With videography by Evan Roberts, this youTube is pretty self explanatory.

The actual location is a campsite at Camping Moreiras, O Grove, Pontevedra, Galicia. The fish, a whole monkfish, came from the fish market on the harbour at O Grove itself, as did the vegetables and the cider is an Asturian Sidra Natural obtaine en route from one of many Eroski supermarkets.

Just a bit of fun really, but it captures one of many happy mealtimes from a memorable holiday touring Asturias and Galicia in September 2011. There are loads of photos online  at both my collection and Linda’s Flickr  photostreams.

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Cooking Monkfish with Cider in Galicia

In 2009 I wrote blog-action-day-when-the-waters-rise

In 2007, the first blog action day, I explained that individual-action-is-not-enough

So this year I entered another song, Mondura Dam which according to the composer, myself, is bang on topic. It’s over on the Andy Roberts Podcast blog: Mondura Dam – as long as we have water and a piece about how to make cider using much less water to make cider than beer

This has been a post for blog action day 2010 tagged #BAD10

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Blog Action Day 2010 – #BAD2010

cider page on facebook as a social object

Facebook’s “pages” with “fans” have been around for a year or so, but were implemented as poor relations to personal profiles, not having the ability to push updates out into the newstream. Anybody can create a page for any purpose, so pages can become anchors for topic based conversations, a bit like friendfeed rooms or Flickr groups. On the micro social objects scale, pictures, videos, discussions and status updates added to the Facebook pages will be broadcast out into fans news streams, with the potential for remarkable topics at the pages level to gain traction a lot more quickly than before.   

Social Objects theory says that successful social networking sites work best when they enable easy relationships between people and social objects, not just between people and other people. Facebook pages have unique permanent URLs which are expose to search engines, so they are very different from the original college student private profile pages Facebook was founded upon. It’s likely though that much of Facebook’s huge existing userbase is going to be a little confused by this big departure from the longstanding culture of limited exposure to vetted human nodes in the network (friends). 

By the way, I’m using the term Social Objects here in it’s strictly European scientific sense, unlike the diluted idealist form that has muddied the theoretical waters somewhat in the past year or so.

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Facebook adds Social Objects

Featuring a family that’s been in the business for about three centuries, nurturing around 350 a year. Harvest is the start of the process, when they are nice and ripe.

There are about 200 creatives in the top field, and maybe 150 in the bottom field. being creative need lots of praise, to massage their egos but you can’t leave them in too long or else they become temperamental.

They use a hydraulic juicer, because modern ones give 20% more juice. The distribution centre is for all the companies that need creativity.

Online and direct marketing campaigns. Computer games and animation industries. TV ads.

Testing new blends like the Swindon rootstock grafted to Cornwall foliage. Any rotten uns, just get mulched up and sent up to Chelsea, for the flower show. A lot of people  pontificate about the future of  advertising  but  you can’t beat good ideas.

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Nurturing Creativity – The Harvest

Thursday is the weekend

Yesterday was a Thursday but I decided to declare it a weekend day and take a day off since it the weather looked very promising. We went for a pleasant canalside walk, explored Islington’s Chapel Market, visited the canal museum and had a smashing lunch at the Charles Lamb inn.

I first discovered that particular pub on Bastille Day least year, July 14th when a celebration of the French holiday was organised in conjunction with the review site Trusted Places and sponsorship from Ricard. So this is where the painting comes into it. The event made a colourful street scene with petanque being played in the road outside the pub, an accordian player and an artist painting with oil colours. So yesterday after ordering my smoked trout with beetroot and horseradish I notice a painting of that very scene hanging up on the wall inside the pub. “Ah that’s the painting we watched being half finished on Bastille day. Wait a minute, that’s me !” How did I know it was me? Well I was still wearing the same jacket. So here it is:

The artist is a renowned portrait painter, local to Islington, Nick Botting who once painted a portrait of Ian Botham and has been one of the Artists at Kew.

Linda dug out her photos from the event last year, which show the painting at an earlier stage, before the man in the beige jacket was added.

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Captured on canvas – I’m in a painting from Bastille Day

Afterwards we had some wide ranging conceptual discussions which touched on ideas about public identity and personal security, activities or events as social objects, the natural development of some online communities into face-to-face meetups and much more. There’s still a fair amount of work to be done on the prototype service, both in explaining the concepts and making a winning user interface, but if anyone can do it then Luke, Benjie and Jof are in position to succeed with support from the vibrant and friendly London social media development community.

The Coach and Horses is also the venue for Social Media Café on Friday, and I was happily able to use the free wifi to update the cider wiki to mention the Westons Old Rosie currently on tap.

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London social media development

My story involves the death of a prominent member, waybackmachine ,
wiki and transfer of websites.

A prominent member of uk cider stopped posting for several months
and people began to inquire after him. Eventually his wife found the
group and explained that he had been in a car accident and was
recovering very slowly. Then we heard that he suddenly died of a heart
attack.

I was approached by a couple of members who were concerned that
Paul’s own website and accumulated content should not be lost to
posterity and they tried writing to his wife as tactfully as possible,
but understandably she had bigger worries at the time.

So I created a wiki page linked from the members page, which contains
tributes written by the group as a reaction to hearing the tragic
news, and links to Paul’s site as archived on the “waybackmachine”
where I assume the content will remain indefinitely, even if the
original site is taken down. It’s the saddest task for a facilitator,
but seemed very necessary.

http://tinyurl.com/ypmsf8

http://ukcider.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Paul_Gunningham_In_Memorium

Interestingly I later discovered that the domain names and content had
passed on to another small scale web developer in a similar niche. I
don’t know how this was arranged, but I assume it was agreed with the
next of kin.

If somebody dies owning domain names and nobody inherits them, then
they eventually expire and come up for resale. There are then
companies who specialise in auctioning off the means to acquire them.

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Death of a community member

Adapting a script for reformatting mediawiki pages into “notes” format for iPod we now have available a facility for downloading the entire Online Cider Pub Guide to a mobile device.

Get the Cider Pub Guide on your iPod

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Wiki on your iPod

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BBC – Radio 4 – Nature 30/04/2007

to Nick Bradstock at National Association of Cider Makers on 01823 490336 or nickbrads@btinternet.com

Dear Nick,

ukcider is a community of 500+ people appreciative of craft cider and
perry. We claim amongst our midst a substantial minority of members who are actively involved in the production of real cider and perry on a small scale, and maintain the definitive online guide to good cider outlets and cider making advice.

I’m writing to you today on behalf of ukcider to endorse the letter
which one of our members, Roy Bailey has recently sent in regarding
the 7,000 litre exemption as adopted below:

“We understand that the National Association of Cider Makers is in support of the EU’s proposal to get rid of the 70 hectolitres duty exemption on cider and perry.

We believe that this would be a grave mistake of the part of the NACM, and would be disastrous as far as craft cider makers are concerned, leading to many of them ceasing production.

The present exemption is a valuable concession which has enabled a large number of small cider makers to start up in recent years, unbedevilled with the paperwork and expense attendant on paying duty. They have been able to produce interesting and distinctive products, making use of fruit that might otherwise go to waste, and sell their cider and perry at a competitive price. Like the micro-brewers, they have been instrumental in introducing new tastes and flavours which the larger commercial producers fight shy of.

Instead of being confined to the West Country and East Anglia, cider
making is now carried on in the majority of the counties of England and Wales, and even in Scotland.

Furthermore, many of these craft producers have sought out and rescued rare and threatened varieties of apples and pears, grafting them and planting new orchards which add diversity to the countryside and to the national stock of fruit.

The brewing industry has only recently been able to enjoy a concession similar to cider’s duty exemption in the form of Progressive Beer Duty. This has enabled new breweries to start up, and existing ones to either invest in new equipment or maintain competitive prices.

Rather than abolish the 70 hl concession, it should be retained and
amended so that duty is only paid on the excess over that limit when it occurs, rather than on the whole of the production as at present. The current arrangement penalises those producers who wish to produce between 70 and about 140 hl per annum.

If the NACM goes ahead with its support of this EU proposal (and once
again this is a case of the EU sticking its nose into something that is
not its business) then it will only provide more ammunition for those
who believe that the NACM exists only to further the interests of the
big commercial producers, rather than of cider makers in general.

Regards,

Andy Roberts

ukcider convenor

http://www.ukcider.co.uk

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Open letter to NACM

You can order Coxs, Katy or Spartan or a mixture. It’s up to you and if you live within striking distance of Gloucestershire then you could save the delivery charge too. Considering that these 500ml bottles normally go for £1.59 or even £1.79 in the supermarkets I reckon that’s a pretty neat bargain at just ONE POUND only. You might want to tell your cider drinking friends about this one. Here’s the link to the cider blog again.

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ukcider bargain – Thatchers £1 a bottle

So I wrote to the ukcider list, but I’m publishing here as well because there are some generalised ideas contained within which are also directly relevent to a couple of other projects I’m currently starting on.
…

There are two things I want to suggest, arising from your request. The first continues the discussion I was having with Andrew recently about competion. It strikes me that here in the UK, craft ciders are in competion for people’s money with other “luxury” products to a much larger extent than between each other. Beer and wine are probably the main competition, but also other beverages, fine food and perhaps even entertainments. But I won’t stretch it too far.

Secondly, In the modern connected world there is the idea that “word of mouth” is becoming more important than advertising. UK cider enthusiasts are right here on this group/forum/wiki and you can engage with us by simply writing about your own product and activities on a regular basis, as long as it takes the form of participation in a conversation not just posting one way announcements. It’s always a good idea to enhance and keep your own details up to date on the wiki as well – in your case this could be on the France page – Cidernaut_guide_to_France
as well as on the buy cider page if you are intending to provide an online order service to the UK

One active example, not a producer but a publican, is Steve Marquis of
the Blue Bell at Halkyn in North Wales.
.

Finally, there is now one trial commercial linked graphic advertisement on the http://ukcider.co.uk/buy.htm static page which is not exclusive and helps toward the annual bandwith fees for the wiki. I don’t believe that impinges on the community in any way by being there, and if you are interested in something similar then do get in touch.

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Word of Mouth

So I’ve added a plugin to the ukcider mediawiki to enable it to display videos from YouTube and GoogleVideo directly onto the page, which means that in future it will be possible to add relevent media to the narrative text within the pages of the dynamic work of reference and generally wonderful thing that is the cider wiki

For now, here’s a page with a few choice cider videos:

http://ukcider.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Cider_Videos

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Cider videos

Buy books about real cider making on a small scale and homemade apple cider press plans at the ukcider bookshop with Amazon UK

A ukcider member who calls himself “Ni. (Marches Cyder Circle)” has created a great new page on the cider wiki all about his homemade scratter, dubbed the “codling grinder”.

I just love these kind of low-tech, practical and cheap solutions, and so do plenty of potential cidermakers around the world it seems. A similar page by Ray which shows how to make a home made apple press out of bits of plywood and four-by–two has received a phenomenal numberof page views ( > 12,000) and regularly comes up in the most popular searches. The accompanying discussion page also gets comments and questions which the author happily answers.

Recently a new member arrived on the mailing list having built the press from Ray’s instructions and made their own cider the year before. They were so pleased with the results they wanted to learn more about it. I’m sure that Ni’s scratter will be similarly emulated around the world, because you do actually need both machines in order to make apple juice or cider.

There are also some images and description of a home-made rotating “scratcher” for
milling apples included in the book: “Success with Apples and Pears to Eat and Drink” by Alan Rowe ( available from the cider bookshop) but I bet they’re not as much fun as Ni’s page with his codling scratter for a cider press.

Visit the UKCider Wiki page about the HomeMade Scratter

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Homemade Scratter for a cider press

It was effectively the first real face to face meeting of a CoP which has existed for 5 years or so online. Now I’ve done this kind of thing before, so I had no worries but it was interesting to hear others expressing great surprise at how well it worked, socially. They all got on together and had a great time with people they’d never seen before, chatting away like long lost friends, which I was able to explain is quite normal really. Not meeting strangers, but friends who just hadn’t happened to have met before.

Such an event can only strengthen the ties between those present, but what effect might this have on the CoP overall? It’s too soon to say, of course. I think most close communities develop an urge to meet f2f, overcoming quite substantial obstacles to do so, this one was just quite a long time in the making.

|* I’d expect the members who were present to perhaps email each other more. That might cause a dip in the more public interactions. Should that be a concern?

* Or they might make more personal, and perhaps off topic remarks in the group.

* People who weren’t present have already expressed regret at not being able to make it, and this will increase the impetus to organise future events.

* Others on the periphery might possibly begin to feel excluded by the added camaraderie of the regulars.

What’s your experience of what happens after a purely online community has met face to face?

Technorati Tags: communitiesofpractice, cider, online_community

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Online CoP meets face to face

And down in Dorset, Rose Grant whose cidermaking year is published as a kind of journal within the wiki, has been thinking hard about fitting out her own very real and non metaphorical barn which houses the cidermaking operations. The engineering problem is to raise a large number of apples from ground level to the roof in a continuous process to feed the apple mill, from which the pomace can then be dropped down into the racks to form the cheeses for the press.

Rose is considering building a single elavator which raises the apples above the level of the roof, and then dropping them down through a large diameter pipe set at 90 degress. But some testing is needed to find out how well this would work and there lies a problem in that by the time that there are enough apples around to set up an apple rolling trial, it will be too late to design and build the elevator ready for the pressing season.

This is where a community of practice such as ukcider really shows how valuable it can be to members, as Rose well understands from having learned enough about the science and craft of cidermaking to develop from hobbyist to small scale professional, through tapping the expertise and support which exists in the community.

The wise move is simply to explain the situation and ask the question, then parts of the problem begin to be solved.

I came up with this:

“There aren’t any apples around right now. But you can’t afford to wait for apple season in order to obtain the information you need to design the elevator.

Supposing somebody with access to a sack or two of apples in
the southern hemisphere reading this might have plenty
of apples available either now or in the next few months? It must be
late summer there now already. Maybe Rose could explain exactly what
is needed, work out how they should conduct the trials and take notes,
and they might even record a video of the apples rolling down the pipe
so the effect can be seen. The outcome from this little piece of
international cooperation might be sufficiently valid for the
elevator to be designed with a reasonable confidence that the gravity
feed is going work.”

Within a few hours on the mailing list, an offer came in from Trevor and Frances.

“Yes the southern hemisphere apples are maturing nicely. Here in New Zealand I have collected in the earlys a couple of weeks ago and Kingston Black last weekend, just a few lates inc Royal Wilding to go. I would be pleased to help with experimenting if Rose, you can sketch out your plans.”

And now detailed instructions are being transmitted around the globe.

It will be fascinating to follow how the remote experiment helps, or if Rose decides to solve the problem based on some of the other suggestions which members have posted. Somebody suggested using an open trough instead of a pipe, but the snag with that idea has been pointed out:

“I want to use a pipe rather than a chute as this would also send water pouring into the roof when it rains.”

One thing is for sure, with such remarkable determination no obstacle will stand in the way of this particular cider barn being up and running ready for this year’s increased production.

Technorati Tags: cider, ukcider, communities_of_practice, wiki

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Meanwhile, in another place..

On 17/12/05, one of the ukcider mailing list members who has got caught up in the quest to find real cider pubs up and down the country wrote in:

> We now have 501 entries in the wiki. The 500th was the Hop Leaf in
> Reading.

I decided this was an occasion to mark, and perhaps slightly prematurely
for the date, have a look back at the progress made and future direction.

“To get to where we are now in just 10.5 months (yes really) is an
impressive achievement by any expectations. The 500 milestone is
significant because it brings the online guide up to a quantity of
information which is comparable with a printed version already. And we
know the potential is there to go way beyond, just with all of those
undiscovered pubs in Devon, Dorset and Somerset.

The next period might look at quality as a milestone somehow.

The existance of this friendly group is the thing which has driven the
cider wiki forward and will no doubt continue to review the pub guide
and make corrections and additions as the situation changes up and
down the country. It’s important to keep that up, but I particularly
like the entries where you can tell that somebody has actually spent
some time inside a pub and mentioned little quirky details. There
aren’t so many of them and I wonder if there’s doubt in some
contributors minds as to what kind of writing is valued? The easiest
thing is always to follow on in the same style as what’s already
there, and perhaps that can lead to a kind of minimalist streamlining
which isn’t strictly necessary.

So I’d like to try and encourage more of the descriptive style
entries, while not at all discouraging the listing of bare facts which
are still much, much better than not getting around to it.

Then there’s the rest of the wiki – it’s not just a pub guide, by any means.
Rich descriptive pages have been added during the year about
importing a Czech fruit mill, Asturian campsites with cider, recipes
and a discussion of the pub sticker idea.

The forthcoming festivals and events page seemed to work quite well,
so 2005 has been hived off and 2006 is starting to fill up already.

Then there are several other pages which are essentially lists, some
of which are valuable resources in the same way as the pub guide, and
others have just begun and then not developed much.

So all in all it’s been a great year for ukcider, with membership of
the mailing list creeping upwards together with the amount of
conversation, lots of good advice and appreciation. I don’t know
what’s in store for us next year, but with any luck it will be more of
the same.

Best wishes to all,
–
Andy Roberts

http://www.ukcider.co.uk

Technorati Tags: cider, wiki, community_indicators, online_facilitation

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ukcider wiki expands to 500 pubs