2008 March

London breaks with theatre show and hotel March 31, 2008

Posted by Andy Roberts in : london breaks, London theatre breaks , add a comment

London breaks

What is it about the grand hotels and theatres that makes London breaks ever popular? Something more than just the convenience I’m sure. Old fashioned style, social aspiration, romance maybe? The anonymous but attentive service combined with an expectation that everything you could possibly need will be there ready and waiting, or easily conjured up via room service. Modern life is relentless and for the most part let’s be honest, it can consist of following a series of rather dull routines so you don’t have to be an art intellectual or wealthy bon vivant to feel attracted by the idea of just one or two nights break in a smart central London hotel as a complete escape from the same old four walls, kitchen, relatives and other humdrum at home.

The West End

It’s not that I have any illusions as to what the image of London conjures up in many people’s minds. It’s a great big, busy, noisy city where the citizens are often tired and frazzled from over-stimulation, pressure and travel. They’d like a break too! London as a capital is nothing like Paris, Edinburgh or Cardiff and there can be resentment that so much political, financial and cultural leadership seems to be assumed to begin and end in London. That’s unfortunate in some ways, but then the sheer weight of population, history and connection gives London a momentum that cannot be ignored. Regional theatre may be more innovative in its creativity, and perhaps more intimate in the performance but it’s only when a show makes it to the West End that the bigger name stars can be attracted and the investment comes in for the stunning sets and longer runs. It’s the same story for music, fine art, dance etc. So people come on short breaks to London to see the best shows and soak up the West End atmosphere.

London Theatreland

You see, London’s theatreland is quite a small area in the central part of the city which is a stamping ground not just for Londoners (many of whom may not go there for months on end) but for all people from every city, village and nation. On any day, weekend or midweek the culture vulture crowds are present in large numbers, ambling about in groups or couples, plenty of singles too. The lights and buzz hold an attraction for young people as much as the distant familiarity does for people who have been visiting London occasionally for one reason or another over decades. And much of theatreland has not been spoilt. That’s because the classic old theatre buildings themselves have been classed as grade two listed, both exterior and interior. So even when there is a poor year for theatre bookings, as happens from time to time, they cannot be pulled down or turned over for a completely different use.

London Map

This first map is just to give an idea of how London breaks up into distinct geographical areas with the red central area so much smaller than the great connurbation where the majority of Londoners live and work.

London breaks map

And theatreland is only a part of that centre. Arrival by intercity train for London hotel theatre and train breaks will mean a short journey from one of the famous mainline rail terminals into the centre and then you may not need to venture outside again or set foot in a tube or taxi until it’s time to return home, as long as you book a hotel which is inside the zone.

Getting to the Theatres

Here’s the street map of London Theatreland clearly showing each of the Theatres by name so it’s easy to find your way around. The same goes for the Hotels and restaurants which can be booked for pre-theatre meals, often very reasonably as part of a show, hotel and travel deal.

Top Musicals

Plays

* God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza (ART!) with Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Greig (Black Books, Green Wing, Love soup and Debbie Aldridge from The Archers)

* The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie still going strong decades later - who dunnit?

* The Vortex by Noel Coward with Felicity Kendal

Pre-Theatre Dining on London Breaks

Overall, London simply has a wider selection of fine international restaurants than any other world city. You can pre book as part of a London theatre and hotel breaks package, or just wander round for a short while until you are tempted. So ‘bon appetit’ and enjoy your capital.

Stumble London Breaks Stumble It!

Quarter of a racehorse for sale March 29, 2008

Posted by Andy Roberts in : randomness , add a comment

I have a quarter of a racehorse for sale. If anybody is interested, a remote high definition live web cam inspection can be arranged after viewing the picture below, but for reasons of security the exact location of the horse cannot be revealed until after a firm offer has been made. Please bear in mind that it is a quarter of a horse ( 25%) that is for sale as one lot, although further syndication to a group of one or more buyers can be arranged on request. Cheers.

View here —–>

Social networking not a business March 21, 2008

Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 2comments

According to the Economist:

Social networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a business

Illustration by David Simonds

Nice illustration. Isn’t seesmic in one of those walled cells as well? Not sure whether Flickr belongs.

Ebbsfleet United going to Wembley March 19, 2008

Posted by Andy Roberts in : ebbsfleet , 4comments

Ebbsfleet United, the non-league football club taken over by 28,000 fans from the myfootballclub website, have beaten league leaders Aldershot 4-2 on aggregate in the semi finals and are now through to the FA trophy final at Wembley on May 10th.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGdYM7ESr6I

**update 2**:

Ticket sales near 10,000

Just four days into selling tickets on the MyFC shop, at Stonebridge Road and over the phone (00 44 (0)1474 569 436), ticket sales are nearing the 10,000 mark. With four home games at Stonebridge Road, sales will continue to soar and it seems likely that the club will have to request a further allocation of tickets from Wembley.

**update 1** :

Tickets for the FA Trophy Cup Final at Wembley

Just posted up at myfootballclub

Tickets

Tickets are priced at £25 with concessions at £12.50 (for under 16s and over 65s). There are also 80 pairs of wheelchair and personal assistant tickets at £25 with the carer at £0.00. Visually impaired supporters can contact Wembley to book audio headsets.

Tickets will go on sale at Stonebridge Road and on www.myfootballclub.co.uk from 9.00am on Monday 31 March 2008*. Opening times at Stonebridge Road for ticket sales will be confirmed next week.

(*In the unlikely event that we do no receive the tickets by Friday 28 March, this date may change.)

Allocation and orientation
The football club has been given an initial ticket allocation of 15,214 tickets. More tickets will be made available should this allocation sell out.

The Ebbsfleet United players will use the England dressing room and Ebbsfleet United supporters will occupy West half of Wembley Stadium. Both clubs will be wearing their home colours.

Trains and coaches from Northfleet and Gravesend
There are regular trains from Northfleet and Gravesend stations to London Bridge Station. From London Bridge Station, take the westbound Jubilee Line to Wembley Park. Please allow 60 minutes to reach Wembley Stadium from London Bridge.

The club have reserved a number of coaches to provide return travel to Wembley Stadium from the Stonebridge Road area. The price for this return ticket will be published in the coming days.

We have asked Eurostar if we can use the International Station car park as a pick-up point, and for supporters to leave their cars. Again, we hope to confirm this in the coming days.

Other travel to Wembley Stadium

Wembley Stadium is a public transport destination. There is no public parking at Wembley Stadium and illegally parked cars will incur large fines and may be towed away.

Wembley Park (Metropolitan and Jubilee lines) and Wembley Central (Bakerloo line, Silverlink County and Silverlink Metro) stations are close to the stadium. Wembley Stadium Station is also convenient, with Chiltern Railways providing links between London and the Midlands.

Further information, including bus and coach travel to Wembley Stadium, is available at http://www.wembleystadium.com/gettingtowembley

Stadium security
Security at Wembley is stringent. “Large suitcases, lap tops and back packs (trip hazards)” cannot be taken into the stadium. Food and drink is also not permitted. Other prohibited items include:

- Flag poles longer than 1m (flags without poles can be no bigger than 2m x 2m)
- Prams and pushchairs
- Umbrellas
- Air horns

Supporters are likely to be searched by stewards going into the stadium, and the advice from Wembley Stadium is to travel light.

The Jelly Art Club movie March 18, 2008

Posted by Andy Roberts in : Art, Community, tools , add a comment

Twitter profile pictures are on the change, largely as a result of “something-friday” events involving people, body parts and peas. So my regular pic which I use in lots of places suddenly starts to looks as if I forgot to change it back after chinposin friday. So for a short while I put one up of a tiny little me standing on a rock in the Aberglasyn pass near Beddgelert, then changed it to the one from my long standing Flickr account.

Karyn asked if there’s a story behind it which got me remembering where the drawing came from. I originally drew it very quickly in flash to represent myself in the prototype of an animation I started playing with. I was quite pleased with the rough and ready resemblance and I decided to keep it for the movie and repurpose as an avatar in some discussion boards, most of which are now defunct except for flickr where it remains. The ultimate accolade occurred at a face to face gathering of online friends who’d never met before when Tom, who’d been wandering around Tate Modern trying to find us, said that he recognised me from my avatar.

So here’s the story of the jelly art club:

Best broadband deals March 16, 2008

Posted by Andy Roberts in : best broadband deals , 9comments

Best broadband deals - cheap broadband or Free Sky TV?

Working from home on the internet, one thing you absolutely have to to depend upon is a reliable and fast broadband connection. It’s a serious matter to consider changing Internet Service Provider(ISP) and start looking around for the best broadband deals.

For example it’s no use being a cheapskate and putting up with an average or poor service when it comes to having an efficient tool for the trade. On the other hand, whilst the cheap broadband options are sure to be compromised at some point, the most expensive broadband isn’t always the best broadband.

I mentioned on twitter that I’m looking for the best broadband deals and was then recommended Tiscali. I found out that my current ISP has actually been taken over by a company which has been subsequently bought up by Tiscali, so I’m already a customer of theirs by default, yet their website tells me my phone line is ineligible?!

Shifting Marketplace for cheap broadband

This is a constant change scenario. A few years back I was lucky enough to live in an area where the revolutionary Homechoice were piloting a new service. This included fast 1Mb broadband internet at a time when everywhere else was limited to 256 or 512K, bundled in with an on demand TV via copper wire (almost IPTV) which was superb in functionality.

Homechoice best broadband deals

As a broadband service provider this was easily the best deal available but they never managed to raise the cash to buy enough content to take off. That was before the unbundling of the local loop for telecomms, so BT were able to hold things back for them. Unfortunately Homechoice pulled out of my area when they moved on to the next generation of the IPTV service, and have since been acquired by O2. So I would not recommend using any of the smaller companies because you never know who you are going to end up with.

Free SKY TV

This history means that I am amenable to the idea of fast broadband internet being bundled in with a TV service, which is why I’m looking at SKY digital TV and broadband. The interesting broadband deal on offer currently is the basic SKY TV and broadband package for £16. You can look at that as either a free SKY TV service, bundled in with what you would normally pay for cheap broadband only, or as a free broadband offer for people who have always wanted the huge number of extra TV channels. If you have internet access out at work and mainly only use the home connection for browsing in the evenings and weekends then the best broadband deal is probably the SKY broadband Base package, whereas a home business worker or gamer would probably need to upgrade to the even faster speeds with totally unlimited bandwidth for an extra £5 or £10 a month.

SKY + and SKY HD

I’m not that bothered about the additional entertainment channels on offer at £1 a bundle, nor the premium films or live football but I must admit I’ve always been interested in the huge number of niche channels which become available free to air, upon becoming a SKY subscriber. Turkish TV, Punjab, Arabic and NTV for a start, and then the enormous back catalogue of nature documentaries and comedy which are not always available anywhere on freeview for example. And the geek in me is dying to have a play with the extra technology that can be added as a one-off. The SKY PLUS (SKY+) box which gives TIVO like functionality (pause and replay live TV, record one or two channels while watching something else) and clever software to record linked series. The Sky Multiroom client server network could be fun or the High Definition TV Sky HD box. There’s not much point in getting the HDTV though without getting a new TV set to do it justice, but if a new TV is on the cards then it might be worth making sure the best wiring and connections are installed ready for it as part of the setup deal.

Best Broadband Deals

Back to the broadband though, which could be the real justification for subscribing to SKY. I’ve noticed that the free basic broadband package is at 2Megabits per second, which is actually twice as fast as my old Homechoice connection used to be. The one that everybody envied. So that might well suffice given that a lot of what I do is text and graphic based interaction and browsing. It’s probably only if a lot of large downloads or streaming video are required that the upgrades would be required, but that’s completely flexible on a month by month basis anyway, so for the advantage of getting all those extra TV channels, functionality and gadgets the free broadband ‘base’ has to be one of the best broadband deals around. That’s without even mentioning the free weekend and evening telephone calls, cheaper than BT Together for calls to mobiles and international numbers, nor the “SKY Anywhere via TV” on-demand service which is included with any SKY+ box.

Reservations

My only reservations are that satellite TV is perhaps not the future. In the longer run, some people think that TV channels wont exist in the present format at all. It will all be “on demand” so nobody is ever watching the same programme at the same time. But the availability of on-demand music hasn’t killed radio has it? I have a theory that channels will be with us for a long time to come, alongside all of the personalised browsing, on-demand, skip and fast forward stuff. Besides it’s still the best broadband deal that is the main consideration for business, with the free Sky TV as a nice bonus for myself.

Best Broadband Deals report (pdf)

Stormy weather March 10, 2008

Posted by Andy Roberts in : UK , add a comment

It wasn’t unexpected, but when it arrived it was still very dramatic. Currently there is a lull in the storm where I am in London, and it’s nowhere near as fierce as further west either. Big storms can get to you emotionally, they provide a sort of sense of human geography.

Storm
Originally uploaded by Andyrob

The picture was actually taken last week, in the bay of Biscay where high seas are a regular occurance. I don’t know if it was part of the same weather pattern that’s reaching here now, or even if the storm over there was a relatively normal part of the weather’s repertoire, as opposed to what’s hitting Wales, Cornwall and much of western England right now, which is unusually high winter gales combined with high tides.

I’m interested to read accounts in twitter from the many UK people I follow. An event big enough to pull diverse networks into one topic, and what a favourite topic it is. People wonder why on earth British people like to talk about the weather, implying that it’s a fetish , covering up some kind of cultural reserve which prevents us from discussing more important matters. That’s rubbish. We like to talk about the weather simply because it is such a fascinating and varied subject! Even when there is;t any weather that can become an item itself, but when there is exceptional weather then we really go for it.

Made it into the office and the sun is out ! Broken discarded umbrellas litter the streets

Have given up after 2h43m of failing to get a train to London. Weather schmeather

Was that just a smattering of snow???

Blue skies in the City - has it passed or is it coming?

We’ve got terrible weather down here - wind is crazy

Beautiful sunshine here - na na na naaa-na

The storm is due to peak tonight and last till Wednesday so there’ll be plenty more where those ones came from.

It’s lovely and sunny oop North!

Weather is biblical this morning; hail, gales and torrents of the non-Bit variety

London weather = crazy. Broken umbrellas strewn all over the place.

stormy monday. good excuse for not going out

Holy crap it’s a crap day today

it be raining hard in hammersmith. metal roof in bite = makes storms seem like they’re gonna rip the place down.

The end of management March 8, 2008

Posted by Andy Roberts in : debate , 3comments

I’m returning to the debate about the end of the organisation with Josien and Joitske both having since added to the discussion.

The original proposition by Gilbert forsees change in the predominent “unit of interest”, the organisation, without clarifying what is meant by that except to differentiate from the geographical community.

I think we are mainly talking about structures which employ people. This holds even in the voluntary sector which is still based on hierarchical principles with a full time paid staff treating the volunteers either as customers or low cost labour.

So Gilbert is arguing that the new communications channels facilitated by internet technology will change the internal structure of the organisation, and also blur the boundaries between organisations such that new forms appear which are no longer recognisable as the old organisations at all. The hierarchical and insular characteristics are being destabilised and displaced.

Josien initially agrees and cites some examples of changes we can expect to emerge:

people centred, not organization centered
organic, community like
vertical, hierarchical communication replaced by horizontal many-to-many communication
role switching / bottom up: no fixed positions
increased permeability, boundaries are fluid and flexible
personal and work identities mix
creative commons, building upon each others work, less defence mechanisms
fuzz and flux: much larger tolerance for messyness, abundance and constant change over time
identifying with people, causes, values, not organizations
use of multimodal communications; attracting transliterate people

I think the essence of what is being offered here is a fundamental shift in power away from the employing organisation and towards the individual citizen. That would be quite extraordinary, revolutionary even. So what is it that ties people into unequal relationships with the employing organisations in the first place? Well it’s the need to earn a wage in order to pay for rent and food etc. This has been the case ever since we were chased off our own land and turned into wage labourers with the first industrial revolution. So now the internet will set us all free from this servitude? Well I think it could play a role in doing so, but not the evolutionary role that is being marked out. A gradual shift away from organisations while they are not looking, handing all the power over to individuals acting collectively as communities is not on the cards in my opinion, because this scenario conveniently ignores the existence of the state. Whether it be the nation state, the UN, the IMF, NATO, the EU or whatever there are huge forces at work with a vested interest in maintaining the dependence of individuals upon wage labour relationships in order to maintain the flow of profit from the poor to the rich. And they control the infrastructure, education and armed forces as means to police their own continued position of power.

So my initial argument is that the economic relations determine the social structures, that organisations exist to exploit the employer/employee relationship and that changes in communications, no matter how promising are secondary to this.

But I could be wrong.

What if the change in communications were able to facilitate new economic relationships all by themselves without the people even needing to lift a finger to overthrow the old states?

According to the theory of the Long Tail, new technology can reduce the cost of production or distribution such that existing markets are totally disrupted. Dinosaur corporations are then replaced by new, agile startups empowering networks of freelancers and massed amateurs.

So we can all quit working for IBM and Tesco and just sell each other collectibles via eBay? Well in actual fact, some of us really can do that but it isn’t the basis for a whole new economy. The long tail phenomenon only affects certain segments of certain markets. As I pointed out, we still need shelter, food and other basic necessities provided and that is all under the control of a long established order, seemingly unthreatened by Google and Facebook.

In fact the ‘new technology’ of the threshing machine, printing press, coal, steam, steel, radio, electricity and so on could have ushered in a new society based on common ownership and democratic administration but we’re still waiting for that two or four hundred years later because in that struggle for power, the old order won. History tends to repeat itself, but not always in the same way.

Joitske then joined the debate with a kind of middle position.

“The organization is there to stay, but the manager is not”

which brings up the question of the role of management within organisations which is tied up with the role of the middle class in the bourgeois state. It’s long been known that self-organised groups of people can produce more effectively without having parasitic supervisors getting in the way. That’s not to say that we don’t ever need leadership, but that in natural structures leadership emerges from amongst the community rather than being imposed and directed from above or outside.

Joitske claims that “more and more organizations thrive on knowledge workers” and I think that’s another important point which could help to clarify our debate here because as Josien observed in her second post, “When you immerse yourself in web2.0 and only talk (or rather, skype, phone, chat, blog, tweet) with others that populate this small universe, it is easy to think differently.”

How many knowledge workers can the economy support as a percentage of the total population and what exactly is a knowledge worker putting back into society?

Maybe the transition from management to knowledge worker is just the old petit bourgeoisie re-shuffling their own deck of cards, with no real impact for the foundations of society, which is based on the production of socially necessary ( as determined by the market) goods and services, oblivious to the real human needs and environmental impact.

Because really we are all ‘knowledge workers’ and always have been. The distinction between workers ‘by hand and by brain’ is a false one, injected in the nineteenth century by the Fabians and others. Yes, there are laborious unfulfilling repetitive tasks which need to be performed by somebody, but try doing any of them without a brain. If any job can be reduced to manual tasks only then it has already been replaced by machinery. So if we are all honing and deploying our own knowledge and skills in every area of life then what is special or different about these so-called knowledge workers?

I think I’ll just end with the question for now, not having even dealt with so many more points from Josien, Joitske and others, but looking forward to reading further contributions and comments as we attempt to both broaden and get to the nub of an interesting debate, or at least I hope so.

New wiki pages March 2, 2008

Posted by Andy Roberts in : Wiki , 1 comment so far

I’ve begun a few new wiki pages on the DAR wiki recently, and I thought I’d point them out , with some of my rationale for starting them.

Email list hosting

This is the newest and shortest. I want to compare the alternatives to googlegroups and yahoo for hosting a simple email discussion group. I’m thinking that self-hosting will provide better stability long term, but so far the only options to examine are Majordomo and Mailman. Know any better? then please edit the wiki

http://distributedresearch.net/wiki/index.php/Email_list_hosting

London Bloggers

This is a wiki page for the group of London bloggers who meet up monthly in a pub near Waterloo Station. If you are a London blogger why not add yourself to the wiki and consider coming along next month, March 25th.

http://distributedresearch.net/wiki/index.php/London_bloggers

Web hosting

This one also started out from asking a question, or rather hinting at a problem on Twitter and then needing to collate and expand on some useful responses. I want to find the best UK based web hosting company, with the right attitude towards helping people to host the latest Wikis, Wordpress multiuser, Ruby on Rails etc. The offshore hosting companies are also interesting when they are very cheap, but is the service reliable?

http://distributedresearch.net/wiki/index.php/Web_hosting

DARnet