagged me. Let's hope the rest of these questions are a bit more lighthearted...

What are five things on your to-do list for today?

Being poorly (did I mention I'm poorly?) my to-do list for today is fairly laid-back:
Replenish my fluids. I've had two pints of water and three cups of tea, which I'm sure isn't enough, but it's better than yesterday.
Eat something. Yep, I managed some scrambled egg on toast for lunch and I'm getting hungry again now, so that's all good.
Tickle the cat. Check.
Read the popbitch and b3ta newsletters. That's my reward for when I finish this.
Try not to get jealous knowing that all my friends are in the pub. Hmm... not so easy, but I think I'll cope.

What are five snacks you enjoy?

Snacks? As opposed to food in general? Ooh, I dunno. Crisps and sweets don't really do it for me. Don't get me wrong, I eat loads, but usually at set meal times. So the only two I can think of are:
Peanut butter and jam on toast. Free at work! God love my employers and their feeder ways. And
Giant pots of Greek yoghurt with honey. Nom nom nom.

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

I'm afraid I can't agree with Vicky, who said she wanted to "end world peace". (Hormone-addled brain, you say?) Yes, I think creating world peace might be better all round. Saying that, I'm not sure how my being a billionaire could have any sort of an effect on world peace, so I'll stick to:
Buying nice houses for everyone I know. Does that count as one thing?
Employing the services of a cleaner. I could have done with that today. It's funny how you don't think about cleaning the bath until you really need a bath, and you only really need a bath when you're too poorly to stand up in the shower, never mind clean the bath.
Private healthcare. Am I getting old? And did I mention I'm poorly?

I can't think of any more. I'm actually really bad at spending money. Hey, there you go - that can be another one:
Employing the services of a personal shopper. Or two.

What are five of your bad habits?

Now, I thought I would be able to answer this quite easily but it turns out to be quite difficult. Maybe it's because I'm quite happy with my lot at the moment.

I've just quit biting my nails, so that's one gone. I don't smoke any more. And I quite like drinking beer, so I don't count that as a bad habit. (Apart from giving me a bit of a beer belly it doesn't seem to have any adverse effects.) I speak to my parents every week and I'm quite good at remembering birthdays (thanks to Facebook, mostly, but who's checking?)

I'm sure if I had been at work, I'd have had a few ideas from my colleagues. I talk too much, I hum tunes that get stuck in people's heads, I tell the same old stories... But I'm not at work, I'm stuck at home, tickling the cat and drinking alka seltzer.

Whilst pondering this question last night, I asked my boyfriend. "You don't have any," he said. Oh, come on. "You can't just be nice because I'm ill," I pointed out. "It must be annoying when I sing along to that advert." (You know, the one for the bank. With the cartoon train and the singer with a very high voice.) "Nope," he said, "that's endearing". Really? "You can be honest with me, I promise. Anything. Anything at all."

There was a pause.

"Well..." he said, "you do use a lot of towels."

What are five places where you have lived?

Glasgow, Kilwinning (don't ask - I needed somewhere to stay when I first moved up north, and this seemed to be the only option at the time), Chicago (for a month - does that count?) ermmm... Kings Heath, Moseley...

What are five jobs you've had?

Apart from owning a vintage clothes shop for a short time when I was twenty, and the year of temping I mentioned above, I've had a fairly straight career path: proofreader --> editor (for print) --> editor (for web), so all my jobs have been along the same lines.

Funny, really. If writing for the web had been a career option when I was at school, it would have been just what I wanted to do when I grew up. If only I'd known, I might have been a better student.

..............

Well there you go. Done. Now, apparently, I have to tag five other bloggers to do the same. (This is "tag" in the schoolyard sense, not in the keyword/metadata sense.)

Who should I pick? I figured they should be (a) people I've actually met, if only once, and (b) as varied a bunch as possible. And boy is this bunch varied.

So, apologies to (in no particular order):

Amin, TWM Driver, Julia, Kris and Andy

...but "you're it".

Meowseley

2008-06-07T19:35:00.003+01:00

"Doesn't it piss you off when you are sitting in a pub telling people about a cracking cat you met that there isn't an objective standard to gauge how good it is against another cat? People can rate hurricanes but not cats. That's ridiculous, I see loads more cats than hurricanes. I intend to redress this imbalance by making a universal standard of cats."

It was only a matter of time before Daz created Meowseley, a "cross between Warcraft and Top Trumps, but with cats". Featuring the gorgeous Edward, of course.

In other news: a sad day for followers of loldeirdre. All the (copyrighted, to be fair) photos of Deirdre have sadly disappeared from flickr, leaving behind a couple of shiney peepl and a lonely Mullaney. Oh noes :(

I'm led to believe that this isn't the end of the road, however, so keep an eye out in the usual places.

Ambient intimacy

2008-06-07T16:52:00.010+01:00

I'm hearing the phrase "ambient intimacy" a lot these days. Ambient intimacy is a term coined by Leisa Reichelt last year to describe the kind of relationships that the internet allows you to have with people. She describes it as "being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible."

I've been wondering how to describe these types of relationships for a couple of years now. I like "ambient intimacy" but I think it's a bit of a mouthful. But there are people that I only know like this, so it's becoming more necessary to find a phrase.

Take my relationship with Pete Ashton. Pete's always been on a couple of the same local interest internet groups that I'm on, so his was one of the first blogs I knew about. When I first started reading peteashton.com regularly, though, it surprised me with its openness. He kept a record of not just interesting links he'd come across, but where he'd been, what he was up to and, more importantly, how he felt about things.

A short while later Pete and I became contacts on flickr - so I got to put faces to names. We met on a flickrmeet and commented on topics that we'd already discussed online elsewhere. After that, we became "friends" on facebook, even though we'd only actually met once.

Now that we follow each other on Twitter and mix in many of the same circles at work, there is a real sense of the ambient intimacy Leisa talks about.

I feel like I know Pete pretty well and yet, when I found myself next to him in a queue at a cafe one lunchtime, I had to look twice to be sure it was him. (Then, of course, I had to introduce myself as "editorialgirl" rather than Emma - which felt a bit silly, but elicited an "ohhhh!" and a big hug, which was lovely).

So I don't think that having ambient intimacy with someone means that you know them. Pete knows a lot of people and I can guarantee he's met them more times than he's met me. If someone says "do you know Pete?" it feels slightly stalky to say yes and realise that I know what he's listening to, what he's working on and what he had for dinner. Because we don't know each other.

So I need a phrase or a verb to describe a relationship that's been formed almost entirely via the internet. "I know him, but only ambiently"? No.

Really; it's getting tricky. I met my current boyfriend online. I read his website religiously and we chatted on various groups for a good six years before actually meeting up and gedding it awn. But when I tell people "we met on the internet", people make assumptions of dating websites or seedy chatrooms. "I got to know him ambiently", I want to explain. The truth is, I got to know him bit by bit, through websites and forums, comments and groups. But there isn't an easy way to say that.

Perhaps it will become so commonplace that I won't need to worry about it. Perhaps friendships like the one I have with Pete will become the norm and everyone else will meet their spouses online, just like I met mine.

Celebrity scares

2008-05-14T19:55:00.005+01:00

Last week I was at London's ExCel for Grand Designs Live, the TV show, which was filmed alongside the exhibition of the same name. Obviously I was there for work; to get photos of The House That Kevin Built and any other exclusive content for the website that I could find.

It turned out that that included trying to get celebs to comment on property-related stuff. So when I wasn't dolled up in hi-vis jacket, hard hat and steel toe capped boots, clambering around a building site with my camera, I was hanging out in the green room, getting shy around people off the telly. A very, very random week.

I've realised that I'm not very good at talking to celebrities for the same reason that I'm not very good at science fiction. I just can't ... pretend. I can't call them "the talent" like other telly people do. I can't join in with the conversations about how amaaazing people look (unless they really do). I suppose I should try harder, but I just want to treat them like normal people, even though most of them think they're not.

So it makes sense, then, that I got on fine with Dave Gorman (who I do actually think is great) because I could giggle with him about the naming of the "flick off for Britain" campaign and what was on the telly, like I would with anyone. But I found it impossible to even look at Kim-from-Kim-and-Aggie, especially after hearing her tell someone "no dear, I don't talk about my personal life. It's very private to me". This is the woman whose autobiography, "The Story of My Brutal Childhood" was serialised in the paper, for goodness sake.

Being around "the talent" on a daily basis was one of the strangest experiences I've ever had. I saw Denise Van Outen's bottom, for starters. I don't make a habit of looking at other girls' bottoms, but she had to get mic'ed up in front of me, and there it was. (It's teeny tiny - like the rest of her - and absolutely perfectly formed.) I heard Paul from The Salon telling some people that he was responsible for inventing the phrase "back, sack and crack". I went to the loo and found Debra Stephenson (ex Corrie) getting changed into the most fabulous dressing-up dress I'd ever seen. "It's not mine," she said. "I'm going to a ball".

Phil and Kirstie were exactly like they are on the telly. Seriously. We interviewed them and they sat closely, agreeing on everything ("we're going to get one of those for our house," "oh yes, we're so going to get one of those too...") and finishing each other's sentences. After the interview, he went shopping and she shouted jokey admonishments after him, giggling when he rolled his eyes in mock sufferance. They genuinely appeared to be best friends, which must quite a feat for two people who spend so much time working together in the public eye.

Finally: yes, the Beeny was pregnant. Really, really pregnant. And just to confuddle my brain even further, it's apparently only her third.

Ar, oim a Broomooy

2008-04-23T23:30:00.005+01:00

Apart from a brief flirtation with Glasgow, I've lived in Birmingham all my life. Not all over Birmingham, you understand - just south Birmingham. In fact, for 31 of my 33 years I’ve lived within four miles of my birth. Meh - call me a homebody.

Despite this, I don't have much of an accent (or so I'm told - although this is mainly by southerners who are probably expecting a "yam yam" black country drawl). I do apparently have a "hard G" (in other words, I pronounce the Gs in words like banging and singing), and the more I drink, the more I go down-then-up at the end of sentences... but I don't strangulate my vowels, and I certainly don't say "ar" instead of yes.

So, having been told on many occasions that I "must be a posh Brummie", I'm regularly surprised to find that words I use all the time are actually West Midlands vernacular.

For example, when giving directions, I've always told people to, say, turn left, "at the next island". Apparently most people only ever call them roundabouts. Who knew?

Likewise, I'll stop at the garage (pronounced garridge, of course) rather than the petrol station on the way home from the pub. Why has it taken me 30-odd years to find out that "garage" in this context is unique to Midlanders? I'm still not convinced it is!

Some words and phrases are historical and I wonder if Brummies are just being old fashioned by continuing to use them. For example, when I was younger, the off licence at the bottom of the road was "the outdoor". This dates back to the time when pubs had a separate entrance for off-site sales. But wasn't that the same all over the country? Why do people in the Midlands still use the word?

Others are just unfathomable. "Wash your donnies", my mom used to say before lunch. In an effort to make up for using such unbecoming slang, she would hurriedly follow this with "from the French, donner – to give..." She's right, of course. But how on earth did that little channel-crossing gem happen?

Obviously I don't want to turn this into a list of local dialect and slang – there are plenty of those around. I just enjoy being genuinely surprised, and wanted to share that. So I could go on (how do you pronounce "tooth"? Have you ever been deffed out, or dismissed as yampy? Does your chip shop sell potato scallops?)... but I won't. And besides, as my dear departed Nanna used to say: I’m off to the larpom.

Flickr Video

2008-04-09T21:56:00.004+01:00

So flickr have announced today that Pro members can now post short videos.

My initial reaction was that it's wrong, all wrong. YouTube is for videos; Flickr is for photos.

Flickr are trying to differentiate their offering (I guess) by limiting video uploads to 90 seconds. They said: "Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of 'long photos,' of capturing slices of life to share."

I posted this on Helluva Forum with a bit of a "pfft" type comment, but then something Maffu said made me think about it differently.

"I think they're onto something but I think they've dug past the gold," he said. "I really, really like the idea of 'long photos', but I think 90 seconds is way, way too long. I'd love to see what people could do with a maximum of two or three seconds of movement. Imagine how much more of the 'ness' of an image you could have in these imeos/vidages/vidtures. Think of the scene in Blade Runner where Deckard picks up the picture of (supposedly) Rachel as a child, and for a couple of seconds your can see the shadows of the trees playing across their faces and hear the laughter and the birds singing around them."

Okay, he lost me with the last bit (not too hot on film references, as you know), but I do see his point and I'm going to strive to make some of these vidages, as well as taking snaps, next time I go out on a shoot.

And I think this is what will make it all right. Only Pro members of Flickr can upload video. These are the people who (should) understand where flickr is coming from. How many of them already take video as well as still photography? This will give them somewhere to put the results, instead of just uploading the photos and leaving the video on the computer. Or, indeed, uploading photos to flickr for peer feedback, and then uploading the video to YouTube to get lost in a sea of mobile phone footage and kittens.

Does this make me a twit?

2008-04-04T22:50:00.005+01:00

I finally signed up to Twitter this evening. Er ... what do I do now? I'm "following" a couple of people (which just makes me feel like a stalker) but, as I mentioned before, I'm a bit frightened that this might just be another way of pointlessly fuelling my internet addiction.

Search terms

2008-04-04T12:09:00.002+01:00

This blog has gone crazy with the hits over the last couple of days. Here's why:

You sick puppies :o)

Is Neil Buchanan dead?

2008-04-01T21:35:00.005+01:00

Well, no. So why, when someone asked that question in the office this morning, did at least two people nod vigorously and begin to earnestly discuss the poor man's demise?

I was bemused. Normally, the punchline to the question "did you know Neil Buchanan's died?" is "yes, he had an Art Attack". Boom, boom. Had someone misunderstood the joke? "No," said my colleague, who'd heard the news from her sister. She shook her head gravely. "It was colon cancer. No-one even knew he was ill."

I checked Google news. I checked the BBC. Nothing, anywhere. I checked Wikipedia, where I found a paragraph dedicated to the "death rumour". Wikipedia's source for the rumour pointed me to facebook.

Yes, it seems this current urban myth is down to a facebook group called RIP Neil Buchanan (the art attack guy), which has 9,218 members. The group's homepage says that he died on 21st March 2008 after "a long struggle against cancer of the colon". Eh?

But wait. A comment underneath, presumably by the groups's admin Nick Hernshaw says: "It has been recently suggested that Neil is still with us, contrary to announcements on several radio broadcasts and on blue peter (bbc!). If you are in anyway offended or consider being disrespectful to this group, please bear in mind, that even if you do not necessarily believe, the sole purpose of this group is to show RESPECT for Neil, and this should be done whether he is alive or dead. It would be a shame for the small minority to ruin this opportunity for the majority."

A bit of backtracking going on there. Sounds like he doesn't really believe it himself. So was it a genuine misunderstanding? Or was it just set up to see how quickly and how widely a rumour can spread? Pretty damn quickly and widely, it would seem, when it's on facebook.

Out of interest, I've just counted twelve facebook groups set up to debunk the myth, from the jolly sounding "Neil Buchanan is alive and well actually! lets get him back on tv!" (14 members), to the rather more angry "Nick Hernsahw (sic) is a sick cunt.....Neil Buchanan isnt dead" (32 members). However, even adding the membership of all twelve "it's not true!" groups together, the naysayers have still only got around 300 people on board. The mysterious Nick Hernshaw has nearly 9,000 more. It looks like the rumour will be doing the rounds for a good few weeks yet.

Mullania - update

2008-03-21T15:21:00.008Z

You may remember that our intrepid Councillor Martin Mullaney had a complaint made against him back in May last year, for a Youtube video in which he, his colleague Ernie Hendricks and (now former) Epic Skatepark owner Keith Marsden went for a wander into a Grade II listed building on the Moseley Road.

This week, Martin's blog reports that "Both Councillors were in breach of the Members Code in relation to showing disrespect to Mr Safdar Zaman, owner of the old tram depot offices."

The Councillors are required to apologise, or be suspended. Bert and Ernie ... sorry, Martin and Ernie have come to an agreement that Ernie will not apologise, and therefore be suspended for one month, but Martin will apologise* and give half of his allowance to Ernie for that month.

The Youtube video has been taken down.

The old tram depot is still a horrendous eyesore.

More at Martin Mullaney's blog.

*UPDATE (26/03/2008): In a dramatic turnaround(!), it seems Martin won't be apologising after all, but instead will appeal. The letter he was required to sign (PDF) apparently "just went further than I was prepared to go".

I can't keep up. You can attempt to, by going to the dedicated pages on Martin's blog.

Oh, Deir ...

2007-12-03T22:16:00.000Z

Councillor Deirdre Alden, "your Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for the Birmingham Edgbaston constituency", has a blog. And on her blog, she posts pictures of herself doing Councillor-like things, with a lovely big grin on her face. Not for her the gritty YouTube documentary choice of other local councillors - no, our Deirdre (sorry, Cllr Alden) sticks to the simple digital still and a smile. At a rate of around one every single day.

So it was only a matter of time before the lol meme came to Edgbaston, wasn't it? That's right - it's loldeirdre!

I defy any lolcat fan not to see this and immediately want to have a go themselves. I know I have. And poor Pete Ashton's been getting a little bit fixated on smiley D. "I've spent most of this afternoon obsessing over Deirdre", he muses. "I've never met her but I've built up this complex character in my head, one that I'm starting to care about. This isn't a parody for me and it's certainly not an insult. It's something else. What, I'm not quite sure, but thankfully there's a whole year of photos in her archives just waiting for the captions."

Go on, you know you want to...

Facebook is ...

2007-11-20T23:19:00.000Z

... about to remove the "is" from its status updates, apparently.

At least, that's what I think this means:

Starting with tonight's push, any API calls that return information about users' status messages, including FQL and users.getInfo, will be changing slightly. The return value will now start with a verb, so prepending "is" is no longer required. So in order to construct a full status message it is now $name + ' ' + $message, instead of $name + ' is ' + $message. Additionally, users.setStatus will be able to avoid prepending the word "is" by passing in an additional parameter: "status_includes_verb". If you pass in true for that parameter, it signals to us that we should *not* prepend the word "is" to the status you give us. In a few, we will delete that parameter and change the default behavior to be that you must include your own verb.

Funny; it's not like developers to over-complicate things, is it? </sarcasm>

One to watch

2007-11-05T16:03:00.000Z

*editorialgirl surfaces, gasping for air*

I could use this post to grumble about the fact that I still don't have internet access in the new place, but I won't. Especially since it's my own lazy fault.

Instead, I'm just going to point you to something eerie and wonderful. And very, very scary.

Scott Pack, once described as "the most powerful man in the books trade", now of publishing house The Friday Project, reviewed my piece The List on the Arvon Friends website last week.

He described it as "witty and clever ... wonderful observational writing" and said that I'm "definitely an author to watch". I'm not sure what he thinks I'm going to do ...

Post-Arvon comedown

2007-09-13T22:32:00.000+01:00

You'll have to excuse me, I'm going to gush.

Back in Brum, I'm experiencing information overload after a fantastic week in Shropshire, thinking about nothing but writing. I was on an Arvon creative writing course, "Starting to Write", tutored by Mark Haddon and Will Fiennes. Returning to reality has been a big, big comedown.

Lots of people have said "you've had such a good time, would you do another one?" and my answer has had to be "no". Not because I didn't enjoy it - quite the opposite! The chemistry of "our" week was so perfect, I'm afraid another course could never live up to it.

The tutors were gentle, lovely, down to earth people, who treated us as professional writers. Quick to praise and constructive in their criticism, Will and Mark were the perfect teaching team. They gave us invaluable advice and inspiration that will stay with me forever.

Nestling in a Shropshire valley, the Arvon centre - John Osbourne's former home, The Hurst - is an amazing retreat. We spent every day listening to birdsong in the sunshine and every night looking at the stars. I've never seen so many stars. (The weather helped, of course. How can you fail to be inspired by lush green hills under deep blue skies?)

The Centre Directors Kerry and Pete (and their gorgeous daughter Pearl) gave us a fabulous welcome and were the perfect hosts. How they do it week after week, I do not know. But they just keep smiling.

My biggest fear had been my fellow students, especially having to share a room with someone I'd never met, but I needn't have worried. My room-mate Fiona was brilliant. She made me laugh loads and she didn't snore once. We were a group of fifteen, but even after five days in each other's company, there wasn't anyone who made me feel irritated or intimidated. No-one was too loud and no-one too quiet. No-one hogged all the attention, no-one sucked up to the tutors. We were equals. I had sparkly conversations with every one of my fellow writers; I trusted them implicitly. I am honoured to have met Andy, Anna, Chrysse, Fiona, Fran, Gina, Jackie, Jess, Kris, Paul, Peter, Sam, Sue and Tamsin.

On the final night, we all read out a piece that we'd done during the week. If you'd told me before that we would have to do that, I'd have been in two minds about going, but the course had upped my confidence so much that I did it with gusto and really enjoyed myself. I read a piece called The List, and afterwards, I'm blushing to say, Director Pete asked me if I'd mind him sending it to the Head Office for publication on the website.

What's it a list of? You'll have to read it to find out. Is it true? Well, put it this way: before I could let Pete send it, I had to change some of the names...

Out, damned spot!

2007-08-25T20:37:00.000+01:00

I went to the optician today.

I've never been to an optician before; but then I've never had any problems with my eyes before. However, earlier this week, I was helping our Senior Web Developer figure out a rather complicated set of circumstances to code into an e-Ticket (you may yawn; we were being rather clever, actually) when I suddenly noticed a rather disconcerting black spot in front of my left eye. I've had floaters in the past, which usually appear kinda stringy and transparent, but this was a definite spot and it was definitely black. In fact, when it first appeared, I thought it was a fly and tried to bat it away. It was accompanied by a headache, so I got an eyecare voucher from HR and booked myself an appointment at the opticians.

The optician asked me a lot of questions. "How long do you look at a computer screen for, during the day?" About eight hours. "But you take regular breaks?" Errrr... sort of... "What about lunch?" I eat a sandwich and surf the internet. "So, you're looking at a screen for eight hours a day? And that's what, five days a week?" Oh, wait. Sometimes I come home and go online again for a couple of hours. And then there's the weekends... He'd stopped writing and was looking at me with a mixture of incredulity and pity. "Do you like your work?" I love it, I said. But I realise now I may have been rather silly where my eyes are concerned. "Rather careless, yes," he said diplomatically.

He had a good look into my eyes, shining lights right inside them, which gave me the strange sensation of being able to see my own blood vessels. I had to read the bottom line of a chart about twenty times, with and without various lenses. Eventually he told me I'm a little bit long sighted and that I've got a slight astigmatism. "But I can't find anything that might be causing this black spot. Your eyes must just be very tired. You'll have to just make sure that you take lots of breaks and make sure you look away from your screen, into the distance, more often." I don't think it will be all that hard to remember to gaze off into the distance at regular intervals, but at least now I can tell my manager that I'm doing it on doctor's (well, optician's) orders.

He also prescribed some glasses, just to use when I'm on the computer (so, all the time then) which he said should help. Because they have been prescribed "for VDU use only", my employer will help to pay for them, which is good.

And besides, they might look rather fetching.

Music in the Park

2007-08-14T22:03:00.000+01:00

Every year, Moseley, being Moseley, holds its own festival (occasionally known as Mosfest). This year's took place at the end of June and - as ever - included street fairs and fetes, a pub quiz, the farmers market, and various theatre, dance and comedy nights at venues around the "village". Yes, it rained, but by all accounts it was still a success and there was enough going on indoors to keep everyone happy.

One thing the rain just couldn't help but quash, however, was the Music in the Park. Usually one of the Festival's biggest draws, there was no way it could have been held in Moseley Park during June's floods, so it was delayed until 11-12 August.

This weekend, then, saw me lounging around in the glorious sunshine (how did they know it would be the only hot week of the summer??) listening to local bands and sipping on wonderfully cold beers. Don't ask me who played - I'd lost my programme two months before, but it didn't really matter. It was just a great way to spend a weekend. (Lord knows I need a day or two away from real life at the moment...)

Everything, all at once

2007-07-12T20:17:00.000+01:00

I've been so neglectful of this poor little blog that, now I come to actually post again, I'm finding it hard to know what to write about. So I'll do a rather personal post about - well - everything, really, just to get back into the swing of things.

The main thing that's been keeping me busy is buying a flat. It's a dear little thing, in a lovely road, and I've been out doing lots of grown up things like getting a mortgage, instructing solicitors and - I dunno, negotiating and things. Nothing's going to happen for ages though, because the people I'm buying it from haven't found anywhere to live yet (as far as I know). I could well be at the bottom of a very long chain; who knows. I've just got to wait and see.

I've also been spending a lot of time staring at the telly. The BBC have been collaborating with flickr for a project called Britain in Pictures, whereby a group was set up on flickr for people to upload their pictures to, then some were chosen for a slideshow on BBC interactive TV. A few of mine have been chosen and every time, I've felt a strange childlike joy at seeing a photo I've taken displayed on my own television. A shot of the Oratory that I took on my first flickrmeet also made it into "Tom Ang's Choice" and the "most popular" sections of the BBC site, so all in all I'm rather chuffed.

Another reason to be chuffed is that a nice man from the Arvon foundation called last week to tell me I've made it onto the Starting to Write course after all. I'm going to be going down (across?) to Shropshire in September to learn how to Tell Tales and I can't tell you how pleased I am. Now I've just got to read some more of the tutors' works and stop being so nervous about the whole thing...

Finally, I spent a wonderfully long sunny weekend in and around Eastbourne last week. I don't know whether it was the sunshine - the East Sussex coast seemed to be having the summer the rest of us have missed out on - the sea air, the company, or all three; but it was blissful and I've come back feeling fantastically chilled. (Plus, I managed to take a few more photos of buildings for the BBC group on flickr. Well, it would be rude not to, wouldn't it?)

A quick update

2007-06-26T22:41:00.000+01:00

I haven't abandoned this blog, promise. Life just seems to be flying by too fast for me to write any of it down.

In the absence of time to post anything interesting, .have a look at these photos from the recent flickrmeet at Spaghetti Junction.

I've been looking at the stats and I'm amazed at the number of people who check here regularly - I'll try and post more regularly from now on ...

Epic curious

2007-05-22T22:05:00.000+01:00

On Sunday 13th I spent the wettest day of the year so far trudging round Moseley and Balsall Heath for this month's flickrmeet.

Luckily we had arranged to meet at Epic Skatepark, which has a roof - albeit a bit of a leaky one.

Epic is a real Moseley success story. It used to be a tram depot, then it became a "karting centre" that no-one ever seemed to go to and now, thanks to owner Keith Marsden, it's the biggest skatepark in Europe and doubles up as an occasional - but very welcome - venue for things like gigs and beer festivals.

I've always wanted to go in there but, being over the age of 20 (cough) I've never had reason to before, so it was great. We spent an hour or so in the skatepark, admiring the place and its dedicated clientele (there were plenty of people in there, despite the weather) and looking completely out of place in our anoraks, then wandered off into the pouring rain.

You can see the rest of the fruits of our labour on flickr.

Co-incidentally, Martin Mullaney has recently had a complaint made against him for this youtube video in which he, his colleague Ernie Hendricks and Epic owner Keith Marsden go for a wander (read: trespass) into the Grade II listed building next to Epic. The building isn't being looked after at all - it's falling apart, by the look of it - and Martin's video highlights some of the concerns that the community has about its future.

Unfortunately, the owner of the building didn't take too kindly to a Councillor tramping round his property videoing the place (which you might have guessed, if you've watched it) and promptly reported him to the Standards Board. Whoops!

Doctor on call

2007-04-24T23:20:00.000+01:00

I needed to see my doctor this morning. I might as well have tried to make an appointment with the Queen.

I'm not the sort of person that sees their doctor all the time. I hate making a fuss and I only go when I really have to, so I don't have much experience of the system. All I know is that it is crap.

In fact, I managed to avoid doctors altogether for a long time. Then, about three years ago, when I finally decided I couldn't leave it any longer, I joined my local practice.

I worked out their system quite quickly. You called the number bang on 08.30, got an engaged tone, hit redial for half an hour and then eventually got through to someone who told you all the appointments had gone and to call back tomorrow. More often than not, I got so frustrated with this that I didn't bother calling back and carried on suffering in silence, which I guess was all part of their plan.

Later I got the hang of it and asked for an emergency appointment every time. This meant sitting in the waiting room all afternoon waiting for them to deign to let me see someone, but at least I got to see someone. And the doctors were all quite nice, which I think is important.

So this time, I was all prepared.

From my office phone, I called the surgery number bang on 08.30 and hit redial until I got through at about 08.50. All normal so far. I asked if there was any chance of an appointment.

"We don't do appointments any more," the ever-so-slightly patronising voice said.

Okaay.

"We take your number and someone calls you back."

Right. (Calls me back? How's this going to work?)

"What's your number?"

I gave them my mobile number.

"And can I take down an outline of the problem?"

Well no, you can't actually, because you're a receptionist and I'm in an office full of people. As if I didn't feel uncomfortable enough already, wasting all this time on the phone.

So that was that and some time later a doctor called me back. It turns out that the way it works now is that you have to tell the doctor what's wrong over the phone (I had to leave the office, obviously, and ended up sitting in the ladies, whispering symptoms into my mobile). Then they diagnose you - remotely - and if a prescription is required (and in this case I knew it would be, which just makes it all the more frustrating) they print it out while you're on the phone, then you go in and pick it up.

You know what? This sucks.

Firstly, I've spent work time toing and froing on the phone trying to get through at "the special time", when I could have just booked an appointment the afternoon before, then gone into the surgery, said "I've got (illness X)" and got the prescription. Surely this is as much a waste of their time as it is a waste of mine?

Secondly, even if I didn't know what I'd got, and it turned out I didn't need a prescription, I'd rather speak to the doctor in private, face to face. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't like whispering in public toilets.

Thirdly, I could have said "while I'm here, can you have a look at my hand? I think I've got an RSI from pressing redial so many times". But I suppose that makes me exactly the sort of person they're trying to avoid.

Angler (mis)management

2007-04-06T11:34:00.000+01:00

Spring is finally here and so I'm out of hibernation, out taking pictures of springy things again.

I grew up on Swanshurst Lane so obviously I've spent a lot of time in Swanshurst Park over the years. It was never the most interesting of Birmingham's parks to a non-fisherman like myself, being made up of mostly water and playing field, but at the moment it's looking like I've never seen it before. They've drained the lake.

This picture shows the empty pool about a week after it was drained; unfortunately I missed getting a picture of the rusting Metro they found in the bottom. Nice.

So what's going on? Apparently the council is repairing a dam (sluice). Fair enough, but the big question round these parts has been: what did they do with all the fish?

According to local anglers, the idea had been to net them and sell them off, then to restock the pool with "small fry", which, as you might imagine, the anglers were not best pleased about anyway. But before this could happen, a Birmingham Mail article reports, the plug was pulled rather earlier than planned, leaving hundreds of carp and other fish (and eels) flapping around for their lives. A rescue mission had to be launched by anglers and other passing visitors, but it was too late for many of the fish - many of which have been around nearly as long as I have. A real shame.

Making Twits out of all of us

2007-03-20T13:41:00.000Z

I'm the sort of person who can't leave my desk for a minute without having to check every email account on my return, just in case I've missed something vital. When I go away I worry about how many Yahoo Group posts I'll have to read on my return, or how many hits my photos will have had on flickr. Sometimes I realise I've spent whole hours with three or four windows open on different messageboards, just hitting F5 like a chimp.

So as you might imagine, Twitter scares the life out of me.

If you don't know what I'm talking about - and if you've spent any time on the internet recently, I don't know how you've missed it - Twitter allows you to post little messages to the world, telling everyone what you're up to, right now. Yup, it's all there; "I'm watching TV", "installing Visual Studio", "in a science class", "wondering whether to shave my legs", "I'm checking out Twitter" ... well, you get the idea. It's not quite instant messaging, it's not quite mini-blogging; it's snippets of user-created content with no point at all. It's just more information that we don't need, floating about saying "read me". And like most people, I can't help but read it.

I haven't actually subscribed, though. I'm not, like, a Twitterholic or anything. To be honest, up until yesterday, I hadn't even been tempted. But yesterday, I saw Twitter in a whole new light. Someone's put Twitter onto Google Maps and created a monster. Purdy, ain't it? And if regular users start taking hold of their own identities, perhaps talking to each other on there (you can already see this happening a little, with some users directing their messages to other specific users, using the @ symbol) - it could become very addictive indeed.

One of my favourite blogs, Creating Passionate Users has summed Twitter up very nicely with a post entitled Is Twitter TOO Good? ... and, of course, one of their ever-brilliant graphs.

What your councillor does at the weekend

2007-03-14T21:54:00.000Z

Some councillors work tirelessly making YouTube videos about cottaging. (Martin, we salute you, and your use of "Latin phrases", although I couldn't spot any Latin in your film. Were you referring to the word "prophylactic"? Because I think that's Greek.)

Some councillors have much better things to do. Let me explain.

In an article for the Birmingham Post, Terry Grimley pretty much sums up my feelings about the Moseley Ent, calling it a "crude ... piece of kitsch junk". Go, Terry. He really piqued my interest, though, with this:

"To add a touch of farce to a story which is already grotesque, the secretary of the Moseley Society attempted, unsuccessfully, to have one member of the planning committee excluded on the grounds that his fondness for dressing up as Gandalf might imply he was not entirely impartial."

Eh? I was unable to imagine how this might have happened in a formal meeting, until I read the minutes:

Councillor E Hendricks indicated that he had spoken publicly about the application and he withdrew from the meeting.

Councillor P Smith indicated that she was the Vice Chairman of the Birmingham Tolkein Group and she withdrew from the meeting.

Councillor R Spector commented that she had seen a similar application a number of years ago and following advice from Mr Evans, Legal and Democratic Services Department, she remained in the meeting.

Following a comment made from the public gallery, Councillor P Douglas Osborn indicated that he had played a character from the Lord of the Rings at an event in Edgbaston. The Councillor stressed that he felt that that was a different matter and had no bearing on the application before the Committee. Mr Evans, Legal and Democratic Services Department, confirmed that it was in order for the Councillor to remain in the meeting.

Funny.
No, wait. Scary.

Spambic pentameter

2007-03-06T16:07:00.000Z

I opened my Yahoo Mail spam folder today, for the first time. The subject lines read as follows:

Go a potatoes
With be chunky
His populism by sadist
A successive a renal
Of redhead be cause
Condiment
Her my triton
His watchdog to cantilever
In magician no fenugreek
Be the countdown

Maybe I should submit it to the National Poetry Competition. I used to go out with a poet (yeah, a proper one, not some angsty teenager - this one was published and everything) and I'm sure this makes just as much sense as one of his pieces.

Some of my favourites are the ones which teach me new words.

"Have vicious my crowberry"
Ever heard of a crowberry? I hadn't. Whether they are vicious or not would depend on whether you ate too many, I suppose.

"He puddingstone in catchword"
Puddingstone is a type of rock which looks a bit like Christmas pudding. Who knew? It is quite a catchy word though, I'll give them that.

"That pooh go Rutgers"
Rutgers is a university in New Jersey. Well well well. Do poohs go there? We may never know.

That's Ent-ertainment

2007-02-28T22:08:00.000Z

By gum, I think they're really going to do it.

March 1st is the day that the application for a massive statue of an Ent goes before Birmingham City Council's Planning Committee - and to my horror, the Planning Officer has recommended that it be approved.

If you don't know what an Ent is - and I've found that most people I've spoken to don't - you're probably not a J R R Tolkien fan. The Ents are tree giants - here's the Wikipedia definition.

It's probably not very fashionable of me to say this, being from Moseley, but I'm really not a Tolkien fan either. I was a big reader when I was little, but I tried Lord of the Rings and found that it wasn't my thing. I've never had the inclination to try since. And the film - oh yes, very pretty, but - I dunno - so gay!

So why an Ent? And what's it got to do with Moseley?

Well, Tolkien's family lived in and around Moseley when he was small, and it is said that parts of Moseley Bog and the surrounding Sarehole area inspired Middle Earth.

In fact, Tolkien and I grew up in the same place (give or take 100 yards), albeit 80 years apart. He and I played in the same parts of Moseley Bog as children (he knew it as "The Dell", we called it "Blackhills") and whether you're into his fantasy world or not, it's easy to see how he was inspired to create it.

It's also easy to see why Moseley is proud of its connection to Tolkien. But I don't think a statue of an Ent - let alone this design - is the best way of commemorating this.

Leaving aside the fact that we're about to get a huge ugly metal statue of something only geeks have heard of, that looks like it's been designed by a child, on the village green, what about the fact that it's nowhere near any of the places that inspired the books? Why not put it in Moseley Bog, or by Edgbaston Reservoir? If you're trying to attract Tolkien tourists, why not put more money into marketing the beautiful bog and mill? Put on tours to visit the two towers?

Don't get me wrong - like many others I'm all for public art. But why weren't any alternatives offered?

The meeting starts at 11 o'clock and the Ent statue is one of 16 applications under consideration.

UPDATE (Midday, 1st March)
No, I haven't heard yet. But I just noticed that Eye on Moseley used the "That's Ent-ertainment" headline 18 months ago. Bugger.

UPDATE (10pm, 1st March)
Yep - as suspected, it has been approved.