John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

Quirky rugs

29 November 2003: I love things like Amazed Rugs, I love the originality. I kinda get bored with same-old. Even trinket shops all seem to buy from the same wholesaler. There's a craft revolution coming, I can feel it.

Cool headed Spanish

29 November 2003: SPAIN: I must have been mixing the Spanish with the Italians when I expected a certain hot-headedness, sorry about that. I found, actually, the opposite. Tolerance. For instance, in a street the width of just one car, a guy stopped his car, got out, and went into his house. The cars behind waited. He came out again, with three dogs running all over. He persuaded them into his car, got in, and drove off. It's not much of a problem, but in the UK we'd have been huffing. I suspect in the US and Italy he'd have been beeped to within an inch of his life. In Spain, I looked at the drivers behind and they showed no frustration whatsoever. They just sat, relaxed, and waited. According to my guidebook, the Spanish are renowned for their tolerance.

I just resigned

29 November 2003: I just resigned from a project. When I had my technology marketing company, at one time employing 17 people, I did my best to do all the right things. Basically my idea was to create a Tom Peters-style company that cared for and developed its staff. Basically, I wanted to create a really good working environment. I made great efforts with things like pay, health and safety, autonomy, and training. I failed to achieve that goal, to be honest. I think I should have been tougher, because I ended up spending all that I made on staff, and the business, while lasting ten years and through two recessions, was one of those problem companies that never dies, but never makes money either. So there never was enough money to realise my goals. Still, we did good work. I handled all of MapInfo's press communications from the time they were represented in the UK by a single person working in Livingstone and commuting from Holland every week, through the opening of their UK and European offices. Gemplus was another great client for many years.

We, working with creative agency Hartley Briggs and Ross, did some of our best work for Teamphone who eventually broke my camels back by not paying for £10,000 of work for which I'd paid out about £6,000. I paid Hartley Briggs and Ross, accepted Teamphone's paltry offer of £1,000, and slowly closed my company down.

It was the pain of that which made me learn that I need some 'lines in the sand'. Some rules which are never broken. Basically, I tend to like people. I think there are those that initially trust new people until they do something that shows they are untrustworthy. I like to work in a spirit of togetherness. Others work on the basis of not trusting people until they have developed a relationship. I like my way better, but obviously there are costs.

Knowing that I'm a trusting chap (others might say gullible, but I still say that my world is better than theirs), I've developed some lines in the sand for this business. One of them is that if a client hasn't paid after 60 days (without good reason and agreement), I'll stop work temporarily on their project until they catch up with payments. Obviously that escalates with time if no payment is made, but at that stage there's no loss of goodwill, and the timeslot remains available. I think that's fair (60 days is long enough), and it stops debts rising too far for both of us.

I just reached that point again with a client. It happened last month when they claimed that a) they hadn't received an invoice, and b) I was holding them to ransom. They paid one invoice and I sent a copy of the other. The other day that invoice still wasn't paid so I made clear, very nicely, the policy was still in operation. In response the client disputed parts of the invoice, cooked up a scheme to withhold part of it, and hinted at taking legal action. To be fair, they did pay the majority of it, but that still left an amount outstanding beyond 60 days. This, from a client who has quite sufficient money to pay. So I've resigned from this account. To my mind, you should learn from your past mistakes. Since I can't easily change my character, drawing a line in the sand that says "I shall not make that mistake again" is one way of implementing lessons learned. I imagine that's how humans have always tried to pass on what they've learned, by making proverbs, songs, telling stories and so on. Don't worry, I don't think I'm about to burst into song about this.

So I'm a little sad today. I don't like disputes like this. Part of the reward for my work is the beautiful relationship I feel I have with the people at The Tin Shop, Granite Worktops (UK) Ltd and the people at myKitchen.uk.com. I would have liked a similar relationship with the client I've been talking about, but there you go. I've not mentioned this disputing client before, so it isn't anyone listed on this site.

International Human Rights Day 12 December

29 November 2003: This looks interesting.

Google and thanksgiving

27 November 2003: Google has a change-of-logo to represent, I think, Thanksgiving. But I'm British. I know nothing, and I want to know nothing, about Thanksgiving. I don't know what it means, I don't know when it is. Buy Nothing Day (see below) is the day after Thanksgiving. Significant to Americans, but it means nothing to me. In fact, it feels like a cop-out. On Boxing day (the day after Christmas day) no-one in the UK wants to buy anything anyway. I think more internationalisation is called for here. I'm surprised, Google's usually exemplary.

You know what? There's www.google.co.uk. That has no Thanksgiving logo. Fantastic. And the news is British. Wow, I'd best change that in my browser. Ok, I've got vegan egg substitute on my face.

Wow, I can't believe that. In Mozilla (1.5) I just type into the URL box what I want, press the down arrow, and it pushes it to Google. Google.com that is. So I went to change it, and the list of possible search engines is a drop-down list. So, although I would definitely have chosen UK, British, UK English and all that in setup, I've got google.com as my search engine. And I can't seem to change it. How crap is that? I've tried to voice my desire to Mozilla but it's terribly complex, uses far too much time, and puts the onus on us (which I guess, as an Open Source project, it would).

Benjamin Zephaniah

27 November 2003: Benjamin Zephaniah has rejected an OBE. Now that's wonderful. Best find out more about him then.

Adbusting & buy nothing day (tomorrow)

27 November 2003: This is chilling. I have to say, I love the idea of adbusters, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. I find the spoof ads uninspired. It's as if all the really good creatives are working in business, and some who failed or just weren't very good vent their frustration here, producing not very good ads. I may be completely wrong, but that's just how it feels. I guess as it builds momentum the quality will improve. And it's negative. I want positive images, I already know the world's not how I and n-billion others would prefer it, I don't need reminding of that. I want a positive direction to head in.

I also don't really 'get' Buy Nothing Day, which is tomorrow. There's nothing on the site that explains the idea, so again, a failed website. Lots of campaigning stuff, but nothing about what you're supposed to 'do'. The press release doesn't explain either, it just re-iterates tired facts. Maybe that's me being overly male, and desparately unimaginative this morning .. wanting a complete set of instructions. Maybe that's the point. But, so every year I think, "OK then, I'll buy nothing tomorrow". My next thought is, "Well, I'd best get stocked up then. Have I got enough bread?" So, as I sit here I'm using electricity and gas and SMS on my phone. To avoid using those I should put something warm on and go walking. I can't do my work then. I'll need water though at least, but I pay for that. Maybe if I drew it from the tap today, I could use it tomorrow, but I'd have paid for it today so that's OK. The crux is, is it OK to stockpile things to use on Buy Nothing Day? Food and so on. And is it OK to use things you're not actually going to pay for today (electricity, your house), and things you paid for before (your clothes). Or are we supposed to do nothing that's got anything to do with commercialism. Well, if anyone wants to join me walking naked in the nearest copse, I'm up for it, but let's move the day to the summer, OK? See the problem? It stops me doing anything. Yet I love the idea, and I love the idea of adbusting, of people taking control of their lives. I want adbusters to succeed, to prove me wrong. But it all seems a bit 'King's new clothes' .. seems like no-one's actually said to them, "hang on a minute, this idea doesn't work".

Memes

27 November 2003: Memes are kind-of interesting. But why didn't I 'get' anything much on that site? Surely the point is, maybe, 'a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle', something that goes around, that everyone gets to know, that becomes part of popular culture and changes minds. I just spent a good half hour on that site and haven't come away with any new 'meme'. Frankly, nice and inspiring though the site it, I've got to say for me, it's a complete failure.

Breadmaking

27 November 2003: The top of my old monitor is the perfect place to raise bread. So what am I going to do when I get a flatscreen?

Bouffant

26 November 2003: Today I'm sporting a huge bouffant. Have you ever had one of those days when your hair decides to mock you? I'm unimpressed.

So funny

26 November 2003: This is so funny (blank faces all around), honestly, it is. A Flash beginning without the means to skip it, that wastes all sorts of time waving things at you, and then it says "Customer satisfaction is our highest priority". What, after you've just wasted my time showing off like that? What a hoot!

Let's buy an aeroplane

26 November 2003: Wow, I had no idea you could buy an aeroplane for so little. Even a helicopter. C'mon people, I'll come round with a hat, 50p from everyone we could do it!

Brita filtered water

26 November 2003: Since I decided to drink more water each day, I bought myself a Brita water filter. The first one I bought, the filter was broken and all its insides were outside. Anyway, I got that replaced, filtered some water, and I've just tasted it for the first time. It seems to taste sweeter.

Accessibility and internationalisation issues

26 November 2003: So here I am, working to design accessible websites. Making sure everyone can see the information no matter what their ability. I see disability as a continuum with a Mensa olympic champion at one end, and the comatose at the other.

In that sense, my partner's partly disabled by having to wear glasses, and I'm very slightly disabled by my tallness. I accept generally it offers more advantages than disadvantages, but it's amazing what it does affect. I need longer trousers, bigger shoes, a bigger bed. When we looked for houses some were rejected because the ceiling was too low. I spend more time on my knees than is good for me, since that puts me at the right height for a variety of tasks. I get more backache because everything from sinks to worktops are too low for me. My posture's crap because I try to come down to everyone's level. I do bang my head more often than most, and one day I'll have an eye taken out by some market stall roof corner.

I'm not saying I need compensation or anything. But it does rile me when I walk into a shoeshop and can't buy shoes. I'm a UK size 14. I could walk into all the shoe shops in Scarborough and ask for a size 14 shoe and they'd all reply with "sorry, we only go up to a size 11". I even got recommendations for the best place to get trainers in Hull (a bigger city nearby), went there and they had a huge wall full. I read every label and found one, a Nike, that went up to 14. I asked the assistant, "sorry, we've not got it in stock". I have most of my shoes hand made by Made to Last in Leeds (who did have a website but I can't find it now).

I did, in the end, find a pair of trainers in Scarborough. Wonderfully, I started with Ethical Consumer to find a brand that don't use sweatshop labour as Nike and so many others seem to do. They led me to the New Balance brand. From there I reached Sydenham's (Huntriss Row), an old-school retailer, who after a small fight to get served not only had New Balance trainers in stock, but had 14s in stock. That was a day for celebration for me :-)

Anyway, suffice to say it's not nice to be, basically, rejected by shops. They may as well call me a freak of nature.

Contrast that "you're a freak, get out of my shop" attitude with the attitude we should be using online. All welcome. It's a good thing, I just wish it worked in real life too.

Which leads me to another side of making our websites open. Internationalisation. This is a huge issue, but I've an idea which I've not seen done yet. I may write it as a paper, you never know. It's this. Businesses will basically internationalise their communications as far as their budget allows. For us this might mean a French and German translation, not much more. Very few companies translate into more than a few languages.

So I wondered about creating a table ranking languages by their populations, their buying power, and the percentage of the population online (perhaps even hours spent online). So businesses seeking international trade through the web would work down the list, taking perhaps English first, then I don't know, Chinese maybe, Spanish? There are a lot of Chinese speakers but perhaps their buying power isn't as much as Spanish speakers and perhaps they're not online as much. That's the point of the research, I'd work all that out and rank the languages so businesses know which language to translate into first, all other things being equal. Then businesses could add their own cost of doing business to my calculations and come up with their own rankings.

Yorkshire Water

26 November 2003: Yesterday we got brown water through the taps, so my partner called Yorkshire Water. At the end of the conversation with them, I heard her saying "thank-you so much, you've been very helpful". It turns out the woman on the helpline was exemplary. She told us that the color was due to sediment that's always in the pipes but that gets disturbed when work is done, and that some work had been done uphill from us that day. The colouring's perfectly safe, but if we want to buy bottled water keep the receipts and send them off and Yorkshire Water will pay for it. We shouldn't run the taps (which I remember was the old advice), as the goal is to give the sediment chance to settle again. Wow, that covers everything.

They must have learned how important customer service is during that summer when they suffered hugely bad press. Believe it or not it was 1995 (seems like yesterday). That's so long ago none of the online newspaper archives go back that far, but I've found some quotes in the google cache of halifaxtoday.co.uk. Anyway, the highlights were that we ran out of water and "on September 7, a 24-hour-a-day tanker operation began to import 1,500,000 gallons of water daily. At its height, it involved 650 lorries a day at a cost of £3 million a week." "A beleaguered Yorkshire Water faced further ridicule when managing director Mr Trevor Newton took part in a publicity stunt in which he claimed he had not had a bath for three months - then admitted he washed at homes outside the area." "In May 1996, following a public inquiry, Yorkshire Water was heavily criticised in a 174-page report by Professor John Uff. He found there had been a breakdown of trust between the company and its customers and that the threat of rota cuts caused unacceptable worry."

I don't mean to, err, drag the company back through the mud. What I want to say is that it's great that it seems the company really has learned something from all that.

Sugababes

25 November 2003: At the risk of sounding like a old duffer, I'm really enjoying the Sugababes right now. The image plays well to me .. independent, strong and British. Technically it's bristling with production and sound ideas, it's got my head busting to get back into making music. The website's pretty good too except that it plays music without asking, and it's written in Flash (rather than done properly :-) ).

Africa works on its own AIDs solution

24 November 2003: I know very little about African history, or indeed politics, economics or anything much about AIDs either come to that, but I do look forward to the day that Africa comes together as a force to be reckoned with, á la European Union, and tells the world it's had just about enough. I look forward, especially, to receiving their claim for genetic theft, for the years when 'developed world' countries took their strong as slaves, leaving behind the weak. I don't believe we've paid anything at all yet. I don't know if we've even said sorry. So I was heartened to read this story about African research into a cure for AIDs. If Africans manage to tackle the problem, and even better, manage to create a cure they can sell back to us, what a fantastic two fingers that would be to the West, and what a morale booster to the whole continent.

Jackson

24 November 2003: I'm no fan of Michael Jackson, but his arrest feels wrong. Just a couple of things I've read in the press (so, garbage then) seem wrong. Firstly, that comment the district attorney said when accused of searching Jackson's house just as his new album is being released. He said "Like the sheriff and I are really into that kind of music," (source). Doesn't that feel to you like "hey, we don't listen to black music round here, we're redneck country music listeners here, and don't you forget it".

Then there's his entirely unnecessary handcuffing when he volunteered himself for arrest. As if he's going to make a run for it. It all feels so biased against Jackson, and I can't help but get the impression it's biased on racial grounds. That's just how it feels to me, from the stories I've read.

Christmas shopping

24 November 2003: I changed our minds about the Christmas shopping online idea. I spend all my days in front of this screen, it's rather nice for me to go wander around this 3d, tactile world of ours. We do live within five minutes of town, and Scarborough's prices are extremely good. So we did it. Christmas shopping. All of it. In about 2 actual shopping hours (plus about another two for coffees and lunch).

Littering couple

24 November 2003: We passed a littering couple walking into town yesterday. First we noticed a banana skin thrown into a front garden. The another into the the schoolyard. Finally a cellophane wrapper tossed deliberately onto the floor just ten yards before a litter bin. We declined to challenge them though, because this was clear "come on, challenge us" behaviour. A real-life delete button would have been nice though.

I can't say that I haven't felt the urge to make my mark on society. It seemed to be fulfilled, though, by me getting my first job, in sixth form, at the local Co-op. I worked behind the provisions counter, mainly boning, slicing and serving bacon. It was the most popular place to buy such things in Long Eaton, the queue for this counter often led outside the shop (the size of a small supermarket). I felt a real sense of young achievement, importance, and satisfaction that I was playing a part in providing the community its bacon. So I wonder whether that littering behaviour is perhaps from someone who hasn't found their place in society yet. Yet they still feel the need to make their mark. Another time, maybe they'd have a contributory job. So I guess my delete button wouldn't have been right to use after all. And if there were delete buttons, and if they read this, I'd get deleted too. Deletion buttons at dawn!

More on the Sagrada Familia graffiti

24 November 2003: I mentioned the Sagrada Familia graffiti to a friend who is a) catholic and b) a great social campaigner. I expected agreement. Interestingly, he talked about how pilgrims used to leave cross marks at waypoints, shelters, and religious places on their journeys, presumably to buoy the spirits of other pilgrims. He cited one place where modern spraypainted graffiti battles with beautifully hand-carved 15 century messages (I forget the date, but a long time ago anyway). Reading between the lines I think he liked the idea that ordinary people could leave messages directly to other ordinary people without having to go through any corporation. I suppose this is like altering billboards to give different messages. Pure person to person communications. I see his point, although these messages were hardly of any significance .. perhaps significance happens with the passage of time. If we saw some 15th century graffiti "Ethelred was here 1474" we'd be impressed by the instant connection. And at least the graffiti in the Sagrada Familia was on the inside passages, not on the outside.

Pen gainers and pen losers

24 November 2003: I think people divide into two types. Those who lose pens, and those who gain them. I'm a pen loser, my head's so far elsewhere that I don't want to dedicate clock cycles to pen management. I'm the same with money, a few pence here, a few pounds there doesn't mean anything to me. No wonder I've got none. I wonder if pen gainers, the people with a desk drawer crammed full of pens, are great budgeters, have clean cars, that kind of thing? There must be some research on this somewhere :-)

Maybe there's a third type. The person who keeps pens even after they've stopped working. You go into their drawer to get a pen, and work through five before you find one that works.

VRML

22 November 2003: WOW. I just discovered my old university VRML project. We had to create a 3d picnic scene. Mine has flapping butterflies (modelled, I seem to remember, on a Camberwell Beauty, or was it Purple Emperor), you can hear their wings flap as they fly past, a viewpoints menu (you can view the scene as if you are one of the butterflies), a radio which you can turn on to hear music that I wrote and played, flickering candles, and a movable 'swat'. You'll need the Cortona viewer plugin for your browser, download that first, then go here to view the scene. I love it love it love it :-)

Number 7

22 November 2003: There's a new coffee shop opened in Scarborough which is doing a roaring trade, which is interesting, because you'd have thought Scarborough has more than enough coffee shops (73 according to Scarborough Info). The problem is, there are loads of old-style cafes. This new one (7, I think it's called, it's down the right hand side of the Brunswick Centre, on the other side of the road if you happen to be local or visiting) is clean, positive and sells great food. One of the really great things about it is the fact that the kitchen's downstairs (or maybe upstairs, anyway, it's on a different floor with the food delivered by a mini-lift (I can't remember the name for one of those (dumb-waiter (thanks Karen)))). The great thing about that is that although they do sell some fried foods (a very good veggie breakfast), the cafe doesn't smell of fat. In fact, it smells so nice, we bought some of the same plug-in perfumers they use. Every time we go in there the place is full. It's an instant hit, which shows that no matter how crowded the marketplace, if you're the one that spots the gap, then you get the rewards.

Actually, that reminds me of an experience in the more traditional type coffee shop, this one near Peasholm Park. It was a Sunday, and we walked into this basically soulless big square room with uncomfortable chairs and plastic tables. The woman who served us was very overweight, not particularly happy, and out of breath from walking. Then I noticed it was her daughter working behind the scenes and she looked more or less the same. I felt really sad for them, because it felt like they weren't really enjoying their life at all, yet I thought maybe they didn't have the tools or ability to get out. Anyway, after taking all this in good humour, the thing that finally made the whole thing surreally funny was Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing playing on the radio. The juxtaposition of the song and the way the unhealthy, out of breath, unhappy, overweight woman moved about the room and dealt with customers was priceless. We felt as if we'd been transformed onto the set of an Alan Bleasdale play or Mike Leigh film. Sorry for our bad taste, but we had to laugh or we'd cry.

A cracking Dundee website

21 November 2003: I've had the pleasure of reviewing websites connected with Dundee this morning, and I just wanted to mention how good the Dundee City Council web site is. Terrific really. I think what does it is the breadth of facilities offered, and the clear way they are presented and organised (that's what information architecture does). I may just plan a holiday up there.

Morning view

Scarborough's South Bay at 7am 21 November 2003

21 November 2003: We have a view over Scarborough's South Bay literally from our bed. I woke up this morning to the beautiful dawn sight of mist rolling off the far hills into the sea. I just thought I'd share.

PETA junkmail

20 November 2003: I just got a junkmail, from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). I support the idea that we should be treating animals properly. But this email is very bad indeed.

It uses as many tricks as it can muster to get me to pay money to support PETA. The envelope is windowed, and through the window are two penny coins. They want my "two pennies worth" (a British saying, meaning they want my opinion). It makes me feel very guilty to take the two pence, especially from an organisation that I might support. And I can't throw them away.

The mailshot is based around a 'National Referendum' which it patently isn't. It's a survey or questionnaire. They want me to "respond within 10 days" (this gives the impression of urgency and importance, but actually it just raises their response percentage).

Off we go with the questions. "Before reading our letter, did you know about the vast numbers of animals who suffer and die every year in research laboratories?". OK, let's see now. This is a professional mailshot. They wouldn't have sent it to me unless I was registered somewhere as someone who cared about animals. I have, in the past, subscribed to some relevant magazines for instance. So, they've taken a list of people who care about animals enough to know these issues, and sent them a reminder of how badly we treat animals through the post. Not only that, the text is written to maximise the feeling of ongoing pain and suffering: "nearly 3 million sensitive animals .. are killed in the UK each year in painful experiments .. ". I think that's bad manners at best. If an insurance company tried to get new life insurance sales by contacting the families of people who had recently died, they'd be pilloried by the press.

It's more than that though. Because the mailing list contains people who know this stuff, they'll be working down the list ticking 'yes' to them all. Did you know this? Yes. Did you know that? Yes. It's an agreement staircase, a basic sales technique for getting someone to agree to something by getting them in the habit of saying yes. At the end of the questions, what do we find? "Would you be willing to make a small contribution ... ". Yes, of course.

Humorously at the end they are giving away a 24 page booklet called Compassionate Living. Well, the email wasn't very compassionate so I wouldn't put too much faith in the contents of that.

My problem is this. I care very strongly about the treatment of animals, particularly in the food industry. That's why I don't eat meat. It upsets me a great deal. So I want to support PETA in their efforts. But I can't if they try to trick and upset me into giving money.

Shutdown

20 November 2003: SPAIN: There was a moment, in Spain, which I thought might work as a cinematic signature were I a film maker. I watched my partner sit gazing into her shopping bag, and as I watched I 'switched off'. You know the feeling? When your brain shuts down for an instant and does nothing? I thought she'd switched off, and I'd switched off looking at her. Actually she hadn't, she was reading a clothes label, but anyway.

Cinematically, you could do this. Just centre on an image and stick with it. It could be lovers gazing into each other's eyes maybe. I just thought they could be nice, cinematic moments where nothing happens, but there's a huge emotional meaning and significance.

The Co-op

20 November 2003: I used to work for the Co-op when I was in sixth-form doing my A levels. I don't remember being aware of what makes the Co-op different from other retailers then, though. Except I seem to remember being taught its history in a 'commerce' class at school.

Anyway, more recently I got hold of some leaflets about the Co-op and they are very exciting indeed. Social responsibility, democracy, and equality are some of their values. They sell a lot of Fairtrade products and organic foods, and they try to keep GM products out of the stores. The Co-operative bank is a breathtakingly bold and beautiful ethical bank.

I discovered that we have a Co-op store in Scarborough, albeit a small corner-shop and a reasonable walk away. I resolved to go, and yesterday I went.

I accept that I didn't spend long perusing the shelves. I wanted, basically, bread and veggie sausages. I can't help but say I was very disappointed. There was nothing I couldn't have bought from my local corner shop. No real evidence that the shop was any different from any other corner shop. Hardly any organics.

The thing that really wound me up was the bread. There was one organic loaf, a small Warburtons white sliced. When I say small, I mean a slice is about the size of the palm of my hand. I ate half the loaf in one sitting. I did go looking at the Warburtons site expecting it to be originally a family bakers now swallowed into Kraft or PepsiCo and turned into a brand, but at first glance it does at least appear to have retained some independence. But what's with the white sliced?

Now, this seems obvious to me, but I'd say someone who wants organic food is looking for taste, health, less processing and packaging, and enjoys their food. Surely it's as plain as day that the organic loaf people want is wholemeal and unsliced. White sliced bread is emblematic of the processed, taste-free world organic eaters are trying to get away from. Personally, I love the kind of solid, hearty bread you could fend off an intruder with. Tesco and Safeway both manage to provide excellent organic bread (it looks like they both get them from the same supplier), and irritatingly I'd walked past a Tesco to reach the Co-op. Maybe I can see an argument from the Co-op's point of view that they serve the community with what it needs, and maybe that community needs low cost food. But I can't handle being given just one organic bread choice, and that choice being white sliced.

The other side to this is about the difference between what the board says and what's happening on the ground. I'm upset because I'd read communications from the top of the organisation that had set my expectations. The website is similar, it looks like an excellent site. So, reading all this I expected a really different kind of shop. When I got there, I felt like I was just in any old corner shop. I really wanted it to inspire me, to make me feel good about buying quality food and helping the environment and the growers. I wanted to feel that sense of partnership that is at the soul of the Co-op. It simply wasn't there. Frankly, it made me feel like buying loads of chocolate and lager, shouting at the kids, and spending all the housekeeping on crack. This difference between board level vision and ground level experience says to me that the board are not in touch. If I were an investor, I'd certainly not invest.

Back at Uni

19 November 2003: I went back to uni last Friday and it was really nice to meet the lecturers at lunch without the pupil/lecturer relationship in the way. I got the chance to float an idea for an academic paper with my old personal tutor. He liked it, so I have a green light. It's a year-long occasional study, so it'll be a while before I have any results. The idea is to compare user behaviour in a real shop with behaviour online, using The Tin Shop for data. That's exciting :-)

Companies House

19 November 2003: I just bought a company report from Companies House and they have a quite strange way of delivering to you. At the end of the purchasing procedure they say the report will be available for download once I've received a confirmation email from them. They use NetBanx, so, since I know about such things I expected one from NetBanx and one from Companies House. So I waited and waited and concluded that the NetBanx email must be the one they mean, so I downloaded the report. Then, once I'd finished, I checked my emails once again, and there was the email they referred to, containing lots of dos and don'ts about how to access the report. Too late mateys, it's already done.

Didn't they check this even once? Their text refers to an email, but you get two emails, and the one they refer to arrives five or ten minutes after the other. If Companies House can't get it right, there's not a lot of hope really is there? This is the kind of thing I work hard to get right.

US/Europe free trade area

16 November 2003: I woke up to this, what sounds like the beginning of a free trade agreement between Europe and the US. Great. But what worries me is the US will use that as a way of forcing GM crops on us Europeans, when the people don't want it.

Christmas shopping

16 November 2003: We haven't done any Christmas shopping yet. So we decided to do ours online. Completely. From the wrapping paper and cards to the gifts. I'll keep you informed.

Kill Bill

16 November 2003: I'm going to struggle here to put into words just how good Kill Bill is. OK, I accept, it's bloody. But you have to accept, it's comedy blood. Also, it's not a film for Occupational Therapists (sorry, I couldn't find a UK link that provided a definition of what an OT is).

That over with, visually, and aurally, it's a soaring masterpiece. It's a film I could watch again and again. I don't know whether it was art direction, cinematography, visual design, graphic design, photography, camerawork, post-production or Tarrantino himself, but visually, it's gaspingly great. The snow scene. Oh, the snow scene. Those snowflakes. The bamboo water feature. The lights-out, backlit fight. Awesome stuff.

From a graphic design point of view, it's a complete treat. From the way the signature yellow is carried through from Uma's motorbike, leathers and helmet, to the posters. Even, when the swordbuilder draws the word 'Bill' with his finger in window condensation, the 'i' dot is left to last, and it's not a dot, it's a very chinese slash. 'Bill' suddenly has Eastern style.

Interestingly, there are probably as many fight scenes as in Matrix Reloaded, but whereas they are boring in MR, they are gripping, entertaining, invigorating, life affirming, and funny in Kill Bill. Yet they are equally implausible. So the difference must be that in Kill Bill, it's real people. When Uma has to dispatch about 100 samurai foes single handedly, I found myself starting to believe it was possible .. after all, only so many can reach you at once. In MR, with 100 or more Smiths, because they were both virtual on screen, and virtual in the story, it was just meaningless nonsense.

The music too. As always, wonderful. But I particularly wanted to point out the tune that kicks in when Uma walks into the place where she eventually does fight the 100 samurais. The girl band are playing, but it's not them. It's a beastly bass and drums riff that crawls with energy and bursts with big band brass. I'd love to be able to make music like that (I occasionally get chance to make music at home). Oh boy, I just watched the trailer, and was overcome by how great this film is. The tune I mention is the one they use in the trailer about halfway through. Pity the Maverick site doesn't seem to want to play the tunes, and Amazon won't preview any track. Nor any from the RZA nor Wu-Tang. That's a real pity, because I'm in a buying mood.

Then, there's the size of Uma Thurman's nostrils. They're enormous.

This film could make me want a DVD player. I haven't got one, and I didn't want one. Until now.

Putting supermarket trolleys away does someone out of a job

16 November 2003: I heard of people who believe that putting supermarket trolleys into the nearby 'trolley parks' does people out of a job, so they never do it. The same people seem to believe that it doesn't matter too much if you damage your car because the insurance will pay for it.

I have run full tilt across a supermarket car part to grab a runaway trolley before it hit a car (as it was about to), while the person who let it go nonchalently got into their car and drove off.

I've also walked out of Marks and Spencer (I hate it, but yes I do shop there sometimes, for food) with a friend who, to my amazement, simply left her trolley next to the front doors on the way out.

I don't understand that attitude. When I put my trolley back in the trolley park, I always nest it and one other, on the basis that, if everyone nested just one extra, that would save the staff time and effort. Oh, and if I pass a layabout trolley in the car park on the way in, I'll pick that one up and use it too, so tidying the place up one little bit.

I've an interesting game for you. Work out, maybe with friends down the pub, the things that you could never accept in a partner .. I mean 'little' comedy quirks not rape and pillage. For instance, littering. There's no way on earth I could go out with someone who litters. It says so much about their character. Maybe not putting supermarket trolleys away is one of those similarly off-putting habits. Maybe a fitting end to that game would be to finish with a round of "what traits do I have that would instantly put someone else off".

Stylish Italian restaurant

16 November 2003: Scarborough has a stylish new Italian restaurant on the harbourside. Actually, it's Ask, part of the Ask Restaurants chain, which apparently specialises in venues in the South (but they have clearly seen the potential of Scarborough). We have quite a large Italian contingent here, I can easily think of twelve Italian restaurants and food outlets in Scarborough. Being Englands first seaside resort, Scarborough has always made its money from traditional British seaside tourism, and it's had rather a resurgance over the last few years. There was the foot and mouth epidemic one summer which brought in lots of people who would normally pass their leisuretime in the countryside. There was September 11th which made many people think twice about flying, and take British holidays instead. Then this summer has been hot and long. So, we're on the up.

On top of that, we've a considerable amount of money being put into the town through the urban renaissance project.

We already knew that people were moving to the old town (where I live) from London, and most of our particular row of seven houses have either been improved or moved from rented to owner occupied status.

Finally, we have a promised holiday development (along the lines of, but not, a Centre Parks) on North Bay. Most of the attractions there are now closed so we're just waiting for building to begin.

So it's about time that we had a few stylish retailers, and the new Italian restaurant might just be the first glimpse of a trend. Not every visitor to Scarborough wants a "kiss me quick" hat and some rock made to look like a full English breakfast.

Pregancy and abortion

16 November 2003: I don't normally have to think about these kinds of things, but the pregnant friend who is 3 months pregnant said she'd seen a scan of the baby and was surprised at how much it was moving about. Tastefully, I asked at what point you could still abort a baby, and we agreed at about 4 months. I guess there must be a good reason for that (perhaps some tests can't be completed until later), and I agree it's got very little to do with me, being a) child-free by choice, and b) male (and it being a woman's right to choose), but I want to say, 4 months sounds a little late. I'm sure people have their reasons and I do respect their choices.

makesomemoney

16 November 2003: A neighbour has makesomemoney.cjb.net stuck to the side of his car, and when that site revealed next to nothing about the nature of the 'opportunity' my suspicions were aroused and I thought I'd use my forensic computing skills to delve a little deeper. I didn't have long, so I didn't get too deep, but I did get as far as noticing that cjb.net, being a legitimate redirection service that enables people to hide the real source of their page, does come up rather a lot in all types of ventures from child pornography to false identity.

I think makesomemoney.cjb.net is probably a Kleeneze multi-level marketing node (franchise?). The really curious thing is why, if it's so legitimate, they feel the need to hide themselves so well. The page has no branding, no id, no nothing. Yet you submit personal details to it without any idea who's behind it. At the very least I'd expect to be hounded by spam after completing the form, there's no privacy policy after all.

Speaking of which, for those looking for a hobby, scam-baiting looks fun.

Wow at Scarborough

Scarborough harbour on a fresh November morning

16 November 2003: I just wanted to celebrate what living in Scarborough's like with you. We took today off and went wandering around town. That's the first thing. I remember living in Nottingham and Derby where, if you wanted a wander you'd have to drive to a park. Compared to Scarborough, that feels 'packaged'. Wandering around Scarborough is, in itself, thoroughly enjoyable.

But then, the added benefit of living in a small town is that you meet people you know. We saw five friends on our wander, learned about one 'split-up', one house move, a pregnancy, an Irish dancing performance, and a handful of overseas trips.

This bit's packaged, I admit, but it was wonderful too to see the wandering minstrels (I think they're from the Spa orchestra) playing "When the saints ... " around the shopping streets. We even saw the unicyclist unicycling home after his shift :-)

It all adds up to a beautiful Sunday in Scarborough.

Tossa de Mar Internet cafes

15 November 2003: SPAIN: I'd not really used Internet cafes before going to Spain and I knew I needed to FTP (copy) files from a floppy disc I was going to take with me to a website I'm maintaining. I also probably needed to download files too. Those two actions aren't what Internet cafes are usually used for, so I wanted to check whether they were allowed.

I checked with a number of local cafes in Scarborough and they were perfectly happy for me to do what I wanted. However, when I got to Tossa De Mar, I found that all the Internet cafes seemed to have been installed by the same provider, and almost everything had been locked down. All but one cafe had the computer case locked away, so even getting access to the floppy drive was a trauma. I only mention this in case anyone else has similar plans.

I resolved to re-write the website, using a database to contain the pages. Then I can maintain it using just a maintenance screen, from wherever, and I don't need to take discs of software whereever I go.

LastFM

14 November 2003: I'm really starting to get enthusiastic about LastFm. It gets under your skin. Whereas I did listen to John Peel the other night and found not a lot that was exciting, LastFm is finding good, exciting music for me. Wahaay, I'm getting back into music, that's a great thing :-)

A real sign that it's right is that I listen to 'normal' radio now and want to click [hate] and [love] for tunes and get frustrated that I can't. It seems normal to interact now. It's a real thrill, I love it.

A quick purchase decision analysis

14 November 2003: I needed to buy a new FTP client (FTP is how I copy files from and to the websites I develop, for 'client' read 'software'). When I last made the decision I needed something that was free .. I used FTP-IT, I love the funky Japanese interface, the fact it's written in Java, and it's free. But development seemed to stop, it turned out that it didn't support some virtual directory setup in Apache, and it just gradually stopped working for me.

This morning, I have a problem with a file and I need to check the permissions on it. Time to change my FTP client. Generally, I'd like to take a little time to make a good decision, since it's something I'll use every day. But I don't have the time, this file needs sorting. So I've reached the "right, that's it" stage this morning. Yesterday, I'd no interest in buying an FTP client. Today, I'm buying, right now. Maybe that's a good argument for pull marketing (being there when the client wants you) rather than push marketing (trying to persuade someone to buy before they're ready).

I started by typing "Most popular FTP client" into Google. This brought up a discussion forum which linked to another. I Googled for all the software that sounded good. One site failed to come up, while another displayed its source code. Clearly I don't want to buy from a company that can't manage its web site properly.

I got a bad feeling from the SmartFTP screenshots because the way the copy screen was organised didn't feel right or familiar to me. All my FTP clients have been left to right, rather than up and down. Sorry, a tiny issue, but in the instant I made the decision, it mattered.

The WS_FTP site feels American and corporate. I guess that means that's the market they're aiming at. So I feel that if they're focussed on that, they're not going to be bothered to serve me well. Also, I was kinda bored by the site. So I think I'll pass on that one too.

CuteFTP is a classic case too. The starting text clearly aims the product at people who need to FTP but don't want to deal with anything complex, perhaps someone who wants a website without having to get technical (which is a bit of a weird market I'd have thought, because those people would just use FrontPage and that surely has FTP built in, doesn't it?). Anyway, those Cute people say "Used by millions worldwide", "the easiest way", "CuteFTP will get the job done quickly and easily, even if you are a beginner". Well, I'm not. I need to be able to manage the file permissions on the remote site, and I know some of my previous FTP clients didn't offer that. If this is somehow simplified or made less complex, I think they're going to be hiding things from me. I need to see it all. So, no.

That leaves me with Bullet Proof FTP which says on its simple front page "Don't you hate it when you start a large transfer and go away from the computer for a few minutes, a few hours, or overnight, and soon after you leave the connection is broken for one reason or another? Wouldn't it be great if you had an FTP program that would automatically reconnect and resume right from where it left off? Well that's just one of the many things that Bullet Proof FTP does." Funnily enough, my current FTP client is always disconnecting, I thought it was part of the FTP protocol, I still do, but yes, it would be great if the software just reconnected for me. Wow, this is speaking to me. OK, I've decided, I'm going for Bullet Proof FTP.

Having decided on the product I want, I'm moving on to the One Last Thing stage, so I start checking the site. It's not great, but just those three sentences have me pretty well sold. Pity I can't find out where the company is (ah, there they are, Bellvue WA (where's WA? Oh, Maporama doesn't quite let me zoom out far enough to work it out, oh well, ah, a bit of panning and I see, West coast)), what its philosophy is, or anything like that. Funnily enough, even the privacy policy button is broken. So maybe I'm thinking the company no longer exists or something, and now I'm looking at the order page it feels too salesy, but nothing else does the trick so I'm going for it (if there'd been a comfortable alternative they would have lost my sale). I'll go for the free trial anyway just to make sure.

The trial's downloaded and the FTP transfer's very fast. I get to play with file permissions, and all is well. The only slight niggle is the way it queues your requests. So you say "copy this file" and it says "yes, I heard you, I'll do it later". You then have to press "go" in order for it to actually do the copy. That's two mouse events not one, and the "go" button is really quite small so it takes some effort to hit it. Otherwise, it's good, and I solved my problem.

Public toilets and skateboarding

13 November 2003: SPAIN: Just a couple of thoughts from a trip to Port Vell in Barcelona. Firstly, that the men in the loos there queued to wash and dry their hands .. unthinkable in the UK :-) And the raised flowerbeds in the open space outside curved up from the ground. I wonder if they were built that way for skateboarders, and if so, that's a different attitude to here in the UK where skateboarding would simply be prohibited.

Wow, this looks like fun

12 November 2003: Wow, I love the Ian Schrager Hotels thing.

Progress on my T-Shirt

12 November 2003: My "I'm blogging this" t-shirt is currently on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic. I know this because of the tracking details the supplier sent me by email. I'm excited because, despite this being one of the earlier web applications (Federal Express introduced it first, and early, about 1995), progress watching hardly ever seems to actually work. Particularly the Amazon one works more or less like this.

Day 1: not got it, should have it by day 17.
Day 16: not got it, should have it by day 17.
Day 17: not got it, should have it by day 26.
On day 25, it's delivered to my door.
Day 26: dispatched, should arrive within 3 days.

.. in other words, completely useless. But the Airborne site's working for me and making me happy (new toy) :-)

Later: It's now 56 hours since my T-shirt left the ground in the US and it doesn't appear to have landed here in the UK yet. I can only presume the plane ran out of fuel and ditched in the atlantic. Shouldn't someone be told?

Later still: Hey, it just arrived ... and the tracking system says it's still in the air. Oh well, I suppose the system only works in the US. I didn't see any message to that effect tho.

A health food shop revolution

11 November 2003: OK, it happened. Some time ago my partner and I were recommended to take Floradix. We tried it and it gave us zip. We came off it and our zip went. So that's that, we're hooked, and we have zip. I recommend it. Now, the local health food shop has an ongoing problem with their supplier, so on the day I choose to shop there, they've often run out. This has gone on for a number of months, and I've accepted it because I like to support independent traders because I'd rather that than have Scarborough be full of the same shops as everywhere else. I like variety.

Anyway, I ended up in a different part of town, dropped into a different, also independent health food shop, and there was a healthy stock of Floradix, and at a cheaper price. The point being, my loyalty just broke.

Which brings me to what I'd really like to do with that health food shop with the delivery problems. I suggested using a computer to place the orders that were being taken so badly by fax and phone and the owner said she'd never used one in her life, so I'm not sure I'd get very far with persuading them to accept my plans, but here they are anyway.

The shop is very small, so the game is to stock things that people want, and to spot and get rid of the stock that moves slowly. I want to get every stock item into a database, and scan them as they sell them, so we have automatic stock control, till, and accounts. Then we can calculate the profit on each item, per square inch of shelf space if you like, per time period. Then we systematically ditch the least profitable five items each week or month. We can even work out which parts of the shop are most profitable.

We would keep a log of the things people ask for when they come in. My request for a Floradix that was out of stock would automatically trigger a higher stock level. People wander in for remedies for all kinds of problems, these need tracking and linking to items on the shelf. My local shop when I used to live in Derby started putting out a blackboard every day along the lines of "have you got problem x? try solution y". The ailments chosen were perfectly suited to the local population too, it was really very well done. Spare time in the shop could be used to research remedies and alternative suppliers, possibly in order to undercut rivals.

Gradually the shop would generate more profit because the low-profit items would no longer be stocked, and unique new items would be stocked (in so far as they made profit). Add automatic ordering and the shop would almost run itself. I'd aim to double the shops profit even including my costs.

Skin

11 November 2003: I've always been bugged by very minor skin problems but I do try to take minor health issues seriously because I think they reflect nutritional problems which if left uncorrected might lead to more serious problems later (he says having just eaten a whole pack of chocolate brazils). I bought a book that linked health problems with alternative remedies and I'm starting on the first tomorrow .. drinking six glasses of water a day. It's a good job my office is next to the loo I think. I already don't drink more than a couple of coffees a week, so at least I won't get withdrawal symptoms. I'll, errr, keep you informed, hopefully without putting you off your lunch.

Minor major A4 folder issue

11 November 2003: I have a real problem with bad products. I bought a 4-ring A4 folder the other day and every time I click the rings together it makes my ears ring. That's right. The click of the rings coming together is loud enough to make my ears ring. Yet warnings about listening to loud music (particularly using headphones) says that if its loud enough to make your ears ring you're damaging your hearing. So, what, am I losing a day, or a week of hearing in my old age every time I click my folder together? Dammit this is important, it's my health we're talking about. I've even tried sticking blu-tack between the ring's teeth and it just cuts through.

Movies, bleurgh

11 November 2003: I have a problem with the word 'movie'. It's American, and I'm English, so I like the word 'film'. When I go out for the evening I go to the cinema, or to watch a film. Definitely not a movie. So here I am learning Flash, and hating every mention of the word 'movie'. I mention this to illustrate how subtle, yet how powerful the internationalisation issue is. I want UK English, not American English, and I feel very strongly about that. I've never 'leveraged' anything in my life, and I've no idea what or when Thanksgiving is.

Chinese characters

11 November 2003: a couple of nights ago we had coffee and cakes with a uni friend from Hong Kong (hello Shirley :-) ). She explained how Chinese people type in Chinese characters. That blew my mind. I certainly didn't fully understand it, but it seems the Chinese character (is it called a pictogram?) is divided into four (usually), and the characters on the keyboard are allocated to each part of the character. Then each letter results in a particular line or squiggle in its allocated division. To illustrate, she used the pictogram for the word 'line' which would have been typed in using five lower case letters. She said it's hard work remembering or working out which letters to type in to get the pictogram you want. Wow. Surely there must be an alternative data entry system for Chinese characters. But then, the whole computer system works on ASCII (or UNICODE) characters, so even if data entry could be made more intuitive, the system would still want to translate that pictogram into western characters in order to store it. Wow.

Car fumes

11 November 2003: My partner and I go jogging a couple of mornings a week .. well, not really jogging yet, jog 1 lamp-post, walk 2. At that time in the morning in Scarborough there's very little traffic. But when we pass a car, it's a real problem because we almost always get a lungful of exhaust fumes.

That highlights a couple of things. Firstly, there's nothing between Scarborough and the arctic, we get fresh air. Secondly, how awful the air must be in places where the streets are full at 7am. We are still shocked by traffic queues when we return to our old haunts. We think "What's all this queuing? There must have been a really bad accident." Then it dawns on us .. it's like this at this time of day every single day, it's normal for traffic to stack up and move at a snails pace here. It's fantastic to live in a place where we can walk to every part of it, and we don't need a car (we have got one, Ali needs one for her work, and we use it of course, but otherwise we wouldn't have one). 20% of what we've spent so far this financial year has been on that car, not including depreciation. If I meet a client, I go by public transport because I can work, or at least read, while I travel.

Random radio

11 November 2003: I've decided that I don't know enough about what's on the radio. And I don't listen to John Peel enough. Back in 1978/79 I used to lay in bed listening to Peel and thinking "God, what would I do if he ever stopped broadcasting". I still feel that way, like it's completely essential that he's there. Yet, I don't make the effort to listen except to the Festive Fifty (a chart of the years tunes compiled by listener's votes). So. I'm making an effort. I'm going to record (shh, don't tell anyone) Peel tonight.

But what else is out there? One of my eternal frustrations is that you can't tell from a radio listing what a DJ might be like. You can from TV listings. So, for instance, here's a selection of programmes on todays radio: Sonia Deol, Top Ten With Anjum Rafiq, Music Review: Travelling Inst, World Briefing, World Business, Sports Round-up, Simon Bates, The Classic FM Most Wanted, Lunchtime Requests, Oneword Classics, The Oneword Bestseller, Talksport, Mike Dickin, Russ Williams with the Top Ten at Ten, Kate Cocker, Chris Radley, Neil Andrews, David Hamilton. So, what do we know now that we didn't know before? We know what we always knew, that there's a bunch of people playing records on the radio. What does Mick Dickin play? The only way to find out (beside a little Internet research of course) is to tune in. Out there, among the dross, might be a pure gem .. another Blue Jam, another Peel. We know that many great artists begin their performance life on the radio, and that early work, particularly in music and comedy is often better than later work. So I've added to my monthend process that once per month I'll listen to an hour of random radio. I'll select a random radio show from the week's listings and listen to it for an hour. This week (which actually will have to be next week now because I'll be out when it's on), I'm listening to OneWord from 11:52 to 12:52 on Friday 21 November.

Total satisfaction

10 November 2003: Sometimes this job can be wonderfully satisfying. In developing the kitchen site (which I'll post a link to once it's up and running), I'm currently working on the menu system using JavaScript, which I'm pretty familiar with. I sat down at 3 this afternoon knowing I needed the menu to display the 'current' page choice in a different colour on loading. The menu's got two levels and the second level's generated dynamically by JavaScript. Anyway, it wasn't simple, and at 3 o'clock I didn't know how I was going to do it. By 6 o'clock, it was done. Now that's satisfying :-) I can't stop loading the page to check it still works. I stop short of grinning and pointing though. Even though I'm working on my own, I try to keep some decorum when I'm in the office :-)

Versace

10 November 2003: According to my brief research Vincent Versace is a leading digital photographer. I'm not sure his website really works though. For me, the photographs aren't large enough to really appreciate them .. I went there to see the photograph quality and I can't really do that, and the photograph frames put me off. I do accept, however, that my monitor's a bit crappy.

I remember going to see a Paul Caponigro exhibition and being almost reduced to tears by the beauty of his work. So, I bought a book of prints, and that did nothing for me. The point is, the real photograph holds so much more quality than any reproduction can, be it print or screen. So you've got to see the original.

An artist like, for instance, Salvador Dali whose work contains icons such as melted clocks and spindly legged space elephants works very well in a poster, book or website. Versace and Caponigro seem to need the very best print quality to get their message across, and a 72dpi >4 year old monitor probably just can't deliver (and I'm not sure that a brand spanking new monitor would either).

Time planning

10 November 2003: My time planning has been going awry of late so this week I've developed a proper diary plan of when I'll be working and what on, and I'm going to start tracking how many hours I work versus how many hours I'm supposed to work, relating that as a percentage utilisation figure, and graphing it week by week to check for improvements. I need to do this because I'm fully booked this week so I'm pinching time from all kinds of places, working all day from Monday thru Saturday, but I really don't want to get into Sunday working .. it's good to see the real world from time to time.

Matrix Revolutions

10 November 2003: My favourite part of Matrix Revolutions? Where the heros get into the enormous and, as demonstrated later, robust spacecraft, ready to set off and save the world. Pilot heroine settles in her seat, buckles up, hits the switches and half the lights go out. "Damn", she says "must be a fuse", so she unbuckles and wanders around the back to replace it. ROFL. So technology's still going to be crap long into the future then? I think I need to buy shares in fuse manufacturers.

Parc Guell water droplet

10 November 2003: SPAIN: Another vandalism thing along the lines of the Sagrada Familia moan. In Gaudi's Parc Guell I noticed a row of stone water droplets hanging from a ceiling. One had been broken off. I think I've said it all before.

HP deskjet 5150

9 November 2003: I reached the "that does it" point yesterday when the possible new clients who were Internet virgins came around and I wanted to print out some of my site. My old Epson Stylus Color 600 gave me scrappy, messy prints which I was embarrassed to hand over. So that was that. A quick look in PC Pro to see what their recommendation was, over to eBuyer (thanks Dave for the recommendation), credit card out, order placed. Next day, a delivery. Today, a shiny new HP Deskjet 5150 which installed perfectly except for the fact that it doesn't come with a USB cable yet you need one, the registration page came up 404, and IE crashed in trying to load the documentation it all went well and the quality is quite something. I do believe, too, after years of admiring HP from afar (it was one of the few companies I actually wanted to work for after I graduated .. that was before the Compaq takeover), it might be my first real piece of HP kit. So I'm chuffed this morning :-)

I'm blogging this

8 November 2003: I just ordered an "I'm blogging this" T-shirt. I saw it a while back and it's been eating away at me, and I finally gave in and spent some of my left-over holiday money :-)

Positive vandalism

8 November 2003: More thoughts on the Vandalism, Spanish style thread below. What if vandalism were a positive force? What if people took control and improved their surroundings? It reminds me of guerilla gardening.

The Meatrix

8 November 2003: A friend sent me this link to the Meatrix which is just cracking. Particularly since I attempted to watch the Matrix Revolutions last night with some uni friends but the Futurist (our local cinema) apparently provided dodgy information about the showing so last night was actually The Patsy Cline story (not quite the same thing). We ended up going back to a friend's house and half watching Matrix and Matrix Reloaded. I mention all this for two reasons. Firstly, to say that (for those who don't know) geeks watch a film like that on all kind of levels. For example, they/we examine and evaluate every example of computer generated graphics in the film. The other reason is to say that the first time I saw Reloaded I really thought it was pointless and boring. On second showing, though, I'm starting to come round a little.

But it does raise something I've been bugged by for some time. With the advent of very realistic computer generated images it's very soon going to be hard to tell what's a film of real life, and what's completely made up in a digital studio. I saw a documentary on our solar system a while back and you couldn't tell what was computer graphics, and what was real video footage from some space probe. Some may scoff at this, saying that 'obviously' we've not reached the point where we can send video footage back from the surface of Io. But, how am I supposed to know that? If I'm watching a basic documentary on mainstream television, I'm probably not going to know the current level of space technology. So it would just be nice to have an agreed little symbol on the screen somewhere that says "this is real" whereas "this is computer generated". That does remind me of the Father Ted line "these are small, while those are far away", but that's another story.

I accept that's difficult to do, though, because besides legislation issues, where's the line? If you take the output from a radio telescope and represent it visually using colours to show, I dunno, star densities, or planet surface temperature or something .. is that real footage, or has it been so altered in order for us to comprehend it easily that it counts as computer generated?

Or take the other extreme. Clearly all video footage goes through some processing before it hits our screens .. extra contrast, more saturation, and editing, sound effects, music. At what point is it 'not real'? Even news footage isn't 'real', it offers an extremely edited view of events.

When the Matrix fight scenes turned into computer graphics I just completely lost interest. I think it's because when a human character fights you know the limits. When a computer-generated superhuman fights, anything could happen. So when they turn into a whizzing cactus and spike their opponents to death are we supposed to be impressed? (OK, I made the whizzing cactus thing up)

Doing magic tricks seems to work on the same level. Now I've seen tv footage of some of David Blaine's street magic and that really is stunning. But it's still based on the premise that I (the magician) will show you (the ordinary person) just how clever I am. It's showing off. The computer graphics is the same, it's "hey, look what we did with the computer today". And I simply don't feel like being impressed. I've paid to be entertained, so entertain me.

There was a story circulating a few months ago, but I can't find a link to it, I'm sure it wasn't an urban myth, about an American guy who bought a motorhome, drove it along a motorway, put it into cruise control, and went into the back to make a cup of tea, thinking the vehicle would drive itself. The motorhome crashed, and he successfully sued either the manufacturer or the retailer. I think he's in the right, but the rest of my colleages disagreed. My point was, technology moves so fast how are we, in society, meant to keep up. And do we have an obligation to keep up. In other words, does the advance of technology have the right to control our time by requiring us to 'keep up to date'. We've all seen footage of cars driving themselves around racetracks, I'm sure I saw stuff like this decades ago. So a guy doesn't keep 'in touch' with technology, goes to buy a motorhome, maybe the salesperson says something like "put cruise control on and it drives itself", and he's suddenly relying on the buyer to understand that he didn't really mean that (I'm not saying that's how this happened, I'm just pondering on how it might have happened).

In web design we design sites for people. One of the big revelations I got from the course was realising just how much products are designed to accommodate human capabilities and frailties. For instance, the refresh rate on a television or computer screen is just fast enough that we normally don't notice any flicker. If you were ever to land on an alien planet you'd find their tools pretty much unusable, for instance, display screens might be invisible, faint, or constantly moving to our eyes. I mean, that would be the least of your worries, but you get the point. So a website should be usable and accessible. Clear. Easy. Unambiguous.

My colleague's point about "he shouldn't be on the road if he doesn't understand the car" is fair enough, there are driving tests and so on, so I agree. But on a higher level, are we gradually accepting that in order to function in society you need an ever increasing knowledge of technology? A knowledge that must be constantly updated. Are we saying that every citizen must keep up with technological change? That they must spend their time to keep up with our industry?

I don't think so. I'm proud of the fact that my mobile phone is about six or seven years old. The computer I'm typing on is about five years old and runs Windows '98. It does what I need, and that's all I need. When I design and create a website or software I design it for the target audience, and I do my best to make it foolproof. I want software to be inclusive, to be for people. Software that makes a difference to real people. Many people aren't interested in technology, they don't keep up with technological trends. A website has to accommodate all the old browsers and operating systems, mono screens, and all the myriad ways that people can misunderstand what's going on.

To come back to where I started though, I do find the ways animal rights groups publicise themselves repellent. I chose not to eat meat when the BSE crisis in Britain made it inescapably clear that sheep were being fed 'meat'. Sheep, those fluffy things that eat grass all day. Meat. It's just abhorrent. I knew about factory farming, I'd seen "The Animals Film", read about the Animal Liberation Front, veal crates, battery chickens and all that. I'd tried to source organic happy meat. But that day, that moment, said to me "you absolutely can't trust the food industry" (which is a bit unfair on those who do produce happy food, but I really mean .. well, you know who I mean). So now I buy organic whenever possible, and I don't eat meat.

So why do I want to see, from organisations like Viva pictures of animal cruelty? The Meatrix follows the same pattern. A friend very kindly bought me a subscription to Viva's magazine and the way Viva approached this was very upsetting .. loads of pictures of animal cruelty in farming and other places. I don't understand why I, as a person who had joined Viva, who clearly therefore gets upset by animal cruelty, should then be bombarded with more pics of it. Surely it's those who don't know about the cruelty that need to know about it, and we non-meat eaters should be setting a golden glowing example by being fit, healthy, happy, wealthier & living longer, more fulfilling lives.

I do understand the reasoning, obviously images get into people's heads and change their minds, so they are persuasive. But when persuaded, I don't see why that means I should see more upsetting images .. surely I should see fewer. I guess I need to find positive groups, such as HDRA and stop moaning :-)

Trust

7 November 2003: So the Conservatives have appointed themselves a new leader, and everyone's breathed a sigh of relief. What's getting me is that they've found a way to bend the rules so the ordinary party member doesn't get to vote on the matter (by having all the parliamentary party members agree on a candidate). What's come out today is that they're not even going to have a vote to support the new leader "because there's so much support it's not worth it". Now, do we believe that?

The nub of this for me is .. do they really believe in democracy? If they don't even trust their own party members to elect a good leader, then how will they ever trust the people of the country. And if they don't trust us, then why-ever should we trust them. Which is sad because there really is a breath of fresh air about, and I'd like to feel that I was trusted, or listened to, by a political party.

Vandalism, Spanish style

7 November 2003: SPAIN: Sunday morning in Barcelona (again). Vandalism, Catalunyan style

We passed a statue of a woman carrying a basket. In the basket, someone had put fresh flowers. Now that's the kind of beautiful vandalism I like.

Of course, there may be greater significance to this as I neglected to read who the statue is of.

Internet novices

7 November 2003: I got to show a complete novice the Internet yesterday. The person collects things (I'm having to be vague I'm afraid, perhaps more later if the project goes ahead), and I was showing them the things they could do to further their interest on the web. Right down to "OK, so what you need is a computer, a modem, a phone line, and an agreement with an Internet Service Provider". In the end when I asked "is there anything else you'd like to ask" they said "no, I think you've been very clear". Fantastic, I passed the plain speaking test.

Hello Mum

7 November 2003: My mum called to say she'd found me at the top of Google, and found my site, found my blog and was calling to say that I really am a very nice chap. Blimey. But I can't be that nice if it's so disguised that after forty two years it's only recently become apparent to my mum, in my blog :-). Anyway, hello mum, thanks for that (seriously). Now I know I have at least two regular readers (hello Suzie). A syndicated feature can't be far away.

Organic fish (well, not quite)

7 November 2003: I found Fish 4 Ever in the not-so-local-but-very-wonderful organic shop in Pickering. Very nice. Then I ended up here http://www.simplyorganic.net/ which looks very useful too. Particularly I noticed the range of organic beers. Then they narked me by giving me a questionnaire (no problem, it's my choice to complete or not, but I chose to), and then asking inane questions. I felt like I was being forced to compliment them, and it was too early in the relationship for that. What's "how many people have you told about Simply Organic" for? Normally you expect that in a magazine survey where they want to know how many people you pass the magazine on to so they can calculate readership and more effectively sell advertising. There seemed to be no real attempt to extract really useful criticism, it was just one big pat on their back, but using my time to do it. Pah!

Oh wow, a wooden car!

6 November 2003: Wooden car.

Ammonia

5 November 2003: SPAIN: Sunday morning in Barcelona. The sun's out, and the smell of piss down the side streets off Las Ramblas is overpowering. So I got to thinking. Las Ramblas is one of Barcelona's main tourist magnets. One of the things I'd noticed about Spanish men is they wash their hands after using the loo (unlike most British men). So I concluded that this smell was from tourists. And why? Every bar has a lavatory, clearly every man using the side streets this way had been to one or more bars. I just don't understand, and I feel sorry for those who have to maintain a beautiful place in the face of that kind of behaviour.

Museums that close on a Sunday

3 November 2003: SPAIN: So there we were, tourists on Barcelona Sunday, attempting to visit a couple of museums, the Museo d'Arts Gráfiques which I spotted on the Bus Turístic map, and Museu d'Art Modern. Neither were open. I suppose in the UK we're used to these things being open on a Sunday, when surely most people would want to visit it. Anyway, very frustrating, and not particularly solvable using the web even if I had mobile access because it's taken me quite a while to wade through the various 'travel reviews' pages to find basic information. Anyway, a basic failure of information, an opportunity for mobile Internet, and a comment on satisfying your customers (by being open when they want you).

IKEA lamp

1 November 2003: I survived IKEA and bought a lamp for my desk which I just installed. The bulb couldn't be fitted easily inside the shade, and the instructions showed the use of what looked like a sucker to hold the bulb and push it in place. A sucker that's not provided. So I just spent the best part of a quarter of an hour messing about with bits of post-it note.

Frankly, it made me feel stupid and very unhappy that IKEA had obviously spent a great deal of time on the design of the lamp but hadn't made it usable. I put these things in a personal perspective .. IKEA obviously thinks it's OK to waste 15 minutes of its customers time each time they need to change the bulb. Let's imagine they sold 100,000 of these lamps worldwide. That's 25,000 customer hours they just wasted. Hours their clients could have spent with their loved ones. Websites work like this too. They've gotta be right, or they're disrespectful.

Shell

1 November 2003: Since the Brent Spar and Ken Saro-Wiwa problems in 1994, I've avoided buying anything from Shell. I used to drive 40,000 miles a year and never spent a penny in a Shell garage. Yesterday, I was forced into putting some fuel in my car on an unfamiliar road, where Shell seemed the only option. I didn't fill up, I just bought £10 of fuel. Such is the power of a public relations cock-up the size of Shells in 1994 (backgrounder).

Yet Ethical Consumer in its recent report on fuel recommended Shell. Esso is the new bad boy. So maybe I need to review how I feel about Shell.

Deep down though, looking through the press stories, Shell may have revamped its brand but it really doesn't seem to have put right what went wrong in Ogoniland. So I'll carry on avoiding Shell with only this one lapse in almost ten years.

While I'm on the subject of PR disasters, Jarvis also seems to be reaping the cost of what happened in the days after the Potters Bar rail disaster when it variously claimed, as I remember it, that vandals had gotten onto the track or that the points had been sabotaged. The facts seemed against them in those early news stories and they came across like scolded schoolboys blaming everyone except themselves. Now they're pulling out of a number of contracts. Their PR seems to have improved a little since, but they've fallen a long way in people's minds. Time to rename the company I'd say.