Month: April 2015

  • Near Miss (Not Me)

    Diamond Geezer published these thoughts on “Guerilla Pedestrians” yesterday. Let me relate what I saw happen – and what very nearly happened – this morning, because it scared me. I was walking across the Euston Road – crossing at the pedestrian crossing between St Pancras station and the Burger King just opposite. The crossing is…

  • Should We Be Surprised That 60% of TV Programmes Get Zero Ratings?

    On Twitter James Cridland highlighted a stat reported within a Media Guardian story on Local TV: Astonishing stat deep in this story: 60% of all UK TV programmes get offically *no viewers* according to BARB. http://t.co/AosYmY0K9t — James Cridland (@JamesCridland) April 22, 2015 Is this a shocking number? Are vast swathes of television going unwatched…

  • Twitter List Wrangling

    [NB. This is really to help anyone having the same problem as I had trying to add many accounts to a Twitter list in one go using a third party application. You may wish to skip this entry!] Twitter has had lists for years, but I’ve never made any real effort to use them. It’s…

  • Paris – Roubaix 2015

    When I visited Gent six weeks or so ago, it was to see the city and take in a little bit of cycling. Hence I got to watch Omloop Het Nieuswblad and Kuurne Brussels Kuurne. The former was a more interesting race and I duly found a nice bit of a cobbled ‘berg to view…

  • “Now Available to Download”

    There was mass hysteria* yesterday when Disney and Fox announced that all six Star Wars films would be available to download in HD from Friday! Goodness, how very lucky we are. I mean, how else was I going to be able to watch any of the films? It’s not as though they haven’t been released…

  • Around the Web

    They’ve been there a while now. At first, just a few. But now they’re everywhere. And the invasion is growing. What am I talking about? “Content Discovery Platforms” typified by those “Around the Web” discovery link panels you often see on news sites and advertising supported blogs. Essentially, these are the tables of links that…

  • Top Tips for Podcasters

    An upfront disclaimer: I’ve never made or distributed a podcast. However, I have been listening to them for many years – from a variety of providers. Since podcasting is suddenly the hot new thing, some ten years after the name was first coined (and yes, I’m aware that they’re older than that), I thought I’d…

  • Thoughts on Tidal and Streaming Music Services

    I’m still not really clear about Tidal – the music streaming service. There was some kind of hideous press conference with lots of very successful – i.e. rich – artists talking banalities earlier this week in New York. But at this stage, a streaming music service really needs to have a point of difference compared…

  • The Failure of London Live

    “Local TV” has not been a rip-roaring success. It was former Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt’s passion project, before a reshuffle saw him move to Health. But once the train had started rolling it couldn’t be stopped, and Ofcom has dutifully carried out DCMS’s wishes and rolled out a series of stations. It’s still doing so.…

  • PavĂ©

    This weekend sees the Tour of Flanders, and next weekend is Paris – Roubaix. Since it’s been a while since I last did some screen printing, I thought I’d try to make a print based on the cobbled classics. I’m quite pleased with the results, but I thought I’d run through my process. I actually…