Complaints are welcomed at Channel4

We’ve made a film featuring our talent bringing to life genuine complaints which viewers have made about them. We understand that not every programme, or even every presenter, is going to be everyone’s cup of tea. That’s because Channel 4 was set up to be different, to provoke debate, take bold creative risks and represent unheard voices from all around the country. So sometimes we may cause a bit of a stir, but that’s part of our job.

Do like this video, Channel4’s humour around feedback is very welcomed.

Describe that movie?

https://twitter.com/adew/status/711565905134788608

I saw this retweet from Adrian and had to give it a try.

A website developed by a Finnish technology team claims to be the world’s “first ever descriptive movie search engine”, and promises to solve that problem we all face when we can’t remember the name of a film.

To be fair so far its not been great with the searches I have done. Yes its early days and yes they have a mechanism to improve it.

But for example looking for Kil Bill – Lots of blood shed involving swords

Inception works with Dream within a dream and dreams collapase but if you type dream you get inception. Addiction works actually gets Requiem for a Dream but film about addiction in all its forms fails to list it at all. Looking for Citizen four with Edward Snowdon with the search Edward Snowdon, fails to include Citizen four. Dark City search with dark film starts with scene in the bath tub doesn’t include dark city at all. Last search I did was for The Beach, with sandy beach.

Nice idea, I’ll check it out again once things get better.

Men get ignored all the time, what can you do?

No more date nights..

Oh you got to love Northern Lass 32, always chipping away at the sore parts of online dating but slightly missing the core

“The Silence” – that cruel tumbleweed blowing around your inbox; when a reply to your message seems to have got lost in the ether. Because no-one is rude enough to just ignore you, right? Even more so after a few messages or even a date?

Ummmmm yes! I won’t count how many times I’ve met a woman, gone on a date and text afterwards to make sure she got home ok. And nothing…! Another text the next day and still nothing… At this point I do wonder if some serial killer is knocking my dates off around the corner from my first date venues.

And thats if you get that far…!

You got the catfish factor or as we use to call them timewasters, as all they want to do is chat online and never go dating. Those who tell ball faced lies about themselves, horrible stereotypes, bad choices with photos and out and out trolls who just want to tell you how your profile sucks… To be honest your maybe off with a empty inbox?

But I guiltily hold my hands up to also not replying from time to time. When I first started online dating I replied to every single person. Before you know it, you are juggling a fair few conversations; some that you know full well are not going to lead to a date. On asking one person I dated how they handled this situation, he simply replied: “I just ignore them.”

After experiencing being ignored a couple of times, it kind of felt that this was just the way it was done. An unwritten code of accepted rudeness that you probably wouldn’t apply in other aspects of your life – unless you were a bit of a turd.

Yes thats pretty much where I have been for a while too. Its painful and rude but its the unwritten rule. You need to remove yourself from the timewasters, lairs and trolls some how. If someone thinks your one of those, then please for the sake of your and there sanity, don’t text, email or tweet over and over again.

Leave it! Its over, get over it, get back on your horse and ride into the sunset with your head up high. You have avoided being exactly what the other person thinks you were. Even more, you avoided being a stalker! Give your self a high five…! Lastly you can relax and watch Dawn Porter‘s piece with a look at the odds of a decent match

Women on average get way more interest than than men, its the way of the world what can you do about it? Nothing so don’t get down about it, keep a positive outlook…head up high!

Lowry and Ebay turn it around

Ebay

When I left the hospital after my bleed on my brain (Subarachnoid haemorrhage). I tried to pick up where I left off in many things including ebay selling and got really ignited me when I found out that one of the sellers i was meant to send a pc to had given me negative feedback. That was ok but then ebay changed my 100% positive score to something like 75%. I tried to get them to change it in multiple ways but nothing worked. However have a talk with a friend who works at ebay/skype I was able to talk to someone who actually understood what i was saying.

It looks like it worked because I can’t seem to find the negative feedback and my general score on ebay is back to 100%.

I just sold my Sony Ereader for £100+ and there were 51 people watching the auction. While when I sold my phone just after I came out of hospital, I got all of 5 people watching it.

Not only that…

The Lowry

I booked tickets to see Malcolm Gladwell before I went into hospital (of course I never knew I was going to be in hospital) of course the day of Malcolm Gladwell was on the week I was lying in bed almost dying. I booked 5 tickets mainly for people at work. Anyway I missed it but my friend Emily did go even though I had the tickets (she bought a full ticket on the day).

Anyway I spoke to the Lowry box office afterwards and they said theres little they can do because the tickets were non-refundable. Anyhow I wrote to the Lowry and they sent me a letter back saying how sorry they were to hear about my bleed on the brain and here’s 5 tickets to any performance in the next year (as long as its not Saturday).

Amazing and Thanks to the Lowry

They didn’t have to do this but they did. How’s that for customer service?!

Summary of the BBC Backstage London Christmas Bash

Ian & Matthew @ BBC Backstage

Some of you might notice this is almost a copy of the summary on the backstage blog, but I've added bits which I felt were best left for a personal blog.

Thank you to everyone who turned up and made this our most successful event to date.

We had started very early on Saturday afternoon packing bags thanks all the people who signed up and helped out before the doors opened.

Crazy amount of backstage goodie bags

We did open the doors on time and did turn some people away because they were not on the main guest list, which was a big regret on our part but those were the rules we specified in the emails. After 8pm the venue was open for anyone who wanted to enter.

Nicole only has eyes for one person

Once we said a few welcome and thanks speeches it was back on with the party and a night of endless chatting and djs playing all types of music. There was even some so called dancing…

End of night dancing

Our goodie bags were packed with stuff and enjoyed by the people who came to the bash. Everyone also got one of our new Backstage T-shirts, which went down well.

BBC Backstage Goody bag

There was some interviews at the event, which were done by Chris Vallance of BBC Radio 5 Live's Pods and Blogs. We've put them online for your listening enjoyment

Matthew Cashmore talks about BBC Backstage
Sarah Blow on London Girl Geekdinners and Geek culture
Walid Al Saqqaf talks about Trustedplaces.com
James Cridland talks about Virgin Radio
Ian Forrester talks about London Geekdinners and Geek Media
Matthew Spouce on New Scientist Magazine
Adam Fletcher on Spread Shirt
Nigel Helmeton on Trexy.com

My wife Sarah also wanted to say sorry and explain what happened upstairs which caused her to shout fucking bitch while she headed for the toilet very upset. It would turn out Dedrie from Chinwag had been joking around and took it too far with someone (sarah) who she didn't know.

We have received some fantastic feedback…

And a huge thank you to Ian, Matthew and their team at BBC Backstage for being wonderful hosts. A big thank you as well to our generous sponsors who helped the evening go with a swing by providing us with food, drink and raffle prizes – Admob, Skills Matter, ConnectMeAnywhere, O'Reilly, Trusted Places, Techcrunch UK, and Chinwag.

Helen from Swedish Beers

I just got back from the BBC Backstage Christmas Bash. I went with Adam, who was in London for the night en route to Le Web in Paris. I met some interesting people, some new, some old, drank back some of my licence fee in free beer, and had a pretty good time. We were interviewed by BBC Radio 5 at some point, but Adam thought it would be funnier to wind me up and make me laugh than it would to be on the radio, so I doubt that it'll be aired.

From Matt Sparkes.

Actually the BBC never paid for any of the drink. We only paid for the venue and food. The Sponsors paid for the drinks and although your laughing might not have got on the radio. We may have found a uncut version for the Backstage community.

John Wilison will you admit to seeing a good side to the BBC now?

Some more comments and emails

To an interesting party tonight courtesy of the folks at BBC Backstage, who were kind enough to manage to get me into this party at moderate last-minute. Lots of fascinating people, some even saying that the party reminded them of the last web boom.

James Cridland

I just wanted to say thanks for organising such a delightful event on Saturday – it seemed to flow supafine from what I could see once we got off the front desk – and I had interesting conversations which is all I care about really, thanks again!

Nicole from HP

Well I can happily report that the BBC Backstage London Christmas Bash was a total success! Ian and the rest of the guys behind the event did a cracking job in organising it. One of the key highlights was the cake for the guys at trustedplaces.com kindly provide. The BBC goody bag was also very cool too

Adam Burt

I would like to thank you and your team for organizing such a great party. We had a great time. Thank you.

Josette from O'Reilly

Lots of drinking, Cake and a little dancing from the odd one or two people… As well as speeches and prize giveaways. Oh and not to mention the sear number of people there… There were party bags, t-shirts and we even had santa's little helpers do the party bags. /images/emoticons/happy.gif

Sarah Blow from London Girl Geekdinners

Thank you for letting us participate in the BBC Backstage event as sponsors. The cake has generate a good amount of buzz.

Walid from Trusted Places.com

I wanted to thank you for giving Skills Matter the opportunity to be a part of your great party on Saturday evening

Joanna from Skills Matter

Just wanted to drop you a quick note to say thanks for all your hard work organising the backstage bash/geeks christmas party. It was great fun, and nice to see everyone all in one place.

Caz from BBC/Siemens

I went along to the BBC Backstage Christmas party last night. I've posted some photos to Flickr. I'm a Graucho-Marxist curmudgeon who'd never belong to a club that would have me as a member, but I can honestly say thanks to Ian Forrester and his colleagues at Backstage, the sponsors, helpers, and the tireless staff at the Cuban it was a great night.

Miles Metcalfe

I did recieve one email (from a sponsor) complaining about the bash.

I write today to express my disappointment to see the information bag sitting in the corner when leaving the BBC party on Saturday…

…On top of this there was only one poster in the whole venue that mentioned us but there where a host of “supported by” posters scattered around…

…I hate to write this negative email but we did hope that as a sponsors we would receive better promotion and because of this we found the evening frustrating.

I have yet to write back because every other sponsor has said thank you very much and they would like to work with us again on the next one.

Finally a selection of our best shots from the bash

trustedplaces.com cakeBBC Backstage London Christmas BashParty on!PosterO'REILLY - BackstageSarah with her lemonadeDSCF8410.jpgIan & Matthew @ BBC BackstageSarah Blow with a cocktailDSCF8444.jpgPeople chilling upstairsMario twitteringRadio 5 live's Pods and BlogsDj Cashmore spins some tunesSarah and ShilaInspire the backstage bashTag your self hereHelen and SarahGet your backstage tshirts hereDot caught taking all the beerMatthew gets interviewed by BBC Radio 5 liveBBC Backstage London Christmas BashBBC Backstage London Christmas BashBBC Backstage London Christmas BashBBC Backstage London Christmas Bash

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