Citizen Paine

Just absolutely head-over-heels in love with this girl...

Citizen Paine

Just absolutely head-over-heels in love with this girl...

Kate Adie (Part Deux)

Dan Aspel wrote the second part of the Kate Adie article, or rather, he wrote up the part which he found interesting, which conveniently started more or less at the place where I finished my first blog post on her talk at KU.

The link to his article on riveronline is here.

Kate Adie (Part Deux)

Dan Aspel wrote the second part of the Kate Adie article, or rather, he wrote up the part which he found interesting, which conveniently started more or less at the place where I finished my first blog post on her talk at KU.

The link to his article on riveronline is here.

Maleficent Martini - Industrial Ballet Performance and Interview

Filmed, edited and produced by Richard Boase
©November 2009

Maleficent Martini - Industrial Ballet Performance and Interview

Filmed, edited and produced by Richard Boase
©November 2009

Flowerz for Miyake-San

Fractal Moonlight Blossom Staggered Passion Static Patternz Scattered Magic Mathematics

.. has moved here

Sorry about this, but I couldn't stop the music from looping without altering the animation file... a somewhat long and tedious task.... so I moved it.

:(

Flowerz for Miyake-San

Fractal Moonlight Blossom Staggered Passion Static Patternz Scattered Magic Mathematics

.. has moved here

Sorry about this, but I couldn't stop the music from looping without altering the animation file... a somewhat long and tedious task.... so I moved it.

:(

The Devil's in the Details

The Devil's in the Details

Ipod Law for Journos Blog

Hi!
Well done to all my colleagues for their hard work for the first NCTJ Law exam.
If you're looking for the lectures and podcasts, I have moved them to a separate blog so that they don't clutter up my writing blog.
The address of the new blog is:  http://ipodlawforjournalists.blogspot.com/

Ipod Law for Journos Blog

Hi!
Well done to all my colleagues for their hard work for the first NCTJ Law exam.
If you're looking for the lectures and podcasts, I have moved them to a separate blog so that they don't clutter up my writing blog.
The address of the new blog is:  http://ipodlawforjournalists.blogspot.com/

What Would Peter Parker Do?

To promote ethical journalistic practices by cub reporters and citizen bloggers I'm considering getting 500 bracelets made which say: "What would Peter Parker Do?" embossed on one side, with the slogan "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibilty" embossed on the other side.

The bracelets will be priced £2 each with 10% going to
"Reporters Without Borders"
http://www.rsf.org/

What Would Peter Parker Do?

To promote ethical journalistic practices by cub reporters and citizen bloggers I'm considering getting 500 bracelets made which say: "What would Peter Parker Do?" embossed on one side, with the slogan "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibilty" embossed on the other side.

The bracelets will be priced £2 each with 10% going to
"Reporters Without Borders"
http://www.rsf.org/

The Birthday Blog: To Es******* with love, from Kate Adie

“My degree was absolutely worthless” says Kate Adie to me when I question her on her background in ancient Icelandic.
"Should I get out of university now?" I ask her quickly.

I put her new book "Into Danger: Risking your Life for Work" in front of her: “I have taken excellent shorthand notes of your whole talk” I say, not in the least bit ashamed of my monstrous lie; my shorthand is absolutely atrocious, as you might expect.

“Ah, I have never learned shorthand, don’t write a single word” she says wryly, “I started at the bottom” She continues, “Cleaning the desks and backrooms, and then I did six years of editing radio” and I, not knowing quite what to say in return, beam back at her, amazed by the lines of experience that crinkle across her face, her older than expected grandmotherly attitude, and her amazing eyes, full of emotion and adventure and say (convincingly I think) “Gotcha”.

"Is there anyone you would like me to address this book to?"
She asks innocently. Aware I am being watched, I quickly stammer: "Yes, Esperanza"
"Esperanza with a z?"
"Yes" I say.
"Ah, that's a beautiful name."

She seems surprised when I offer her my hand, and shake hers fully, “It’s a great honour to see you. Thank you for your talk” I blurt, grinning like a maniac, and she seems convinced by this, so I rush out to my bike, Green Day blasting in my ears as I ride the rush of adrenaline all the way home, "tomorrow is my birthday" I think, and my heart leaps for joy.


I had arrived late at the lecture, and scurried inside in my baggie lounging trackies and oversize spiderman hoody. I look like the enemy of society, complete with massive headphones and baseball cap, and I’m instantly struck by the awkward counterpoise that I strike here: the enfant terrible of the journalism society, fighting and vying with the department for every inch of latitude I can get, arriving late to witness a speaker of great merit deliver a tour de force speech about her extensive career in war correspondancy.

She has locked the entire room into an avid trance, mesmerizing them with her voice, a voice which seems to me stunted and broken at first, as if rehearsed to death, yet it is stronger and more powerful than any speaker I’ve yet witnessed at university, and not less then 5 seconds into the hall, I too am hooked.

“Linguistics”, she says sternly “is a battleground.” “The language and the tone you use in broadcasting is subject to a great deal of debate”.

I realized when I walked into the room that there was something slightly artificial about her tone, something off kilter, and I’m struck instantly how she is speaking for effect, keeping the audience rapt: she projects a sort of well rehearsed character into the room by sheer force of will, a character modeled on the strong female characters of Britain’s ancient empire, the old world order. They are well rehearsed mannerisms, built up over decades of practice, echoing standards of the BBC, of Queen and country.

“I am speaking now, with SRP.”
“SRP?” she interrogates the room. “No?”
“Southern Received Pronunciation. However, I was brought up on NEE, Northen Educated English! SRP is a progressive form of NEE, it is a later version, and there are myriad waves of standard English”

My heart flutters and my pulse raises tempo, endorphins whizz wildly round in my brain; we are being given a crash course in linguistics by Kate Adie!

“This country has not got a standard and agreed form of pronunciation."
“When you move over [from broadcasting] into writing, are you going to use dialect?” she asks us.

“You cannot use estuarine phases”. 

Oh my god. I peak as she says this: I had no idea that word even existed, I wonder if I could use it in my writing? A broad expanse of watery verbal metaphors stretches out before me in my mind's eye.

“It is a joy and a nightmare working in this country, and it should draw you into a fascination with language” she declares, and I’m hers, absolutely and utterly.

“Who are you broadcasting to? What are they comfortable listening to? Do they like a particular style? You will learn to understand the nuts and bolts of language and how to create a finished project” she declares triumphantly, and it is obvious to anyone with at least one ear, that she knows exactly what she’s talking about, which is ironic, because it turns out that she was born slightly deaf in both ears, and one would think that perhaps it would be inadvisable to spend so much time around bombs, particularly ones which were in the process of exploding.

“The language is infinitely flexible" "You must be aware of how you use language. I am a Geordie, I speak with a flattish NEE, but if I write in Geordie, you wouldn’t recognize it”  she continues, and here she departs into some alien and bizarre northern tongue the like of which I have never heard. It's quite a performance, but I sense that the moment falls flat. Perhaps there are some other aliens in the audience, or perhaps this is just a cheap parlour trick: Geordie accents don't go down too well in London apparently. I make a mental note: "Do not scare your audience".

“There are many grammatical systems, despite the extreme influence of radio and TV, which has had a cohesive effect and ironed out the regional differences to a large extent, and so you must be comfortable with language, language is absolutely central to your career and so therefore, is getting to grips with large numbers of books, so always cock an ear to the radio for a type of verbal approach, inferences, it is germane to what is on the printed page”.

Germaine? I wonder. Is that some kind of coded feminist talk? I’ve never heard of that word before. Is she trying to communicate some kind of revolutionary discursive? Maybe I have misheard. I try ‘cocking an ear’ as she suggests, first to the left, then less obviously, forward, and miraculously find that it helps me to understand more perfectly what she is saying:

“Cocking an ear” is a phrase out of time. And I'm suddenly struck by the feeling that she is communicating to us from the past. I almost squeal in excitement as I tune into her radio voice of 40 years ago. How she learnt to mimic it so accurately is extraordinary, no wonder she is such a legend of the corporation. She truly is the genuine article.

“Ideas:” she begins as my shorthand fails, “I’m lucky in this area in that when people shout: “Where do you get your ideas from?”, as if there’s some sort of cupboard under the stairs where I keep ideas, I can tell them that I write non-fiction because I spent over 30 years as a reporter in extreme situations, and being a reporter is great because you’re paid to be a nosy parker!” she beams.

I’m improvising a little here as I was barred from using a recorder or videoing the talk, so I have to rely on my somewhat frankly dodgy shorthand to recall it all. God I love Esperanza, why can’t I stop thinking about her? Stupid bloody university, if only I could be like Kate Adie, then I could go out and be a journo right now! But mere mortals like me have to go through the proscribed procedures in order to progress, I suspect. Ppp….

It all started when I said something ‘out of sorts’. Yes, I’m arrogant, sometimes, but only a little, and yes, I’m a very fickle person. I choose to love at the drop of a hat, and I love intensely, unconditionally, purposefully putting my heart on the line, testing commitment, making mistakes, always trying to find the dividing line between the acceptable and the outrageous.

“When it comes to publishing, publishers appear to have swallowed a library”. Says Kate, waking me from my reverie.
“Publishers read and read and read and ALL THE TIME, and I’m constantly humiliated by publishers” she squarely proclaims, “Its no good writing something that someone has already done a wonderful book about six months before.”

“So publishers can help you find out how to sell your ideas to people, and how to grab their attention”. My attention keeps on lapsing however. I’m so glad Esperanza isn’t here afterall. It was bad enough creeping in late looking like the local drug dealer. I would have suffered from acute embarrassment if I had come in late with Doctor Esperanza Awesome Japanese Punk Biker Miyake in tow.

Alison Baverstock, the organizer of tonight's talk took such a strict line with me about recording the evening that I’d fired off a couple of ill advised emails before my wrath had subsided enough for me to see that I was acting out of manic and unrestrained ambition. I have certainly wrecked a few relatively good relationships in the last week, I pray it doesn’t last or everyone will hate me by the end of this week.

“Oooh! You do such a dangerous job!” Says Kate, mimicking her admirers, and everyone in the audience smiles appreciatively. Of course we know she does a dangerous job, but she sells us on the idea that it is not she who is doing the dangerous job at all. No. She makes a point of finding people who do really dangerous jobs and to illustrate her point she takes us on a trip down memory lane, to the bombed out streets of Belfast.

“I’ve spent 30 years reporting on a civil war, although those words are NEVER EVER USED”. This must be the battleground she referred to earlier, I think, metaphorically. British reporters have a much more insipid word: “They use the word ‘troubles’. Not quite ‘civil war’ but street violence on a MAJOR scale”.

“A riot in Northern Ireland, as a ‘rough rule of thumb” – and here she does the most delightfully charming thing I have ever seen from a woman of her age do, save my adorable grandmother, skewing her head sideways, squinting at the audience and holding her thumb out sideways whilst scrawbbling out the words "rough rule of thumb" before her audience.


“The rough rule of thumb is that a riot in Belfast is 1000 people marching down the street towards you, who are very, very angry”.

...

To be continued Thursday after much more law revision, a very Happy birthday, a law exam and a sound drubbing from Lucy, the Editor in Chief of the riveronline.co.uk for my complete inability to do what she tells me to do...

ps: Mr. Bignell, if you’re reading this, please give me a job at the Independent on Sunday, I promise not to write about my "love" life and only stick to the facts.
☺

The Birthday Blog: To Es******* with love, from Kate Adie

“My degree was absolutely worthless” says Kate Adie to me when I question her on her background in ancient Icelandic.
"Should I get out of university now?" I ask her quickly.

I put her new book "Into Danger: Risking your Life for Work" in front of her: “I have taken excellent shorthand notes of your whole talk” I say, not in the least bit ashamed of my monstrous lie; my shorthand is absolutely atrocious, as you might expect.

“Ah, I have never learned shorthand, don’t write a single word” she says wryly, “I started at the bottom” She continues, “Cleaning the desks and backrooms, and then I did six years of editing radio” and I, not knowing quite what to say in return, beam back at her, amazed by the lines of experience that crinkle across her face, her older than expected grandmotherly attitude, and her amazing eyes, full of emotion and adventure and say (convincingly I think) “Gotcha”.

"Is there anyone you would like me to address this book to?"
She asks innocently. Aware I am being watched, I quickly stammer: "Yes, Esperanza"
"Esperanza with a z?"
"Yes" I say.
"Ah, that's a beautiful name."

She seems surprised when I offer her my hand, and shake hers fully, “It’s a great honour to see you. Thank you for your talk” I blurt, grinning like a maniac, and she seems convinced by this, so I rush out to my bike, Green Day blasting in my ears as I ride the rush of adrenaline all the way home, "tomorrow is my birthday" I think, and my heart leaps for joy.


I had arrived late at the lecture, and scurried inside in my baggie lounging trackies and oversize spiderman hoody. I look like the enemy of society, complete with massive headphones and baseball cap, and I’m instantly struck by the awkward counterpoise that I strike here: the enfant terrible of the journalism society, fighting and vying with the department for every inch of latitude I can get, arriving late to witness a speaker of great merit deliver a tour de force speech about her extensive career in war correspondancy.

She has locked the entire room into an avid trance, mesmerizing them with her voice, a voice which seems to me stunted and broken at first, as if rehearsed to death, yet it is stronger and more powerful than any speaker I’ve yet witnessed at university, and not less then 5 seconds into the hall, I too am hooked.

“Linguistics”, she says sternly “is a battleground.” “The language and the tone you use in broadcasting is subject to a great deal of debate”.

I realized when I walked into the room that there was something slightly artificial about her tone, something off kilter, and I’m struck instantly how she is speaking for effect, keeping the audience rapt: she projects a sort of well rehearsed character into the room by sheer force of will, a character modeled on the strong female characters of Britain’s ancient empire, the old world order. They are well rehearsed mannerisms, built up over decades of practice, echoing standards of the BBC, of Queen and country.

“I am speaking now, with SRP.”
“SRP?” she interrogates the room. “No?”
“Southern Received Pronunciation. However, I was brought up on NEE, Northen Educated English! SRP is a progressive form of NEE, it is a later version, and there are myriad waves of standard English”

My heart flutters and my pulse raises tempo, endorphins whizz wildly round in my brain; we are being given a crash course in linguistics by Kate Adie!

“This country has not got a standard and agreed form of pronunciation."
“When you move over [from broadcasting] into writing, are you going to use dialect?” she asks us.

“You cannot use estuarine phases”. 

Oh my god. I peak as she says this: I had no idea that word even existed, I wonder if I could use it in my writing? A broad expanse of watery verbal metaphors stretches out before me in my mind's eye.

“It is a joy and a nightmare working in this country, and it should draw you into a fascination with language” she declares, and I’m hers, absolutely and utterly.

“Who are you broadcasting to? What are they comfortable listening to? Do they like a particular style? You will learn to understand the nuts and bolts of language and how to create a finished project” she declares triumphantly, and it is obvious to anyone with at least one ear, that she knows exactly what she’s talking about, which is ironic, because it turns out that she was born slightly deaf in both ears, and one would think that perhaps it would be inadvisable to spend so much time around bombs, particularly ones which were in the process of exploding.

“The language is infinitely flexible" "You must be aware of how you use language. I am a Geordie, I speak with a flattish NEE, but if I write in Geordie, you wouldn’t recognize it”  she continues, and here she departs into some alien and bizarre northern tongue the like of which I have never heard. It's quite a performance, but I sense that the moment falls flat. Perhaps there are some other aliens in the audience, or perhaps this is just a cheap parlour trick: Geordie accents don't go down too well in London apparently. I make a mental note: "Do not scare your audience".

“There are many grammatical systems, despite the extreme influence of radio and TV, which has had a cohesive effect and ironed out the regional differences to a large extent, and so you must be comfortable with language, language is absolutely central to your career and so therefore, is getting to grips with large numbers of books, so always cock an ear to the radio for a type of verbal approach, inferences, it is germane to what is on the printed page”.

Germaine? I wonder. Is that some kind of coded feminist talk? I’ve never heard of that word before. Is she trying to communicate some kind of revolutionary discursive? Maybe I have misheard. I try ‘cocking an ear’ as she suggests, first to the left, then less obviously, forward, and miraculously find that it helps me to understand more perfectly what she is saying:

“Cocking an ear” is a phrase out of time. And I'm suddenly struck by the feeling that she is communicating to us from the past. I almost squeal in excitement as I tune into her radio voice of 40 years ago. How she learnt to mimic it so accurately is extraordinary, no wonder she is such a legend of the corporation. She truly is the genuine article.

“Ideas:” she begins as my shorthand fails, “I’m lucky in this area in that when people shout: “Where do you get your ideas from?”, as if there’s some sort of cupboard under the stairs where I keep ideas, I can tell them that I write non-fiction because I spent over 30 years as a reporter in extreme situations, and being a reporter is great because you’re paid to be a nosy parker!” she beams.

I’m improvising a little here as I was barred from using a recorder or videoing the talk, so I have to rely on my somewhat frankly dodgy shorthand to recall it all. God I love Esperanza, why can’t I stop thinking about her? Stupid bloody university, if only I could be like Kate Adie, then I could go out and be a journo right now! But mere mortals like me have to go through the proscribed procedures in order to progress, I suspect. Ppp….

It all started when I said something ‘out of sorts’. Yes, I’m arrogant, sometimes, but only a little, and yes, I’m a very fickle person. I choose to love at the drop of a hat, and I love intensely, unconditionally, purposefully putting my heart on the line, testing commitment, making mistakes, always trying to find the dividing line between the acceptable and the outrageous.

“When it comes to publishing, publishers appear to have swallowed a library”. Says Kate, waking me from my reverie.
“Publishers read and read and read and ALL THE TIME, and I’m constantly humiliated by publishers” she squarely proclaims, “Its no good writing something that someone has already done a wonderful book about six months before.”

“So publishers can help you find out how to sell your ideas to people, and how to grab their attention”. My attention keeps on lapsing however. I’m so glad Esperanza isn’t here afterall. It was bad enough creeping in late looking like the local drug dealer. I would have suffered from acute embarrassment if I had come in late with Doctor Esperanza Awesome Japanese Punk Biker Miyake in tow.

Alison Baverstock, the organizer of tonight's talk took such a strict line with me about recording the evening that I’d fired off a couple of ill advised emails before my wrath had subsided enough for me to see that I was acting out of manic and unrestrained ambition. I have certainly wrecked a few relatively good relationships in the last week, I pray it doesn’t last or everyone will hate me by the end of this week.

“Oooh! You do such a dangerous job!” Says Kate, mimicking her admirers, and everyone in the audience smiles appreciatively. Of course we know she does a dangerous job, but she sells us on the idea that it is not she who is doing the dangerous job at all. No. She makes a point of finding people who do really dangerous jobs and to illustrate her point she takes us on a trip down memory lane, to the bombed out streets of Belfast.

“I’ve spent 30 years reporting on a civil war, although those words are NEVER EVER USED”. This must be the battleground she referred to earlier, I think, metaphorically. British reporters have a much more insipid word: “They use the word ‘troubles’. Not quite ‘civil war’ but street violence on a MAJOR scale”.

“A riot in Northern Ireland, as a ‘rough rule of thumb” – and here she does the most delightfully charming thing I have ever seen from a woman of her age do, save my adorable grandmother, skewing her head sideways, squinting at the audience and holding her thumb out sideways whilst scrawbbling out the words "rough rule of thumb" before her audience.


“The rough rule of thumb is that a riot in Belfast is 1000 people marching down the street towards you, who are very, very angry”.

...

To be continued Thursday after much more law revision, a very Happy birthday, a law exam and a sound drubbing from Lucy, the Editor in Chief of the riveronline.co.uk for my complete inability to do what she tells me to do...

ps: Mr. Bignell, if you’re reading this, please give me a job at the Independent on Sunday, I promise not to write about my "love" life and only stick to the facts.
☺

Web 2.0

The final section of this brilliant (IMHO) video states, "We'll have to rethink a few things: copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, aesthetics, rhetorics, governance, privacy, commerce, love, family, ourselves... " and I concur.

The way I see it, the 'me' generation is coming to an end and "generation i" is just beginning. See what you make of this...



Further points of interest: Bill Gate's essays on "Generation i", old problems of copyright, new approaches to copyright, and a balanced view of RSS from Molly Kleinman.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ofnote/03-00instructor.mspx
http://mollykleinman.com/2008/05/23/copyright-web-20-and-rss/
http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/web20-copyright.htm
http://www.numly.com/numly/default.asp

Web 2.0

The final section of this brilliant (IMHO) video states, "We'll have to rethink a few things: copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, aesthetics, rhetorics, governance, privacy, commerce, love, family, ourselves... " and I concur.

The way I see it, the 'me' generation is coming to an end and "generation i" is just beginning. See what you make of this...



Further points of interest: Bill Gate's essays on "Generation i", old problems of copyright, new approaches to copyright, and a balanced view of RSS from Molly Kleinman.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ofnote/03-00instructor.mspx
http://mollykleinman.com/2008/05/23/copyright-web-20-and-rss/
http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/web20-copyright.htm
http://www.numly.com/numly/default.asp

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Moral Outrage

The ruckus started when it emerged that a level of the new video game "Call of Duty 2" contained a scenario in which you were invited and encouraged to massacre innocent civilians  at a Russian airport in 'gruesome detail'.

Well, of course the game's producer would have you believe that it was awesomely stunningly realistic, and I have to admit, they've got face and skin details and textures down to an extremely fine art in the opening gambit, but thankfully the rest of it is really not shockingly convincing, even if it does start by being extremely uncomfortable, once the initial shock and disgust has subsided, the dull monotony of a first person shooter quickly kicks back in.

But what's with the music? Why do I feel like I'm participating in a modern day 'Das Prisoner?' Why does this feel like a massive psychological experiment to see if I can cope with the modern and shocking environment of terror? And, if I was put to the test, would I too administer lethal doses of electric voltage to my fellow classmates if the lecturer told me to?

Well. OK, go on then. Twist my arm ;P

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Moral Outrage

The ruckus started when it emerged that a level of the new video game "Call of Duty 2" contained a scenario in which you were invited and encouraged to massacre innocent civilians  at a Russian airport in 'gruesome detail'.

Well, of course the game's producer would have you believe that it was awesomely stunningly realistic, and I have to admit, they've got face and skin details and textures down to an extremely fine art in the opening gambit, but thankfully the rest of it is really not shockingly convincing, even if it does start by being extremely uncomfortable, once the initial shock and disgust has subsided, the dull monotony of a first person shooter quickly kicks back in.

But what's with the music? Why do I feel like I'm participating in a modern day 'Das Prisoner?' Why does this feel like a massive psychological experiment to see if I can cope with the modern and shocking environment of terror? And, if I was put to the test, would I too administer lethal doses of electric voltage to my fellow classmates if the lecturer told me to?

Well. OK, go on then. Twist my arm ;P

KU River Online Website (re)Launched

After months of absence, the Kingston University news website "River Online" has finally been relaunched in a much slicker and sexier format.

The student news website, which is the online version of "The River" newspaper, the successful and well known KU publication, contains articles written by students on the journalism MA course and covers a range of subjects including: News, Sports, Politics, Comment, Health and Technology, Entertainment and Features.

Matilde Morandi, a foreign student on the course described it as "Totally meta" , referring to Jen Larner's initiative to RSS Riveronline headlines out to a facebook profile which then, in theory at least,  collects friends for promotional purposes and keeps people on fb afloat on the latest currents.

Although progress has been slow in the last few years, with the site only attracting hits in the low hundreds annually, Senior Lecturer and Editor-in-Chief Lucy Smy has said that she hopes this year's redesign and added interactivity will attract more interest from students.

On first inspection, the site looks excellent, with a variety of interesting stories ranging from the headline "KU Students Cheat their way towards Degree" by Jun Merrett to "Ares 1-X Launch" by health and technology correspondent Dan Aspel, but how will the site fare over the year (or years) to come?

Well, it is hoped that the addition of the facebook group, and a new twitter account will help to attract interest, and help the site integrate with the wider world of web news sites, but with all news websites struggling to survive in the recession, what hope is there for a university run project like this one?

When questioned on the subject, veteran print reporter, long time editor of the Times Educational Supplement and current Vice Chancellor of the university Sir Peter Scott seemed upbeat about the site. Whilst he confessed to being a journalist from 'the old school' he indicated that he thought it could grow and develop over the years into something really exemplary.

No doubt, as the site has the guaranteed support of 30 dedicated reporters paying around £5600 each to do their masters degrees, the site can only be a success, as the business model of other news-websites is entirely reversed, so what exactly would hold the project back from expanding into a multi-level news website incorporating content from all the university departments from video production to graphic design and audio courses, to voices from the politics and law students?

Apart from the apparently limited scope of the expertise of the reporters, bureaucracy is usually a defining factor in a successful web-enterprise model, and with faculty and students alike nervous of the dangers of publishing to a site that represents the university to the outside world, a very tight ship must be run in order to keep its contents acceptable to all.

So why do I have this constant nagging doubt about stories like Jun's? Could it be that publicising a story which instructs students 'how to cheat to pass their degree' is just a little bit irresponsible?

I do think it's a well-written and  newsworthy story, however with all due respect to Jun, and the Editor Dan McAdam, I would argue that it is irresponsible to publish it, reminded as I am of a passage in the original broadcasting remit of the BBC "not to broadcast any modus operandi of criminals".

Could it be that this type of story is unnecessarily sensationalist, written to attract interest, but in reality providing an instructional blueprint for otherwise innocent students to become party to cheating?

Finally there's the issue of comment, as this article is intended to posit the all important question: What counts as fair comment? Who is allowed to comment on the content, and what will the strictures imposed on freedom of speech regarding editorial policy be like?

For me at least, these questions are just some more of the fuzzy unknowns in the sea of possibilities that the web produces every day. One thing is clear: one oughtn't be complacent or ignore those voices who are trying to address these questions sensibly.

In any case for what it's worth, riveronline.co.uk is here to stay, so watch this space!

KU River Online Website (re)Launched

After months of absence, the Kingston University news website "River Online" has finally been relaunched in a much slicker and sexier format.

The student news website, which is the online version of "The River" newspaper, the successful and well known KU publication, contains articles written by students on the journalism MA course and covers a range of subjects including: News, Sports, Politics, Comment, Health and Technology, Entertainment and Features.

Matilde Morandi, a foreign student on the course described it as "Totally meta" , referring to Jen Larner's initiative to RSS Riveronline headlines out to a facebook profile which then, in theory at least,  collects friends for promotional purposes and keeps people on fb afloat on the latest currents.

Although progress has been slow in the last few years, with the site only attracting hits in the low hundreds annually, Senior Lecturer and Editor-in-Chief Lucy Smy has said that she hopes this year's redesign and added interactivity will attract more interest from students.

On first inspection, the site looks excellent, with a variety of interesting stories ranging from the headline "KU Students Cheat their way towards Degree" by Jun Merrett to "Ares 1-X Launch" by health and technology correspondent Dan Aspel, but how will the site fare over the year (or years) to come?

Well, it is hoped that the addition of the facebook group, and a new twitter account will help to attract interest, and help the site integrate with the wider world of web news sites, but with all news websites struggling to survive in the recession, what hope is there for a university run project like this one?

When questioned on the subject, veteran print reporter, long time editor of the Times Educational Supplement and current Vice Chancellor of the university Sir Peter Scott seemed upbeat about the site. Whilst he confessed to being a journalist from 'the old school' he indicated that he thought it could grow and develop over the years into something really exemplary.

No doubt, as the site has the guaranteed support of 30 dedicated reporters paying around £5600 each to do their masters degrees, the site can only be a success, as the business model of other news-websites is entirely reversed, so what exactly would hold the project back from expanding into a multi-level news website incorporating content from all the university departments from video production to graphic design and audio courses, to voices from the politics and law students?

Apart from the apparently limited scope of the expertise of the reporters, bureaucracy is usually a defining factor in a successful web-enterprise model, and with faculty and students alike nervous of the dangers of publishing to a site that represents the university to the outside world, a very tight ship must be run in order to keep its contents acceptable to all.

So why do I have this constant nagging doubt about stories like Jun's? Could it be that publicising a story which instructs students 'how to cheat to pass their degree' is just a little bit irresponsible?

I do think it's a well-written and  newsworthy story, however with all due respect to Jun, and the Editor Dan McAdam, I would argue that it is irresponsible to publish it, reminded as I am of a passage in the original broadcasting remit of the BBC "not to broadcast any modus operandi of criminals".

Could it be that this type of story is unnecessarily sensationalist, written to attract interest, but in reality providing an instructional blueprint for otherwise innocent students to become party to cheating?

Finally there's the issue of comment, as this article is intended to posit the all important question: What counts as fair comment? Who is allowed to comment on the content, and what will the strictures imposed on freedom of speech regarding editorial policy be like?

For me at least, these questions are just some more of the fuzzy unknowns in the sea of possibilities that the web produces every day. One thing is clear: one oughtn't be complacent or ignore those voices who are trying to address these questions sensibly.

In any case for what it's worth, riveronline.co.uk is here to stay, so watch this space!

Street Pastors: Local Heroes (Full Article)

 For someone who's been out for a night on the tiles and has found themselves in trouble or crisis on leaving the club or pub, having had one too many drinks or having got themselves into a fight, the street pastors are Kingston Town’s own local heroes.

Never far from the scene, the Street Pastors provide a watchful eye and a helping hand to those in crisis. I meet them at 9.45 on a Friday night at the United Reform Church in the centre of Kingston.

They are all Christians who volunteer their time freely and tonight's team will consist of four 'street pastors' and two 'prayer pastors'.

The street pastors are the public face of the operation and they are supported and aided by the prayer pastors whose job it is to stay inside the church for the duration of the evening and pray for the peace and wellbeing of everyone involved in tonight’s street shenanigans, whoever they might be.

Tracey, the leader of tonight's group, is a large friendly blonde lady with slick designer specs, a broad smile and a heart of gold.

She leads a youth group at church on Sundays, does her duty as a street pastor once or twice a month, and in the week she runs her own care home for the elderly in Farnham.

She tells me that she's been a Christian for 20 years, and that the decision to become a prayer pastor came naturally to her, when Paul Jacobs, the founder of the Kingston group told her about his intentions to start a chapter in Kingston almost 10 years ago.

“I used to be one of them kids” - she says, “I studied nursing at Kingston university, and I was out on the town three nights a week, drinking vodka, drinking beer, you name it.

When Paul told me I thought to myself 'that's a bus I wanna be on', I just wanted to help”.

And help she has. Tonight's mission is to keep a watchful eye on the streets over by TK Max, next to McClusky's nightclub.

She tells us that Darren, an Inspector at Kingston Police Station has already warned her about an alleged rape near the shop earlier tonight by an unlicensed taxi-driver, and that they will have four PCSOs there tonight.

One of the pastors, Paul, reminds the group that it is the end of the month, payday has come and that the pedestrians are already out in force.

He is cautious, pessimistic, but still upbeat. They discuss the club, Ananda, which had its licence revoked in the last few weeks and wonder if it will be open tonight.

According to the Street Pastors, crime has gone down 40% in the last year in Kingston, and the pastors, the police and the local council together have played a major role in making the area safer.

It's referred to as the trinity partnership: and underneath that umbrella are a diverse array of initiatives like “Pubwatch” and “B.O.B.B.” which help ensure that the night-time economy functions smoothly and facilitates a cohesive response to any violence or trouble arising in the course of an average evening.

Graciea, a smooth-skinned softly spoken pastor with a wry smile and dreamy look in her eye says to me: “If you wanna see faith in action, hang out with the Street Pastors. What we do is amazing. Violence just melts away, problems are solved within seconds or minutes as soon as we arrive. We maintain total independence and the police respect us because they've seen what we can do”.

After a prayer session, the street pastors depart from the church leaving their counterparts behind to venture onto the streets. The first place we visit is a nightclub that used to be called “The Works”.

Paul tells me that the police used to be really aggressive down here when it was the local youth club. He says: “They used to come down here with video cameras, shining lights in the kids’ faces and getting them all on video.”

“This club used to be the roughest in town, and there were always lots of fights: we couldn’t be seen to be sympathising with the police as we’d lose the respect of the kids, so it was a tough balancing act”

Things have changed now though, as the pastors are welcomed at the door of the club and talk genially with the security men. The youth club has long been closed and the club that replaced it has much less trouble. In the last year alone crime in Kingston has dropped by 40% and the pastors have been awarded money by the local police station in recognition of their work.

We walk calmly around the streets for another half hour, picking up bottles as we go, “The police ask us to pick them up, but the problem is, there’s nowhere to put them” Paul points out, “We’ve talked to the local council and asked them to put more bottle banks on the street, but they haven’t done anything”.

Outside Ananda’s nightclub, a couple of merry girls approach us, break into huge smiles and hug Tracey enthusiastically. Apparently this is par for the course, as Tracey explains to me later: ““I love bringing people laughter. We do a lot of cuddling. One girl I hugged for half an hour, told me that I hugged her better than her mum!”

We stop for a while and talk to Mr. Moon, a local derelict who adorns the street outside TK Maxx every weekend.

“He was a chronic alcoholic” Tracey says, “ He was told he’d have to stop drinking or he’d be dead in a month. We helped find him a home and got him a stove and a TV. He’s been sober for a year now, and now he sells shirts to kids outside McCluskey’s”.

Mr. Moon himself is philosophical about it all. Though Tracey tells me they’d once found him covered in urine after some boys had decided to relieve themselves over him, he is still terribly gentle and very friendly by nature.

He remarks to me that all of this drinking and fighting is ‘human nature’ and that it cannot be helped.

“Every week the police come” he says, “But nothing ever changes. We are all animals”.

In some ways, I sympathise with Mr. Moon. He obviously takes delight in the beautifully long and meticulously shaven legs tottering about on flashy high heels, complete with the figure hugging mini-skirts and swollen bosoms which are on show on an average weekend in Kingston, but I catch myself wondering if it’s really worth getting peed on just to bear witness?

Paul says that nothing has changed during his time as a pastor, but there are indications that the Street Pastors have significantly helped reduce crime in the area, a fact that seems to have been acknowledged by the police last month when they awarded the group just over £1000 for their efforts.

“Its not just the young people either” says Andy, “When I worked up in Town, it was mostly middle aged men who were saying “It’s gonna be amazing tonight, I’m gonna get completely slaughtered”.

There are 19 clubs and night-time bars in Kingston, and some of the clubs support the pastors financially.

Ian, the manager for the King’s Tun says of the pastors “They’ve been a fantastic help for the last two and a half years” and proceeds to explain to me how the integration of CCTV, the taxi wardens, the police, and bouncers and the pastors all pull together during big incidents.

“One time we had to wait for an hour and a half for a ambulance to turn up because there was a big incident on the A2 and the emergency services were all tied up. At times like that the pastor’s help is invaluable”.

As we pass Barcadia, a fight kicks off. A DJ has been refused entry, and he decides that its time to start abusing a bouncer.

Things quickly spiral out of control, however, for some reason I’m expecting the presence of the pastors to ensure that the ‘violence will melt away’.

Unexpectedly for me, it doesn’t and the Police arrive minutes later to dole out some of their own rough justice.

This doesn’t mean however that the pastors are somehow redundant or helpless in difficult situations and just an hour later they are all, collectively demonstrating what they can do.

"They’ve been a fantastic help for the last two and a half years"

A girl has passed out on the steps of a local church, and is fitting violently. She is having an epileptic fit. Tracey knows what to do immediately, holding her tight and keeping her from bruising herself on the concrete, she also wraps her in an emergency blanket whilst Paul calls the ambulance. Graceia and Andy talk to her friends to ascertain who she is and if she’s taken any drugs tonight.

After the paramedics wheel her away, we do a last walk around town, picking up more broken bottles and counselling the waifs and strays who’ve had one too many. It is a quiet night, but a very instructive one.

When all’s said and done, the pastors are doing a magnificent job. Helping to provide care and stability in a community which is badly out of touch with itself as, whilst Kingston is a rather wonderful middle-class place, it does have this odd schizophrenia at weekends, the product of a beer based night-time economy no doubt.

Do you have what it takes to become a Street Pastor?


Daily Telegraph article about the street pastors.

Street Pastors: Local Heroes (Full Article)

 For someone who's been out for a night on the tiles and has found themselves in trouble or crisis on leaving the club or pub, having had one too many drinks or having got themselves into a fight, the street pastors are Kingston Town’s own local heroes.

Never far from the scene, the Street Pastors provide a watchful eye and a helping hand to those in crisis. I meet them at 9.45 on a Friday night at the United Reform Church in the centre of Kingston.

They are all Christians who volunteer their time freely and tonight's team will consist of four 'street pastors' and two 'prayer pastors'.

The street pastors are the public face of the operation and they are supported and aided by the prayer pastors whose job it is to stay inside the church for the duration of the evening and pray for the peace and wellbeing of everyone involved in tonight’s street shenanigans, whoever they might be.

Tracey, the leader of tonight's group, is a large friendly blonde lady with slick designer specs, a broad smile and a heart of gold.

She leads a youth group at church on Sundays, does her duty as a street pastor once or twice a month, and in the week she runs her own care home for the elderly in Farnham.

She tells me that she's been a Christian for 20 years, and that the decision to become a prayer pastor came naturally to her, when Paul Jacobs, the founder of the Kingston group told her about his intentions to start a chapter in Kingston almost 10 years ago.

“I used to be one of them kids” - she says, “I studied nursing at Kingston university, and I was out on the town three nights a week, drinking vodka, drinking beer, you name it.

When Paul told me I thought to myself 'that's a bus I wanna be on', I just wanted to help”.

And help she has. Tonight's mission is to keep a watchful eye on the streets over by TK Max, next to McClusky's nightclub.

She tells us that Darren, an Inspector at Kingston Police Station has already warned her about an alleged rape near the shop earlier tonight by an unlicensed taxi-driver, and that they will have four PCSOs there tonight.

One of the pastors, Paul, reminds the group that it is the end of the month, payday has come and that the pedestrians are already out in force.

He is cautious, pessimistic, but still upbeat. They discuss the club, Ananda, which had its licence revoked in the last few weeks and wonder if it will be open tonight.

According to the Street Pastors, crime has gone down 40% in the last year in Kingston, and the pastors, the police and the local council together have played a major role in making the area safer.

It's referred to as the trinity partnership: and underneath that umbrella are a diverse array of initiatives like “Pubwatch” and “B.O.B.B.” which help ensure that the night-time economy functions smoothly and facilitates a cohesive response to any violence or trouble arising in the course of an average evening.

Graciea, a smooth-skinned softly spoken pastor with a wry smile and dreamy look in her eye says to me: “If you wanna see faith in action, hang out with the Street Pastors. What we do is amazing. Violence just melts away, problems are solved within seconds or minutes as soon as we arrive. We maintain total independence and the police respect us because they've seen what we can do”.

After a prayer session, the street pastors depart from the church leaving their counterparts behind to venture onto the streets. The first place we visit is a nightclub that used to be called “The Works”.

Paul tells me that the police used to be really aggressive down here when it was the local youth club. He says: “They used to come down here with video cameras, shining lights in the kids’ faces and getting them all on video.”

“This club used to be the roughest in town, and there were always lots of fights: we couldn’t be seen to be sympathising with the police as we’d lose the respect of the kids, so it was a tough balancing act”

Things have changed now though, as the pastors are welcomed at the door of the club and talk genially with the security men. The youth club has long been closed and the club that replaced it has much less trouble. In the last year alone crime in Kingston has dropped by 40% and the pastors have been awarded money by the local police station in recognition of their work.

We walk calmly around the streets for another half hour, picking up bottles as we go, “The police ask us to pick them up, but the problem is, there’s nowhere to put them” Paul points out, “We’ve talked to the local council and asked them to put more bottle banks on the street, but they haven’t done anything”.

Outside Ananda’s nightclub, a couple of merry girls approach us, break into huge smiles and hug Tracey enthusiastically. Apparently this is par for the course, as Tracey explains to me later: ““I love bringing people laughter. We do a lot of cuddling. One girl I hugged for half an hour, told me that I hugged her better than her mum!”

We stop for a while and talk to Mr. Moon, a local derelict who adorns the street outside TK Maxx every weekend.

“He was a chronic alcoholic” Tracey says, “ He was told he’d have to stop drinking or he’d be dead in a month. We helped find him a home and got him a stove and a TV. He’s been sober for a year now, and now he sells shirts to kids outside McCluskey’s”.

Mr. Moon himself is philosophical about it all. Though Tracey tells me they’d once found him covered in urine after some boys had decided to relieve themselves over him, he is still terribly gentle and very friendly by nature.

He remarks to me that all of this drinking and fighting is ‘human nature’ and that it cannot be helped.

“Every week the police come” he says, “But nothing ever changes. We are all animals”.

In some ways, I sympathise with Mr. Moon. He obviously takes delight in the beautifully long and meticulously shaven legs tottering about on flashy high heels, complete with the figure hugging mini-skirts and swollen bosoms which are on show on an average weekend in Kingston, but I catch myself wondering if it’s really worth getting peed on just to bear witness?

Paul says that nothing has changed during his time as a pastor, but there are indications that the Street Pastors have significantly helped reduce crime in the area, a fact that seems to have been acknowledged by the police last month when they awarded the group just over £1000 for their efforts.

“Its not just the young people either” says Andy, “When I worked up in Town, it was mostly middle aged men who were saying “It’s gonna be amazing tonight, I’m gonna get completely slaughtered”.

There are 19 clubs and night-time bars in Kingston, and some of the clubs support the pastors financially.

Ian, the manager for the King’s Tun says of the pastors “They’ve been a fantastic help for the last two and a half years” and proceeds to explain to me how the integration of CCTV, the taxi wardens, the police, and bouncers and the pastors all pull together during big incidents.

“One time we had to wait for an hour and a half for a ambulance to turn up because there was a big incident on the A2 and the emergency services were all tied up. At times like that the pastor’s help is invaluable”.

As we pass Barcadia, a fight kicks off. A DJ has been refused entry, and he decides that its time to start abusing a bouncer.

Things quickly spiral out of control, however, for some reason I’m expecting the presence of the pastors to ensure that the ‘violence will melt away’.

Unexpectedly for me, it doesn’t and the Police arrive minutes later to dole out some of their own rough justice.

This doesn’t mean however that the pastors are somehow redundant or helpless in difficult situations and just an hour later they are all, collectively demonstrating what they can do.

"They’ve been a fantastic help for the last two and a half years"

A girl has passed out on the steps of a local church, and is fitting violently. She is having an epileptic fit. Tracey knows what to do immediately, holding her tight and keeping her from bruising herself on the concrete, she also wraps her in an emergency blanket whilst Paul calls the ambulance. Graceia and Andy talk to her friends to ascertain who she is and if she’s taken any drugs tonight.

After the paramedics wheel her away, we do a last walk around town, picking up more broken bottles and counselling the waifs and strays who’ve had one too many. It is a quiet night, but a very instructive one.

When all’s said and done, the pastors are doing a magnificent job. Helping to provide care and stability in a community which is badly out of touch with itself as, whilst Kingston is a rather wonderful middle-class place, it does have this odd schizophrenia at weekends, the product of a beer based night-time economy no doubt.

Do you have what it takes to become a Street Pastor?


Daily Telegraph article about the street pastors.

Me and Narcolepsy...

zzzzzzzz

Me and Narcolepsy...

zzzzzzzz

Interactive who?

Above is my all time favourite cartoon about designing and
implementing web projects, (at least until the next time I hit fukung.net)
Perfectly accurately describes why no one should ever talk to each
other about what they want, what they need, or what would 'be cool' to
do.
Face it, you are bound to live out infinite consecutive executive life-
sentences in web-purgatory.
Don't talk to the editors, they don't understand. Don't talk to the
technician, he doesn't have time.
I could go on... but I'd rather let dilbert and dogbert sort it out on
their own.

Interactive who?

Above is my all time favourite cartoon about designing and
implementing web projects, (at least until the next time I hit fukung.net)
Perfectly accurately describes why no one should ever talk to each
other about what they want, what they need, or what would 'be cool' to
do.
Face it, you are bound to live out infinite consecutive executive life-
sentences in web-purgatory.
Don't talk to the editors, they don't understand. Don't talk to the
technician, he doesn't have time.
I could go on... but I'd rather let dilbert and dogbert sort it out on
their own.

Chlamydia Testing

By Nicola Roots

Kingston University students are part of the demographic most at risk of contracting Chlamydia stated Kingston's primary care trust six weeks ago.

They have been on campus offering hassle free testing to KU students. This is in response to a rise in cases in the 18 – 24 year old age range who are thought most likely to suffer and least likely to get tested. 

Orlan Tait, one of the NHS trained outreach workers handing out testing kits said that "on the whole the scheme has been a great success with a rise in the number of diagnoses and therefore treatment".

The scheme is being run all over London where one in ten people are thought to have the infection, an difference of 400% compared to other areas in the UK which typically suffer from an infection rate of one in fifty.

A lot of students at Kingston chose to take the test including Lorna, 22 who is awaiting her results. She said that she had not been tested previously because she knew little about the infection, that it hadn't occurred to her that it could have no symptoms.

Lorna went on to say that the main appeal of today's screening was that "it didn't seem to be a huge deal" and that it also offered a "discretion I may not have got at the Doctors". A reflection of the scheme's intentions agrees Orlan Tait.

Lorna has chosen to receive her results by text message, a perfect example of the scheme's confidentiality policies meaning that any student participating can choose to have their results sent by text, email or phone; a good way to prevent intriguing letters popping through mum and dad's door!

Orlan said of the screening that "it's not for everyone and some people really don't like being asked, but it is a quick way of finding out if you have the infection, and we're having great success with treatment and diagnosis".

The treatment itself is either one very strong or four weaker tablets and in Kingston will be administered by the Wolverton Centre for sexual health.

When the scheme first ran many Doctors and Nurses raised concerns over its validity but the continued success seems to be winning over the critics.

Although you're free to send samples back in your own time it is preferable to the outreach workers to have the samples back on the same day as it means people's personal results and the effectiveness of the scheme can be seen. 

Chlamydia Testing

By Nicola Roots

Kingston University students are part of the demographic most at risk of contracting Chlamydia stated Kingston's primary care trust six weeks ago.

They have been on campus offering hassle free testing to KU students. This is in response to a rise in cases in the 18 – 24 year old age range who are thought most likely to suffer and least likely to get tested. 

Orlan Tait, one of the NHS trained outreach workers handing out testing kits said that "on the whole the scheme has been a great success with a rise in the number of diagnoses and therefore treatment".

The scheme is being run all over London where one in ten people are thought to have the infection, an difference of 400% compared to other areas in the UK which typically suffer from an infection rate of one in fifty.

A lot of students at Kingston chose to take the test including Lorna, 22 who is awaiting her results. She said that she had not been tested previously because she knew little about the infection, that it hadn't occurred to her that it could have no symptoms.

Lorna went on to say that the main appeal of today's screening was that "it didn't seem to be a huge deal" and that it also offered a "discretion I may not have got at the Doctors". A reflection of the scheme's intentions agrees Orlan Tait.

Lorna has chosen to receive her results by text message, a perfect example of the scheme's confidentiality policies meaning that any student participating can choose to have their results sent by text, email or phone; a good way to prevent intriguing letters popping through mum and dad's door!

Orlan said of the screening that "it's not for everyone and some people really don't like being asked, but it is a quick way of finding out if you have the infection, and we're having great success with treatment and diagnosis".

The treatment itself is either one very strong or four weaker tablets and in Kingston will be administered by the Wolverton Centre for sexual health.

When the scheme first ran many Doctors and Nurses raised concerns over its validity but the continued success seems to be winning over the critics.

Although you're free to send samples back in your own time it is preferable to the outreach workers to have the samples back on the same day as it means people's personal results and the effectiveness of the scheme can be seen. 

No Smoking...

 I made this after I'd quit for a year. I still like it and I'm coming up for two years now.

No Smoking from richardboase on Vimeo.