Snow after Easter April 6, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : randomness, wildlife, UK , 2commentsIt was difficult to take the severe weather warning seriously on Friday when the forecasts indicated serious snow over large areas of the UK for the weekend but here it is on Sunday morning. White stuff. Lots of it.
More pictures added to the Flickr set Snow after Easter
Is it snowing where you are today?
New UK statistics authority web site April 2, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : wildlife, politics, UK , add a commentUK Statistics Authority
A new independent body to oversee the quality of UK quantitative statistical data publication was launched yesterday.
The UK Statistics Authority run by Sir Michael Scholar is outside of government control, (like Torchwood) being answerable directly to the elected Parliament, not to ministers or any single government department. The USA has a remit to restore public confidence in the neutrality of government statistics, an urgent task since a survey revealed that only one citizen in five actually believes them! A poll by the European Commission about public trust in 27 member countries’ government statistics ranked Britain 27th out of 27.
USA can issue and take away a “kite mark” of quality assurance to each of the 28 UK Goverment departments which issue statistics, and will also act as a central reference for the vast amount of data which gets published. The website at www.statistics.gov.uk publishes a link to any new statistics which have been released daily at 9.30am, which is also available as an RSS feed
As another gesture towards open government, the USA will publish the minutes from their monthly meetings onto the website as well. Other plans for the website appear to include a new taxonomy and some kind of maps mashup.
What new figures are out today?
Today’s new stats include a tour of emergency services in Wales, Scottish manufactured exports for the last quarter of 2007 and a survey of construction industry materials but the one which caught my eye was a publication of UK Sea Fisheries Statistics for 2006.
United Kingdom Sea Fisheries Statistics
UK Sea Fisheries Statistics provides a compendium of statistics relating to the UK fishing industry. It includes information on the size of the UK fishing fleet, the number of fishermen, key economic indicators and the quantity and value of sea fish landings, imports and exports. Comparisons are made with the fishing industries in Europe and the rest of the world. The level of exploitation of the main European Union quota stocks is also considered.
It’s interesting to me for example, to see how Newlyn in Cornwall compares with other large fishing ports but there’s also an overview of the world fishing industry:
The world catch figures from marine fishing areas fell by 2 per cent from 85.5 million tonnes in 2004 to 83.7 million tonnes in 2005. In 2005 China caught the largest volume of fish, 14.7 million tonnes. Peru had the second largest annual catch at 9.3 million tonnes. The USA, Japan, Indonesia and Chile each caught between 4 and 5 million tonnes. Of the 83.7 million tonnes of fish caught in 2005, 63 per cent were caught in the Pacific Ocean, 26 per cent were caught in the Atlantic and 11 per cent in the Indian Ocean. Marine catches from the Pacific Ocean have shown a long-term gradual increase reaching a maximum of 53.6 million tonnes in 2000. Landings in 2005 were 52.5 million tonnes, a decrease of 1 per cent on 2004. In the Atlantic, the 2005 catch is 12 per cent lower than in 2001.
Here are some more tasty extracts:
In 2006, the UK fleet landed 21 thousand tonnes of cod (26 per cent of the 1996 level) and 40 thousand tonnes of haddock (44 per cent of the 1996 level). This represents a combined decrease of 109 thousand tonnes. Landings of the relatively low value blue whiting have increased over this period from 14 thousand tonnes to 82 thousand tonnes.
Herring landings by the UK fleet were higher than mackerel landings for the first time in over 10 years. Since 2002, mackerel landings have decreased by 49 per cent while herring landings have increased by 50 per cent.
In 2006, 41 thousand tonnes of nephrops were landed, a 35 per cent increase in two years. Landings of cockles fell to their lowest level for over 10 years.
This is all fascinating stuff but some of the vocabulary is unfamilar so I welcomed the opportunity to learn:
Nephrops are lobsters, langoustines, dublin bay prawns, scampi etc
What are Demersal Fisheries?
Demersal fisheries target species which live on the or near the seabed and feed on bottom-living organisms and other fish. Although fisheries may be directed towards particular species or species groups, demersal fish are often caught together and comprise a mixed demersal fishery.
In 2001 the total landings by the Scottish demersal fleet were in excess of 130,000 tonnes and had a first sale value of around £150 million. Cod (Gadus morhua), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), whiting (Merlangius merlangus) and monkfish (Lophius
What are Pelagic Fisheries?
Oily fish generally swim in the pelagic zones of the oceans.
So to the consumer or cook, roughly speaking demersal = “white fish” and pelagic = “oily fish”. The oily fish live in the deep cold waters (clue) and the demersals are more coastal, except that the continental shelf extends a lot further out from some coastlines than others. And the Mackerel do come in close to shore in large numbers at certain times, as witnessed in Lekeitio recently:
Back to the UK Statistics authority website, as you can see it has the potential to provide considerable distraction as well as having great educational and informative uses, quite possibly marketing and business use as well. Perhaps one day it will also be considered to set up an authority site for aggregating national qualitative data in a similar but appropriate way.
Stormy weather March 10, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : UK , add a commentIt 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.
Eurostar sponsors crowdsourcing February 22, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ebbsfleet, crowdsource, London , 5commentsEurostar sponsors crowdsourcing
Readers of this blog may be aware of the unique football club Ebbsfleet United in Kent. The website “Myfootballclub.com” mobilised 28,000 online football fans to chip in £35 each and make a successful bid to buy a 75% controlling interest in the club. So its the first football club in the world ever to be owned by an online community. Some say it’s the first business in the world ever to be taken over by an online community (do you know better?)
Myfootballclub: http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/
Eurostar
Now Eurostar is a well known and prestigious brand who were already sponsoring Ebbsfleet international football club, since it helps to publicise the new Ebbsfleet International railway station which is part of the high speed rail route from St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel. Eurostar’s reaction to the takeover is to embrace the change and piggyback onto the extra interest in the club, which generates free publicity for Ebbsfleet and everybody associated with it. They’ve also taken out some full page newspaper advertisements congratulating the new owners of the club - and naming each of us individually.
“Congratulations to the new owners of Ebbsfleet United”
One further step which showed that somebody at Eurostar does actually ‘get’ the whole crowdsourcing social media thing is that they submitted alternative versions of proposed advertisements to the online community at myfootballclub to be voted on. I voted for it too. The one which won was then sent for publication. It emphasises the fact that Ebbsfleet International is now really owned by 280,000 ordinary football fans whose names have been dumped (with individual permission) onto the pages of The Times.
Eurostar blog: http://fortomorrow.eurostar.com/
Crowdsourcing - what’s next?
So what’s next in line for being taken over by an online community? It would be trivial to buy a top quality racehorse, small syndicates have been doing that for years. What about a Formula 1 racing team? A national radio or TV station? How about setting up a website to accumulate enough people to buy a brewery, a supermarket chain or a bank? You can only buy one share each, so no individual gets control.
Social Media Café
On a smaller scale could we get a couple of thousand Social Media people in London to sign up to buy a little cafe together? Of course we could. Then we’d have somewhere to go that pays for itself, with free access for shareholders.
London social media cafe: http://londonsocialmediacafe.pbwiki.com/
Total eclipse of the Moon February 20, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : astronomy for beginners, UK , 18comments
There’s a total eclipse of the moon tonight, well tomorrow morning really, the last until December 2010. So if you’re feeling a little insomniac at 3.00am, get up make a cup of hot rooibos tea and look out of the window or go out onto the balcony or garden. The last few nights have been very clear so there’s a good chance of great views of the total lunar eclipse.
Lunar Eclipse
Originally uploaded by leppre
The previous lunar eclipse visible from the UK was on March 3rd 2007, at a more civilised time in the evening.
Marilyn and Ella at Theatre Royal Stratford February 16, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : theatre, Music, London , 4comments
I’m really looking forward to going to the theatre tonight. We’re not going to the West End though, but to the Theatre Royal in Stratford. That’s Stratford, East London, home of the 2012 Olympics; nothing to do with Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. The show is called “Marilyn and Ella” and it’s about a famous meeting between Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe at a time of continuing racial segregation in the USA. Yes, it’s set in 1955, just a few years before I was born and when American society was run under a system similar to apartheid. So it’s a small, two woman production I think, but with a big subject plot and some big songs. The premiere was last night, so tonight, Saturday should be a big night too.
Theatre Royal
I suppose Theatre Royal, Stratford East is my local theatre, but I haven’t been for a few years. There used to be a series of excellent productions once a year which sometimes moved on to the West End such as “The Invisible Man” and “Zorro” but I think the moving force behind these died, and the raison d’etre for local theatre has moved more towards serving the perceived needs of the local community, a community which arguably doesn’t really exist except from a political or funding point of view. But the playwright is Bonnie Greer, an accomplished writer and whose performance on TV the other night in Question Time I think it was, well she just outshone everyone else on the panel.
Bonnie Greer
For the Sunday Herald in August 2006 Bonnie Greer said “I wrote this basically because the information has been suppressed, and if you don’t control the information, it controls you. That’s certainly true in the case of Marilyn Monroe, who was a victim of information control even after her death. She was the biggest movie star in the world and she made this kind of stand for Ella Fitzgerald. People at the time didn’t understand it, so they glossed over it, and now not many even know about it. Which means that it has never really been celebrated.”
Interestingly, this musical stage play began life on Radio 4 as “Marilyn And Ella Backstage At The Mocambo” and then at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2006 as “Ella Meet Marilyn.” The play has been competely re-written for the 2008 production, and if it has been crafted skillfuly for Theatre Royal Stratford then there’s every chance of a West End transfer in due course.
Celebrity
So part of my anticipation is to see if the question of the emancipation of the excluded black people as a whole class is brought up or glossed over through focussing on forging a pathway for the very few to rise up to become celebrities, leaving the masses behind them. The Marilyn Munroe icon has become a symbol of celebrity itself, so there are some interesting mixed messages inherent in the subject matter. The part of Ella Fitzgerald is played by Nicola Hughes who has been in Porgy and Bess and Chicago and Wendy Morgan from A Street Car Named Desire and The Bill is cast in the role of Marilyn Monroe. So that’s two very brave women to go on stage and play those huge stars.
Songs
I’m also going to enjoy the chance to hear some great songs performed live on stage.
Someone To Watch Over Me; My Funny Valentine; Baby, It’s Cold Outside
Wonderful old classics with which I am familiar not from the Jazz legends themselves but from the great covers sung by Mari Wilson in the nineteen eighties.
They Can’t Take That Away From Me - Lady Is a Tramp - Bewitched. Bothered and Bewildered - Every time We Say Goodbye - Just Two Little Girls From Little Rock - The Man That Got Away - Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend
Also some new songs by musical director Warren Wills.
http://theatreroyallondon.com/
London social media development February 14, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : social media, social objects, London, cider , add a commentIt was Wednesday evening so I went along to the Coach and Horses in Greek St, Soho to take part in an early user testing session for i-together’s new twitter and google maps mashup project. The usability test was run by Ofer Deshe of Flow Interactive who introduced himself as coming from a background in cognitive psychology, using techniques borrowed from ethnographical anthropology, so being chosen as the user to be observed was something of a privilege. I was sat in front of a laptop running a web service with no explanation or guidance, asked simply to explore and try to make sense of it. Well I just hope my slightly flummoxed attempts at navigation and comments provided some useful data.
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.
Platform Art February 2, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Art, London , 1 comment so farAt Gloucester Road tube station there is one whole platform that isn’t currently used by passenger services. Rather than being a ghost platform though, it’s in use as an exhibition area for a piece of platform art called “Life is a laugh” by Brian Griffiths.
I can’t tell whether it’s a celebration or a mockery of retro computer games such as Super Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog but the whole point seems to be to make a pun on the overused word “platform”. I asked one of the staff if theer was any more information and he disappeared into the ticket office for ten minutes then came back with a leaflet. Unfortunately the leaflet contained no clues for me, just a rambling stream of consciousness type piece of prose covering all pages. Well, it brightened up my morning journey and gave me something to think about.
London Bloggers January 28, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : london bloggers, blogs and community, London , 1 comment so farAndy Bargery, who I met at a London Geek dinner last year, has set up a new home for London Bloggers, which is a blog of course, and a meetup tomorrow evening near Waterloo. I’ll be there. If you haven’t registered already, it’s too late but why not subscribe to the blog and come to the next one in February.
Welcome to the Home of London Bloggers
If you live in London and write a blog then you might be interested to come along to the regular London Bloggers Meetup. The next event is on Tuesday 29th January at the Camel & Artichoke Pub near to Waterloo, check out the Meetup page for more info.If you can’t make it, check back here in early Feb for a round-up of the event and quite possibly a handful of photos. Then of course you can register for the next event in Feb.
If you are a London Blogger you might also want to add yourself to the London Bloggers Wiki page
Bird flu fiction as a blog January 14, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : blogs and community, UK , 4comments
The avian influenza or Bird flu H5N1 virus represents an all too serious threat to the world population as experts are predicting an pandemic not as a question of “if” but “when”. Here’s an effort in public consciousness raising through the medium of fictional writing, and in the format of a blog.
dominieschronicle.blogspot.com
The story has already started but it won’t take long to catch up on all the posts from January 2nd to date and then probaby the best way to experience would be by subscribing to an RSS feed but there doesn;t seem to be one working at present.
Also there has been an outbreak of visitors from the Flu wiki who don’t seem to appreciate the subtleties of “in character blogging” or that the events are situated in in a Scottish cultural setting.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
