The Power of the T’Interweb

I love the internet. It has the power.

Over the last 24 hours, there have been two events which have been escalated through the internet and as we speak one of the two have been successfully dealt with.

A camera-phone video of the appalling behaviour of a TfL employee abusing a passenger made its way across social media networks like wildfire, starting with a blog, then escalating through Twitter - with Boris Johnson having his say. Within 24 hours, said employee has been suspended and TfL are investigating. No blog = no action from TfL and he would still have his job.

Let’s just hope that the Daily Mail follow suit do the right thing.

Update: Very interesting article regarding how Twitter can escalate a news story within hours – it has the power!

Update 2: Even more interesting article regarding the PCC breaking it’s own procedures because of pressure from Twitter users…

Dining in the Dark

In the dark

Last Friday night, I went ‘dining in the dark’ with three of my lovely lady friends. We were out celebrating Miss H’s last days of being an unmarried lady. We started off in a civilised manner taking in a cocktail or two at The Zetter and catching up on a little gossip.

We then moved onto Dans Le Noir in Clerkenwell Green, and greeted by a charming French waitress who laid down the rules – all bags and coats in lockers and nothing that could emit any sort of light was allowed! We were guided down an increasingly dark corridor by our rather chirpy Italian waiter ‘Roberto’ into a completely pitch black room. Pitch black.

We eventually made it to our table and I have to say I was feeling really rather claustrophobic – you literally couldn’t see a damned thing. It was a very odd feeling indeed. Gripping onto my knife and fork for dear life, I focused on listening to the ladies chatter away about weddings and the like until I got over my initial panic.

But then the food arrived. We had each chosen a different ’surprise’ menu and I had gone for the meat option, thinking that the fish could have gone either way. Carrie of course had the vegetarian option and Claire as the future bride was given the ’surprise’ menu.

Lumps of meat. With a couple of bits of limp vegetable of some kind. That was it. And it was bloody expensive. If you’d been asked to pay this kind of money for the same food in the light you would have been absolutely horrified. You are 100% paying for the experience, and nothing more. It’s just a shame that the ‘experience’ is pretty rubbish. There is a huge opportunity here for the chefs to tease and delight the taste buds, and it is an opportunity that is completely missed.

Has Ray come out of his shell?

Ray LaMontagne Rocks My World. But we all know that, because I’m pretty sure that I wrote about this back at the beginning of the year when I saw him at the Barbican, and I’m pretty sure that I told everyone about it when I saw him at the RAH a couple of years ago.

I saw him again this evening, back at the Royal Albert Hall, and I can honestly say that the man gets better with age. Notoriously shy and reclusive, he seemed to be a lot more relaxed than I have ever seen him, and shock, horror he was actually quite chatty. For Ray, that is.

Claire Louise Mardle :: 10 July 1976 – 11 August 1999

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on the snow.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you waken in the mornings hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night

Do not stand at my grave and cry

I am not there. I did not die.

When Barry met Lewis

Vodafone Taxi Grand Prix

OK, so I’ve been gone a long time. But I have an excuse. I have been super super busy at work, mostly making a fandabadoozie new campaign for Vodafone. Well, when I say I have been making it, that is a bit of an exaggeration – I have just been bossing about the people who have actually been doing the clever techy bit.

So, introducing the Vodafone Taxi Grand Prix - a brilliant new online competition that is seated in reality. We have taken 10 cabbies, across 5 cities in the UK and armed them with an GPS enabled HTC Magic’s - and it is your job to select the team of drivers who you think will get you past the finish line before anyone else. As the drivers rack up the miles on the road, you’ll be building up the miles online.

It’s fab, and a lot of hard work has gone into it, so hope you enjoy…

Next on the list is a little bit of cricket, and a whole lotta Lewis, Heikki and ‘Barry from Eastenders’ action – come back soon!

Definitely not the way to pick up the laydeez…

Dance Tom Tom Dance

This little piece of genius takes me back a few years to when young Tom Tom was a ‘resting actor’ copywriting work experience boy… Them were the days.

On the Move

My sister moved into my flat today. Yay! We haven’t quite finished unpacking her stuff, but I’ve done lots of painting and by tomorrow night we should be in a good place. And we’ll have written a shopping list, getting all excited about all the nice things that we can buy for the place. I’m just excited to have the opportunity to make the flat super lovely. I’ll post some pictures when we have made it look all pretty, but in the meantime, here are some of the chaos.

 

Kitchen in mid-move

We are now kicking back and rewarding ourselves with some champagne. Yum.

Tilt Shift Wonder

I love tilt shift photography – a technique  where an image is manipulated so that it looks like a photograph of a miniature scale model. Some fab examples can be found on Flickr

Until today, however, I’d never come across tilt shift in video – it’s bloody brilliant. Keith Loutit, a Sydney based photographer has done some fabulous work, really really worth having a gander at. Lovely stuff.