Sher locks Homes

Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Homes, Lock Homes. Most fictional detectives’ names make a play on the ideas of security, or their personalities. Morse (code), Creek (up without a paddle), Frost(y) personality…er…well, it does fit in some cases - an old theory from an university lecturer...

As a big fan of Jeremy Brett’s Holmes (definitive) I was interested to see the new adaptation on Sunday on the Beeb. It was indeed very good. I particularly the rift on “three pipe problem” into “three patch problem”. Modern. 

There was also some nifty smartphone’s interaction, which was, well, even more modern. You can't beat the idea of someone very smart, working everything out very quickly from the facts, like, and brow beating those around him. I think we all like to imagine ourselves as a bit like that, as a slight git who calmly, unshakably brings order to a situation. But we aren't like that, are we?

 The plot was a bit manic, but it was set up well for the next two episodes, (liked the idea of Mycroft as a government stooge). London looked nice too, including the dirrrttttyy streets of Soho, and it'll be interesting to see whether the next two episodes keep up the popularity the show has had so far from critics and twitter people so far (my yardstick anyway).

Obligatory use of the word elementary in a piece about Sherlock. Although he never said "elementary, dear Watson", instead saying, "elementary". 

World Cup memories

Four years ago today I awoke bleary eyed, tired, and robbed. It was the day after my last exam at university. My bank account had been skimmed to the tune of almost £400 from Bulgaria (Have you been to Bulgaria? The woman in the bank asked me...) and I had, in spite of this, gone out to celebrate the end of student life – it was a fraudulent celebration as I was actually on for a post-grad course, but hey ho.

Later that afternoon, I, and about 19 others, went to the pub to watch Germany play out a highly enjoyable 4-2 win against Costa Rica. It was the start of the World Cup 2006. The sun shone, the atmosphere was carnival, with students everyone winding up their final exams, and the massive over expectation that the "Golden Generation" (snigger) would finally deliver.

They didn't of course, and later that month, back in Cornwall, we slumped out of the local bar after England's dismal showing against Portugal.

In 2002 I slumped into Geography half an hour late after England's dismal 2-1 defeat to Brazil in the quarter-finals. The only player who had a shot in the second half was Danny Mills, which shows what a weak team we had. This was the world cup of early morning kick offs, of the tournament being over each day at about 1pm UK time, leaving you free to make the most of the afternoons – if you were a schoolboy who'd completed his exams of course. For workers it must have been terrible.

In 1998 I was at my auntie's 40th when Croatia stuck three past Germany, to much celebration from those assembled, and the next day I can still vividly remember commenting, struck with wonder at the thought of such an age: "At the next World Cup I'll be 17…". I had been at home for the England v Argentina match, and watched as the team swash-buckled their way out of the tournament after an engrossing match.

In 1994, I only really remember watching Brazil v Italy, in the drab, Americanised final in the Pasadena Rose Bowl. It was a limp match, ending on penalty shoot out. Poor.

Interesting though, measuring out your life by major events, notably the World Cup, I can only imagine where I'll be when 2014 in Brazil roles around.

Anyone care to join in?

Word up!

In 2004 I was standing in Cardiff Central Railway Station's branch of WH Smiths. I was hungover and readying myself for a four-and-a-half hour train journey home. I had my sarnie, my water and I needed some reading material. The men's magazines looked as terrible as usual but, just I was about to give up the hunt, I spied the headline "Jeff Buckley lives!".

Now, during my first year at university I had become somewhat obsessed with the drowned-warbler that was Mr Jeff Buckley, after the recommendation of the album Grace from a friend, and so to see this headline, staring out at me among the sea of other "look at me" cover lines, felt somewhat serendipitous.

It was a magazine called "Word", something I was vaguely aware of but not really. Anyway, I bought it, I read the article, I very much enjoyed it. The rest of the magazine was equally compelling with intelligent, interesting, well-written, articles, reviews, interviews and so forth. Ever since I have enjoyed Word - mentioning it in my interview for the Cardiff Magazine course - texting Radio 2 when Mark Ellen was on the show asking for advice for aspiring journalists when I was in my university days, reading the blog of David Hepworth, having a subscription in the boom times (on the Christmas list for this year too) and so on.

Then, in October, I won a competition hosted by Word (by submitting this video), to play with the JD session group the New Silver Cornet Band - made of up musicians who have played with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, and so on. The day itself passed in a blur of nerves, missed notes, and a flurry of a guitar solo. Afterwards though, during the little interview I did with The Word's Andrew Harrison I offered (because you have to take advantage of the weird ways life can work out and play into your hands) to write something about the gig that was taking place two nights later, featuring Brett Anderson, Jon McClure and Carl Barat, and - perhaps because I had oh-so-subtly mentioned some of my other freelance work including The Guardian, and plenty of music reviewing - he said, "Okay, sure."

Much agonising over words later I emailed the copy off and sat back, waiting to see what would happen. Fast forward to today...after much peering at shelves in various corner shops in Pimlico (if they're not on a corner, what are they?) I found the December issue and there on page 49 is my review in full, complete with a small picture of me and the band from the rehearsal day, complete with a little, in-bold byline. Pretty cool.

Okay, so I got to write it via a competition entry I saw on Twitter (yet another tick in the pro-Twitter column) but hey, I can now say I've written for Word Magazine.

S is for...

Stream of Consciousness

You know, that idea of writing whatever enters your head at that moment, in an effort to replicate the way in which the human brain flits around all over the place, and was popular with writers like Joyce and Woolf. I once thought about renting Ulysses from a library to read it but I never did. I remember I was in Cardiff University library with a friend called Gareth, and I was hungover, and we were going to creative writing, which I did for two years, but for some reason I never did actually rent Ulysses out. We were the only two males in that creative classing, I think, so it was an odd set up but good fun. The first thing we were ever asked to write for that course was a piece of steam of consciousness prose and I did mine on a train journey I had done, when I went home from Cardiff to Cornwall. I can still remember it now, the train journey, the sun piercing the carriage, the mild hangover emanating from my skull, the cold, damp BLT sandwich I had bought, listening to Grace by Jeff Buckley on my CD player. CD players? A different era.

Written steam of consciousness still doesn't capture the true reality of the human mind as really it's unconsciousness that happens to you as you're wandering around, sitting on a bus, or whatever because that's when you don't even know where your mind is, why it's jumping from one subject to another; like that moment when you say 'oh what was I talking about?' or when you dimly try to remember something you've just been thinking about, that has passed on, but you don't feel you full got to the bottom of, often something that was a bad thing, a worrying thing, that you needed to think about more fully.

You're, You're, You're Gonna need a bigger boat

via youtube.com

So this is the point of Posterous...Seeing an insanely clever montage video of various clips spanning several genres and decades of film and television, that uses famous lines and quotatons from these pieces of film, and splices them together into a musical piece that is both catchy and well-produced...and being able to instantly share it at the click of a button from your computer. I remember being told we were the creative generation on my course at Cardiff. They weren't wrong.

Posted via web from danworth's posterous

Of course if you're reading this on my Blogger then the reference to Posterous makes no sense, but the rest is apt.

400 posts

What have I learned from writing 400 blog posts? Not much. Well, a little...

You can't make any money from this, unless you bombard it with Google ads, and you probably need to specalise your subject matter too, while regular readers of this blog will know I write about pretty much anything. This blog was started as part of a course requirement at Cardiff University. Everyone else seemed to think it was a chore, but I really enjoyed it. There are only a few of us going now; myself, Mr Severs, and Mr Dando (sometimes). There may be more but I don't know of them. Apologies to my old course mates if so.

When I tried to focus it around media and entertainment issues I would often leave it untouched for days. Now though, I just write about whatever the hell I want and it's far more enjoyable. And it seems to generate more followers and higher hit rates than previously. I'd like to think the unknown (the unknown unknowns and known unknowns etc) of what's coming next keeps people coming back. I should credit Mr Five Centres for this somewhat as his blog is so hard to predict what's coming next - yesterday it was cereals - that it keeps you coming back and is very engaging And so I started to imitate this, but in my own way too.

Check back tomorrow when I'll tell you why I am sick of every magazine that thinks it's funny putting 'hilarious' captions on every single picture.

Was this profound or was it banal - or somewhere in between?

Image: Britain in the year 400.

Scientific

I'm quite excited. Why, I hear you think? Because my favourite no-one-else-has-heard-of-them-band are about to release their second album. Yes, that's right, The Soft Hearted Scientists are back!

This Welsh three-piece first popped up on my musical radar some two years ago when a copy of 'Take Time to Wonder in a Whirling World' fell through my letter box for reviewing. It was the first album I ever, or have ever, awarded five stars (partly because other sites I've written for don't do the star system). Sadly the site I wrote this for went through a drastic overhaul and now doesn't list music reviews. Needless to say though that review was so good, you would have bought the album there and then if you read it. Maybe.

Basically the sound is folky-pop but with a hint of psychedelia, in the sense that they use shimmering piano chords, effect heavy guitar solos (to good effect, not over the top) and have some of the most interesting, diverse, and clever lyrics I've heard - referencing everything from the evolution of Earth, Roman ruins, stars, planets, reality TV, the A470 and asking, 'who wants to be the last of anything?'

They themselves have said the band was formed on the idea that, "it would be cool to try and make music that conveyed even five percent of the feeling you get when you see shooting stars whooshing across a night sky in a distant place far away from home."

There aren't many bands who say things like that.

It's only a game son (you'd better believe I'm right)

Last night I played pool for the first time in about two years. For some reason London pubs rarely seem to have pool tables. I like pool but I've always seen it as nothing more than a pub game. Fun, enjoyable, a bit of a laugh, but nothing to take seriously.

Some people do take it seriously, which is fine, but on such a small table you can hardly be surprised when a good old fashioned geoff hoon (i.e. wallop) of a ball ends up weaseling down a hole. Last night I did manage to produce a fantastic fluke having snookered myself (should that be pooled myself?) from which the ball ran right around the table and left me straight on the black, allowing me to chalk up (ha!) another win.

Which leads me on to this: is the BBC Snooker music the best sports music?


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Only took me 24 hours to realise I'd spelt believe wrong. Great.

What do you want from me?

I've not got the energy for a proper blog today so I'll do some bullet points

• I went to Brighton on the weekend for a family birthday (click image to enlarge - stupidly impressive quality for a mobile phone camera taking in that much detail).
  
• It was lots of fun and good to catch up with people I hadn't seen for a few years. Brighton was nice and it was great to see the sea again. The old, burnt out pier really adds character to the sea front.
• One funny moment was, when talking to my cousins the same age as me, I referred to the older adults (their parents basically) as 'the grown ups'. Years ago when we went on holiday together this was an accurate assessment (and usually said in hushed, conspiratorial tones).
  
• I haven't been running for a while and I feel bad about it.
• I read Shakespeare by Bill Bryson which was very good. I'm now reading his Neither Here Nor There. He is a good writer.
• James May in Space was truly amazing television and I would urge anyone who hadn't seen it to watch on iPlayer, especially the last 15 minutes or so when he does indeed go in to space. Breathtaking.
• I won a moleskin notebook via Twitter. I will use it to record interesting ideas - not 'to do' lists.
• I received one of my old poems from my tutor from my Creative Writing course at Cardiff University. I might enter the National Poetry Competition with it. Maybe.
• I must get back to work. Bye.

The power of Twitter

Twitter once again showed what it can do as a news gathering source today, and proved it's not just a 'celebrity' application. Following 'tweets' about the plane crash in Holland helped me find not only someone at the scene @nipp, but also photos being taken and uploaded to the site, almost 10 to 15 minutes before they were uploaded on to the BBC website, usually one of the first sites to have images.

Not only this but following @nipp provided a series of updates, on what was happening on the scene live, before anything else was on a major news website, like these two updates: "I'm seeing a lot of ambulances and emergency heli's. It looks like the situation is under control, relatively" and "Again, the planes lookes like its in multiple pieces. With over a hundred people on board, that can't be good." (sic).

Furthermore both the BBC (via @ruskin147) and Channel 4 (via @channel4news), were messaging @nipp and asking him if he would contact them so they could speak to him. Indeed, C4's Twitterer simply asked its followers if they knew of someone on the scene and no doubt was directed to @nipp. He was then interviewed and it's on their website now. The Mumbai terrorist attacks, the plane crash in the Hudson and now this event, have all been covered by Twitter, with images coming in more quickly to an application site, TwitPic, faster than major media outlets.

When I was on my course blogging and so forth was consistently mentioned as the future of journalism, and most often as the 'death of the journalist', but it isn't/wasn't. It's a new writing outlet (not even new now), one that is open to everyone, and one that journalists need to engage with and use, and now do on almost every site of note, but not the end of journalism, just a new branch.

If I was coming into the media, giving talks on it, looking to the future etc, the impact of Twitter, especially its potential as a news gathering source for quotes, pictures and news, would be the thing I would focus on as the latest media development, and a far more interesting one too.

Newspaper opinions

This blog started, years ago when on the Cardiff course - where I've just been back (see two posts down) - and here is an interesting article in the Guardian about opinions on newspapers from young people across the globe. When on our course we heard a lot about the future of print - and so it seems do the current lot - and it's still here and still moving into new areas. It is exciting isn't it?

Passing on knowledge

Friday saw an escape from London for the relative quiet of Cardiff to impart what wisdom 16 months of real world journalism have taught me on the current student of the post-graduate magazine option at JOMEC.

Although strange to be back in the old "mag lab", it was nonetheless enjoyable to be able to offer some tips and knowledge on what I have learnt, which focused mainly on business journalism, freelancing, and a few things on C.V.s and interviews.

Having had many speakers when I was on the course, some good, some bad, some indifferent, I tried to make sure I was honest and realistic about things, and that, like anything and everything, there are positives, negatives and moments of surrealism, to the journalistic profession, but that the course they are on does equip them to be able to handle all that is thrown at them. I should know, I do almost every single aspect of what I was taught, including page design, subbing, coverline writing, feature and news writing, the use of CMS, and, yes, blogging.

There's no denying the current job market is slim to non-existent, but I at least hope they took the fact that they are on one of, if not the, best journalism courses in the UK as some solace in their future endeavours.

Three trains and a bus

Just to say I took three trains home and a bus from Cardiff to Truro; off at Bristol, off at Tiverton to the bus, Plymouth to Truro on final train. The amazing thing was that it ran like clockwork. Every section. Our much maligned transport network deserves some credit when it does deliver its promise.

On the Other Hand

I (finally) passed my Teeline 100wpm shorthand exam today. Many people on the three options at Cardiff have taken the shorthand course. Some gave up soon, some gave up after serious trying, and some are still going. But even the best, those that passed in November, have been asking: "Is shorthand really worth it?" (see image)

In the media world is there any excuse for not using a nice shiny digital dictaphone which is almost irrefutable evidence in a court of law? Will a series of rushed scrawls on low grade paper really look very impressive in the face of the stern law system where accuracy is vital?

Well I'm still not sure. Part of me wants to think shorthand is necessary, is useful and will provide me with an 'edge' in situations when others there don't have it. But then another part of me knows I will use dictaphones on almost all occasions to ensure perfect clarity on any transcriptions that need to be done.

Perhaps, as one of my course colleagues frequently says: "It's nice having a secret code that most people don't understand." With this I can only agree...
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Added 09/02 - Confirmation of pass - with "Credit" - nice...

The All Purpose UGC Blog Entry

Today's talk from Chris Shaw was another trawl through the merits and pitfalls of UGC and, in particular, how Five News now pays upwards of £100 pounds for "Your News" stories.

It was interesting to hear about Five's individual stance on the benefits of UGC but I'm sorry to say it was a case of "heard it all before."

Therefore I present the catch-all guide to what most big-wigs in the industry make of UGC (words in bold are the buzz-words you should use in order to pass yourself off as knowledgeable on this subject).

"The opportunity for community involvement that UGC, or 'citizen journalism', presents is one which media companies must recognise - in all multi-media formats. Although we're not sure why yet."

I shall refer any further UGC relevant talks to this post in future.

Here's another slide...

So R&R renewed today. That's Reporters and the Reported for those who don't know. And we were graced with Ian Hargreaves.

I'm afraid to say it was a fairly ominous start to the latest series of lectures. It basically consisted of: "Here is another slide showing information which is irrelevant, not left up long enough for you to read and impossible to decypher. And here is another one..." - This was made doubly painful by the fact that the first half consisted of findings from a survey in 2002...

It's nothing personal. It is clear from his C.V. that he is a 'proper' journalist; The FT, The Independant, The New Statesman. And he was a former member of staff here at our beloved JOMEC. But as a talk it was, frankly, boring.

If the only worthwhile tangent I can take from it was that young people are fairly uninterested in politics you can appreciate the struggle....

I suppose the only thing I thought was this - we are well aware of the disengagment of today's youths and politics. But if, say, 65% are uninterested, then 35% must be interested. Maybe we should find out why they are interested and work on that. People will only come to politics if they deem it be to 'cool'.

You can't make people realise something is 'cool' by saying: "Honestly kids! Politics is so hip! Don't be a square...VoTe!"[Sic.] They will just roll their eyes and flick over to MTV.