Reed.co.co.uk?

I first mentioned this on Twitter back at the start of the year but it bugs me every time I see the advert on television. I am convinced that at the end of the Reed.co.uk job adverts they jingle they sing says reed.co.co.uk, which makes no sense.

Watch the video below and let me know what you think. I have messaged Reed on Twitter to ask for a response but to no avail but it's just too infuriating to let slide.

I'm sure they say http://t.co/TNtP6Cmtm7... https://t.co/T5XoEnzQNy

— Dan Worth (@danworth) January 4, 2015

Lightning reactions

An epic thunderstorm the other day meant I spent many minutes repeatedly attempting to capture lightning as it lashed across the sky. Most shots were a failure but the one below was a shot I was pretty pleased with, especially given it was shot on an iPhone 5C.

Lightning quick reactions. #London #weather pic.twitter.com/rfgCKmgnsj

— danworthV3 (@danworthV3) July 3, 2015

Brave new worlds

This morning, in the queue to vote, I got caught up in some electoral confusion as the ballot officials managed to get their numbers confused (how do those people get those jobs? any security / criminal checks? Who's in charge of dispensing the boxes? I digress...). As I stood there, watching the three of them recite a list of arbitrary numbers to one another, I said to the chap behind me, "We need that electoral reform, eh?", he nodded, said,"Yeah..." and that was that.

Elections are funny things. This was my second, but the first of much significance. I remember my Dad refusing to tell me who he voted for in the 1997 Labour landslide and I invested a lot of meaning in this, this sacred act of voting meant that even my own Dad wouldn't, or as I viewed it, couldn't, tell me who he had voted for.

Now, everyone bangs on endlessly about why you must vote Labour or Lib Dems, but just not Tories, for all kinds of reasons, in openly public arenas such as Twitter and Facebook. Yet, place people in a box, with a piece of paper and a pen(cil), and all the online posturing goes out the window. I imagine a lot of people may vote very differently from how they act/talk in public, where they are acting in an effort to keep up of appearances with, or an unwillingness to disagree with, the views and ideals their chosen social networks / friendship groups talk about and promote.

The Americans must find out one month sprint election process very odd, when set against their eight month effort which begins with primaries in various states for leadership choices within their own parities, before moving on to the epic cross country traversing they must endure between NY and San Fran.

Imagine, DC (Cameron, not Washington), might have to travel, at most, between say, Plymouth and Newcastle. Barely a stone's throw in the US. Such a small country.

Whatever happens tonight and into tomorrow, there was a definite sense today that, even if only seen through the highly distorted leftist view of Twitter, people realised today was a day that could shape all our lives for the next four or five years time. Especially for those, like me, who will be going through some (potentially) highly transformative years in our lives, as we move out of post student years, and on towards our 30s, and the ideas of mortgages, housing, children, schools, education (x3) and all the other trappings of the endless momentum of time.

T is for...

Twitter.

2009 has been the year of Twitter. Any end of year review surely needs to reference it. It should. As such I will touch on Twitter here in general sense but save my experience with it for the end of the year (another thing besides Christmas to get excited about). Needless to say though the site has, for those who have involved themselves in it (not all things are for all people of course), been something of a new dawn of internet usage. I say this with a straight face.

People are open, honest, engaging, friendly, argumentative without being ridiculously over the top (see Youtube), endlessly hilarious (in fact if Twitter has proven anything it's just how many staggeringly quick, clever, funny, creative people there in the world who work as everything from paramedics to students and back again) and above all, real. The idea of reality is what the naysayers use to discredit Twitter, suggesting it's for people who don't interact with the world, who sit at a computer all day rather than engage - but nothing could be further from the truth. It's for people who actively do engage with the world, who are happy to meet up with random strangers on the basis of conversing through a few 140 character messages on everything from cupcakes to the London Marathon. I'll touch on my own experience of this in future (as mentioned) but the Twestivals of February and September proved that there is nothing socially inept about the people on Twitter.

Here's an example today of something I saw on Twitter that I thought showed what the site has done to change the internet. David Mitchell, having appeared in the last episode of Peep Show series six on Friday was obviously sent several messages on 1) would there be a seventh series? and b) was an opinion expressed on the TV show about The Wire, his own view. Thanks to Twitter people were not only able to ask these questions in a way that wasn't intrusive or time consuming, but they were able to get answers instantly, straight from the man himself. The site has helped the internet become personable, human, interactive; a real time reaction to what people are thinking; not 'heavily orchestrated campaigns' as those of a certain intelligence believe it to be so, proving they don't understand.

Anyway, I could go on. Graham Linehan (aka @glinner), who's become something of an unlikely champion of the site, the man behind the #welovethenhs hashtag, wrote all the above on this excellent post The Conversation. I couldn't have put it better myself.

And, when something goes wrong, it has a picture of a whale (known as the Fail Whale by those on the site) to indicate this. What's not to like about that? 2009 was also the year of the whale it seems, in my world at least.

A is for...

It could have been aardvarks, it could have been Anne of Cleves, it could even have been Accrington Stanley, but no. My Great Twitter / Blog Crossover experiment (i.e. asking for people to suggest things beginning with A) resulted in anti-protons. So here are some words about a subject I know nothing about:

Anti-protons. Well, actually I am ProProtons. Or just Protons I suppose. I am also in favour of the unit of measurement known as a tonne. So I am Pro-tonne too. But I am no expert on this and so not a Tonne-pro.

Anti-protons are, actually, the opposite of protons. Obviously. If you wish to make them it's quite simple. Like any good journalist, I have taken the following from Wikipedia:

Their formation requires energy equivalent to a temperature of 10 trillion K (10¹³K). At CERN, protons are accelerated in the Proton Synchrotron (PS) to an energy of 26 GeV, and then smashed into an iridium rod. The protons bounce off the iridium nuclei with enough energy for matter to be created. A range of particles and antiparticles are formed, and the anti-protons are separated off using magnets in vacuum.

So you need a hoover, a fire and some iridium nuclei (most hardware stores stock this).

Now, before you go off to look for anti-protons you need to know they are really small. Think of a small bird - smaller than that. A grain of sand. Smaller than that. I mean they are really tiny. But if you stare long enough you'll see them dancing around with their little faces smiling up at you. Cute little things they are. In fact it's a little known piece of trivia but the Smiley Face is the exact anatomical structure of the face of an antiproton.

Perhaps I'll do B tomorrow - so if you want to suggest a topic, comment away...

Will Carling should know better

Will Carling yesterday did a Bad Thing on Twitter. He used trending topics that were totally irrelevant to his posts. This is known as 'Doing a Habitat' - something he didn't seem to know of. He apologised though, once he understood, and deleted the offending posts (I'd taken a screen grab before though, knowing full well he would delete them in time. Click to enlarge).

While I believe his apology is sincere I do find it a bit weird that he did it in the first place at all. He joined Twitter last September so surely knows what the trending topics are all about? Not only that, his claim that 'I was told that's what you did' seems a little spurious. Why would anyone believe that you tag updates with hashtags of utterly unrelated subjects, such as Michael Jackon (#MJ). And who is telling him such things? Does he have a Twitter advisor?

All very strange.

Oh dear

As this blog post explains in further detail, both the Mirror and The Telegraph fell for a rather obvious fake Twitter profile of convicted murderer Phil Spector, and turned one of "his" tweets into a full news story. Disappointing and a touch worrying.

If you chip away long enough...

I don't watch ITV news but apparently last night's lead story was about Lily Allen (you know that quite popular singer) writing a tweet (a message on Twitter) in which she said that she thought that Susan Boyle (you know that semi-famous non professional singer, who looks a bit different) was 'overrated'. This off the top of her head comment, on a website, was the lead story.

Why? It's just opinion. It's not news. Today she said she was 'looking forward to the football tonight'. Is that worth a news story too? One could suggest that because ITV broadcast Britain's Got Talent they want to generate as much discussion = money as possible, so decided to use their flagship news service to do so.

"Well done everyone, we've made it through! Oh look, the barrel was standing on a paving stone all along."

Pea Diddy

Those with a penchant for puns will no doubt remember the fun we all had on Comic Relief day when @serafinowicz set up a 'vegtable pun game' and asked people to contribute a small donation in return for entry to the competition of having their winning entry painted. That was a long sentence.

The winning entry was The Notorious V.E.G. and on Mr S's new, fancy website he's put the winning image up. It's AMAzing, and done by the clearly supremely talented Jim Vance. I just wanted to share it.

Sprint finish

So here we are, just five days away from the London Marathon. It's been a hell of a journey.

I can vividly recall when I agreed to do it:

Int Shot: Two lazy people playing Pro Evo, a phone rings, I answer:

'Hello.'
'Hi Dan it's Will. Do you want to run the marathon next year? '(his voice intones 'this is just a token gesture, I don't expect you to say yes').
'Urm, yeah okay, why the hell not!'

A pause

'You do?'
'Yeah, do you have a place or something?'
'Er, yes, we can get places with the NSPCC.'
'Great, yep sign me up.'
'Oh...okay...'

Phone call ends.

Then four months later on a crisp September morning we set off on our first run. A full 800 meters around the block. We return exhausted, glistening with sweat, and having just been chastised by an old lady who said, 'come on keep going' as we laboured past her. (Where are you now O Mystic Wise Woman?)

Then it was, 'Did 20 minutes tonight and don't feel like I'm going to die. This is fun.' And on it went, 25 minutes, 35, 45, an hour! Then a 10k race at Finsbury Park (Time = 47mins 14 seconds), then another 10k back home in Cornwall - which became the basis for my first ever article on running - and was another 47 minutes, although on a very hilly course.

From here training intensified - 12 miles in 1hr 55 minutes felt like the end of the world, then I did a half-marathon in Watford - a lovely rolling, countryside course, and a sprint finish over the last 3 miles, passing hundreds of runners - a perfectly paced race and one of the best running moments to date.

Onwards! A 14 miler in the freezing rain, under-nourished, cursing every individual drop of rain that fell, but really knowing it was our own fault for not having prepared properly before going out - lesson learned, this is now a serious challenge and requires pre-run and post-run commitments. Fridge now forever stocked with sport drinks and cupboards bursting with Jelly Babies.

Then 16 miles, then a half-marathon at Silverstone. Race plan slightly off - too fast for 10 miles, although feel fine, then slow considerably over last three, to finish in a good time of 1.42, but think it would have been better if I had saved fuel for the end, rather than fading - another lesson learnt; the end if the hard part, not the start.

Then 18 miles - feel drunk on exhaustion come the end, but do realise we are running past the American Presidential house in Regent's Park and so next weeks 19.7 miler - a lot of hills on these runs too - sees us watching with interest as the police head hither and thither erecting anti-terrorist barriers and helicopters hover overhead. We carry on running, enjoying glimpses into London Zoo.

Then suddenly it's all over. Twenty miles is done and we've recovered. Now what? Now a party - to raise funds you see - and then that's it. A couple of eight milers ('nothing really', say the two runners who six months ago almost collapsed running 800m) and now we find ourselves simply counting down days, eating pasta dish after pasta dish, preparing for probably the hardest, but most anticipated challenge of a lifetime.

There's a lot I've left out too - the mid week evening runs over to Alexandra Palace with its stunning views of the city, the training day held by the NSPCC in January, the fantastic people I've met in the virtual world of Twitter who are also running the marathon, the strange sense that I'm actually rather enjoying all this running, the books I've read, the magazines, the times I've been on the JustGiving website the strange quirks of the body - give me Jelly Babies! - and the genuine buzz I've felt from raising over £1,500 for charityand the kindness of people in donating (especially in this credit crunch).

So - that's it. Sunday, 9.45am, 26.2 miles - what's left to say? Bring it on.

A morning at This Morning

I entered the LDN Twestival raffle hoping to win return tickets to New York, but I didn't. However, I did win a tour of This Morning, to see the show being filmed as it went out live, and got to meet the stars Phillip Schofield and Fern Britton. We also got to visit the "Green Room" (I think it was blue though - amazing how you don't notice these things) and stand in the gallery where they direct the show, ordering the cameras around, counting down the intros and ad breaks, and shouting in the presenter's ears - all while eating toast and talking amongst themselves.

It was interesting to see the set in the flesh and the next time I am ill and strewn mournfully across the sofa watching daytime TV, I will at least now know what it's like in real life. Everthing is framed just so on the cameras to give the impression it's a warm, cosy, quiet living room, while all around are cameras and wires, people carrying clipboards and endless rolls of gaffer tape, all moving here and there at a frantic pace, keeping the show skipping along so in front of the camera everything is calm, clear, and soothing.

At the end of the show there was even a chance to meet Phil and Fern(!) and have a picture taken with them - and this meant we actually got to sit on the sofa, so well-known to millions of people. Amazing.

Other points of interest: Phil has a Cornish flag on his door - legend. We were given a mug with This Morning on it, a signed photo, and a business card holder (?) all of which was very nice, but cutbacks mean these are probably going to become collectors items in the coming years, I'll be stashing them away to let them accrue value. I also saw @schofe log into his Twitter account, not something that many of his 110,000 plus followers can claim to have done.

So although it wasn't quite New York, it was at least, a very interesing, different and unique London experience.

That's all from us, we'll see you on Monday, have a lovely weekend...Dar, dar dar dar da, dar dar dar da, dar dar dar da dat da dar.

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.

500+ twits together

I went to the LDN:Twestival last night. I'll write more in time, but for now, you can read a blog about it on the Guardian (not by me), complete with a photo in which I am visible. Proof I was indeed there.

Update as promised: Well now if you go on that blog there are many comments, 90% very negative, complaining about the event, the people who attended (i.e. presuming them to all be various forms of insults), and moaning about the Guardian, or Telegraph, covering the event.

Here are some sample criticisms. "the photos don't help the PR whatever angle. the first looks like an end of year uni do in the student union bar" - How do you make a photo of hundreds of people standing around talking not look like a "student union bar" - if that's how you choose to place the reference?

"The only reason for this total non-event being reported must be down to some connection between PR and someone on the Guardian staff payroll. Buck your ideas up, editors. You're starting to look distinctly C4 in attention to fatuous inanities."

Of course this one opens a massive debate about 'what is news'. My argument would be that, as an organised event, one of hundreds that happened across the globe, organised through a website that is rapidly becoming one of the most popular sites on the internet, that has almost raised $1 million for a charity is definitely news. Whether or not you are interested in it doesn't mean it isn't news. If you don't get it, like it, fine, but why such anger?

Pressing issues

There's been some debate about the usefulness of the Press Complaint Commission recently, such as the case against here, and for here. Thanks to the ever-useful Twitter I found a very interesting article here agreeing that the PCC is broken with reference to a recent story on the Daily Mail website. It's a good point very well made.

A twitter poem

Forgot to blog this: Channel 4's Twitter asked for 120 or fewer character poems about Wendy Cope's claim we don't need a poet laurette laureate. Heroically, mine was chosen, among about 15 others, for special mention on their website. Two years of creative writing at Cardiff coming in handy! Third fom bottom here (with a nod to Private Eye).

Mashing it up

Internet wizardry: video of all presidents morphed.

Twitter feeds during inauguration that bring up the outline of the world: watch here.

Both of these found through Twitter.

And more twittering

Not that this is my only topic of conversation at the moment, but...

Seems I wasn't the only one who thought the Daily Mail's article on Twitter was a bit poor. This post here tells the story, so just go there and read away.

Twits

The Daily Mail wrote a polemic recently, sorry article, about celebrities using Twitter to inform people about their 'mundane' lives. This doesn't mean they don't have a Twitter though of course - see. And you just know given the chance they'll be using it as the basis for some inane story about a celebrity.

Twittering away

I joined the micro-blogging world of Twitter a while back and have started to sort it out. You can follow me if you want by clicking here.

So far my favourite thing is reading the updates from famous people which is quite funny. Jonathan Ross has been in the headlines recently for outing a series of fake famous people on Twitter by simply ringing / texting the people and asking if it's them. A weird 21st centuryness to all that. See this recent update from Jonathan Ross 25 minutes ago:

Wossy I'll call Frankie Boyle and ask him to twitter for real. He came round before xmas to look at comics and I thrashed him at pool !