Vice magazine: LONDON - A&E PATIENTS MAKE ME SICK

Vice magazine: LONDON - A&E PATIENTS MAKE ME SICK

And just whilst I'm in pointing to things mode - this is the most excellent rant by a Casualty receptionist.

We do love to complain about the falling standards of the NHS - and yes, the brave founders in the 40s would be shuddering to see what's happening to some areas of it. But on the other hand, we treat it with the kind of cavalier idiocy and helplessness that we bring to so many areas of our lives these days.

I wonder what it is that leads people to treat colds like medical emergencies? Why do we have so little faith in our ability to look after ourselves? What have we done to our collective societal common sense? When did we turn in to helpless lambs looking for someone to sort us out? Is unthinking disempowerment the malaise of our society?

I blame the media.

Soap and Flannel

eBay.co.uk: 1978/79 UNOPENED PACK OF PERSIL E3 DETERGENT! (item 7409875353 end time 01-May-06 15:22:17 BST)

"Unopened packets of retro detergent have become highly collectable and I have here a packet of PERSIL from 1978/79. It has a competition on it with a closing date of July 1979, and requests proof of purchase must date after 1 October 1978. Offered sealed."

How much do I love ebay? So very, very much.

Creative Future Day at the BBC

The following are my own views, and not necessarily those of my employer, the BBC.

(Although I am about to go and help with research on the BBC web 2.0 strategy, so hopefully the two views will coincide a bit more over the next few months...)

I thought, seeing as there's a bit of a kerfuffle around this idea that 'The BBC is building it's own version of MySpace' going around the internets, that, as a public service, I'd use a couple of quid of licensefee to transcribe the actual words uttered by Ashley Highfield in the internal BBC video.

This comes in the 'Share' section of a presentation under the headings of 'Find, Play, Share, Transform, Enable'. It was part of today's Creative Futures sessions. I've tacked on a bit about the Creative Archive too, just so you get the *whole* of the share section.

SHARE

Ashley Highfield: He's the 'big picture guy'
The ability of sharing programmes, your own thoughts, your own blogs, your own home videos along with our content - creating YOUR space.
Working out what your friends are watching, exchanging views and comments, and actually sort of building bbc.co.uk around you.

Grant Bremner
The creative archive is basically a license - its a framework the BBC has created along with other partners - including the British Film Institute, Channel Four, the Open University - that allows the public to effectively download the content from the BBC that we make available for non commercial purposes, that they can use for their creative endeavors. So basically we're allowing the public to actually download our content and use it.

And from this, you get a report in the Guardian that states (at the time of writing):

The BBC today unveiled radical plans to rebuild its website around user-generated content, including blogs and home videos, with the aim of creating a public service version of MySpace.com.

And:

Mr Highfield said the share concept would allow users to "create your own space and to build bbc.co.uk around you", encouraging them to launch ther own blogs and post home videos on the site.

I'd encourage you to make up your own mind on whether or not the BBC is actually doing its own version of MySpace. The Guardian certainly did.

What I'd like to point to instead is the Programme Archive. A couple of folk here, just for a giggle, took an enormous database of eighty odd years worth of BBC output, and plopped it out on to the web. It's amazing.

The lovely thing is the way it all links together - by people, time, concepts. You have to admire the detail the hidden unsung heroes of the BBC archives have been adding to their database over time.

Imagine that, but with clips. And possibly a wikipedia entry for each show...

Anyway. If any of you have any interesting thoughts about what the BBC should be doing in this grim meathook brave web2.0 future, do let me know.

PIPEX System Status - System Status

PIPEX System Status - System Status

Sometimes, you suddenly get the desire to poke around in your hosting package. Specifically, when you get invoices from your hosting company.

Now, I've used my 'dedicated server administration' package about twice in the year I've had a server behind my domain. It's clunky, frankly, and I generally use FTP to squirt files on to the box, and that's it.

Surely some coincidence, then, that the two times I try and use the server admin stuff in the year, it's bloody broken.

Grr. Broken internets. Bad internets. Grr.

Ganking

60ganking.wmv (video/x-ms-wmv Object)

Heh. Human ingenuity, as applied to pwnage.

Sweet.

(Um, for those of you that don't speak fluent nerd.... that's a nice fan made warcraft video, showing a clever trick for killing high level characters when you're low level. Sort of David and Golliath, but with goblins, if you will.)

The Original Chinese Conjuror

Aldeburgh Productions | Series '59th Aldeburgh Festival'

My husband is - finally, after Years of very hard work, having his not-quite-an-opera performed at the Aldeburgh festival.

Hurrah!

THE ORIGINAL CHINESE CONJUROR

A Musical Diversion Suggested by the Lives of Chung Ling Soo



Music: Raymond Yiu

Libretto: Lee Warren



Director: Martin Duncan

Designer: Francis O?Connor

Lighting Designer: Chris Ellis



Almeida Ensemble

Conductor: Timothy Redmond



59th Aldeburgh Festival

Southwold Pier, Suffolk

15th, 17th and 18th of June, 2006

See: http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/events/event_listings/series_event_display.cfm?current_row=11&catref=59th%20Aldeburgh%20Festival



Almeida Opera Season 2006

Almeida Theatre, London

1st, 2nd and 7th of July, 2006

See: http://www.almeida.co.uk/index.cfm?id=conjuror



Before the performance on the 7th July at Almeida Theatre, there is a concert given by my friend, the counter tenor Andrew Watt, who also stars in the show.

See: http://www.almeida.co.uk/index.cfm?id=concerts2006

Lily Allen

Crikey. This is going to be huge.

www.myspace.com/lilymusic

More grist to the faux/retro mill, I guess.

In other news, I'm just back from a week at MILIA. It was odd. I have notes, they may become a post at some point.

Standout event - being harangued by a very drunk, angry dutch producer whose pitch didn't win in their category. Still trying to decide whether to be really nice and contact her for a civilised chat about it all...

Put your hands in your pockets NOW.

Justgiving - a marathon for the hospices

My friend Kass is running the Marathon.

Sponsor her, immediately.

That is all.