Tag: london

Peaktime trains vs Hotels

Overhead power lines

I can happily say I have to date never knowingly paid for a peak time ticket to London.

Even when going back and forth to London from Manchester for those meetings with the rest of the BBC, I just couldn’t do it.

Two questions bugs me around this…

  1. How can Virgin trains charge more than a hotel in Central London (booked within 24hours) for a peak ticket?
  2. Why is there peak time from 3pm – 7pm if you leave London but not the same if you leave anywhere else at the same time?

The current price of an Anytime peak return is £308! This means you can get on a train anytime and return anytime within a month. Even if you don’t need that level of flexibly, the cheapest peak time return tickets are roughly £217. Yes you can get 2 singles but there still roughly a total of £210 and you must go on that train there and back.

An Anytime off peak return is £77.30 with the same return anytime within a month. Giving you plenty of flexibility (just remember to avoid the 2nd peak time).

To be fair all these prices are based on a booking within a month of travelling and are for Virgin Trains to and from London. If you book over a month before the prices do lower and 2 months before can be reasonable. Just a shame the discount fares are not that great.

So saying all that, what I worked out early on while at BBC Backstage was, if you take a off peak train and stay in a hotel, its still cheaper than a peak time train fare. Yes believe it or not, and its not one of those crappy unknown hotels, I mean the likes of Holiday Inn, Ibis, Ramada, etc. So not your elite or boutique level hotels but a good hotel with a good bed and breakfast. Plus I don’t mean booking way in advance, I mean booking within 24hours.

The only issue is you have to give up your night before to catch the off peak train.

For many this is a absolute no way/no chance. Its hard enough going down to London to spend a night or two away from the family, let alone prolong it by adding more time away. I totally understand and who am I to judge, but for someone like myself, this is a great opportunity to save some licence fee, sleep soundly over night in a hotel and wake up early for that 10am meeting. Sometimes I even get the chance to meet up with old London friends on the Sunday, which certainly sweetens the deal some what. At least it doesn’t seem like I’m using my personal time for work then.

Frankly I hate getting up early, and there is nothing better than being able to get up later and still make that 10am meeting, without worry about delays or scrapping for the last seat on a stupidly packed peak-time train.

Why I shut down BBC backstage

BBC Backstage Meets the NW communities networking bash

George sent me a tweet saying how much Elizabeth Murdoch loved BBC Backstage, as she mentioned it in her speech to the Edinburgh TV Festival last year.

The BBC has been the market leader for building new relationships and services with creative’s from every sector. Be it the early ground breaking Backstage initiative for technology engineers.

Shes right and it does beg the question, why is there no more BBC Backstage?

I thought this was covered in the BBC Backstage ebook which was put together by the lovely Suw. But it looks like I may have been slightly mistaken. On top of this, I keep making reference to this blog post which I never seem to quite finish. So enough, its finished and out there for all to read…

First misconception: The BBC never shutdown BBC Backstage

Actually I did… When I first mentioned the possibility of closing down BBC Backstage to Adrian (my manager) he thought I had totally lost it. I remember a meeting with Adrian and Matthew (head of R&D) where I talked about shutting it down and I gave my reasoning which made soften the blow a little. I had thought long and hard about leaving BBC Backstage and passing it on to someone else younger and full of energy (I even had a number of names put forward to consider). But it didn’t make sense.

The problems with Backstage were not about who was running it but more about what was happening around it (as we will see in number 4)

Second misconception: The BBC sits on a ton of data.

The core of BBC Backstage was the backstage license which is founded on non-commercial reuse of data. This gave backstage the license to go around the BBC educating/persuading/convincing stakeholders about the benefits of open data at a time when data wasn’t a big thing. The problem is the data wasn’t ours. For example the Met Office would make the weather data available to the BBC under strict licensing. Deals were done for non-commercial use and it was always neigh impossible to reverse a deal without effecting the production side of the things.

Lots of people imagine most of Backstage was hacks. In actual fact lots of it was people experimenting.

Third misconception: Developers found new business models

This backs off the non-commercial problem. Because everything was under the non-commercial license, when things like the Apple App Store came along and offered developers clear ways to make money from their work. We had to shut down a lot of prototypes and tell people not to use BBC backstage data in there apps.

This was actually a issue from early on when Google Adsense, offered developers a nice way to make a small amount of money based on numbers of people who came to the site. It was argued that if developers made enough money to just cover the hosting of the prototype, we could turn a blind eye to. This wasn’t sustainable as it kept coming back to bite every once in a while. But it wasn’t till the App stores when the number of prototypes and services wanting to go commercial blew up.

Once developers learned it was actually against the terms and conditions, they naturally moved on to other platforms.  We did talk to BBC Worldwide many times about working together but it just wasn’t to be.

Forth misconception: The Open Data Revolution passed it by

Backstage had a hand in getting this revolution going in the UK and beyond. 7 years later, we had influenced everyone from other companies to the government. We were there right at the start of this revolution and fundamentally changed the BBC’s thinking about data. However it was clear this was just the start and as a part of BBC R&D, it was right to move on and have the same impact in another emerging area. The developer network part of Backstage was tricky to balance with the push to drive forward.

We did think about splitting it off and working in partnership with others who were later to the scene but it just didn’t quite happen and in the era of cost cutting and doing the things which really have an impact for our audiences it was harder to justify.

Fifth misconception: It was all about DRM and the BBC wanted rid

Looking at the mailing list, its easy to imagine it being all about DRM and not a lot else. But in actual fact while the DRM debates rages on, there were lots of people creating and making lots of prototypes. Lots of them were documented on the website but there were some which were so illegal there was no way I could put them anywhere public. Those were more of a look what we could do…

Even though they were much more black/grey around the licensing terms, they drove the imagination and clearly got a number of us thinking what if…? One such example is the widely talked about blast from the past called Panadora PVR (now called Promise.TV) which lead to Tom Loosemore’s talk at Etech 2007, the Edinburgh TV unfestival and the building of the infamous BBC Redux.

The BBC gained a lot from having the debate and being rather open about it all.

Sixth misconception: There was no money or love for BBC Backstage

This is somewhat true and false. Yes it became more difficult to justify and we had gone through quite a difficult patch, while losing some key people to project. On top of that we had a new head of Future Media (Erik Huggers), moved into BBC R&D and was shifting the project up to the north of England to fit in with BBC’s increasing push to solve the London and South East bias.

Everything was changing and everytime we took BBC Backstage in a different direction, there was push back from the dedicated community. To me this is the way of the world (forever changing) but it certainly makes funding such projects difficult when you want a 3-5 year plan.

There was much love for BBC Backstage from Future Media and other departments in the BBC, there was lots of talk about setting up other Backstages in different areas as a outreach project alone it hit audiences the BBC was not so good at having conversations with. The formula was repeatable but should it be? We could have done Mashed all over the UK but was that a good idea? I certainly didn’t think so and ultimately my thoughts about driving forward were correct.

Seventh misconception: We ran out of steam

Ok this might be true to a certain extent. But not from the lack of trying… You only have to look at the new things I’ve been working on since, including Channelography, Perceptive Media, etc. There is still fire in myself and I still have a lot to give… During that time, I will admit I was well over worked and I was being contacted by many people on the off chance just because I was out in the open. This certainly slowed down daily looking through BBC emails. Hence why I now have a another BBC email.

Ultimately I want to thank everyone who has been involved in BBC Backstage in the past (too many to name). The decision was made under a ton of stress on my part but I felt I was making the correct decision for everyone including the founders, the BBC and the community. Then and even now. I mean can you imagine BBC Backstage in 2013!?

Things need to end (such as BBC Backstage, Innovation Labs, etc) for others to spark, grow and mature like BBC Connected Studio.

 

Is Metrolink ripping us off?

Metrolink in Manchester map

I went to the Sharp Project today for BBC Connected Studio which was great. But I noticed something with my travel there.

I have a year travel card which allows me to go between Piccadilly Station and Media City. However my pass actually says From City – To Eccles. I assume this allows me to go anywhere between Piccadilly or Victoria and Eccles. Sounds great but today I wanted to go to Central Park on the Oldham line (Rochdale on the one above, which includes lines which are yet to be finished)

As it was outside the city zone, I decided to pay for the extra 2 stops. 2.20 pounds worth of travel. I’m sure it was the same price as buying a ticket from anywhere in the city zone including Piccadilly. In fact it would make no difference that I had a year travel card (in theory)

Ok forget the cost, what I don’t understand is why there is no zones like Transport for London? Frankly Central Park is closer to central Manchester than Media City and Eccles.

The other day I went down to Cholton and totally forgot that my year pass only covers me between Media City and the City Zone. If Metrolink had caught me, who knows what it would have cost me in a fine. But to be honest I would have argued against it because frankly its a stupid system without zoning.

My thoughts is because Metrolink choose not to add zones, they are earning money from those who have spent money opting for a week, month or year pass and do happen to go other places.

Tell me I’m wrong…?

Thanks to Chris who left a comment on my Facebook with a link to this news article from the MEN.

Metrolink set to move to new ‘zone’ ticket prices

Greater Manchester’s tram system could be split into London Underground-style zones within two years. The plan is for the new system to come into force when ‘smart’ fare-payment cards – similar to the capital’s Oyster cards – are introduced in 2014.

Tram stops would be allocated to a zone depending on how far they are from central Manchester. Fares would vary accordingly – with journeys crossing more zones costing more. The proposals were due to be discussed by transport leaders tomorrow.

A view of the zones

I knew I was right…!

TechHub sets sights on Manchester

I always said Manchester is a great city, and there’s plenty of talent not only in Manchester but further a field around the North of England. Well I’m not the only one which says this…

TechHub, the shared workspace for startups, is launching a site in Manchester in November. The new space will be the first UK-location outside of London.

The hub has agreed terms with property investment firm Town Centre Securities (TCS) for office space over two floors at Carver’s Warehouse in Piccadilly Basin.

My thought is this has to be a great thing for uniting the many different communities in and around the city. Can’t wait to see it open and where things go into the future. The guys behind it are great, full of spirit. They took the time to thank myself and martin for our talks at TedXManchester2 which may have kick started some of this.

Can I also just say, I called it right 2 months ago when I tweeted something connecting TechHub with Manchester. TechhubManchester it is…

London 2012 Olympics

I got to say I’m really surprised how good the London Olympics has turned out. Charlie Brooker wrote this up in the Guardian recently which I can understand.

I’m finding the Olympics hypnotically watchable, partly because the BBC’s coverage is so crisp and comprehensive and informative and useable, and isn’t jammed full of brand names and commercials. And it’s partly because … well … look, I don’t know.

Like Charlie, I was hearing all these crazy stories about Locog wiping out anything which even smells like the Olympics. Then the London 2012 Olympics actually opened with that simply amazing opening ceremony which NBC screwed up for many of my American friends. I watched it the day afterwards in full using the BBC’s total coverage and I was blown away. There was something very British about this Olympics. From the opening to the music used in Beach Volleyball.

At the time of writing, the running-and-jumping stuff has begun in earnest; the sheer physical agony of which I can personally relate to thanks to hours spent playing Track and Field in the 80s. No reason to believe this won’t become another time sponge. So yes, thanks, Olympics, for confounding my inner cynic, and not being awful. And for, I suppose, on balance, I admit, I confess, in a whisper – actually being quite good.

Theres lots more I can say about the Olympics but generally its been impressive and I’m looking forward to seeing the woman’s semi-final of the football at Old Trafford tomorrow. Shame it doesn’t include Team GB but I’ve decided to back Canada over Team USA.

Really hope in 3-4 weeks time I’ll still be as impressed after the end of the Para-olympics. The lasting legacy is a big question but right now its looking pretty good…

Decent cocktails or nothing please

Which cosmo came out of a packet?

The one on the left is out of a packet (just look at the nasty cloudy bog colour). The one on the right is fresh (see the pink and consistent transparency) plus note the froth on top and finally the lack of straws because cosmos are meant to be drunk from the glass not through the straw. Ideally if the orange peel is burned, there is a thin oily skin which is lovely to drink, just in-case you were in any doubt…

This was going back a while ago… last year while I was down in South East London.

The Novotel Hotel Bar in Greenwich served me a Cosmopolitan while I was at the bar one night with mark boas, thornet, cyberdees and others… I was so shocked at how bad it was, I complained and got the manager to make me a fresh one. They said it comes out of a packet and that most customers don’t have a problem with it!

Me on the other hand, well I was bloody horrified and couldn’t believe they would serve up that much as a cosmopolitan. Worst still they were charging £6 for it! I was truly outraged…!

Once the manager made me a new one fresh, we talked about lighting the orange peel but he refused, so I did it myself. Anyway to prove the point about the packet cocktails, we lined them up on the side of the bar and took sips of each one.

They did give me the packet one for free but I still refused to drink it instead giving it to other Mozilla fest friends to taste and get there feelings about.

As you imagine the fresh one peed all over the one out of the packet, not a single person said the packet version was nicer or better, even the manager and the bar staff agreed.

The amount of times I’ve referred to this true story is the last few months is untrue. Its also the reason why I won’t put up with crappy drinks I don’t actually want to drink. I’d rather go thirsty or drink water…

Welcome back to South East London

I was very excited to invited to the Mozilla Festival which this year was in London. Not only that, it was in South East London.

I decided to split the entry, so if your just interested in the Mozilla Festival, skip to the newer post…

For me it was a bit epic because not only was it exciting because I was leading the DJ Challenge on behalf of the BBC, it was in south east London and frankly nothing geeky happens there. The nearest place is maybe the Excel centre which is more east London or Docklands than anything. Not only that, it was North Greenwich which was 5mins ride from Woolwich where I lived with my ex-wife (Sarah) for years. I hadn’t been back for (I believe) 5 years! When I left they were building the DLR to Woolwich Arsenal and of course the housing prices had gone up. So I was amazed to see how it looked now things were actually open.

Woolwich to be honest has changed quite a bit in some parts and not so much in others. Most of the structures and shops are still where they were when I was living there (this is very true of Greenwich too) but things like the square have been totally revamped with a massive screen showing local information and BBC News. There’s even a Starbucks now but didn’t spot a Pizza Express? Its maintained its down-market feel but also embraced the new upper market shops. For example the market selling copied perfume, clothes, etc is still in place.

Lastly the college I studied & taught Interaction design at, was the host for the Mozilla Festival.

For years people in Ravensbourne banged on about the move to North Greenwich. right next to the Dome. It was going to be a landmark building, etc… Well its certainly different, not quite sure it fits in with the rest of the north greenwich developments but its actual quite nice inside. Reminds me of Salford University in MediaCityUK actually with all the space and multiple levels. Right now it feels very bland because they only moved in a while ago?

Good to see a whole bunch of people popping up who I use to work with including Richard, Roman, Arthur, Hamid, etc, etc… each time I saw one of them, I would take a picture and post it on twitter mainly for the purpose of showing Miles and Dave.

So generally it was great to tie all these things together because generally when I come down to London for work or a un-conference and there never anywhere near south London let-alone South East. My only wish is that I could have visited a few of the people I had left behind. Would have been great to know what my neighbours were up to now, see how big their kid, etc.

Why you should go to the Mozilla Festival

mozilla festival poster

Just in-case you had any reasons why you shouldn’t be at the Mozilla Festival? Here’s a whole bunch of reasons why you should be there. As most of you already know, we’re running the Dj and Vj Challenges during the Mozilla Festival event in association with Future Everything, Mozilla and BBC R&D.

We’re going to explore possible futures in the fields of Dj and Vj cultures with a aim to go live with something next year at the Future Everything Festival.

The whole event is at my previous college (Ravensbourne) which moved to its new location next to the Dome in North Greenwich. I’ve never checked out the new look college but if its anything like the new Salford University in Media City UK it looks to be something special and a great place to do a challenge like this.

Of course you want to be part of this… So why not sign up now and I’ll see you there in just under a months time…

 

 

Build tech city or go one better?

rain rain go away

Not wrote anything about London’s TechCity and Silicon Roundabout for quite sometime but I’ve been thinking about it… The recent talk from Matt Brittin at MediaCityUK reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while.

The Silicon Roundabout thing slightly bugs me and the Techcity thing winds me up but not for the reasons you would imagine. Silicon roundabout is frankly a silly name but I can live with that. The area is full of hopeful startups and internet powered companies. Its great and to be fair east London was always a cool place. I actually spent quite a lot of time in the last startup boom.

My problem is copying the states… Not only copying the concept but somewhat getting it seriously wrong or backwards. I’ll save the reasons for others but this is different times, different circumstances and a totally different country. Part of the solution is diversity of ideas and process, something the UK is very good at in one way or another.

Its no mistake Google’s Eric Schmitt mentions “you’re either a ‘luvvy’ or a ‘boffin’.”

A cultural thing which has got to stop, along with simply copying…

To coin an old phrase, think differently…?

I am not a werewolf

Next year I'm to make sure I get in there early and get a ticket for Hide+Seek on London's Southbank. I missed the conference part again this year but boy oh boy did everyone have fun playing werewolf afterwards. I believe at one point there were 4 games of about 15-20 people playing at once. Maybe they were a bit too close so you couldn't hear very well what was going on but there were tons of new people to play with and even some of my friends joined in who have never played before. Talking of which, a special award goes out to Hannu for picking two werewolves on his first ever game and in such a important role as the seer. So amazing that a mature player took this as werewolf tactics and almost voted him off. I also took part in a game when we almost got rid of all the werewolves without killing any villagers. Every night the werewolf would try and kill the seer (aka myself) and the healer would heal me. Ok to be fair the werewolves were new to the game but only after 3 rounds of no one dying on the nights did the werewolves start picking off other players. By which time the game was almost wrapped up for the villagers

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How to have more sex?

How to have more sex?

Some of you may have thought you’d seen me on TV recently. The show was not exactly what I had signed up for but it was clear ITV were going to film the event for a show which may or may not get commisioned. Anyway the event was a speed dating event…. Before I go on, I feel the need to explain the reasons why I was there. So since my marriage broke-down I’ve been single and I was getting use to be single again. One of the off sets of this was that I had always wondered what it was like to speed date? I had never tried it and wondered if I would be any good at it. Some of you may say, oh Ian – this is very sad or maybe Ian this is too soon after a break up, but you know what I’ve moved on and i’m not going to sit at home all sad thinking about how things use to be. There may also be an aspect of sadness to speed dating but what better way to meet a load of people who you would never usually meet in one evening?

So being newly single, I decided to give it a try when I saw a advert for a cheap speed dating event in Clerkenwell on a Thursday night in September. The event was 5 pounds instead of the usual 20 plus pounds and all drinks would be free on the evening. The only deal is that we would be filmed, which didn’t bother me so much.

However the footage got used in a programme called How to get more Sex part 2, which was on last Thursday (hell you can even watch it on itv’s iplayer style service or bittorrent.

The lady at Table 13, Janice

Now assuming you watched the programme, you will remember at the first speed dating event the woman (Janice 30 or table 13 – geez should have known by the number) who was talking about plane tickets to america. Well I did give her a yes tick as she was good to talk to, plus she was my very first table. She also gave me a tick, which means that we should have hooked up later sometime but it never did happen. And now I know why. I did at the time think there was something strange about Janice because she was quite talkative before we hit the tables. This also applied to the 2nd guy plant. He was strange, I was following him in the table order and he would carry on pass the bell and a lot of the women I would talk to afterwards would mention the cheesy as hell chat up lines he would use. Now it all makes sense. What was weird was that some of the women thought me and the guy plant were friends because we entered the venue at the same time and we chatted for a while before. Even then he seemed to be very very up for the whole thing.

2nd plant guy or mr strange does his hair

Moving beyond the programme, I did end up going for food with 2 Australian women (who were friends – melissa 32 and
rachel 28) after the speed dating. They were the most normal people in the room and we kind of gravitated towards each other. Everyone else was super dressed up or as I now know, a plant. Us 3 looked like we worked in normal jobs and just came from there. Anyway we got talking about different people who we ticked and didn’t tick. Australian woman 1 (who is wearing a light green top in the filming) talked about the teacher guy (guy plant 2) and how he bored the life out of her. I mentioned Janice 30 but my big story was table 5 (shes on film, shes mixed race, black dress, long curly hair, stylish black glasses and little red bow around her neck). She asked me where I work and I was honest and said the BBC. She then she said quote Oh I heard the BBC don’t pay a lot of money. Taken a back by this comment, I quickly replied well it depends if you let money decide what you do in life?! As you can imagine the next 2mins 40secs were pretty thorny. There was another woman, who I think was there simply to shag someone that night. I can’t remember what table she was and shes not directly in the focus of the camera during the documentary, but she was very much up for going out that same night and something she said made it clear, going out and sex was all she was thinking about.

So would I do the whole thing again? Actually I would, it was pretty fun and enjoyable. I could imagine it being hell if your not talkative or enjoy meeting strangers but I’m pretty relaxed about this stuff. Anyway, hope the pop science experiment was good fun for people watching. I think I pop up 4 times during the segment. Here’s a review which I found amusing about the whole programme (sorry no permalink).

Mr strange using his chatup lines

It was just a jumbled piece of amateurish TV full of primary school experiments that proved nothing to nobody. Even Bravo would have been embarrassed to schedule this anywhere other than the very small hours, but this was 10pm on ITV1! 10pm! A prime time slot on a network station! How did this happen? Unbelievable. Shocking. Why aren’t people fired for commissioning crap like this? What are you doing, Michael Grade?

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Redbull Air Race from a distance

Yep I went along and watched from outside the Anchor and Hope Pub about 2 kilometers down river towards the east. I saved myself about 60 pounds and grabbed some decent shots using a 12x optical zoom camera and tripod. Christiano was correct, its certainly more thrilling in person that the TV programme could ever show, and even from 2km away, you couldn't help but get a little excited.

The only thing which was missing was commentary of what was going on, so maybe next year I think I'll be less cheap and go and buy tickets well in advanced. More pictures
here. Adams pictures are much better but are from the day of qualifying on Saturday.

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Redbull air race comes to London

I'm sure everyone else has seen this for weeks but one of the nice things about traveling on the train and tube is the advertising (not that I really like advertising). But the Redbull Air Race comes to South East London on 28th/29th July.

 

I don't know what it is but since Redbull sponsored the Wipeout series on the first playstation, I've always thought Redbull should setup some racing league using something a little special. Anti-gravity crafts which do up and over 200 miles per hour was always going to be a tall order but I got to say this air race isn't that far off in principle. However I tuned in a while ago at my parents house and watched the show from a desert in America somewhere and I got to say it – Wipeout it certainly wasn't.

Don't get me wrong it was exciting but not in the same way and it could be made more exciting if required. Also the time slot of 4pm seems too early for a dare devil fast paced air race. The show needs a shake up, like give the footage to a bunch of skateboard video artist and watch them remix the show into something amazing.

I guess what I'm saying is the pace of the flying is ok but the actual pace of the show is pretty slow and really lets it down. I guess I'll have to pay for a ticket to get a feel for what its like live. But its not cheap at 50 pounds, although I just missed this.

10% of all general tickets are being given free to local residents of affected borough (Greenwich, Newham and Tower Hamlets). For Newham and Tower Hamlets residents, these free tickets have been allocated by online ballot through this website. The ballot opened on Thursday 17th May and closed on Monday 2nd July. Ticket winners have been notified by e-mail.

Greenwich Council will be organising the distribution of their allocation of tickets. If you are a resident of the London Borough of Greenwich please contact Michele Douglas on 0208 921 6405 or by email at michele.douglas@greenwich.gov.uk in order to apply for free tickets.

 

 

Oh well I missed out this time. Oh by the way, they also tucked this rss feed away.

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London Geekdinner with Julie Howell

This time a local superstar. Julie Howell from Fortune cookie previously with RNIB. The geekdinner started off slowly, I was a little upset that the bar upstairs wasn't to be opened with our favorite barmaid Henryetta. Most people turned up around 7:40pm and Julie turned up about the same. Unfortually due to all the flooding in the midlands, Julie was deeply worried about her house and her trip home, so said she would leave pretty soon after speaking.

When the food came out which just on a side point was enough to feed everyone including vegans and people with dangerous allergies (see I do care and ask about you guys). i gave a brief introduction to Julie and off she went.

I don't know how she did it but she managed to cover not only her past but accessibility now and in the future. See I told you she was good. There were plenty of questions afterwards about a whole host of things to do with Julie and her job. I think we over ran by about 10mins, so I had to cut it short knowing Julie had a long trip a head of her. Actually she emailed me the next day and said she never got home till after 1am!

So it was great to hear Julie talk again, she really held the geeks attention with the highs and lows of her life. Julie also attracted a quite a diverse crowd of geeks which was great again. Even the female Aral (marion)  turned up for he first London social event. After the event a couple of the guys went out drinking to really end the evening, I made my excuses but I did hear it was a good end to the night.

I thank everyone who turned up and made Julie welcome and look forward to hearing how Brighton Girl Geekdinners goes for Julie. I was actually going to recommend Julie to Sarah Blow of the London girl geekdinners.

I'm looking to run another werewolf night in July and maybe have a special geekdinner with another out of towner in July. Details as I get them, but yes you can also join the London Geekdinner Facebook group, but for some reason its not working as expected.

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London Geekdinner with Jyri from Jaiku

I made the mistake once again of not actually taking any stickers for my laptop. Damm it! Its also worth mentioning Guy West has put the video of Jyri's talk up here and Improbulus has a much deeper review of the night that I ever could write. I don't know how she does it but honestly when Improbulus covers something she does it so deep you feel the burn marks on the event or gadget.

So generally the event was boosted when Jason Canacus decided to come along too. Luckly he didn't steal the limelight from our guest Jyri. Actually to be honest Jyri was flipping awesome. He really controlled the room well, I hardly had to step into the conversation and there were some real strong personalities in the room.

We had about 50 people turn up for this geekdinner in our new home for geekdinners the Ye Olde Cock Tavern on Fleet Street. The venue worked well but the heat level in room was pretty high, so thats something to remember for next time. The microphone worked really well but there was a jazz playing upstairs which was strange and somewhat entertaining.

I did get around to seeing almost everyone including Dan Gilmor who I missed earlier that day due to hackday meetings. Jason is one of those people I kind of don't mind. Ok don't take this the wrong way but Ben Metcafe, Jason and a few other out-spoken people I know are quite simlar and I don't mind them while others hate them for there outspokeness. Funny enough the same group of people (not mentioning any names).I don't mind them because Jason seems to be the kind of person who would call bullshit if he saw it. I know this puts people backs up, but generally I think you need people like this otherwise you get people like Mena talking at Le Web 2.0. Enough said really.

Anyway the event went really well and we had quite a different group of people turn up, this was good because even Hugh McCloud seemed to be enjoying the geekdinner. Sucessful geekdinner with some high profile people. Thanks Jyri for agreeing to do the dinner and standing up giving us a free preview of whats was to come at the NMK forum the next day. Oh thanks to Ian from NMK for everything he did.

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