An irreverent blog

How 'universal' is USB?

2017-02-11T16:17:00.001+00:00

So, a few days ago I posted about my new laptop. I also mentioned how connectivity was limited to one micro USB port and wondered why they went with micro USB rather than USB-C.

[What, two technology posts in a row? Wasn't this blog supposed to be random ramblings?]

Well, this has lead on to a number of issues with USB.

Now, I have (perhaps rightly) been critical of Apple in its upgrade cycle for changing ports. Apple obviously eschews anything universal. But it means that since the iPhone has existed there have been two different connectors - 30pin and Lightning. Now they have removed the 3.5mm socket (I may address this on another occasion). There is a joke in the tech community that Apple sell more adapters than they do phones. At one count there were 17 different adapters available to buy on the Apple shop - whether the 3.5mm headphone socket, Lightning, Thunderbolt 1, 2 or 3 or charger - there were many (there was an article on this by a tech news site but I can't find it as it is lost in a lot of other more recent tech news posts telling us of all the many new adapters which have been developed for various Apple products as they recently released a new iPad and iBook both of which need adapters).

However all of this suggests that USB is perfect. It isn't. Far from it.

So, there are the main ports - USB-A. This is the standard 'slot' style where you put the cable in, but it won't go in so you have to turn it over and try again.

Standard.

Only it isn't.

There is USB1.0, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0 and 3.1. Each of these are identically sized allowing for backward compatibility and 'universality' of cables (after all, the U of USB stands for Universal). Each of 1, 2, 2.1 and 3 allow for different data transfer rates - 1.5 Mb/s, 12, 480, 5Gb/s. USB 3 also allows for a higher power transfer- 5A instead of 2A or 0.9A or 0.5A.

But these all look identical - universal. Well, if you look in the middle of the USB socket there is a piece of plastic. This is the bit that gets in the way when you try to insert the plug the wrong way round. The idea was that this was supposed to be black for USB 1, white for USB 2, and blue for USB 3. But not all manufacturers have followed this, particularly on power sockets where because you are plugging into the mains and not transferring data they simply don't think you care.

Then you've got the other ports. They had pretty much settled on Mini and Micro. There had for a short while been a different style of micro - smaller still, more square shaped - but that seems to have died off; and some manufacturers decided they wanted proprietary ports (usually digital camera manufacturers). Cool

Only now they've decided they needed to shake things up again with USB-C. This is mostly to address data speeds and charging capacity, however it does resolve the age old issue of putting-it-in-the-wrong-way-around-and-having-to-turn-it-over.

Good.

Only, manufacturers are being really sluggish to adopt it. Still there are new devices being designed and released with micro-USB ports (mini seems to have died off as it was only slightly larger than micro). Indeed, that was one of my moans in the previous Yoga Book post.

What this means is that we have to have cables. A lot of cables. Or adapters. On my keyring for emergency charging I have a tiny USB-A-to-micro-USB cable and a micro-USB-to-USB-C adapter.

Ah yes, the cables. Anyone will tell you - not all cables are created equally. Some cables only transfer data, not power; some (strangely) do power but not data; some do both. Some will only charge at 2v, some at 5v (assuming that the port you are using supports 5v). Some support fast data transfer, some only slow (again, depending on which port you stick it in). But to look at a cable you can't tell what it supports.

Whilst USB-A ports have the coloured inserts, the cables have no such indicators. So this means I have cables all over the place, some of which will charge my devices, some won't. And if I take my phone (USB-C) and my Yoga Book (micro-USB) or wireless headphones (almost all of these are micro USB) and my battery powerpack (2v - enough just to keep my phone at the same charge, but not enough for my Yoga Book) I also have to carry an assortment of cables and adapters.

I know that the USB foundation is somewhat frustrated by the slow uptake of USB-C and eventually sees the day when everything will be USB-A 3.0 and USB-C, but until then we have to cope with these multiple form factors and capabilities.

Which doesn't seem very universal, really.

Technology Traumas

2017-01-28T21:31:00.001+00:00

So, my laptop failed.

This wasn't terrible. Everything was backed up. But there's a hassle, isn't there?

Once you buy the laptop there's the setup. Connecting to the wifi, connecting to the mobile hotspot, connecting to the network, connecting to the Bluetooth headphones. Sharing the folders, copying documents, music, photo, videos. Downloading all the programs, apps, updates, etc. Customising and personalizing. Inputting and storing auto-inputs, usernames, passwords, accepting cookies on every single flipping website that you had already accepted cookies in your last laptop.

But...

This is once you've bought the new one.

Which was a problem.

Once upon a time I had a netbook. It was the prettiest little netbook I ever had. It was 10 inches of pure pleasure. I had it for a couple of years, and then when the warranty was done I took out the old hard drive and stuck in a 2TB little hard drive which was brilliant for the next few years. It was brilliant.

But, these things outdate. Whilst I could upgrade the hard drive I couldn't upgrade the RAM, the processor, the wireless network chip, the monitor, the failing battery. Stuff.

So, at that stage I looked around. But, having gotten used to a big hard drive, I needed a big hard drive. The problem was that I didn't want to immediately invalidate the warranty by opening it up and replacing the hard drive.

So, I looked for the biggest drive I could get in the smallest machine. The best I could get was 1TB in a 13" laptop.

Which I never really liked.

It was too big. I know there are 15"ers out there almost as standard. My father has a 17" laptop which my mother complains is too big to take anywhere - it struggles to go in their suitcase let alone a carryon bag.

It did what I needed it to, but when I was stood in the vestibule of the train carriage watching video (regularly) it was big.

Anyway, it performed its function, but it burned out. The hard drive failed.

So, I started looking around.

Ideally what I wanted was:
10" device - nice and small, able to slot easily into a small bag.
Lots of storage - ideally around 2tb
SSD - let's face it, mechanical hard drives are dated and they are the reason my last laptop died. Solid state is the future and is around already.

So, it surely must be possible to get this - a nice, small 10" device with a 2TB SSD? Because let's face it, I was able to put a 2TB HDD in a 10" device and SSDs have the same 2.5"form factor?

No.

10"ers they have competing with tablets. I don't want a tablet. I like laptops for a number of reasons. I like that the keyboard is separate, that it doesn't take up any screen estate, that I can write a lot easier.

Also my problem with tablets (and some 'convertibles') is that they don't stand on laps or train seats without stands. And those stands are not comfortable on a lap.

But if you go small, they go slim. Slim is nice but it means there is no space for a 2TB SSD. If you want a big SSD, you have to go 13". And I already knew 13" was too big. So, I would have to go little on my storage if I wanted to go little on my inches. I could find a few at 11.5" with 128gb of storage, but they were unsuitable for reasons - some were actually quite big, but most of them were HDDs, and I didn't want a HHD because of how they fail in laptops.

So I went with 10", but 64GB of storage which you could boost to 192GB by inserting a micro SD card. Why not do that boost or offer that option anyway? Is it really that difficult to include that much flash storage?

So, I settled on a Lenovo Yoga Book, which satisfies me on a number of grounds:
1) very small. Best size factor I could get
2) decent storage. On the basis that I knew this was always going to be my compromise, I don't think I've done too bad. I just have to adapt to a new way of working that doesn't involve me having every photo and music available whenever. I'll have to curate my collections.
3) novelty - the 'key-less keyboard' I find brilliant and novel and I love it, although it will take some getting used to.

However, there is an issue with it.

Connectivity.

It has a single data access port - a micro USB port. This is the charger, but also allows you connect things to the computer.

Now, there is the microSD card slot, but that means that it I want to download from my dSLR camera, I either have to remove the internal storage via the fiddly pin-pop tray, or else connect to the micro USB port and therefore stop charging.

I presume they are expecting anything I want to transfer off my mobile I will do over WiFi or Bluetooth.

Also - why micro USB? This is a laptop released late 2026, why not USB-C, which is faster and becoming more compatible with mobile phones.

But, for now at least, I love it.

Brand New Year - Brand New Me?

2017-01-03T01:00:00.002+00:00

So, it's that time of year again - an arbitrary change of date, the train station flicker board clicks over in the same way as it does all the time, the clock carries on its circle from 23:59:59 on 31/12/2016 to 00:00:00 on 01/01/2017.

It's just another new day really - for most it isn't even that, for most we don't even sleep through the transition to wake anew. We cheer, down a drink and then, much later, wake bleary-eyed on a day which is - thankfully - a bank holiday. A day when otherwise - because of winter conditions and lack of daylight - we would not be desperately wanting a day off.

I don't do resolutions. I know I've covered this previously. And whilst I had some success, I attribute very little to a new day, a new year.

But years are the closest way that we really have of 'chunking' life experiences. Remembering them to certain periods of our lives. I'm lucky (not really) in that I have a December birthday, so anything I could ascribe to an age, also aligns wih a calendar year. (honestly, nearly-Christmas birthdays are horrible.)

So, 2015 was my annus horribilis. Truly it was awful. Within days of completing the heavy renovation of my house, I was given notice of my redundancy at work. There is nothing more terrifying than being told that you will not be employed after 10th December - just a week before your birthday and a few more days before the Christmas shut down.

Whilst I was working out my redundancy notice period I then found out that my friend had taken himself. At this stage, actually nothing more could have gone wrong in my mind - I was losing my job, my income, my friends. Just before my birthday and Christmas.

OH YES - I nearly forgot - surgery. I injured my shoulder a year before in a football clash. I ran into someone called 'fatlad'. Normally, when I tackle people, I come off the better. This time I hadn't. After a year of (very attractive) physio with the lovely Dan, he identified that there was something more substantial wrong. So, I was scheduled in for an operation on 20th November 2015. Brill.

Anyway, what with one thing and another, this leant itself to me achieving my long-held ambition to move to London. I'd just completed my house renovation, so it was now (finally) set to sell, I had no job keeping me in the midlands - it was [the] PERFECT [storm].

But I've told you this already.

Everyone has bemoaned how 2016 has been a terrible year. Celebrity deaths, Brexit, Trump and the rest.

Anyway, 2016 was the year when I did London. I settled, explored, sorted. You may recall I went with #DoOneThing? This was where I was determined not to fall into "the London trap" of living in London and yet not doing anything. The number of times that I speak to my friends and they haven't done things because they haven't made time. So I made time.

So, I did #DoOneThing. The rules about #DoOneThing were not great - I had to Do One Thing a week that got me out of the house. Just one thing a week. Something a bit different. It wasn't just meeting mates, it wasn't a night down the pub or in a club. It was doing something different - a bit cultural or something else. So, for example, my Sunday wanders around Cockfosters, Greenwich, Hampstead, Peckham etc. didn't count.

I have counted up. I did 182 things.

182.

110 of these were theatre, 15 comedy, 23 music, 4 art related and 30 in the 'other' category (which included festivals, certain installations that didn't classify as art, cinema and tv/radio show recordings).

To be clear, this is almost one every other day (2016 was a leap year so technically half is 183).

I did do two things on some days - often the comedy gigs involved two (or on occasions three) in an evening. That said, I do notice from my calendar some omissions - certain gigs or events which, perhaps because I booked them on the same day as I attended - haven't been registered on my calendar. So it is probably more than 182, but I am happy with that number.

So, for me 2016 was the new start. It was a good year. It was the year I made the most of London. It was the turnaround. New job, new flat, new start.

A good year.

And 2017?

Well, I don't make resolutions. I have a few aims, but nothing set in stone. I'd like to get a better job (mine is currently a bit more temporary); ideally I would like to get a flat that I own; I'd like to aim to get a bit healthier - I haven't done much exercise or really concentrated on my diet over the last year whilst I've been doing #DoOneThing. But I'm not busting myself on any of these - if I don't achieve them I won't be disappointed. I just need to stablise a little.

Out of the Window(s)

2016-08-26T00:30:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday (30th August 2016) the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is released to those who pre-ordered.

That was me.

I set my alarm to wake me up at 6am so I could pre-order. After significant issues (more on this later) I have eventually pre-ordered in the signature Coral Blue.

And so ends the experiment - the Windows Experiment.

So, you may remember that I tried to rely on a stand-alone wristwatch phone. Whilst this had a number of other failings, one of the critical failings was the camera - having to cope with a 1.3mp camera with a VERY glitchy app and a logistically difficult positioning/focusing "functionality" - was a really bad experience.

Now, I'm a photographer. Let me clarify this for the Millennials - I know a lot about photography and love (LOVE) taking photographs. I do not do this on Instagram. I do not do this on Snapchat. I do not use filters. I do not take selfies. To me, photographs are not disposable or temporary. If they are to you, cool, fine - you've found your thing, enjoy it. I'm not a snob about this, and if Insta and Snap are getting you to understand things like lighting, positioning, framing and the like; if they are encouraging you to take photos of things you perhaps might not take a photo of purely because you can share it with a vignette filter, I am happy - perhaps delighted. You are looking at the world because you either enjoy that beauty or you want people to see/acknowledge/appreciate/like/share what you have achieved.

And yes, I love "true" photography, but I'm not a professional photographer though. Unfortunately I am stuck behind a desk reviewing and redrafting very boring, complicated documents most days. But I do have professional and semi-professional kit, including a Pentax K30 and a Nikon D810. So I love photography. Maybe I picked the wrong calling in life.

But, if I can't have my big cameras with me - if they are too bulky or I see stuff on a random wander - then I need a good camera. This is where the wristwatchphone failed. So, when I went out to buy the replacement I specifically sought out the best camera phone, but also with the largest format screen: I am fortunate in having big hands and I travel a lot, so having a big screen allows me to watch stuff conveniently. This was particularly a concern at the time - I was about to travel to Japan. I needed a damned good secondary camera, I needed to watch video, and I needed a GPS signal (which had failed on my wristwatchphone).

Enter the (then) Nokia Lumia 1520. After a year and a slight incident on a New Year night and - being locked into the Windows system without any easy means of transfer - I bought a Microsoft Lumia 950XL. Basically, both the absolute top of the range in large format, best camera phones that you could get at the time.

But, I'm going back to Android?

Yes. And, seriously, it can't happen soon enough. And I do mean this from the perspective of someone who tried to embrace Windows Phone as an OS.

So, are there any real design problems?

Well, yes.

I actually really liked the 1520 except for how the camera stuck out the back. Yes, they were plastic, they didn't have the 'premium' feel of these new metal or glass phones; but they were gripable. One of the issues with the 1520 which was resolved by the time of the 950XL was the angularity of the corners. If used for any amount of time, the 1520 would leave noticeable, sharp corner imprints in your palm which - after a while - became uncomfortable or even painful. The 950XL eradicated these but - very stupidly - put the power button between the up-down rocker of the volume. It's such a really stupid place to put it, one can only think they did so only "to be different" to Android and Apple. Don't.

With the 950XL you can pop-off and change the cover. Remember when that was a thing with original Nokias? Obviously you can't buy a cheap cover from the modding-shop on the corner because the cover contains the aerial and the NFC loop. And - as you soon find with a low-take-up-phone - no-one's going to bother making them.

Anyhow... to get to the point, the Windows Phone experience.

This is bad.

Really, really bad.

Like, really REALLY fucking bad.

Now, some of this is down to Microsoft being late to market; to being reluctant to licence like Alphabet's Android; to buying Nokia and essentially excluding other hardware manufacturer's from the OS (yes, Google bought Motorola but was careful to keep it at arm's length and golly wasn't that such a good purchase for them).

But we smiled, Windows Phone users. We regarded ourselves as "The One Percent". We were to be the early adopters - this would ultimately challenge Android. Wouldn't it - because, let's face it, desktop is still MASSIVE and this partnering would be so valuable?

Hmmm

The UWP

For those of us who bought phones and upgraded laptops to Windows 8 before Windows 10 existed; the Windows 10 UWP was supposed to be the saviour.

UWP stands for Universal Windows Platform. You could design a program - an App as they are now - using UWP and it would work on a Windows 10 desktop computer; it would work on a Windows laptop, on a Windows tablet and a Windows mobile. Simple. One app for all - irregardless of form or factor.

Only no.

UWP has massive restrictions, hold-backs and problems for desktops. After all, UWP is designed to be usable on a 5" touchscreen device. There are huge differences between that and a computer with a standalone 15" screen and two independent inputs. UWP was SO simple, it couldn't be used by Enterprise. So Enterprise carried on creating stuff using the Windows 10 desktop API with minor fudges if people needed to use a Surface (still the only major "tablet" to take up the Windows interface, although a LOT of laptops/transformables use it). Indeed, Windows allowed this - they allowed Windows10 and WindowsUWP APIs to exist side-by-side. The fact remains - you cannot simply design one app for a device that has so much functionality as a desktop or laptop and expect it to be useable or adopted on devices with a tiny screen with no independent keyboard or mouse.

The Bridges

The Bridges were supposed to be the other saviour.

As I said, Microsoft was hugely late to the smartphone market. Apple and Android had a huge command; even Blackberry was still giving off some very vigorous of its last dying throws... Microsoft wasn't there.

Also bear in mind that, until apps get huge, they are tiny. They are often created by one-two-maybe-three-man-band units. Apps were something the WebDev teams could "pick up" - very, very often they were not business-critical. Still, to this day, there are a hell of a lot of "apps" which are basic shell-interfaces to the company's standard website. But when you have such a small team of developers or - more often than not - you are outsourcing to an AppDev team, you need to prioritize.

This iss business - it's cash. If it costs you A to develop an app, it costs you 2xA to develop two apps for competing systems; and 3xA for three OSs.

Microsoft was third - sometimes even fourth - behind Android, iOS, and sometimes BB9/10.

Hence the really, really tiny commissioning of apps. BBC didn't commission WP apps for News or for Weather; nor did the Met Office; nor Grindr; nor Tinder; nor the Guardian nor SO MANY sites/applications.

What was supposed to happen was two bridges. These would allow companies to use their already-created iOS or Android app, and easily port them into WindowsPhoneOS.

18 months later, we are still waiting on our bridges, we are still waiting on any significant apps. We remain the 1%, with 1% of the apps, 1% of the content.

The Actual OS

Ok, so lets actually focus on the actual OS for a moment.

Wifi

The Wifi system is fucking appalling. It regularly connects to my home WiFi, but can't connect to the internet. It shows as "connected to WiFi, No Signal". This is despite every other device being able to do so. What you have to do is manually turn off the WPOS WiFi and then turn it back on again. Every. Fucking. Day.

Bluetooth

The bluetooth system is fucking appalling. It regularly drops for no apparent reason. I often go out with wireless headphones on and the phone in my trousers and it struggles - very often dropping entirely, leading to my headphones telling me they are "not connected" and then blasting the locale with whatever I have been listening to through the phone speaker. It seems to do this particularly just after it has connected to a random open WiFi hotspot - it seems the OS cannot handle the two different connections at any one time.

Oh, another issue - transferring files. Despite both my laptop and my phone running Windows 10, the phone failed on every occasion to connect to transfer. This is the laptop which used to happily connect, way back when, to my old Android phone (and even the wristwatchphone). It is able to see it, but unable to transfer anything to it, meaning you end up relying on cables for data transfer for a phone that has wireless charging.

Apps

Other than the above, I am going to try to concentrate on only those apps which you have/can only use because Windows.

Edge
Throughout I will refer to WindowsPhoneEdge as "Edge" - it should be distinguished from desktop Edge.

Edge is the most fucking awful of browsers. This isn't a little bit terrible, this is full-on-fucking-terrible.

Maybe it is [ahem] ahead of it's time... but a LOT of stuff doesn't load. Or doesn't load well. There are still huge formatting issues which lead to a lot of content - pictures, videos, basically anything embedded - loading with a [x]. Or not loading at all. HUGE bugbares with Edge include the 'loading' bar scooting along to 95% loaded, only to sit there forever and ... eventually ... display the "this page can't be displayed" page. Get used to that page - you see it almost 50% of the time you try to load a page, even when you are on strong internet signal. Other bugbares include the loading bar scooting all the way along and disappearing, presenting you with an entirely white page which purports to have loaded your page ... only after a five minute wait to give you a "this page can't be displayed" page. Yeah, we hate Java, but a lot - A LOT - of non-Java sites were inaccesible.

Oh, and don't click the 'reload' button - it (apparently) does nothing. I've done it and the lying-loading-bar doesn't move at all. VERY regularly you can be hitting it and it does nothing.

Oh, and the worst - it loads a page and you start reading it ... only for it then to disappear and be replaced with a "this page can't be displayed" message because some third-party ad didn't load in.

Since the most recent update, it often doesn't take me to the link I have clicked on, just the most recently visited. And using the Back button doesn't take you back to your previous app, just back through the randomly selected number of pages until Edge decides to send you back to the homescreen.

When I tried to buy my Samsung Note (see above) it obviously used a plug-in which was incompatible with WindowsPhoneOS - payment worked when I was using Edge (still the worst rebranding in history) on my laptop; but simply showed failure-to-load boxes in WPEdge.

Groove

You have to use Groove because - as pointed out above - there are no competitiors. Groove is fucking terrible.

I have loaded up my SD card with around 2000 songs; and I have set Groove to Random. Groove plays around 50 of these. I can go in and select some of the other songs and Groove will happily play them; but not in its Random sequence (hence why I capitalise Random). Also, Groove does random stuff (aside from not actually playing music randomly). Once, I found Groove had 'slipped' into only Randomly playing certain songs that began with the letter T. I wish this had only happened once.

One of the "best" functions of Groove is when you connect your wireless headphones, press play, and it doesn't play ... for whatever reason. You have to drag your phone out of your pocket, open the apparently-already-open-and-functionining Groove app, and press Play. Because that is what wireless headphones are about (and yes, I have tried on other devices with those wireless headphones, all which worked - to be fair to Groove, whilst being Microsoft-owned, they are not contributors to WPOS).

Oh, and I permanently have Adele staring at me, no matter what song is playing. The image selection thing is terrifying.

Email

The email app is fucking appalling. Firstly, it can't distinguish between my Outlook and my GMail accounts, so clicking on a notification could send me to either. That's if I get a notification - I don't, since the most recent OS update (and worse - I don't get a notification when I get a WhatsApp message).

Sometimes it will decide that stuff that has been filed to a Spam folder is actually real mail, sometimes not.

Always - even when you are on a stable, secure WiFi network - it will ask you if you want to download the rest of the message. Why is that not automatic? Oh, and when you click the link, any one of three things could happen:
1) it might appear to refresh but actually do sweet fuck all and simply show you the same link again;
2) it might appear to refresh but actually do sweet fuck all and jump back to the top of the screen making you scroll down again to select the link;
3) around 1% of the time, it might actually download. But don't click a fucking link in the email, because they won't work. And pictures won't download.

Oh, and you can't look at anything older than 7 days. Regardless that you filed it or any such stuff. It'll show you the folders, but nothing in the folders if it is older than 7 days. You'll have to log in to your web account (using that beautifully lovely WP Edge) to try to find anything older that a week.

Also, if you have multiple addresses registerered to your account, don't bother. Despite using the Outlook app with Outlook addresses, it automatically set my reply address as my main Outlook Account address, despite the fact that I use one of my other addresses much more siginicantly. And you can't change this - this is fixed.

Calendar

Don't.

Look.

Back.

Honestly, if you're trying to find out what you were doing a month ago, it's probably gone.

The calendar app also has this lovely, honestly wonderful, feature where sometimes it will let you click on a day; and other times it will randomly shuffle you forward to the next upcoming event to that date. So, when you touch a date to add an event, you'll sometimes find yourself in October because Microsoft thinks you need to be busier in October where as you were actually trying to add an appointment for August.

It can be really difficult to see events.

And certain basic defaults are not available - you can't automatically set events as Private for example - I found this out after a phonecall with my mother where she knew all of my plans for the week. This is - at best - annoying; at worst - fucking disgracful. The "Remind me" options are fucking awful and uncustomisable.

Camera

Ok,so I flagged up at the start how imperative the camera is - why I bought the phone. The camera app is terrible. So terrible that it has been my primary reason for moving on.

The camera - when it takes the photo that I want it to take - is good.: colours, lighting and stuff. Sometimes.

However the software behind it is fucking appalling.

On so, so, so many occasions it taken well over 3 seconds to focus on something and take the photo, that the photo has been unuseable. It takes it well over a second (and normally a shake) to tell it that you are taking a portrait photo rather than landscape. Every time the OS updates this gets worse. The focus really is that fucking terrible that I don't try to take "live" photos any more, only posed/landscape.

It really is the fucking worst.

OS Updates

The WPOS updates suggest to me that actually Microsoft really aren't committed to WindowsPhone as an OS.

What happens is this:
Major Update
Fix
Further fix
Fix to fix those further niggles
Major Update
Immediate fix
Further fix

Now, we know that nothing is perfect; we know that fixes and updates are needed - it's how life happens.

But, what Microsoft's policy suggests (which isn't confirmed by any means) is that they don't seem to be committed to Windows Phone. They certainly don't seem to Alpha or Beta test the Windows Phone 10 OS any where near as catagorically as they do the Windows 10 update releases. For example, this week, they seemed to be quite happy updating my phone with an OS that wouldn't take photos or connect to an WiFi signal for a good two days before they updated and 'fixed' that element.

I disclose - I bought a Samsung Note 1 way back in the day. I previously owned a Dell Streak (get that!) and I do massively dislike the amount of bloatware that Samsungs come with. But I've gone with it on this occasion because of the camera and form-factor.

A year like no other (so far at least)

2016-07-17T01:30:00.001+01:00

WTF?

W

THE

ACTUAL

F?

Ok, so I'm going to start by explaining - you haven't heard from my for a little while. It isn't that I haven't had stuff to say - I REALLY do. I've said previously how busy my life is now I'm in London.

And I have SO many more blog posts to post. Remember how I used to be SO busy in an evening getting my house done up? Well, I had some "fat" days at old work - days which were not so busy, where I was able to do my own stuff and, for whatever reason, write at least the scratches of a dozen blogs. But I haven't yet gotten to post them. They sit there, some well over a year old.

But I haven't had the opportunity to post.

Which makes now a little more DESPERATELY NOW.

So, 2016.

Looking back, 2015 seemed to be quite sedate. I mean, there was a HUGE FLIPPING GENERAL ELECTION where every news source (including the BBC that I unashamedly love) concentrated on another coalition rather than what a winning party could do.

But otherwise, for a domestic UK resident, probably the only other significant event of 2015 was the Parisien killings in and around the Bataclan on 13th November; oh, and perhaps the HUGE GREAT BIG FIFA scandal but you know seriously that England and probably the rest of the UK (except since 13July2016 for the Welsh) will only use this to justify our football failings.

But otherwise we had, kinda a "fat" year over here ("fat" days are days where you don't do much. You might spend the day in bed; Fat days at work are days where you don't have to do too much, just coast through. Fat days are days when nothing happens, there's nothing to report), in the West, in the UK in 2015 (cos, you know, so many people die in other incidents like the earthquakes or other terrorist killings OUTSIDE of English speaking nations it's hardly worth reporting).

And so we get to 2016.

If we took a pill in Ibiza, (weirdly found "the original") we want a refund. Seriously, everything has felt like we're smashed off our tits

So.

Firstly, we seem to be having a bad time with people dying. A really REALLY bad time. Since the BBC published "Why So Many Celebrities Have Died in 2016" we've had more die

We had a month. (I won't post links because they are either well accepted fact, or so frequently changing as to be unreliable).

All major politicians were in favour of Remain (remaining in the EU)...

But Remain didn't win.

The Prime Minister stepped down. I'll be honest, I expected this. He had pinned himself so deeply to Remain he simply could do nothing but resign. And he had fully admitted back in March 2015, that he did not want a third term. This was his perfect 'Out', albeit a few months before that which would have been normal.

Lets mull: he wasn't going to be Leader for 2020 polls (Fixed Term), so presumable the new Conservative leader would have to be in place by 2019... well, 2018 to ensure a good transition. Well, any time between him admitting he didn't want a third term and 2018.

His expected next in line - George Osbourne - had made such a poison of his "Emergency Budget" that he said would be needed post-Brexit (horrible word) , he simply could not stand.

The leaders of the Leavers - Boris and Grove, managed to knive each other and then themselves in the back, front and face.

Theresa May was appointed by default (fast forward to 0:44).

And the ... opposition ... I presume we have to call it that ... has gone into meltdown. The Parliamentary Labour Party doesn't want Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. The members of the Labour Party apparently do. There was a vote of no confidence, there are challengers, but it all got muffled because of what happened in the Conservatives and Government and a MAHOOSIVE reshuffle which basically cut out all of the dead wood and - tripping off our tits again - installed Boris Johnson as the most racist Foreign Secretary to date.

As I write, Europe has gone crazy. There has been another ISIS-related terrorist attack in Paris, killing 84 and leaving a further 50 in a critical condition. Turkey has descended in to an attempted military coup.

Still, at least there hasn't been an aircraft go missing or get shot down this year, because that was a very 2014 thing to do.

A Silght Fantasy Land

2016-05-04T00:49:00.001+01:00

So, I've lived in London for almost five months now.

One of the craziest things is the differences between when I lived in the middle land and here is that "going home" and "doing things" is so much easier.

So, for example, this bank holiday weekend. I know previously I've had "ok" bank holiday weekends. Some weekends I've even gotten drunk and woken up in San Francisco (seriously, I've never written about that?!)

Yeah, I could wander up to Piccadilly Circus after work, pop to a few bars and still be home before 8. These bars that had previously been "destination" bars, suddenly became locals. Well, regulars. And I like that.

But it still seems weirdly Hollywood - you know, in as much as people from the midlands still see a visit to these places as "destinations". And I hate to say "people from the midlands", but that is what this blog is about:

This very weird world in which I live.

Back in the Midlands, if I had nothing planned for a bank holiday, this was a disgrace. It was also rare. There were normally people that wanted to go out on the Friday night - celebrating the start of the bank holiday - and the footballers would want to go out following Sunday training.

But this was "going out". This was planned weeks in advance. Spontaneous nights happened rarely. This wasn't just "dropping into a pub" like I do now. Occasionally on a Friday someone would text "anyone fancy a night out tonight?" which would prompt "I can be out for 8:30ish"; "my tram won't get me to town until 9", "Can we make it 9:30 - I've only just got in and the cat's been sick and I have to order pizza", "bus is running late, I'll meet you guys at 10".

The pubs now are ten minutes down the road. My friends work in the city. If we want, I can text at 5:30 and meet someone before 6pm. I sometimes just drop in on my way home. My way home in my previous job was almost 2 hours from home. A walk, an hour train ride, a walk. And this wasn't just me. Transport links were such that if we were going out for drinks, people could be waiting half an hour for a twenty minute bus ride in (yes, we had taxis, but they were expensive). That's almost an hour - and that's pretty much at the least.

A couple of weeks ago down here I got home at around 10pm after a few drinks in town to a message from someone who was in a bar just down the road ... so I went straight back out, met him within 10 minutes and stayed out until 2am.

When I bought the house that I lived in for almost ten years, one of the critical selling points about it was that it would take me 15 minutes to walk to town. But that was me - other people lived further out; and that was also on this caveat that I didn't get back from work until 6:30pm; and that I was going out in town rather than some of the more tricky-to-get-to-suburbs. If I wanted to go out with people during the week, this required planning and - because of the amount of time it would ultimately take them to get home - was actually pretty unworkable spontaneously.

Now, this isn't an absolute now that I live in London. Yes, there is a lot going on, but some of these things can be a bit of a distance away. One of my friends in Camden invited me our for a rugby game a few weeks ago. Clapham to Camden is 30 minutes on the tube, not to mention the ten minutes walk at his end. But at least the tube runs until midnight even on normal, weekday nights. Buses back up in the midlands used to stop before 11pm and were at that time on between a 15 minute and an hourly cycle.

And, you know, people live far further east and west. Last weekend we did a pubcrawl starting out in Richmond. The starters were somewhat scant - we started with 7, and a lot of that was down to its westerly starting point. One of those starters came from Stratford and it took him just over an hour and a half (albeit via a bacon sandwich seller). Most of those who joined later had actually being doing other things during the day, but there were a couple who were only going to meet us once we "got more central".

I remember dating someone who lived in Tooting. For him, "heading into town" - that being Soho - was quite a big thing. They had a couple of local bars in Tooting to pop to, a bigger night out would involve Clapham; and that would be because a night bus back from Clapham could take half an hour. A night bus from "town" could be almost two. Believe me, I know - Sunday I walked for a good 10 minutes to wait 15 for a night bus which took not far shy of half an hour. So an hour in total from Tottenham Court Road to Clapham. That said, back up North on a Sunday (even a bank holiday Sunday) there would have been nothing other than taxis. And a huge queue for those with policies such as "we don't do journeys of less than 5 miles" (Uber only arrived as I left).

But, where the real fantasticness and - more to the original point of the blog, rather than just commenting on connectivity - fantasyiedness comes in occurred on Monday.

At around 5pm (bank holiday) Monday night my friend Brian rang. He wanted to watch a movie. I was in Soho photographing stuff. I said I'd be there at 7:30. Within two and a half hours I had had another drink, gotten the tube home, cooked pie and mash (I actually did, this isn't just a cliche) and gotten to Brian's - no tube, just a 30 minute walk (I stopped off to buy a sugar-free lemonade). At 11, after the film had finished and we had our post-movie chat, I poddled back home.

All sorts of awesome.

But what makes this particularly weird from my perspective is that whilst I lived up North, I stayed with Bri down South. When I turned up on a Friday I "moved in" for the weekend. I turned up with a rucksack, I stayed the nights, and then I went off to the train station.

Brian was my base - my second home.

This Monday there was no "moving in". I turned up in my own time, watched and left. I went home. Home. Not to a train station but to this weird, fantastical London home. I left with nothing - nothing at all, rather than hulking a rucksack around with me. This is the dynamic change not just to the relationship I have with my friend, but to the whole relationship I have with London. Despite the fact that I used to visit 3/4/5/6 times a year, that's what I was - a visitor.

Now?

I am a Londoner.

A Brief Life Update

2016-03-27T00:29:00.000+00:00

Ok, so where was I?

No job, no home ... and awaiting an operation to disable one of my arms.

Yeah. All was looking good.

No - it actually was looking good.

No job lead to the no-home situation. This was the best thing ever.

No, seriously.

You see, I should have been in London ten years ago. I think I've explained this before. And the only reasons I wasn't was because of the house and the job.

I just got the house into a sellable (though not perfect) condition.

And at exactly the same point I got made redundant.

But, I got my new job - heart of Mayfair. Does it get better? Working a proper 9-5:30, few late nights, good salary, Mayfair. It's all a bit too fucking awesome.

So, I'm renting down in Clapham. This is the best thing ever. It's so convenient for everything. For town, for work, for the outer zones, for nights.

The house sale hasn't been as quick or successful as hoped. The first sale fell through, half because of the buyer's situation, half because the agents suggested that I would take responsibility for some of the works required by the buyer's lender.

Second sale - for more, although no thanks to the agents (who wanted me to take less) seems to be progressing ok. So far.

But London is the best move I made - albeit like I said 10 years too late.

I set myself a challenge: #DoOneThing . #DoOneThing involves doing one thing a week that is a little off beat. Something outside of the 9-5 (or 9-5:30 as seems to have become the norm).

How often have you spoken to people from even your own home town, said that you'd done something and heard "I must get around to that"? Too often with me. And with my London friends - it seemed as though I'd done more living outside of the city than they had.

And so in the last four months that I've been down here, I've been to more gigs, theatre, comedy, art, film and sports stuff than I perhaps ever have. I've certainly broken the rule and done more than one thing a week.

I broke my rule. Many times. Take next week - depite it being a bank holiday, I'm going to the recording of a tv show, a theatre performance and a comedy gig. That's more than one thing.

Isn't it all fantastic?

Everything Changes But You (only you do)

2015-11-22T23:21:00.001+00:00

So, as you are aware, my life is changing significantly.

My house is up for sale.

Was.

You will possibly remember that getting the house up for sale was part of the "London By Thirty Five" scheme. Well, things accelerated. I got made redundant. Again.

And again, me being me, I got myself something sorted quickly.

In London.

It made sense - the house was up for sale; I had plans to move to London, why not get the London job and then move.

I started work for my new London business last Monday. I agreed the sale of my house yesterday and I get the keys to my new flat in Clapham early December. It's all slotting into place, albeit at a phenomenally hyperspeed pace - though not an impossible one. Just a lot quicker than I expected - that said, to fully meet the timescale of being in London by 35. I feel, had I not been pushed, it may have been early in the new year that I ended up moving. As I say, I've had to put a move on, but in an achieveably tight timescale.

And it hasn't been helped by having shoulder surgery on Friday which meant that I had to be much more organised than otherwise as I now have very limited capability with my left arm in a sling.

But anyhow, I've eulogised my own time here more than enough. Now is to discuss the changes.

I'm not going to talk about the interior of the house - that has been done. I'm talking much more generally over the nine years I've lived here.

Obviously the gardens and outside have changed. No more is there a wooden porch out the front; nor the "sunroom" on the North aspect of the house. The top patio has been replaced with a veg patch; there are a couple of new fruit trees, new fruit bushes but otherwise the back hasn't changed significantly. Around the front the old rotten cherry tree has been replaced with a couple of new ones, the border of the path lined with lavendar bushes, and new fuschias around the drainage covers. I've moved the path closer to the the hedge to remove a border and grassed the remaining patch, and generally made it nice.

I started at my place with a Vauxhall Corsa, that got broken into a written off, leading to five or six years without a car, resorting to a Honda Jazz when I started my last job. That got sold today. Where the cars park there were three really big trees, there is now only one. They replaced the street lamps and, in the last week, resurfaced the only bit of road they've ever resurfaced whilst I've lived here.

I found the little snick-through of the steps which transformed my journey to the station. Otherwise I went past the Hindu Temple. That grows annually. They knocked down the little out-house that was the caretakers house when it was a school.

Of the three pubs on that corner, two have gone. Indeed, that is a story long told - many of the pubs have gone. However, one of the wasteland/grass areas has been redeveloped into a new housing estate. The high-rise flats at Burrows Court which have had planning permission after planning permission haven't been developed. The old spaceship Co-Op that was supposed to become an Asda hasn't.

Nottingham Contempory is in existence now - that wasn't. I remember going to the opening night for that. And further down the road, they have "started" on work on the Broadmarsh centre. Well, if you can call "starting" vacating the units to leave the centre half-empty to force the council into accepting virtually any plans for development. They've started "developing" the Victoria centre too. When I say "developing", it's basically a new lick of paint, a few new light bulbs and a slight redesign of one area into a food court. Nothing anywhere as significant as the "House of Fraser" expansion of the ninties.

The train station has been given a good clean to allow for the expanded tram network - not quite as integrated as you'd like, but good enough. And it has seven platforms now not six. And the developers FINALLY built what is now known as Nottingham One - even though half the retail units are empty.

The arena isn't within the 10 year timescale - I remember going to the arena for the first time on my 21st birthday to see Steps with my mum and sister. Good times. However, the new Victoria leisure centre with pool opposite has been done within my time here. I remember first moving in and still using the old pool (actually quite nice architechturally). And whilst I think the tram arrived whilst I was up in Newcastle at university, lines two and three (involving the new bridge over the station) have only opened in the last few months.

I won't really comment on the roads because the council seems to change the road system as often as possible to confuse drivers, other than to comment that the A46 was single carriageway when I first worked out that way - it's dualled now; and ditto the A453 expansion alongside the tram - I never use that route though.

I've gone from frequenting almost exclusively gay bars to now mostly straight bars. I love the Jam Cafe - somewhere that I found around three or four years ago - and the Malt Cross, somewhere that I got taken on a date around six years ago. That shut for a refurb and re-opened a year ago. I haven't been to Cookie Club in many years, and the last time I went to NG1 was a good 18 months ago when James and I went on our last night out in Nottingham together. Obviously I've already discussed the change and decline of the gay bars - the latest is that the Lord Roberts, one of the few mainstays over the last couple of decades and certainly for my residence, has been bought out although as yet there doesn't seem a desperation from the new owners to change the clientelle.

There have been many little changes of ownerships. That shop on the corner opposite the Vic Centre was a Disney shop, was something else, is currently a Nationwide Building Society. We have a Five Guys on the market square where there was a Pizza Express. The Tesco Express and Sainsburys' Locals have expanded - one Tesco taking some of the space of the now defunct Tales of Robin Hood that I took some people to in the first year I lived in my house. My fish and chip shop has changed hands three times; the Chinese not at all. There is a new development going up opposite all the garages where the old car-wash station used to be.

Anyhow, I'm sure there are many changes I've forgotten or not noticed; and there will be many more to come in my absence. Nowhere stays still

The Two Sides of Suicide

2015-10-26T23:30:00.000+00:00

On the 15th March 2002 I came home from my Thursday night out with Newcastle University's LGBT group. I sat on my bed in halls (even in year three we were in halls), I clicked out in excess of 100 paracetamol pills and 50 ibuprofen. I sat on my bed, I grabbed as many of the pills as I could, I drank them down with whatever I had to hand. I sicked up a lot into a glass and then I went away

After sending a text:

"Oh dear"

That was all I sent to my friend that night who ultimately picked me up out of the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle the following day.

The paramedics tried everything that they knew - they tried shaking me, forcing tubes down my throat to engage my gagging mechanism, everything that they knew of to get a body to respond.

I apologised to everyone when I returned. We didn't speak about it. We forgot it.

Didn't we?

Did we?

We didn't mention it.

On the 24th October 2015 one of my closest friends took his life.

I am still unsure of the circumstances because his family have shut everything down. What I do know is that I got called by one of the other members of my football team that night to say that AJ had taken himself to sleep. I was out with other friends when I received the call and they made sure that I got home, because - let's face it - I was in no position to do so myself.

I couldn't even operate as an adult human the next day.

This was AJ. AJ was the clown. He bounced off ceilings. He had that smile that could make anyone smile. ANYONE. I'd been there for him when he had split with [boyfriend 1] and again with [boyfriend 2]. I met his twin. We all went ice skating and then for a meal. I made the very-funny-at-the-time joke about how they couldn't be twins because they didn't have the same tattoos

I was there when he buggered up his ankle and asked for his mum and then I remember asking him if he wanted his mum a few months later when he suffered a friction burn to the top of his head in the Leicester tournament. I remember him joshing me when I buggered up my ankle in similar circumstances. I remember us sharing hotel rooms, hotel beds, and just having the most brilliant times it was possible to have because we just both made each other laugh. He was the clown to my straight-man; and I was the set-up-guy to his punchline.

AJ was one of the most gorgeous people alive. He was so fun, he had so much energy.

And yet, somehow, that energy sapped him that he took his life, alone, in his flat in Manchester.

When I woke up in hospital I thought it was 7:30pm. The paramedics who had collected me from the student halls had tried to put my watch back on, but had done so upside down. When I said to the counsellors who spoke to me that "they worked late" they had no idea I didn't know it wasn't actually 2pm that afternoon.

This wasn't the first nor would it be the last that I tried to take myself. My preference previously and, indeed, after was to tie plastic bags around my head. I got to the stage of frustration that I tied plastic bags around my head and then cable tied my hands behind my back so I couldn't rip the bags off. My strength proved too much for the cable ties I owned. I haven't tried this (or any other method) in around 5 years.

And this is what I mean by the two sides to suicide - not the "being on the live side" and the "being on the dead side". I mean on the "taking" and the ... for want of a better word ... "coping" side.

When you try to take yourself, you don't think. You're not in the right place. There is no logic. If you do think, it's always "they'll be better off without me". You think that it'll maybe take a few days and people will just go back to work doing what they do. (I'm sure at some stage I'll expand on this side of things).

But that's what you think - "it'll take a few days for them".

And that's what happens. It does just take a few days. It was the Monday. I went back to work, and I immersed myself in work.

Because I FUCKING HAD to.

And seriously, people telling you that "it'll get better" "it'll be ok" is ... I don't know, it's good, but it's not quite enough when you're in that place where really you need a little more than 140 characters of sympathy.

Because, let's face it - we've all lost someone, whether it's a grandma or uncle or a friend who got run over or AJ. And everyone goes to work the next day don't they? I have a team, they would be devastated if it was me, but they would work (after a day or two, it's not entirely a heartless business).

AJ was on my mind every minute of today. He'll be there on my mind for weeks. Yes, I go to work, but these things aren't exclusive. AJ will stay with me until I myself die.

One of the few things that has come of this: I have had so many people telling me they are there for me.

Everyone says that in the digital age, the personal touch has gone. But - perhaps - isn't it easier? I've had friends from around the country personally text me, message me, ring me to make sure I'm ok. Yes, my couple of posts have had a significant number of likes (I rarely post on Facebook) however I've had so many people phone me or directly message me or otherwise to make sure that I'm ok that it really does reaffirm that people are there for you.

I just wish that AJ knew that.

For AJ

About the House

2015-10-06T00:49:00.002+01:00

So, the house is up for sale.

It’s all happening.

But how did we get here?

You may recall, that “doing the house up” was one of the major reasons for the slippage of “London by Thirty” to “London by Thirty Five” was because of the house. So, what did I do?

Well, I bought the house in December 2005. The first three months were intense…

There were rotten floor joists and floorboards in the lounge and hallway. These needed replacing. There was actually a significant amount of flooring taken up and then laid. In order to prevent any further rotting, I had to install a number of additional air bricks. To do this I had to deconstruct a “summer room” on the North side of the house – an asbestos, glass and wood structure constructed on a thick concrete base which covered where the air bricks were needed and breached the damp-proof course. Then the kitchen and the workroom (a little room downstairs which was to be an office) had solid floors which needed a bitumen damp-proof treatment.

In addition the actual damp-proof course needed wax treatment re-proofing. This involved removing the lower levels of plaster all around the ground floor including removing and eventually refitting the kitchen units; and then replastering with a proper damp resistive plaster. As well as having to remove the kitchen units, this also involved removing the downstairs shower room suite; leaving the house with no usable toilet, sink or shower.

Needless to say, I was still living at my parents throughout this time; however I set myself a rather arbitrary date of the Easter of 2006 to move in. I say arbitrary, obviously when you have a van to move furniture it needs to be completed as quickly as possible; and a long weekend like Easter is the best time to sort and settle.

Anyhow, to achieve this I needed floors to walk on in the lounge; a kitchen to cook in; and a bathroom in which to wash. Whilst the kitchen was reasonably decent enough to be reinstalled, the shower suite was not – and was also downstairs. I hated this. So I decided to convert the smallest of the three bedrooms into an upstairs bathroom and install the most basic of bathroom suites alongside some additional plumbing that was required to replace an ancient immersion tank. Anyway, costs and time were both so short that I moved in to a house with an ancient but useable kitchen with patches of wallpaper, plaster and exposed brick walls; a lounge which had patches with all of the previous fifteen styles of redecoration visible and a bathroom fitted against bare plaster walls without a cupboard concealing the tank. Very, very basic.

From hereon after (until things accelerate later) generally I only worked on the house in late autumn, winter and early spring. The reason for this is three-fold. Firstly, there was a very well established garden which took a considerable amount of time to maintain and change; secondly, I travel around a lot more over the summer so have less time at home for significant projects; and finally, despite the travelling around, it was useful to spend the summer saving as much money as possible for the next project.

2006-7

After the previous year, things went a little quiet this year. I saved up to buy the shower tray, cubicle and fitting for the stand-alone shower that I had planned for when arranging the rest of the bathroom; but it couldn’t be fitted until I could afford the tiles and remainder of the bathroom materials. I started in the bedroom that I wasn’t using as a bedroom, stripping the paper off. This pulled off significant amounts of perished plaster, meaning that I needed to remove all of the plaster.

2007-8

The windows throughout the house were all double glazed with the exception of the kitchen which had four windows. My brother was having work done on his house which necessitated the replacement of three of his windows, which pretty much perfectly replaced three of them in my kitchen – one of the existing windows disappeared behind a worktop which was always entertaining when a can of tomatoes rolled down the back; the replacement required the wall building up nicely to the same level as the worktop. My parents bought me the fourth window as a joint birthday and Christmas present. So this season was spent replacing those windows; as well as finishing off the “free” work in the spare bedroom (i.e. the work that didn’t cost any money).

2008-9

This year the porch rotted through and the door fell off onto me (I might’ve had a drink). This meant that the front door needed replacing – and I might as well do the back door at the same time. I had come into some money this year as I had had my face smashed in whilst walking home by some people that didn’t like the look of me. I used this money to replace both doors as well as the huge patio door and window combination that had previously access the “sun room”.

2009-10

This year I could actually afford to buy the tiles for the bathroom. So, this involved the construction of the immersion tank / airing cupboard; installation of the stand-alone shower (bought back in 2006-7, remember that?), doing the lighting, painting and ... eventually ... tiling of the bathroom (including the construction of a rather nifty hinged panel to the bath to allow storage underneath). This meant (just 4 and a half years after buying the house) THAT THE FIRST ROOM WAS DONE.

2010-11

Having chipped all of the plaster off and done all the 'free' work in the spare bedroom, and only having to buy tiles, paint and a few bits of electrics the previous year, this year I could sort the spare bedroom out. Doesn't sound much does it - after all, the plaster was already chipped off? As with me, nothing is ever simple. Take the lighting. After the bathroom used GU10 LED spots, I decided I might as well use the same throughout the house, for a number of reasons. Firstly, they last a LONG time. Secondly, they are VERY energy efficient. But thirdly, and perhaps critically, I recall my parents above-the-toilet cupboards. They contained the electric meter, old rechargeable batteries, a supply of candles (though this was the most difficult cupboard to negotiate in the event of a power cut) and every type of bulb you could imagine. Most of the rooms took a standard bayonette fit; although the sitting room and one of the bedroom took the larger of the Edison screw fittings. The kitchen bulbs were totally different. And then, amongst the bayonette bulbs, some rooms had 40W, some 60 and some 100Watts (ask your parents). At any one time in the cupboard there could be well in excess of two dozen bulbs. Not me.

But, the spot-type nature of the bulbs meant there needed to be a dozen fittings (there would have been only ten had the joists been better spaced). But, as I was doing this I might as well make it my own. So the two spots above the head-end of where the bed would go became reading lights, each controllable from their own side of the bed, but also from the door (to save me having to walk over to the bed if I had left them on). So, we had twelve lamps on three circuits, each circuit having two switches (the main lights were also controllable from one side of the bed).

Then there are the electrics. The room previously only had one double socket - clearly inadequate in this day and age. And so now it has five doubles, all ideally located, all requiring either wiring running down from the loft, or under the floorboards. Oh, and chipping into the brickwork. Which, if you've ever had to do this by hand, you will realise how physically and time demanding this is.

And then you have to re-lay the flooring. And get a plasterer in. I was tempted to turn my hand to plastering, but EVERYONE that I spoke to said if there is one thing I need to get a professional in for it is the plastering (note how they didn't comment when I was doing the electrics myself).

And then paint. With this being my to-be-bedroom (at least for the time being) I wanted it really nice. Nice was white ceilings, a creamy beige ("Cappucino") on the walls, and then a feature wall with the basic cappucino background but then a lot of red and brown stripes. It looks good, believe me.

But it takes a lot of time. The ceiling needed three coats of paint. At one a night, that's a week. Ditto the walls. Ditto the stripes. And then there's touching up, finishing touches - skirting, architrave, varnishing them and the doors, getting the carpet fitted and - finally - moving my bed in and buying new furniture. Ignoring the cost of the new furniture, what was expected to be a 'cheap' room (in that it didn't need utilities, appliances, tiling, a suite or anything much other than the basics of electrics, lighting, plaster, paint, carpet and ancilliary woodworking) ended up costing well in excess of £2000 - albeit £1000 of that was on plastering and £600 on carpet.

2011-12

Well, I now had a nice bathroom and - MOST IMPORTANTLY - a refuge. The 'spare' bedroom was now my bedroom proper. It was clean, it was decorated, it was where I could LIVE. Next room to do was the big lounge. I say 'big lounge' as though I have so many lounges I have to differentiate. But what I cannot emphasis enough is how big it is - a full front-to-back lounge. Yes, if you've got a long gallery like Hardwick Hall it's perhaps a little different, but for me this was a big lounge.

I still remember back to the hell of being a kid with my parents and how long it took them to do the lounge up. I don't mean hell of being with my parents - anyone who knows me will tell you how much I love them and respect them; but the lounge at their house was a very,very major room; it was a throughfare as well, and it took them around three years to make it habitable.

But, as I'd now managed to move out of the 'big' master bedroom, I could now turn that into a lounge - albeit a temporary one. The sofas went upstairs as did the big tv. And, in fact, all spare furniture. It was a busy room. That, alongside my busy winter, probably explains why I spent little time in there.

My lounge was big; but a lot of the work had been done back in those initial three months - remember the chipping off of the lower levels of plaster to do the damp-proofing? The replacement of a significant amount of floorboards? The replacement of the patio doors? Well, all that his room required was the chipping off of all of the rest of the plaster, tidying up of a significant amount of the flooring that hadn't been replaced, all of the electrics (fortunately with most of this I had been sensible and planned it whilst the floorboards were up and laid the wiring) and chipping in the electric boxes (hadn't been quite so sensible and most of these had been free-hanging from he wall). Then there was the lighting. This would have been SIGNIFICANTLY easier if I had done it before finishing the flooring in the bedroom - again, I was using GU10 downlighters, but again - this being me - there wasn't just a main light, but two, and also four spots around the side to provide a less bright, more sedate environment (for Friday nights just watching movies when you want to concentrate on the movie) and two double switches - one as you entered the room, and another conveniently placed next to the edge of the sofa. These spots caused the problem. With one in each corner, there was no way I could avoid having to drill through some joists; almost all of which were either under the already-tiled bathroom floor, or the already-carpetted bedroom floor. So a lot of the ceiling had to come off.

Once that was done, obviously everything else was easy - all I had to do was get the plastering done, sand down the massive expanse of floorboards that there was, vacuum, wash and clean it all down, spend a good week staining a LOT of wood, spend even more than a week varnishing the floor, painting the room, painting and, eventually, buying that sofa that finished the room. Oh, and then the finishing bits - curtains and stuff. It's a room.

2012-13

Well, having finished the loung the previous year, there wasn't much to do unless I wanted to start on the kitchen - realistically that was the next room to do - it was a biggy, and therefore needed all of my saving. But, whilst I had been able to move into the lounge there was still a niggle - the alcove. My piano occupied one; the other was vacant. I wanted shelves in there. They would look nice, classy, and they would provide me with much needed storage for my books. So - albeit minor - that was this year's job whilst I saved as much money as I could. But I did it, I bought the wood, I stained it, I fitted it, I filled it. And it looks lovely.

2013-14

This was another year where I took a bit of a back-step. Having completed the lounge and moved in down there, I just needed a year off. And, again, when you look how much these things cost, I probably spent over £100 in sanding belts on the lounge floor alone, then there was the stain, the varnish, the plaster, the paint. Whilst the lighting was not expensive individually, accumulatively it cost ver £100. And that's before you consider how much a reel of cabling costs. That's not cheap. I know the paint is cheap, bright white - it's £20 a tub. But that's four tubs worth. The shelves cost in excess of £100 in pure wood and fittings (there's actually a lot of battening). And then there's a £600 sofa. And do you know how much curtains are? Over a hunderd quid when you look at the length you need for that room. And the poles. There's a lot goes on, so a bit of a fallow year was needed. That said, it wasn't entirely fallow. I started chipping off the plaster in the big bedroom - by now, any furniture that needed returning to the lounge was back down there, anything that wasn't wanted had gone to a homeless charity.

2014-15

GO GO GO! at this point I had my new job. This meant new money. New, significant money. Which meant that I could get that most major, most expensive of jobs done - the kitchen. I had saved heartily (helped by the previous 'cheap' year) and over the summer got quotes such that at the end of September they started fitting. In order to keep costs to a minimum, I did a significant amount of preparation and finishing work myself. So, whilst the kitchen was on order the old one got stripped out. I then set to removing all of the old plaster ahead of the plasterers coming in. The plasterers plastered, the fitters fitted. Whilst they were doing this, I worked up in the big bedroom on the lighting and electrics (having by now finished stripping off the plaster). I then painted, tiled, grouted, sealed and laid the kitchen floor, as well as doing the skirting, architrave and general woodworkery. Whilst I worked downstairs, the plasterer plastered the big bedroom.

And so, immediately that I finished the kitchen, I was straight on to the big bedroom, doing the painting, woodwork and getting the carpet fitted. Again, I painted more than I needed to - the stripes returned.

And then the last room to do was the hall and landing. This was the worst room. You can't avoid the dust and the much and the filth. Much though you try not to tread it into the refuge that is your bedroom, it gets there. And, worse still, if you are keeping floorboards (indeed, naked but stained stairs) then the whole idea of staining and varnishing them - when you are supposed to leave it two hours before walking on it, but need to walk on it to get upstairs - is impossible for someone who only gets home at 7pm. But I worked hard on this room - I had to. I knew that sanding the floorboards and stairs irritated my neighbour, so I had to crack on with that and get it over with as quickly as possible, but with the number of stairs, and bits (banister, ballustraids, treads, backboards, sides and the actually floorboards at the bottom) this still took a good few weeks. Electrics and lighting were all sorted (well, aside from simply swapping light fittings over - I say simply, it still took a full evening to do both), so it was technically just staining and varnishing the floors, getting the plasterer in then painting the walls and those few finishing touches.

And as a final point to the whole thing - finishing touches take evenings. It can be tiny bits of filler, little bits of stain you had missed, painting where the masking tape pulled off the paint - it all takes time. Evenings here, there - when you have just three or four a week, and only a couple of weekends a month at home, that's why things take so long.

As well as the cost.

But it's done - moving on.

When is a House not a Home?

2015-09-07T20:08:00.000+01:00

When it’s a chain around your neck.

Well, or when it’s a maisonette flat; and that’s what I have to keep reminding myself. Because that was the other option.

You see, I’m just putting the finishing touches to my house. Well, the touches that will finish it ‘for me’. There will be one, minor (almost insignificant) room not done. It will be a shame not to get around to that last room (this is the guy who ploughed on with Moby Dick for six years because he couldn’t leave a book unfinished) but London’s calling.

And not a moment too soon. In fact, almost too late.

I had a plan to move to London by the time I was thirty. Now the plan is to be there by the time I’m thirty five – the end of this year. Unfortunately London By Thirty was plotted after I bought the house and probably wasn’t very realistic – a hope rather than a plan. The house has been the show-stopper, the ball-and-chain around my neck.

Now, there are a set of circumstances that ended up with me getting the house; particularly money and timing.

I was on a limited budget. The vast majority of the places that I could buy at the time I was looking were maisonette flats on a particular estate. This property came up and on the first day it was on the market there were a dozen of us looking at it. That’s what the market was like at the time.

Now, the house itself has been a good investment – certainly better than any of the maisonettes would have been. The house has increased in value, whilst the maisonettes haven’t at all. There are too many of the maisonettes – around 70 of them on that particular estate – and they are starter homes. Therefore, as people only tend to stay for a couple of years then move on or marry, there are always half a dozen or so on the market; supply far exceeding demand.

And the house itself has been better than one of the maisonettes ever could – it was so much closer to town, it had a garden, has a lot more space.

But…

It had a LOT of work that needed to be done to it. Perhaps more than I expected. Certainly what was more than expected was the length of time certain jobs take. For example, it has taken me two weeks to paint the hall and landing. Now, a lot of the time issues are around my lifestyle – the reason it has taken two weeks is because I only get to work on it of an evening, Monday to Thursday. I’m often busy over weekends.

But the house has progressed at a pace which has been commensurate with my budget. Even if I could have done it quicker, I couldn’t have afforded to do so. Well, not without taking out significant loans (or going down to London significantly less).

I suppose there was always the option of not buying. I could have stayed living with my parents (I would probably have ended up in London within days rather than years!) or I could have rented. But my family aren’t renters – it was instilled in us from a very early age that you don’t rent. It’s dead money. You get on the property ladder as quickly as possible and start paying into your equity. And, to be fair, I wouldn’t have paid out any more in legal fees to buy and sell a maisonette as I’d have paid out in rent; it just might’ve taken longer to sell.

Now, add in the economic crisis. I was made redundant six months in. I managed to get myself another job, but it was supposed to be temporary. It was temporary for a full four and a half years. Jobs just dried up, so there was no chance of a move, even if the house had been ready.

So this perfect storm of circumstances has meant that London By Thirty just wasn’t a reasonable target, much to my frustration. But now the worlds are aligning (well, aside from the London housing market) to pull me down to London as quickly as possible – I’ve been in my better job which pays me considerably more long enough to replace my kitchen and finish off four of the remaining five rooms; and long enough that it looks good on my c.v. to be wanting to move on.

And, it’s only a few months until I’m thirty five.

A Lotto Changes

2015-08-13T23:49:00.000+01:00

Have you been to the National Lottery website recently? Remember – the one which went all plain and blockyand ‘responsive’? Then you’ll have seen the new logos for the brand and the games. Keeping the crossed fingers but ‘friendlying’ them up a little with more distinct eye-dots; balls and stars and colours depending on the game. It’s nice, good and fresh.

I like it. But…

I don’t understand the way it has been done. Why they didn’t hold off with the replacement of the website until the branding was finalised and undertake both projects together is beyond me. And the Lotto game is changing (again) in a couple of months – why not do a ‘big bang’ of branding: launch the new game, new site, new brand all at the same time. It would massively raise awareness of the most significant change – the change to the game.

Now, I understand there are three main strategies around ‘collective changes’ like this – nudge (or staged), big-push (or all-at-once), and incoherent. Maybe it was an active decision to do it nudge – it does work in some circumstances, to retain identity, avoid confusion. It might have been resources – they only had one team so had to handle each project separately, one at a time. It may simply not have been considered. It may have been purely preference – after all, the big bang approach is my preference. But if you are making such a significant change to the game, it just seems to make sense to draw attention to that change with a new logo.

Which brings me to the change itself. Obviously we await to see whether it has the effect of driving sales, which is what the refresh is about.

But with this change and the last ‘refresh’ just a couple of years ago (that’s two major changes to the game in 20 years, both in the last 2 years) I can’t help but feel that they don’t really know who their competition is.

Since they established, there have been a couple of other lotteries set up – probably most significantly the Health Lottery. But these aren’t Lotto’s competition. Or weren’t, at least.

Lotto sells between 18 and 30million tickets per ‘normal’ game (non-rollovers, non-specials). The Health Lottery doesn’t have to report ticket sales because it is established under different control and a different regulatory scheme; however on the basis that the top prize of £100,000 for the £1 game is 10% of ticket sales (and there are repeated warnings that if ticket sales are lower, theprize will be lower) we can assume that they sell around a million tickets.

No, the competition comes from the Euromillions draw – still significantly lower, at around 7-8 million tickets per draw, but more than any other lottery game.

So, you’d think that Lotto, when looking to ‘refresh’ the games would focus on the competition, on distinguishing itself from the competition.

But instead it is emulating it.

Previously, you had a choice – Lotto, with a £1 stake got you a 1 in 14million chance of winning; and a 1 in 54 chance of winning a tenner. Euromillions, with a £2 stake got you a 1 in 144 million chance of winning, but a 1 in 23 chance of a couple of quid. You had a clear choice – Lotto for a lower stake but greater chance of winning the jackpot; Euromillions for a bigger jackpot, but a greater chance of winning something.

So, what changes has Lotto introduced?

Well, a couple of years ago, it doubled the stake. There is now no cost difference between Lotto and Euromillions.

Now they are lowering the chance of winning the jackpot by increasing the number of balls in play – idea being more rollovers, bigger jackpots.

And, they are introducing a lower prize tier, therefore increasing your overall chance of winning a couple of quid.

It is now almost undiscernible from Euromillions.

Stock photos

2015-08-02T22:12:00.000+01:00

We all have them, don’t we – the friends who always pull the same face. You know the types – I’ve got many of them in my feeds.

There’s the chap who always pulls the wonky, slightly quizzical look that scrunches the nose up on one side as if he’s asking “do you know what I mean?”

There’s the one whose eyebrows are raised with eyes almost popping out, mouth open in a slightly-astonished smile, as though someone’s just stuck their finger up his bum for the first time but he’s actually quite enjoying it.

There’s the one who’s always got a slight scowl on his face and you can tell he’s going to be one of those pissy little queens who is always complaining about everything but particularly his lot in life and how it’s so unfair and why do bad things always happen to him (he’ll be one of those vigilantes who is outraged at everything).

Obviously there is the one who always pouts, the other who is so desperately quirky they always stick their tongue out of the corner of their mouth.

And then there’s the one who is very pretty and has a lovely but very plain and very repetitive smile – one that makes him seem dead behind the eyes. Always the same, head ever-so-slightly cocked to one side.

And that is part of the problem – I become immune. Because the expression is always the same it comes across as staged, painted. I wonder if they walk round like that all the time just in case they happen to be in the background of a photo.

Now, let me accept first that I’m no oil painting. I struggle with photos because I don’t like my face. My teeth are horrible for a start. I was born with too small a mouth (no jokes please) and they are all a bit squashed in, so I don’t like opening my mouth to smile in photos. This automatically makes my smile less genuine, and it’s difficult to imbue “smile” in the eyes without opening the mouth. Then there is my receding hairline and that my ears disappear, the fact that my beard/stubble is never at an optimum length and I can never get clothes to fit me because of my ridiculous proportions.

I’m very self-deprecating. Other people like the way I look; and yes I hear those saying those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. But I’m not throwing stones at the way they look, I’m throwing it at the pose.

I also have to realise that – just as with myself – a LOT of people do not have body/image confidence. They don’t like having their photo taken at all, so I suppose I should at least give credit that they have at least managed to find their ‘photo face’ that they are happy. However this paragraph doesn’t really apply to the people I’m talking about with the pose. After all, the reason that I have noticed this as a problem is due to the propensity of photos – usually selfies – that they have posted.

I just want a bit of variety. I think what I really want is them to post fewer posed photos and more spontaneous ones – more of them actually enjoying what they are doing rather than stopping to post of photo of them only appearing to enjoy what they are doing.

But then this is coming from the man with a picture camera – always the taker, never the subject.

What about Windows

2015-07-26T23:16:00.000+01:00

So, everybody’s excited for Windows 10. And with good reason; after all – this is the Windows that’s supposed to get it right, isn’t it?

What do I mean by that?

Well, Windows flip-flops between good and bad (at least, with the non-server, non-NT versions).

Windows 98 – good.

Windows ME – bad.

Windows XP – good.

Windows Vista – bad.

Windows 7 – good.

Windows 8 – bad.

(We have to remember that Windows 8.1 is essentially just a service pack update and not a full version.)

Now, why is this? Some would say it’s because they are trying to be too radical for their customers – that customers don’t really like change – they accept change when they can’t see it happening or if they feel it a choice they are making, but they don’t otherwise like losing what is familiar. That Windows changes are “not glacial” enough I don’t think works. This is technology and people still get excited by what is new; even when it is technology for the masses. It’s why most of us upgrade our phones every two years.

The reason seems to be more simple – they forget what Windows is about. They lose track and then they get reminded and go back to what they do best.

I’m going to ignore Windows ME here firstly because I didn’t use it (hardly anyone did) so have little understanding of the problems.

So we’ll kick off with Vista. How did Microsoft get it so wrong? Well, what they did was they looked at the competitors. You know how I love a good analogy? Well, let’s go running. When you’re running, when you’re at the front, you don’t look back. Sure, you need to be aware of where your competitors are, what they are doing, but you don’t do so by looking back. Otherwise you trip up.

And Microsoft was looking back at Apple.

When it launched Vista, everything was about the look, the design. Windows were animated – they popped, swished, wooshed, pinged – and they were translucent. Gone were the simple stylings of previous, everything was 3D rendered. It was a bit of a backlash over the Apple = cool, PC = boring adverts that had been around. But in doing so they forgot a couple of key things.

The vast majority of PCs were (indeed, still are) used for business purposes. This meant two things – they needed security and they needed performance. People didn’t really care how they were styled, so long as they did what you needed them to do. People didn’t care if the window wooshed out of the bottom left corner, so long as it didn’t crash the PC. People didn’t care if it popped as it dissolved into the bottom right corner (they actually didn’t want it to, it’s actually quite irritating in an open-plan office if everyone’s computer keeps popping) so long as the system didn’t get attacked by trojans. And that was the problem – they had concentrated so much on the styling they had forgotten about security and performance.

So, they went back to the drawing board, and created XP – styled very similarly to 98 actually.

Once bitten twice shy?

No. Because the markets were watching, chattering. Investors needed innovation; dynamism. Actually they didn’t – what investors wanted was for Microsoft to be more Apple. Apple was raking it in (it still is), Apple was the darling, Apple was mobile whilst Windows wasn’t. But as well as Apple, there was another runner – Google. Whilst Apple was popular hardware, Android is a far more popular OS. So, Microsoft looked over its should at what Android was doing – how it was doing touchscreen. Because tablets were going to be the next big thing – tablets were going to rule all, weren’t they?

I remember a lot of people getting very excited about iPads, although the few people that I know that still use them, either do so because either they feel a duty to get some use out of these very expensive little trays, or simple because the size makes them a little more portable. Anyhow, I think I’ve had a rant on tablets before.

Now, touchscreen works very well for certain things, but not for others – typing for example. I believe that with enough refinement, touchscreen could replace the mouse as an input device. However, unless there is a stratospheric improvement in handwriting recognition technology, it won’t replace a keyboard (even with handwriting recognition, there are many circumstances where a keyboard is quicker, or reduces the use of the screen ‘estate’).

And so it was that Microsoft got distracted by Google. Or Android, more particularly. And just as Android had apps, so Microsoft suddenly had apps. And widgets (cf. “Windows Live Tiles”) which were apps that told you a little bit of info (or maybe even allowed you to control basic functions). Android had a regulated grid layout, with apps or widgets allowed to occupy any combination so long as it was rectangular – Windows is ever-so-slightly more prescriptive of its Tiles and Live Tiles, but the logic is identical.

So, mobiles and tablets are challengers when you don’t need to write an essay – when all you need text-input for is to type a URL or enter a search term in Spotify. For anything more significant than that you need text input for a number of reasons: tactile feedback; how much of the screen estate keyboards take up; comfort of screen/keyboard separate manoeuvrability and visibility; and screen-smear being just a few.

Only, Microsoft forgot: most of its users are business users, people still feverently gripping their mouses – the people who made Blackberry big because it had a hardware keyboard. People who only tap the tile to open Word and Outlook and Internet Explorer. And they couldn’t find where they were. It was too flash, too radical, too Android for people. Fine – change our icons into Tiles, just remember that a lot of people still use the Start button to find things, just remember that on a laptop or a desktop, the screen is often further out of reach that the keyboard.

But just as the markets were chattering, so the critics were desperate to report the death of Microsoft. They missed out on predicting the death of Myspace, so were eager to have their c.v. emblazoned with the words “First analyst to predict the collapse of …”. Microsoft was – if you look at certain figures – losing market share. It still held the desktop and business OS crowns as well as for email clients (note, clients not services) and Office-type applications; but if you took Internet Explorer, Media Player, and its late entry into mobile, it was not the dominant force that the analysts were used to. And Microsoft had to respond to that – it had to follow.

And this is the thing – Microsoft is neither a follower nor a disrupter. It’s lovely, it sits quietly in the corner telling you that you want a ham sandwich and then offering you a ham sandwich. And this isn’t an organically-reared prosciutto with Andalusian gerkin and carefully-caressed jalapeno pepper piccalilli on seventeen-grain-yet-gluten-free-bloomer sanwich. It’s a ham sandwich – it does what it needs to very well whether it’s sat in your lounge or on your business buffet.

People have always needed Windows to be everything; but now they (and particularly the analysts and investors) need Windows 10 to be even more of everything. It needs to be 5 inches as much as 55 inches. It needs to be touch and type. Most of all, it needs to be a brand – a unique identity.

From what I’ve seen, the see-saw has correctly rocked back to a “good” product.

Ten years on

2015-07-11T17:45:00.001+01:00

So, something struck me. Purely by chance I happened to look back.

I say purely by chance, it wasn't. I noticed that I'd hit 9000 page views. A lovely round number. So, I thought I'd see where that reckoned me over my 245 posts.

And so it came up - my first post was 11 July 2005; meaning the blog is today TEN YEARS OLD.

Now, I have to say that we have to ignore the fact that I posted a mere 19 posts before shutting off again for almost a full six years.

But anyway. From the first few days of the blog I saw a few startling things.

Firstly, was my almost glancing reference to the events of 7 July 2005. I don't mention the reason, just the date. If you need to know about the bombings on London public transport that killed 52 people within hours of the announcement that London would hold the 2012 Olympic Games, have a read on Wikipedia.

What I also manage to belittle is how close I was to being involved in the events of "seven/seven". Seventh July was a Thursday (I seem to erroneously refer to it being a Friday in my original post). I was involved in a court case in Leeds which was expected to last Monday to Wednesday, so I had booked Thursday and Friday as holiday - I needed to book Friday holiday to go to London, it just made sense to be out of the office all week and busy myself in London, living as I was then with my parents.

So I'd booked a train to arrive into London Kings Cross at 8:38 am. This would have meant me getting a tube probably ever so slightly before 8:50am.

The trial overran. I didn't travel on the Thursday - instead whilst I was having the 'unexpected' second lunch with Susie we were watching the events happen. I did go on the Friday though and was on the first train back into Kings Cross. My blitheness at reporting this I think comes from my want to minimise my claim to the day because so many other people have so much closer or more legitimate a claim to reference or ownership over that day.

Anyhow, you'll notice I was distracted by First Date. Well, First Date is now dead. One of the things I've noticed from my early blogs is how incoherent, distracted and basically assumed the reader had so much more knowledge than an ordinary chap may have. I obviously didn't read my previous post before writing the new one (though the same could be said of today).

First Date was a lovely, gorgeous chap called Steven Johnson. He was the first chap I met after splitting up with my ex and was exactly what I needed - pretty, funny and with no expectations. We tried to arrange another date before my Seychelles trip for my brother's wedding but couldn't; so when I got back I messaged him. It never quite happened. Then I saw him out on what was his 26th birthday. He was so beautiful. He bounced over to me, kissed me on the lips and told me it was his birthday. I kissed him back and wished him happy birthday. He said I should go back with him and I said if I and he were both still out at the end of the night then definitely. I bought him a drink then we each rejoined our friendship groups; still coyly glancing at each other. Then we each left the bar - him to go home with his housemate, me to carry on clubbing with my friends.

He didn't wake up the next morning.

He stopped breathing in his sleep.

This actually continues to devastate me perhaps an awful lot more than I let on. I know it's ten years ago, we weren't that close - some could say that because we never actually got to first date I am a one-nighter. But we weren't, we were friends. And he was always so happy to see me. It's also a very stark reminder of my own mortality. I know people die, my grandparents have all died; my parents regale me each week of a list of people in their village or that they worked with who have gone. But old people die - not 26 year-olds that you go clubbing with, get off with, wake up in bed with. If only I'd been in bed with him that night - like he wanted.

But what of the Ex? You may remember (and if not I'll helpfully post the link so you can read) that I was struggling with my Ex?

I don't think I ever explained. The Ex and I had dated for around 9 months (technically 2 stints of 4 months with one off in the middle). I met my Ex in August 2004, we dated, we went to Boston (the American one) and he spent the whole time there in a foul mood basically on the basis that it wasn't New York (he chose Boston over New York on the basis he'd been to New York already, he wanted to try Boston and my views didn't matter because I'd never been to America at all). We split up on return from Boston, but then - him getting needy before Christmas, me not having a strong enough will-power to resist - we got back together a few weeks before Christmas.

Then, on Christmas day, my dad decided that we had to make the decision who was going to the Seychelles for my brother's wedding. Well, my Ex decided he was going and so that was that - his ticket was bought.

Within weeks the issues were there - his niggling, his aggravation, my general annoyance. Let's remember, though, that this is February - the coldest, darkest time of the year. I get bad in February, I know that.

But it didn't resolve itself; and by May he was annoying me more than ever. I was looking for a way out; but if I broke it off, morally I would be responsible for the cost of his ticket to the Seychelles. I was a trainee solicitor. So often I convinced myself that all I had to do was get through the holiday with him - enjoy it even - and then make a decision.

Anyhow, things came to a head on Friday 13th May 2005. That would make sense, wouldn't it? On the Saturday we had to go to his friend's wedding; but on the Friday I was on a course in Birmingham. He regularly moaned about having to have a weekend away every month - normally somewhere expensive (that's where Boston came in) but I tried to tie him down with cheaper, local alternatives. So on the basis I was in Birmingham on a Friday, it was somewhere different, we decided to get a hotel for the night.

Then happened what I will forever call the "catching the Ex giving someone else a blow job in a nightclub toilet in Birmingham" incident. It kind of speaks for itself.

The Ex was travelling to Birmingham but couldn't find the hotel. He kept repeatedly driving around the ringroad, unable to find the hotel. He kept repeatedly ringing me telling me how he was unable to find the hotel. I was no help as I didn't know Birmingham and I certainly didn't know where he was. Anyhow, he found the hotel and was alarmingly - disarmingly - calm about things. The Ex was never calm about things like these. But that day, he was.

Anyhow, we booked in to one of the eeriest converted lunatic asylums you've ever stayed in. The weekend was certainly going well. But, the hotel was easy walking distance of the gay scene, so we walked into the gay scene and had - until the Catching The Ex Giving Someone Else A Blow Job In A Nightclub Toilet In Birmingham incident - actually quite a nice night.

Towards the end of the night we were thinking of leaving. The Ex needed the toilet before we went so I was left holding the drinks. But then I started getting needy. Really needy. So I abandonned the drinks and went to the toilets too.

There was no-one at the urinals and only one of the cubicles was locked. This had to be the Ex - I'd seen him go to the toilets, I hadn't seen him come out. So I had my wee and then I thought I'd pop my head over the partition, see if he was ok.

He was more than ok.

So I left the club and went back to the hotel.

He started messaging me - asking me where I was. I didn't reply. Instead I contacted the night porter and informed him that my companion would not be staying the night but would be collecting his bags from reception which were outside the room. The night porter responded with "as if I don't have enough to do". I'm not sure how busy the life of a night porter is.

Next thing I know the Ex is pounding on the door, asking me to let him in. My response of "I saw you sucking that other guy's cock" was met with a few moments of silence, before the night porter emitted "come on mate, don't think you're staying in there tonight."

I turned off my mobile, I unplugged the hotel phone when he started ringing that. The next morning I texted him when I was safely on my train - told him to go to the wedding, just without me.

That night was weird. I was disappointed, and yet relieved. This got me out of the whole thing, scot free (and holiday-refund free) - and yet he still had the bloody gall to cheat on me.

Anyhow, after splitting, he - and, to be fair, I - wanted to stay friends. I'm not a fan of having life-long enemies. However, he made it difficult. I used to pop in on my way home from work; but he always wanted sex. I exasperated this on Day Two. I think at that point, I had managed to put my foot down - refusing to see the Ex again because he only ever wanted sex.

And I've never seen him since.

We're friends on Facebook in the same way as I am friends with 400 or so people that I used to know. He's been in a long-term relationship with someone older than him for a good 9 years or so - so almost as soon as he split up with me. But the seem happy, so that's good.

(Just by way of information, he did give me a Pulitzer-Prize winning reasoning behind it - apparently the chap really fancied ME; wanted to get with me. My Ex informed him the only way this would happen was by way of threesome. Chap seemed happy with that plan, so my ex then had to determine that he was clean before even propositioning it to me. The only way to check the cleanliness was - obviously - an oral inspection).

I've moved jobs three times and moved out of my parents' since then. I've been in my house 9 years now, albeit I am finally putting some finishing touches to the last room before I hopefully sell it and move to London - a long overdue move (more on this later).

I have college written down as a thing to update on, but it is kind of a given. I kept going to college, I got my AS in Psychology (B) but then they transferred the course to another campus so couldn't carry on.

The word terranomically still hasn't taken off, though to be fair I haven't really used it myself. Think astronomically, only not quite so melodramatic - only earth-shattering.

Otherwise (and I'm not doing a full retrospective here) you'll notice the blog is less personal. I think one of the reasons I struggled past post 19 was that it was there is only so much that you can say when you day involves the same, isolated car commute to work, the same (or, if different, so inherently microcosmically so that no-one would understand the difference without getting very quickly bored) day at work, the same trip home, and the same evening at home as every single other night (weekends excepted). My rants off on sexuality, technology, even branding and advertising, allow me to say something when otherwise I would perhaps have nothing else to say.

Obviously there are still the same old spelling, grammatical and syntax errors - there always will be. I'm either writing it on the move or when I've had a drink (or both); I can't be bothered to proof-read my own copy (and psychology says if you do, you will read what you think you wrote anyway). I do, however, think the posts are somewhat more coherent.

So, that's an update on the first few days from ten years ago...

Blog on!

Me and My Anxiety

2015-07-08T20:41:00.001+01:00

So, yesterday I went swimming for the first time in two years.

And it was an early morning swim - as soon as the pool opened

Should be lovely, shouldn’t it? After all, I can swim. I used to do it regularly.

Only I got worked up.

I got worked up for a number of reasons – what if I missed my alarm? What if it was too busy? What if I mis-calculated the time I had to get out and had to rush for or miss my train? What about the actual swimming – what if I was too slow, or had forgotten how to do it? What if I had an incident and nearly drowned? What if I took my clothes off and was ugly?

Of course, none of this came to pass. I got up on time, was well organised, arrived at the pool 5 minutes before it opened, changed efficiently, picked the correct lane, swam appropriately fast, did my 100 lengths well in time without even a cough or splutter, got out and made it to the train well in time. And yet I’m intending on doing the same tomorrow and already I’m anxious.

You will recall that I used to lunchrun? My million metre target. Almost every day for 20 months I did this, almost every day for 20 months I got anxious at around 12:50. Similar anxiety – that I would take too long getting changed, not give myself enough time to run, that I’d look silly. I mean, for goodness sake – I ran on my own around reasonably secluded lakes, if I suffered any anxiety it should have been that I’d do myself a mischief and not be found for three days.

This morning I received a phone call from a withheld number. I was tempted to just let it go to answerphone; but that’s how it wins, how it gets worse. So – nervously – I answered. It was only my doctor giving me the phone number of the hospital for me to make an appointment. That will be a phone call which will give me anxiety when I have to make it – I’ve already put it off for 2 hours. What will I say? What if it’s not the correct department? What if I have to leave an answermachine message (I am notoriously bad at these because I panic, stutter, stumble and forget).

It seems to be getting worse, which worries me. I barely answer the phone at work unless I know the number. Even last night I got myself all anxious about doing DIY – I’m stripping the stairs of paint. I’ve been doing it for a few weeks now – a couple of hours a night, a couple of nights a week. But still I get anxious thinking about starting: getting changed, actually cracking on with the work.

Now, I realise fully that my suffering is nothing compared with some other people. Some people suffer panic attacks that see them hospitalised or passing out. Some people find their anxiety so debilitating that they cannot leave the house. Currently I’m able to grow a pair of balls and just knuckle down and get it done – there are people that can’t do that, or at least not unmedicated.

The problem is if it gets worse. As I say, I avoid answering the phone at work. Unfortunately in my workplace conference calls spread worse than the most contagious rash. I’ve tried explaining that I prefer doing things over email – giving me the time to consider the implications of the changes being made – but they insist upon conference calls to get the matter sorted quickly. Fortunately I can usually sit back and let someone else take the lead, but sometime it is something I have to do and it makes me stressed.

Anyhow, I have to go and make that call…

Promotional Pride

2015-07-03T21:11:00.002+01:00

So, this last weekend was Pride in London. It was also New York Pride and San Francisco Pride.

We’ve adopted that word – Pride.

The problem is, we don’t show it.

The reason that we hold pride events is because we don’t have it. One of the more notable events of the weekend – the parade through the centre of London – was hijacked by people eager to shame the LGBT community; or more directly the event organisers. And those hijackers, those shamers?

They came from within the LGBT community.

They struck out into the parade route immediately in front of the parade, dressed in black, carrying a pride coffin and banners bemoaning RIP PRIDE.

They claim that the LGBT community have forgotten why prides exist – that the message has been lost. Indeed – and you will spare me the irony here – it is an argument I myself have made. But their argument is two-fold: firstly that we’ve given up the fight; and secondly that we’ve sold out, capitulated. Capitalated, if you will.

Of the first, they say that pride parades do not do enough to protest, to lobby, to challenge and to represent. It’s far too much about pissy queens spending all of their time decorating their costume and not thinking about their history, their future. They say we have all too readily accepted that we have won – that we are forgetting the fights that have been fought in favour of complacency and a party.

Their argument is that we feel we have nothing left to fight for and they argue that we do – that despite (now) legal equality, there is still a social stigma, an invisible inequality, where people still get turned down jobs on the basis of a lisp or a limp wrist. For their argument they evidence that along the parade route there were a couple of minor counter-protests; half a dozen or so Christians or Muslims holding a placard with some scripture quoted on it. They ignore the scores of Christians and Muslims in the parade – whether an organised religious grouping or as an otherwise unidentifiable member of another group; whether gay themselves or an ‘ally’ (it’s the latest thing to be) – they ignore the hundreds, thousands, millions of religious members who didn’t turn out to protest, who don’t care or may even be an armchair ally.

They concentrate on the few; and – until someone does develop the thought police – you are not going to change those minds in the same way as you can’t change the mind of the yob who thinks it’s socially acceptable to shout at his girlfriend in the street.

Their other argument is that Pride is no longer about the LGBT community. I have to say I understand their point. I stood and watched quite a considerable amount of the parade. Too much of the parade. So much of the parade that I couldn’t get in to the celebrations in Trafalgar Square by the time we left; that Old Compton Street was almost immovable with bodies. I left after “Section D” had gone by. There was still “Section E” and “Section F” to go. In all, there were well in excess of 250 groups. Everyone needed to have their representation. It was dull, it was boring and it was long. As I say, we left after D. This was at around 4:30/5:00pm, the parade started at 1:00pm. One can only presume that it carried on until 6pm.

But the argument of the protesters was that the parade had sold out. Yes, there were political paraders, however there were an awful lot that weren’t. There were a lot of corporations – this was the major gripe of the mourners – however there were other associations or groups. And the protesters argument is that the parade was not an attempt to advance a single message, but for each of these organisations to advance their own, individual messages.

The banks were there to advance their own Corporate and Social Responsibility policies – to make it clear that they are a bank you would want to bank with or to work for. The social groups – the sports and the singers – were there on their own private recruitment drives. Even UKIP (who managed also to piggyback themselves in, despite having been denied an official place) had their own private message in the same way as the LGBTories: despite rumours to the contrary, you can be both.

Now, the LGBT community has long had strong links to the unions – indeed, it’s in the very ethos of the unions to protect their minority or oppressed workers by mobilising the other masses on the grounds of “it could happen to use – you could be the minority – who would you turned to then?” It therefore works by natural expansion that there is also a connection with political parties – at the very least Labour and the Liberals. But the banks? The supermarkets? Surely that’s just pure, plain, blatant advertising?

Well … perhaps. But don’t forget that this is a capitalist society. These parades are not free – they cost money. No longer can it be done out of Tim and Jenny putting in a few hours a couple of nights a week to paint a banner; no longer can we rely on a few charitable donations without having to give back.

The bigger these events get, the more they cost. There is a cost for the barriers along the parade, for the security, for the street cleaning; there is the cost of the big stage, the lighting, sound and electricity; for the portable toilets. You’d hope that the installation of a bar would pay for itself but a lot of the rest of the infrastructure behind the parade (often invisible) costs. And if your parade is tiny you may be able to convince the local loo company to let you have half a dozen for the day on the basis that everyone will see the sign on the front and hire their toilets from LocalLoos in future; but when it gets to four trailer loads of toilets? A few thousand metres of barrier? 100 security personnel for a day? It costs.

Almost every Pride has gone through it's "commercial moment" - London, Brighton, Manchester, even Nottingham Pride realised it had to change its whole structure if it were to be economical.

And where once they merely wanted their name displaying on a couple of signs at the entrances or a discrete mention of “supported by BiggerBank” on the tannoy announcements; the more they give, the more they want. Hence why the first group in the parade after the flag bearers was Barclays –

Barclays who as well as their enormous branded bus, who as well as by far more dancers than the social dancing groups put together, had very prominent advertising along the route, in all the publications, even on the sides of buses in the week leading up to Pride. Don’t worry though: Lloyds, Santander, HSBC and Halifax all had their own bus.

So, is it killing Pride? Is it capitulating?
Is it merely Pride developing into modern society?
Is it actually a very, very good thing – encouraging social or ethical change within big corporations; getting them on board with the LGBT agenda in return for a little publicity?

Fantastical Feminism

2015-06-17T23:04:00.002+01:00

Have you noticed the uptick in vigilante feminism?

Feminism is cool right now, if you didn’t know – almost desperately cool. Or is it? Feminist men are being triumphed as bold, strong, sensitive; but is the reason that they are because there is no opposition?

Now, to start, I am a feminist (although there are many that decry that men cannot be). I hate the word and it doesn’t etymologically reflect what is being sought; but that is the same as the fact that “gay” came from happiness rather than any direct association with homosexuality. The word feminism seems to suggest not just righting the balance, but actively preferring, prioritising females.

I would prefer the term “Equalists” – that we are striving for equality; regardless of sex. And the benefit of that term is that it could represent all equalities – those of race, of sexuality, age, ability – rather than just sex.

But then I’ve had the reverse of that problem with the LGBT “community” and lumping together unrelated or loosely connected interests in a manner which increases the lobby group, but dilutes the message.

But yes, I am a feminist (albeit the 'true' feminists, whilst adopting Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston within their ranks, absolutely otherwise deny that men can be feminists). I wholeheartedly believe that no-one should be discriminated against on the ground that they are a woman. And in this day and age it is impossible to argue against it. Impossible on two grounds – impossible because it is anachronistic; and impossible because you simply cannot be heard.

Well, that’s not quite right. You can be heard – perhaps too well. If you say anything antifeminist you are vilified. But it doesn’t even have to be antifeminist.

Take a couple of examples:

The Metro published an article with the headline “Harley St dentist’s wife died at home from asphyxiation. Complaints that this was feminist included this tweet from Dr Adam Rutherford which sought to argue the article is sexist because the Harley St dentist’s wife was also a dentist, and that referring to her as a wife demeaned her on two grounds – firstly, that she should be regarded as a ‘wife’ rather than the actual victim; and secondly that her dentistry was somehow inferior to her role as a wife. The argument is that the story should be about her, how she died.

But that’s not the story. When you read the story, it actually is a story about him – the inference is strong; that it was he murdered who her. And therefore it is a story about the killer rather than the victim – that this is a callous man who can smother his wife in a moment of fury and yet he held a privileged position in society. [SPOILER – read the first couple of paragraphs and you will see he was arrested for attempted murder. Read more than those teaser paragraphs and you find out that he was released without charge; that the investigation was no longer being treated as a murder investigation; that he was no longer under suspicion. The deliberately suggestive headline being somewhat misleading.]

And so a non-sexist story was readily adopted as an example of everyday sexism.

And then there was Matt Haig, an author who has done mightily well to garner some free media inches of publicity for his books which people might otherwise have been unaware were it not for his vilification at the hands of the public. You’ll forgive me being a sceptic here but it is very easy to
garner free publicity; but similarly you have to actively put yourself out there and sell the story.

Despite the frequent suggestion, stories do not just fall into journalists laps – they either go out and hunt them down; or they get handed them – usually by someone with a vested interest in getting them published.

And so, an author I have otherwise not heard of was thrust into his five seconds. He put out a badly typed provocatively worded tweet suggesting that his next book should be about masculinity. He then claimed he was set upon by the vigilante feminists – that he was crucified.

And so he enjoyed his twitterstorm and sales spike.

Now, there are a number of issues with his little bit. Firstly, yes – there are a lot of replies and mentions to that tweet. Has he been crucified by it? Well, when you look, a lot of the tweets are supportive of him; or entirely divergent from his ‘feminist’ argument, instead focusing on the mental health point of his tweet. A lot are from the same people who end up in conversations with others very vaguely related to the point which veer off at a tangent. Yes, there are some critical tweets – correctly so as the tweet was either deliberately or naively word provocatively – and there are the few, offensive trolls. This is, afterall, a tweet on Twitter, and there are some people with nothing better to do. Was it newsworthy?

But, to get back to my point, there has been the very incorrect assumption by the feminists that discussions around masculinity are – must – be sexist. That masculinity and feminism are mutually exclusive. And they aren’t – they are, necessarily, co-dependent. Not in the sense that if masculinity exists it must be to the detriment of feminism; but in the sense that if there are some discriminations which affect women, there must be an equal and opposite discrimination which affects men. And this is particularly as masculinity has been redefined over the last few decades. Blame metrosexuality, blame strong, supportive dads, blame David Beckham. It no longer emasculates you to be seen as pretty, as caring, as empathetic. Indeed, it can show how strongly comfortable you are with your role.

Now, there are a number of reasons out there why the aggressive feminists seem to be at the fore at the moment.

Because aggression is at the fore these days. In the angsty teenage years of the internet – or, more particularly, social media – we’re still getting used to how to control the hormones. But I’ve discussed that already.

But I think we are a bit hypersensitive to all equalities at the moment – almost desperately so. There are the various fights for same-sex marriage; the fights over racial killings in America (particularly by police officers); the arguments over immigrants in the Mediterranean sea.

And, of course, you don’t hear about people with mild opinions – either because they are so mild that it just isn’t worth saying; or that it certainly isn’t worth repeating-retweeting-rebutting or getting angry over. I think perhaps the most aggressive I’ve seen people get over antipathy is when it came to the recent general election – and it wasn’t proper antipathy that people were getting annoyed with, it was the anti-politicking. Again, people mistook the meaning of posts – one of my friends put something on Facebook about him getting bored with people posting their political views; one of my other friends mistook this as antipathy and launched into a tirade about how good it was that people were actively involved in the political process. The first friend was involved, engaged – he was going to vote and knew who he was going to vote for; he was just getting bored with the rhetoric, with other people - particularly non-politicians, people whose jobs didn't directly rely on his vote - telling him how to vote.

And, of course, I haven’t written an article on the 99.9999% of non-offensive, non-provocative or non-sexist tweets. They are just the background noise that you accept.

It’s the occasional gunshot that disrupts the standard.

Fruit Cake

2015-05-21T20:51:00.000+01:00

So, have you seen the #ashersbakery #ashersverdict?

In case you weren't following, Ashers' bakery in Northern Ireland refused to ice a cake with a message in support of gay marriage because of their Christian beliefs. The Supreme Court has decided that this is illegal.

OK, let's start by ignoring my long-held belief that homophobia is anti-religious. That religions are about hope, faith, love - about positivity, inspiration and inclusion. No true religion preaches hate, discrimination or alienation.

We'll ignore all of that.

I also want to ignore my initial skepticism around the publicity of this case. I had originally thought this was a particular group of "militant homosexuals" - people targetting a known offender and wanting either to make a showpiece of them; or a name for themselves. You know the types - it's the bride-to-be who goes to the cake shop owned by the ex to make a point. I hate militant homosexuals - they have the effect of irritating, aggravating or worse inflaming the situation worse.

That wasn't the case. Gareth Lee - the man who brought the case - has not publically commented on it. At all. Over the entire period of the case. Unlike the bakers, who have made it their thing. I had presumed that he had targetted the business on the basis of their homophobia to make a point. There is also absolutely no evidence of that. I'm not aware of the specific circumstances here, but from the sounds of things he didn't target them deliberately. It could very well be that he didn't realise they were Christians; it could be that he had no choice - that there were no other bakeries that he could get to. As I say, aside from bringing the case, he has otherwise not courted any publicity.

We're doing this on pure basics.

So,under the Equality Act 2006 (which does apply to NI unlike the equal marriage laws) it is against the law to discriminate. The are no grounds to justify discrimination. This is not about one 'right' or 'belief' outweighing the other; this is about anybody being able to buy any product or service from any supplier.

They can refuse (freedom to contract) to sell to any individual customer for any reason so long as it is non-discriminatory. You can do so for personal reasons - a fall-out with the family - or for credit reasons. However it would be illegal for me to refuse to serve someone on the grounds of a discriminatory reason - their religious or philosophical beliefs, say. And so it is illegal for someone to refuse to serve me on the grounds of my sexuality. A discriminatory reason is not personal to the individual - it has nothing to do with that person as they are - it is because that person holds a certain characteristic. If you could sell to the person if they didn't have that characteristic, that is discrimination.

Let's be clear about this - when you open up a business, when you extract revenue out of society - you comply with law. You have to comply with all laws - regardless of whether they accord with your particular views. You may have to comply with the laws on allergy disclosure despite the fact that you don't believe someone is truly allergic. You have to comply with disclosures on weights or other measures despite the fact that you don't believe people truly care. Similarly you have to comply with equality legislation.

And there is very good reason behind equality legislation. It forces equality. Sometimes you can't just rely on the good in people to do the right thing.

Take disabled people.

Under the same Equality Act as the Ashers' bakery case was brought under, it is a legal requirement to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. If this wasn't legislated for, there would be so many shops and other businesses which would be inaccessible because they didn't have a ramp where one could easily be provided; didn't have a hearing loop because it cost a few hundred quid (or not even that); didn't have a website which was reader-compatible. The Equality Act has forced people to consider these adjustments - to broaden their customer base.

But, the basics of it is the law - the law does not say that you have to prioritise one protected characteristic over another; it says that you cannot discriminate against ANY of those protected characteristics. The same bakery - despite the beliefs of its owners - would not have been able to discriminate against any other protected characteristic.

Whether that be the Asian chap who lives a few doors down the road;

Or the Catholic from the other side of the Falls Road;

Or the Republican from South of the border.

Indeed, the owners of the shop rely very much on the same Equality Act to require other people to provide them with goods or services. Regardless that their religious or philosophical beliefs are homophobic. We can't refuse to serve them on the basis their religious or philosophical beliefs are contrary to our own properly equalistic and humanistic beliefs. We can't refuse to serve them because of their Christianity.

There have been some that have said "well, why couldn't the gay's just boycott the bakery"? In the days of Blogger and Worldpress and Facebook and Twitter or Tripadvisor where a negative review can apparently spread like wildfire; could they not just do it that way? - Cripple a business by letting them know they don't accept gays?

Well no.

Not if it's your only bakery in the region. What if they are the only people in 20 miles than can bake your wedding cake for the day (in Northern Ireland this is an issue just as it is in Wales, or Cornwall, or Cumbria, or even some of the villages of the Midlands). Or what about your local shop - your only convenience store for miles - what if they decide they don't like you because you hold hands with your boyfriend (take me away from my rant about Public Displays of Affection)? What if they refuse you not because you want a gay message icing on your cake, but just because you were gay?

What if they were to refuse you just because you were a woman?

What if they were to refuse you just because you were black?

NO BLACKS NO IRISH NO GAYS. Remember those disgraceful signs in B&Bs of the 50s, 60s, 70s? Would they have disappeared without the Race Relations Act etc?

The unfortunate fact is that sometimes, without legislation we just simply can't achieve what is morally or socially correct. And the Equality Act seeks to do that. To the benefit of the Irish.

You are entitled to promote certain policies, views, etc. - take a look at the Co-Operative Bank's Ethical investment policy or any of a multitude of companies who invest strategically (indeed the Church of England did so recently by divesting some coal-based-fuel investments); but what you cannot do is do it to the discrimination of a sector of society. The distinction is that the Co-Op and others are making the choice as to who they buy their services from. The customer gets to choose where they buy from; you do not choose which group of customers you sell to; because if you remove the choice from the customer, then you may deny the customer that service absolutely - remember, yours may be the only service.

You can be Christian without being homophobic.

And if you can't; then don't set up in business where you might have to serve the general public at large.

And, they didn't have to eat the cake - only make it and then it was gone.

And all this happened just a couple of days before the Irish Republic holds their referendum on equal marriage.

Why Wireless Won't Work

2015-05-01T20:17:00.000+01:00

So, after the experiment that was the standalone smart watch, last year I bought a nice, big, shiny new phone. A Windows Phone no less – yes, I’m one of the few (or the “early adopters” as I like to think).

One of the features of the phone is wireless charging. Some prophets have predicted this to be the next “must-have” feature, just as all mobiles have cameras. They are rolling out wireless charging facilities at McDonalds and Starbucks. So, will it be the end of all cables?

No.

Despite the phone having the facility, it didn’t have a charging plate in the box (you still have the ability to charge by microUSB). That was a luxury extra which I had to buy. So I bought a couple – one for home, one for work. And this is the reason why it won’t work – I couldn’t buy one for the car because they don’t exist yet. You see, it order for the plate to charge the phone, the phone has to be so close so as to be almost physically in contact with it. I couldn’t have bought a charging plate for the car because unless it was built into a cradle, the phone would slide off at each and every corner.

Now, it may well be that they create a cradle which does charge your phone whilst driving. Great. It’s going to save me all of that one second of not having to connect a cable as well as clip it into the cradle. And I will still have to cope with cable-clutter – don’t forget, there is still a cable going to the charging plate, even if it is hidden under the bar of table of your McDonalds.

But it isn’t a normal cable. Well, not “normal” yet. What do I mean? Well, microUSB cables are ten-a-penny. When I randomly woke up in a hostel in San Francisco for a long weekend, my hostel bed had a normal electricity socket and then two USB ports. Similarly in the UK there are planes, trains and automobiles which provide USB ports as standard. But the wireless plate doesn’t use USB so that you can use your normal plug adaptor. It uses its own transformer – it has to. The 5volt-1amp output of the USB is not powerful enough for inductive charging – it needs 12volts.

So compatibility is an issue on the one hand; but compatibility is an issue on the other hand as well – as well as not being compatible with existing technology, it isn’t compatible with competing technology. Remember the disc wars – when HD-DVD competed against Bluray and eventually lost. There are two competing standards of wireless charge: Qi and PMA. Oh, and of course, Apple has gone off all on its own. Now, this isn’t a killer. Remember when you used to get an “all staff” email asking if anyone had a charger for a Nokia 8210 and Deborah would reply-all that she only had one for a Motorola Razr? Now all phones (except Apple, obviously) have standardised. They all use MicroUSB, they all use microSD memory cards, they all use Jpeg format for photos. Wireless will get there. Maybe. Until then you may have to choose whether to go to McDonalds (Qi) or Starbucks (PMA).

So, you’re going to have to buy a whole new, incompatible infrasystem to charge your phone. But – and I’ve hinted at this – it isn’t even wireless. As I say, you have to have your phone in such close proximity to the plate that it’s just easier to place it on it. But what it doesn’t have which cables do have, is stability. Which I found out to my cost. One evening I put my phone on the charging plate next to the bed and then fell asleep. At some stage I obviously dreamt that I was a dog, bounding through fields, and knocked the phone off the plate. Charging stopped and I spent most of a busy next day fretting that my 34% battery would not last. With a cable, it connects in and – particularly violent dreaming aside – it stays plugged in despite a few knocks. Indeed, the cable is actually more useful for this – if I connect my phone by cable, then I can go round my roundabouts and watch it sliding around in the footwell. Moreover what I can do is actually hold and use the phone whilst it is on charge without having to hold an actually-quite-chunky charging plate against the back.

The novelty (and it really is novelty) has worn off. Indeed, only if charging plates become so widespread that they are embedded in train tables; bar tops and dashboards will I be able to travel without my single microUSB cable. In fact, I’m actually going to unplug my charging plate and revert to cabled charging. Not only is it not a function, it’s actually a disruption now. I have my worry which I don’t have with cables that there may be a disconnect; but there is a further interference – the transformer, because of what it is doing, makes a slight pulsing sound all the time. All the time – not just whilst connected. There is also a tiny little light on the plate which illuminates to let you know it is charging; presumably to alleviate that niggling fret that the phone is not correctly placed on the plate; but that tiny little light illuminates an entire bedroom when connected.

Caps Off

2015-04-28T01:18:00.002+01:00

On Monday two weeks ago the Black Cap closed.

The Gay community was up in arms. I, personally, was somewhat devastated. I spent Eurovision 2014 in the Black Cap, together with a number of other football related events (the gay football team Leftfooters were sponsored by the Black Cap). (oh, and just bye-the-bye, that is one of the better Buzzfeed longform articles you will read. But then you know I don't really hold them in that high regard suffering somewhat from Myspace syndrome. But it's still worth the read).

And there has been a lot of noise as to the hows and the whys around it - that it was done callously to avoid being defined an Asset of Community Value (as shut, it can't be an asset); that - similar to the Carlton Tavern which had just been listed - the closure is a pre-emptive strike to such a measure; that it is purely bastardistic capitalistic nastyism.

Every day the papers, particularly the London ones, are up-in-arms about the housing shortages, the sky-high prices or the astronomical rents. So what do Londoners want?

MORE FLATS

Only ... well ... maybe some of them don't. On the BBC's PM programme this evening, it was rather lovelily summed up - we want, no NEED, more housing, just not in our back yard.

The Black Cap was bought by Faucet Inns Ltd, who applied for planning permission to retain a bar but lose a couple of upstairs bars (some of which barely used) to create new flats. And lose the whole of 8 square metres on the ground floor. Think of a normal bar: 8 square metres is probably less than a gents toilet comprising one broken seated pan and a couple of urinals.

This - if you believe the gay press - is an epidemic. But, so is homophobia - any injury to a gay person is a "gay bashing" regardless of whether the person doing it knew the sexuality. We live in fear, not just of our lives, but of our bars. Someone I follow on Twitter recently tweeted questioning whether a particular publication was just there to call out every single assault on a gay person as homophobic. I have been assaulted - my jaw broken - there was no aspect about my sexuality that pre-empted that. They were just drunk. It was as much a part of their Friday night as the beer and the kebab at the end.

So,back to the epidemic....

Madame JoJos, the Green Carnation, the Joiners Arms, the Black Cap, the Yard, the George....

Only, that's not really true.

The Joiners Arms was due to close on 15th January 2015. Only it didn't. I was there on 7th February. Indeed, if you look at the Time Out article update, it states that as at 26th March the Joiners continues.

The Green Carnation is being redeveloped into a new venue. Quite possibly a new venue that either the gays will adopt; or that even may actively encourage them into.

The Yard was an odd one. It was shrieked that the planning permission about the Yard. It actually affected far more businesses than the just the Yard. A hell of a lot more businesses. Hence it got rejected.

And the threat against the George really is a kind-of-a-non-threat. The George is - as contrasted to the others - owned. I - as a lawyer - have always, repeatedly, until I'm blue-in-the-face repeated and reiterated my clients that IF IT IS LEASED, YOU HAVE NOTHING. You have occupation until the end of the lease. After that, you have nothing. You may have been there for thirty years, but if your lease is for thirty years, you have no rights after that (subject to a very few statutory provisions). There are too many people who wail "but we've been there so long!" - then, why didn't you buy? If you lease, you lease. You gain the benefits of being able to move out; you bear the risk of having to move out. I've heard people - indeed, my colleague (also a solicitor) - spending ridiculous amounts of money on a rented home only to then decry when the landlord wants it back about "how much they've spent"on it.

One of the threats against the George which is real, and which has occurred in a number of places including Manchester, is that an existing venue gets shut down by a neighbouring new development because of noise. And this is the problem the George faces - its immediately neighbouring site has been acquired not for "entertainment" as was the previous planning permission, but now for residential use.

Now, this really is a problem, and a wrong-un. We've seen before so many times how clubs (yes, straight clubs) get shut down despite many, many, years of use, of taxes and of rates, of income to the cities; purely because a very new housing development next door which fully well knew of the club and the noise, then complains about the club and the noise once the development has been built.

In my view, these challenges should not be allowed. If the bar is there, if you know about the bar when you buy your flat, you buy knowing that. Only if the bar changes its established behaviours - opening later, playing louder music - should you be (and are under planning/licensing rules entitled to challenge. Otherwise your housing developer should factor in noise protection in the same way as they factor in foundations and roadways when building.

But anyhow, it's being included in the threat to the London gay scene. The New Statesman handily compiled a list of gay venues that have closed since 2008. What struck me is - how few there were. 12 in six years. It doesn't list those that have opened - this weekend I went to Glory, Jonny Woo's new bar. As I've said previously, in Nottingham as one bar has shut one has opened (or vice versa).

I think possibly my main problem with this is how it is being presented as an almost exclusively gay issue. Or a gay issue at all.

What do I mean?

Well, "straight" pubs are closing all the time. I've mentioned this before. When I used to walk to the train station I walked past well over a dozen pubs. In one area alone there were so manywithin a minute walk of each other - the Duke of Devonshire with the White Lion just over the road, the Vines opposite, the Bath Inn at the bottom and the Market Bar round the corner, the Moot Hall and the Earl Howe finishing the little block. Further up the road there were the Lord Alcester and the Duke of Cambridge and then another little cluster - the March Hare, the Red Cow, the Smithy. Most of these have gone. Nottingham doesn't have a cronic housing problem, yet still the Earl Howe, the Lord Alcester the Duke of Cambridge and the White Lion have been converted into multiple flats.

And whilst you will hear of the "gentrification" of the gay scene in all of the London pieces; the gentrification of "non-gay" areas is being protested (literally). You just don't hear about it because there isn't the same agenda. Probably the most vocal that people got was when it threatened that year-dot of clubbing, the Ministry of Sound. The deal has been reached, but the threat hasn't gone away that it could still face noise complaints.

And lets face it, this isn't a new thing. It's been blamed on everything from supermarkets, the housing crisis, digitisation and 'dating' apps, everything. Both within the gay and straight communities. Only the gays shriek louder that "it's because we're gay, isn't it" (in the style of Little Britain's Daffyd).

One of the real issues is fashion. Or lack. A horrendous number of gay bars rely on an old, tired formula - usually involving drag and/or cabaret - and what they assume is a captive (nay, hostage) audience. Gays don't want or need drag like they used to in the 50s where it was a natural progression from the musical hall revues and such like. Drag these days is grotesque, gaudy, aggressive, repetitive, discriminating. And yes, I've spent a Saturday night in the Two Brewers in Clapham and loved every minute of it but for the cabaret. What we want is a bar that plays the same homogenous playlist as every other bar, we just want it to be a gay bar so that the only knock-back we get from asking a guy for his number is that he doesn't fancy us; not a threat of a punch in the face if I question his masculinity. We don't need to differentiate ourselves any more than making clear the only difference that makes a difference.

And this is where Nottingham - surprisingly - leads the way. In my earlier post I mentioned how our bars came and went; and a lot of that is down to the more volatile nature of our clienteles. Nottingham is a young city - we have two universities; and so many of those dwindling locals that when the centre gets to busy you simply stay local. You have to. There's no Underground and we've only had night buses for a few years. London is different. You stay. You may move around, but you can get around because the Underground is just such a thing - you have a season Oyster so don't fret about paying the £3.70 it will cost you to get two buses taking well over an hour to get the other side of the city.

These means there is less bar loyalty. If you don't like it, you vote with your feet. And surprisingly, actually, Nottingham is a very liberal city. Gays feel safe in "non-gay" bars. We go where we like the music rather than the cock. This comes about because of the youth of the city - the students are more accepting, more equality and diversity aware (indeed, engaged) but also because the venues support the bands that we want to see - whether that's your new student band; or the bands "that the kids these days are listening to". We have the audience, the demand.

@d2 used to have a drag cabaret performance on a Sunday night. I think the low point for me was when they performed Springtime for Hitler and a couple of Cabaret songs on Remembrance Sunday. But the venue was on its arse with the Sunday nights being the best attended of nights. And they weren't that well attended. People realised that they don't need, want, or like drag. We want cock, not cock in a frock. It shut and whilst the Foresters keeps a token finger in the pie with the occasional show, it relies much more heavily on karaoke (though often hosted by a drag artiste who seems to do it more because it's what he wants to do rather than because it's what people want him to do).

When I went to the Two Brewers a few months ago they had drag on. On a Saturday night. When people just wanted to dance. Fortunately for the Two Brewers they have a back room where people can dance (it gets very busy in there when the drag is on) and the only 'local' competition for the devoted gays is Kazbar. The drag cabaret act there performed and what I was massively struck by was how none of the songs were younger than 20 years. They were songs from the shows. This is probably the same performance set this guy has done for the last ten years. And that's a shame. In fact a lot of cabaret is a shame. It's either people miming and all you're expected to do is applaud their make-up; or else they do genuinely sing the song, but that's it. It's karaoke. I long for the day where you have a proper creative artiste who re-lyrics the songs to thrust into them every innuendo she can get her hands on.

Indeed, when you look at the reports on the Black Cap, they all eulogise about its glory days. Very few of the revel in what happened last week. Whilst I was in Dalston Superstore with my friends on Saturday, two of them confessed that - despite living in Camden - they hadn't been to the Black Cap in years. One who had a month or two prior to it closing reported that - on a Saturday night - it was practically dead.

And this highlights a further problem - that bars are businesses. Pride simply doesn't pay. You need more than a pink pound - you need real pounds; and lots of them. Not just to pay the staff, the drag, the dray; but to buy the place, so that the end of the lease isn't such a massive surprise. And to attract the money you have to stay fresh, dynamic, relevant. You have to be a venue - a destination - in your own right. You have to be somewhere that people want to go to, not have to. Because equality came to all bars equally, not just the gay ones.

Limp old Cucumber

2015-03-31T01:03:00.000+01:00

So, did you watch Cucumber - Channel 4's almost kinda flagship "gay" tv for the last 15 years?

Only it wasn't really, was it?

There was so much spout about how 1) it was a big, almost exclusively gay comedrama; and 2) that it was Russell T Davies bring this about.

Somehow the gay community have Russell T Davies as our saviour, our solo commentator, our figurehead, our idol, our god. And it's a position he has not rejected - indeed, has almost created for himself with as much creativity as he has incorporated in his scripts.

Which isn't the case. There have been gay characters - indeed, every soap opera these days have gay characters; Eastenders has Johnny Carter and Danny Pennant; Emmerdale has Aaron Livesy and Robert Sugden; Coronation Street has Todd Grimshaw and Sean Tulley; Holoyoaks is practically all gay at one stage or another. They are in Casualty, Holby City, Broadchurch, Downton Abbey, all over.

(I had to Google a lot of these, I have no time for soaps)

But there are so many other dramas or comedies which involve a gay character which I'm not going to try to list because they are so many. They do however seem to ignore things like Beautiful People and Gimme Gimme Gimme (which ran around the same time as Queer as Folk) albeit both written by Jonathan Harvey.

The argument about Cucumber is that it is almost exclusive gay. This, apparently, has not been seen on British tv since Queer as Folk. We have to ignore Looking because it is American, and also only recent. We have to ignore the films such as Brokeback Mountain, A Single Man, A Beautiful Thing which are almost exclusively gay and very often British, but films. Indeed, we have to ignore "Vicious", an exclusive gay British comedy, presumably because it doesn't include drama. Or hasn't been written by Russell T Davies.

So, what we're weeding it down to is a tiny, tiny selection of British comedramas which are almost exclusively gay. Which is weird, because Britain isn't exclusively gay; no "real" community is exclusively gay; drama isn't "exclusively" gay. or "almost exclusively".

And the reason we don't need an exclusively or almost exclusively gay drama? Because we don't need an exclusively or almost exclusively gay drama. We are a part of society - or, at least in this country, nearly are entirely accepted. And what these comedramas do is reinforce our exclusion. Everyone has concentrated on how this is the first gay drama in 15 years - they haven't concentrated on all of those millions of gay characters or anyone that they aren't in love with as much as Russell T Davies - the Ian McKellen of the writing world; he who is so lovely and adorable and not at all as acerbic as Peter Tatchell.

Anyhow, this isn't a blog about media inclusions/portrayal of gays. This is specific to Cucumber and a comparison to Queer as Folk.

Because Queer as Folk was groundbreaking. So the expectations on Cucumber were similar.

Only ... it failed. Massively.

Let's be fair, it could never have been as groundbreaking as Queer as Folk, because Queer as Folk had broken that ground - the "gay" ground.

There is a question as to whether there is new ground to break, or whether the 15 years meantime mean that ground has been eroded. Let's face it, Queer as Folk introduced the nation to gay life and to threesomes, to underage sex, to drug use, to coming out, to going out to everything but normal gay life.

The problem that I have with it is that it does nothing that Queer as Folk doesn't do. In fact - one episode aside - it is a mirror of Queer as Folk.

They both start with this fantastically crazily absurdly fantastical episode which ticks as many of Channel 4's boxes as possible. Swearing - yes; nudity - yes; sex scenes - yes; drug use - yes.

And they aren't the only similarities. Unfortunately. They are so many. And it strikes a shard at Russell T Davies almost desperate reliance on his consistent shock factors that worked fifteen years ago but do not work today.

There is, obviously, the heavily reliance on Manchester - all that RTD knows. Canal Street. And - almost farcically - based around the most enormous loft apartments that Stuart could afford, but that there had to be some fantastical creation to engineer Freddie's predicament in the same space.

And the "age" thing. The worry about growing or being old - Queer as Folk barely went ten minutes without mentioning Nathan's 15 or 16 years old, or Stuart or Vince approaching 30; Cucumber has RTD's obsession with youth again with Freddie, Dean and Adam whilst obsessing similarly about Henry and Lance's age - how they are not scene any more. This age and age difference thing is omnipotent. Almost exclusive of any actual story. There are the underage sex references - Nathan, and Adam and Tomasz.

And yes - Adam. The nephew that gets used by RTD in the same way as the nephew in Queer as Folk outs Stuart.

There are the other basics - three main characters - Stuart, Vince and Nathan; Henry, Lance and Freddie. There are the add-ons - the Hazels and Cleos (we'll ignore Hazel's cameo in Cucumber, it's RTD basically jerking off in your face), the Camerons and the Daniels, the Dean and the Alexander. Let's not dwell to heavily on that - yeah there have been those such as Friends or Cold Feet that rely on many major characters, but even when you look back to Only Fools and Horses or Birds of a Feather they really rely on just those three major characters. So it's not exclusive.

There are the deaths - Phil and Lance. There are the "foreigners" - Cameron and Daniel.

There is the total lack of actual proper gay "masc" types. The closest that RTD has ever gotten to representing what are probably almost 50% of gay men is with Cliff - a barely seen character in Cucumber that adds very little except the occasional voice of reason.

And - similar to the age thing - is the desperation to show how down with the kids he is - how new tech. Remember Queers as Folk when an episode focused on him contacting people over the equivalent of chatrooms; then in Cucumber it has a brief Grindr reference with a massive vlogging reliance.

There are even two Lances - Lance who gets killed in Cucumber, Lance the emigrant who moves in with Romey in QAF.
I mean, for goodness sake, there are even two "running into the distance viewed over by cranes" moments; one where Vince runs away from Stuart's problem of Nathan; one where Henry runs away from Lance's place (there were probably more, I kept falling asleep).

And this ignores RTD's long, rambling elegies/eulogies/soliloquies/platitudes about how crap or amazing gay life is, about how coming out as gay is amazing or terrible, about gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay.

And it's boring.
There were differences - the older age matching RTD's; somehow he had managed to make the characters even flatter and unlikeable, the storylines even less believable or interestable. Sat the end of Queer As Folk you felt for Vince, you wanted good to become of him. At the end of Cucumber I didn't feel for anyone, I had no idea what, if any, story there was, I didn't understand what lesson or otherwise we were supposed to take away from it. I was just happy Tha it had ended.

The concentration on gay, the exclusion of almost all of the rest of society, is the absolute polar reverse of what gay society experiences. Maybe Cucumber was just trying to rebalance the previous imbalance, but that doesn't work in 2015.

What's worst is the gays didn't lap it up. Some did. Some of the gays loved it - almost exclusively because it was gay - they love gay things because they are gay things, irregardless of quality (those that fell outside of that loved it because of Freddie). And theirs were the opinions that got magnified, because that's what the media were desperate for - they had "bigged" it up so much, they were desperate for the success that it was all they could report - indeed because most tv reviewers are gay and desperate to advance their agenda. But - and this may be purely anecdotally - aside from the one episode where Lance got killed, all of the others were widely derided as being dated, fictional, farcical, unbelievable, unrepresentative and actually derogative.

Has it taken us further forwards? No. Has it advanced the cause? No. The risk is, it may have taken us back fifteen years.
And that's nothing to shout about.

Viral fluff

2015-03-15T22:20:00.000+00:00

So, are are your social media feeds finally free of #weaselpecker?

You know, the photo of the weasel riding the woodpecker. It "went viral" so virally that it made the news. Which was odd, because it started out as an item on the nature section of news sites as one of those fantastic photos.

But then it went viral on social media firstly because of the fantasticness of the picture, but then because of the photoshoppability of the picture. Every single spoof, "new media", and eventually "real" media site went wild creating their Buzzfeed-style "look what the internet did with the #weaselpecker" posts.

But this came just a day after #TheDress. You know THE DRESS. The dress that went viral. Someone posted it to Tumblr and it got caught on Twitter. I was fully aware, it hit newsfeed just as I got in from the pub - by the morning it was all my newsfeed was going on about it. And by the evening, everyone in my timeline was bored by it.

The fact that it made evening news was revilled by some. My evening feeds were filled with "seriously, a dress is the news?!" type posts.

And, in the scale of wars and crimes and arrests and failures and reports and statistics and everything, it did, to some, sit uncomfortably as a news item.

Because it wasn't negative.

News these days has to be negative. Doesn't it?

Every now and again you get some heart-warming tale of charitable work with a positive end; ITV used to end their News At Ten with a 'light-hearted' story every night, but that's what it was - fluff. It wasn't news, it was just something to make sure you don't go to bed with a nightmare.

But #TheDress was news. If news is "current affairs" - well, it was current (it only went wild those few days) and it was what pretty much everyone was talking about. I don't know of a single office that hadn't discussed #TheDress by the end of the day.

Real media loved it - they could do real reporting on a popular theme. There was recent, actually really properly educational, scientifically important research as to why #TheDress might be see as #WhiteAndGold or #BlueAndBlack. It allowed them to fully contextualise a viral meme within education. So I think criticisms about it being "reported by the media" are perhaps a little unfair. Firstly it was a massive social media - and therefore general media - and secondly, it had that educational property.

But the criticism really is that 'viral' should not be 'news'. 'Viral' should be fluff. It shouldn't be 'news'. It should be one of those things that fills the "third media" sites.

The First Media being News - politics, business, crime, disaster the Hard Stuff.

Then there is the Second Media - Entertainment. Actual information as to who is doing what in the Entertainment Industry or who is being cast as whom, what is being written, by whom, and all that stuff.

And then there is the Third Media - stuff that may or may not involve the day's story; but can be nicely listed, or listicled, or aggregate relatively recent stories from various sites in a nice, light-hearted, almost clickbated manner.

Finally there is MailOnline. Which really falls between all of the stones of "media" and ends up scattered amongst the tattle and clickbait of the rest of the web. Who were equally as eager to report on the criticism of TheDress as they were to report on TheDress the day before.

TheDress happened within hours of the lovely Llamas that got loose and set media and social media alight. These almost kind of legitimately made the news because they were shutting down certain areas of the town. One town, in a very large state, one of just 50 states of the Country. But it was lovely because it was llamas shutting it down, not gunmen. No-one was at risk. Everyone actually wanted the llamas to survive. But this was one small town in a small county in a small state in America - it went global because it is what is needed now.

But it also happened within weeks - perhaps days - of other "stories" which are in no way newsworthy, other than purely because of how viral they went. The chap who - apparently - woke up back in his taxi driver's house watching Take Me Out; the chap who - apparently - replied to his own text message whilst drunk.

Now, there are two points to take from this.

Firstly, you'll notice that I repeatedly say "apparently". People are desperate for their fifty five clicks of fame. I recently watched the documentary Catfish. If you haven't, do. It shows just how easy it is to lie online, but also how the lies spin out of control. But photoshopped pictures of politicians, fake Twitter profiles, statuses purporting to come from people which don't, even fakely adding a 'verified' symbol to an account are rife, purely for that little bit of fame. If you get retweeted once; you get a buzz. If you get retweeted a dozen times, it is far more than a dozen buzzes. I've already commented on when something is or isn't viral.

But, the second thing to note is how many First Media sites I have linked to. And I've deliberately tried to avoid the Second Media or Third Media sites. In particular, the chap who replied to his own text message when drunk was covered by Australian news - the other side of the world.

And this is it, in the face of Third Media sites First Media sites are bringing themselves down to that level. It's the Buzzfeed effect of media. But, what is key, is how the First Media sites report on them. As you've seen above, some of them have made them actual real stories. What I love about the BBC (everything) is they have identified this risk. They have set up a separate page - sorry, 'vertical' to cover these stories, but not just as an aggregator or rereporter, but to analyse the story behind either the story, or the reason that it went viral. A bit of depth to the fluff.

Social media is doing everything these days - it is reporting the news, it is allowing people to comment on the news, it is making the news, and now it is defining what the news is. It isn't just reporting it, it isn't just your reaction to it - it's reporting your reaction to it. What social media is doing is telling the editors - the people who used to control what you got to see - actually what it is that we're wanting to look at, interested in, commenting on, actively involved with. Whether this was on their news agenda or not. And yes, we are commenting on the important, serious stuff; but overwhelmingly we are telling the editors that their running order is too heavy, too serious.

We actually like fluff and fun.

The death of Twitter

2015-03-09T23:53:00.001+00:00

Is Twitter dying?

I recently read a very illuminating article on the perfect storm that lead to the collapse of Myspace. Now, whilst Twitter doesn't have half of the problems of Myspace, and whilst Facebook isn't a direct competitor, Twitter is struggling.

[interestingly - and purely as an aside - one of the complaints Mr Percival makes about Myspace is that it tried to do too much - have too many verticals - a complaint I have similarly made of Buzzfeed]

And I'm starting to notice it.

I can't say I was an early adopter; but for a chap living in the middle of England I was an early adopter. My London friends joined a couple of years before I did and have 30,000 - 70,000 tweets to their name; whilst I have a measly 13,000. That said, my 13,000 compares very favourably with my local friends - most of whom have yet to break a thousand. Just as it has taken the hipster beard a very long time to make its way to the provinces, so it has with Twitter.

But one of the problems with twitter - as identified by a number of commentators, including the BBCs Rory Cellan-Jones (I've struggled to find the article) - is that people struggle to get to grips with the Twitter experience. People join, follow a few accounts, and then wonder what else it does. And there are a number of reasons for this problem which spawn other problems as well.

The anonymity of Twitter can make it difficult to find your friends, unless you know their handle. And this allows users to have multiple accounts - lovely if you want one personal, one work account. Or, as is often the case, multiple accounts to troll.

And that's another problem with the anonymity - the trolling. A number of high profile people have quit because of the trolling. This is a problem that deserves an entire post in itself as to why this happens; but it does.

Some accounts are, very naturally, short-lived. We all remember CatBinLady? Or UKIPWeather? Or KatyPerrysLeftShark ? The things are very much a zeitgeist moment and - let's face it - as accounts are free to set up, why not? Let's have a little fun. Even some of the more established accounts - such as @queen_uk or @soverybritish run out of steam - usually after the first book has been published - and resort to far fewer posts, and recycling old posts again.

And then there are the fake accounts - the spambots that follow you. These don't really cause any harm (unless you're stupid and click the links) but they very much dust a thrill with ennui. Oooh, a new follower! you exclaim. And then you find out it's a spambot. And eventually you just don't care.

Now, people are very eager to predict the demise of Twitter. Analysts have had their fingers burnt by failing to predict other failures - most notably MySpace, but also Bebo, Friendster, Faceparty and others as well as non-SM failures, like Anderson accounting and Enron, Woolworths and many more. If you don't call it early, you're dead as an analyst. If you're wrong and it goes on to be a success; people will probably forget. But if you can hold your hand up and say "I called it first" you win - just look at Robert Peston's much lauded breaking of the Northern Rock collapse (and then subsequently the Bradford & Bingley implosion).

People have been a bit desperate for Twitter to fail, purely so they could call it first. They report problems generating profits, problems increasing or retaining users, competition (where really there isn't competition). Mostly it is the people who don't use it and don't understand it who are waiting for the fall.

But, as I say, there does seem to be a shift. The Londoners have gotten fed up with hipsters and shaved off their beards just as the fashion has hit the provinces. And so they appear to be shaving off their Twitter. Purely anecdotally, I have noticed some of the accounts I follow have dropped from posting five, ten, twenty times a day to going five days without posting at all. And some have dropped off Twitter entirely.

Now, this may be a winter fad - we all get a bit reclusive in winter, and that mood can spread to our online interaction too. It may be that as more and more stories of people getting prosecuted for online abuse; or losing jobs because of an inappropriate post, finally we are starting to learn a bit of SM etiquette. It may simply be a coincidence of personal circumstances - a number of my friends have recently changed jobs, and let's face it, when I changed my job 18 months ago, the first thing to take a hit was this blog.

And this is not confined to Twitter - the complaints I have seen about Facebook have increased, with more people ditching the site or at the very least posting considerably less to it. So it seems social media may have grown out of an anarchic adolescence an into a (slightly) more sensible adult. It could, perhaps, be the deflating of the second dot com bubble. It could just be a coincidental blip and that things will recover. Or it could be what is a busy SM market - with Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Pinterest and many many more - consolidating into a more mature market with fewer, bigger players naturally swallowing or squeezing out those that just don't have the might.

As they say, the patient is not yet on life support; but whether it is healthy enough to discharge is another matter.

Bland designs

2015-03-02T22:36:00.001+00:00

So, BBC News is rolling out a new look across the news site. It follows very strongly the theme from the main site:

Bland.

It's black and white and red. Even the red banner has lost any distinction - the 'news' globe that unified the BBC brand has gone. Other than pictures in the articles, there are no colours other than red.

It always did like a simple font, as clear a layout as possible, but this has stripped it back even further. Indeed, there's so much white space, that it ends up making it difficult to differentiate between the content; which seems weirdly crammed together.

It's somewhat different to the BBC Sport pages, which are so busy. They are positively cluttered - so many stories that to cram them in the headline has to be so similar a typesize to the summary. The article pages have info boxes and pictures scattered around disrupting the flow of the text. They obviously listened to that criticism when redesigning the News site.

Well, that and the people behind gov.uk. Have you noticed how similar the two sites are? Top banner, sans serif font, black and white, blocky, clear (bland?) layout.

And it's not the only site either. The National Lottery relaunched its website a month or two ago and it is similar - blocks, straight lines, angles, sans serif (though it does have much bigger, less necessary pictures).

And so has Outlook, although that is unifying the new Microsoft look - As Windows 8 launched, with it's square tile format for absolute, distinct clarity across a range of devices and screen sizes.

And that is part of the reason for the new websites - mobile. If you look at the beginning of the BBC URL, it starts m.bbc - indicating this to be a mobile redirect site. And that's the problem. Web designers are being asked to design websites for screens from 5 inches to 55 inches. But they are getting sloppy. It would be so easy to have two sites - one for mobile devices, and one for desktop. Tablets could direct to either. But they won't do more work than is necessary - or rather, the client won't pay for two designs.

There are some reasons for some of the decisions. Sans serif fonts - as well as being de mode at the minute - work better on pixellated screens; whilst serif fonts work better in print where the serif allows the text to flow, draws the eye across the word. Indeed, as the BBC's own justification behind their previous design change, the font has been picked for clarity. This distinction is becoming eroded as even small five inch screen start packing in 500+ pixels per square inch.

And again, blocky edges work better on LED/LCD screens as opposed to CRTs which used to be able to produce the rounded edges. But again, as screens have higher definition and refresh frequencies, the blur becomes less of an issue.

Some of it does come down to fashion - remember with web 2.0 where almost every single site - even the BBC - had customisable widgets or modules. They looked cool, modern. You told your client you were not just in touch with their users, but engaging with them - treating them as adults, letting them choose their content. They couldn't BE any more customer-focused.

Just as the BBC abandoned these, the local newspapers took them up. The problem being that people didn't want to customise the sites. Quite frequently they wouldn't land through the homepage, but click through from another site or a search result. Even if they did go to the homepage, a well designed and laid out homepage should give you everything you need without you having to select your own content. If you end up having to customise the homepage of each site you land on, that's a lot of customising, particularly as sites tend to refresh themselves every two or three years.

And big, bold, blocky is the latest of these fads. Curiously, whilst Apple usually excels at design, and whilst it's iOS phone operating system is widely regarded as probably the best - at least, the simplest - mobile operating system; the higgledy-piggledy design of the apps spawning (yes, another BBC article) discussion when it simplified some of the symbols.

Also, designers are taking award winning design advice. The gov.uk website (see beginning of this blog) won the Design Museum's Design of the Year Award for 2013 for "well thought out but understated design". They have been very open about sharing their Design Principles. And it's all lovely - a lot of common sense.

But the problem is that if everyone follows the same rules, they walk in the same direction. The redesigns may well have well thought out, understated designs; but one they don't have is distinction. Indeed, amongst those sites identified there is very little - aside from the 'brand' colour - to differentiate between the sites. With conformity they lose identity.

It's the curious paradox that as technology becomes more complex, so design targets simplicity; retaining the natural entropy.