Just links
A friend mentioned to me today that he was sorry I'd given up blogging.
"I haven't given up blogging," I spluttered, insofar as it's possible to splutter on IM. "I've just been busy."
He seemed even less impressed when I went on to add that, anyway, his assertion that Blogging and I had parted ways wasn't even true - my tumblelog, horreo.org, is anything but inactive.
"But that's just links..."
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This chat got me thinking about what had prompted me to start a blog in the first place, back when I hand-coded my very first post at this domain in September 2001.
I'd been a blog reader myself for a few months. Choice wasn't so wide in those days, but I did enjoy my regular visits to Sylloge, to kottke.org and to notsosoft (which is no longer online but whose writer now blogs at meish dot org). This seemed like a party I wanted to gatecrash, even I wasn't sure exactly why.
There was the writing, of course. The discipline involved in putting my thoughts into written words on a regular basis certainly appealed to me, as did the idea that I could write more creatively than I was able to do at work at the time.
There was also the community. In the dark ages, many sites didn't have a mechanism for leaving comments on individual posts, but that didn't stop us all from frantically linking to each other from a list of "Sites I like" in our sidebars, and we gradually built up our little communities that way. Many posts I (and others) wrote were often little more than, "I've found this new blog, it's really great: <INSERT LINK HERE>". When the person I linked to discovered my blog through her log files, she would undoubtedly come and see who was linking to her -- and often return the favour if she found we had something in common that she could share with her readers in turn.
And this leads me on to my final point, to what I have come to believe was and still is my main motivation for blogging: a desire to share. The web is home to many wondrous things, and having a blog seemed to be a way for me to point my friends towards some of those things that I considered worthy of their attention.
That's still the case today, really, both here - where I can be more wordy if I choose - and at horreo.org - where I simply point and say, "Go!"
At the end of the day, as my friend observed, it's just links.
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Rolling and tumbling
In case you were wondering why I haven't posted anything here in a while (and if you weren't, why not?), let it be known that I haven't been idle.
My tumblelog horreo.org is where I've been doing most of my blogging lately, however. Please take a look!
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My new tumblelog
I'm experimenting with the quick-and-dirty posting style of a tumblelog over at horreo.org.
I'll continue posting longer entries here if I ever have to anything to say that can't be summed up in a pithy sentence or two.
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Carnival of the Mobilists 64 at m-trends.org
It's been a while since I've linked to a Carnival of the Mobilists, but Rudy De Waele's done a great job this week hosting Carnival #64 at m-trends.org. I mean, he even manages to mention Jean Baudrillard for goodness sake!
(In a related post at Click Opera, Momus also has an interesting comparison of the difference between the French obituaries of Baudrillard and the Anglo-Saxon ones.)
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A beautiful revolution
I don't know what to say, other than that A beautiful revolution is the best blog I've stumbled across in a long time.
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Because links (and love) are what makes the world go round
Because it's good to share.
Because the web is not just about the English language.
Because you don't have to be a native speaker to have a thought-provoking blog in English.
Because links (and love) are what makes the world go round.
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MobileSunday Barcelona 2.0
Sign up now for MobileSunday Barcelona 2.0!
When I attended the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona last February, I thought it might be fun to get together with a few mobile bloggers beforehand and "have a chat about all things mobile". I put up a wiki page for the occasion (which I decided to call MobileSunday), invited along two or three friends, and sent out a couple of emails to set the word-of-blog wheels in motion.
Frankly, my only real goal for the evening was to have a beer or two with Rudy De Waele, who helped me find a suitable bar for our gathering since I'd moved away from Barcelona in 2001 - which meant that his knowledge of the nightlife in the Catalan capital was much more contemporary than mine. As it turned out, more than fifty of us ended up squeezing into Café Schilling on Carrer Ferran, where the fun lasted until well into the wee small hours.
And that was just the beginning of a great, great week.
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So, 3GSM is almost upon us again. While work commitments mean I won't be able to make it to Barcelona this time round, Rudy has convinced me that our little event was fun enough to be worth repeating.
If you want to kick off your week at 3GSM by attending "an unofficial, informal and generally cool and funky gathering of mobile bloggers and their chums", simply add your name to the MobileSunday Barcelona wiki and turn up on the night. Don't tell anyone, but I hear there may even be some free beer this time round - courtesy of MyStrands.
*
As I said, I won't be in Barcelona this year, but I still hope to participate on the night in a non-presential, 21st-century mobile kind of way. Stay tuned for more details.
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Top five Windows Vista resources
As Derek announces on our Unofficial Vista blog, "we're a top 5 Windows Vista resource", according to PC Magazine.
Nice!
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"Have a phenomenal Christmas"
If you know me at all well, you'll know that I'm never one to miss a chance to mention (or drink) Irn-Bru.
With that in mind, have "a phenomenal Christmas"!
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Via edublogs
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Unofficial Vista blog tour, day 5
Today our little tour is visiting Relaciones Públicas, the blog of Madrid-based PR blogger Octavio Rojas, where I've written a short post on how feedback received from the blogging community may or may not have helped shape the final version of Vista.
I wrote my post in Spanish - with a couple of corrections from Octavio - but I've provided an English translation as well in case any anglosajones happen to drop by.
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Bill Gates for president?
It seems Dilbert creator Scott Adams is not the only person who thinks this might be a good idea.
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The rules have changed, but...
The rules have changed, but some people still don't get it.
Weblogs SL is a Spanish company that publishes a series of topic-based blogs in the style of Gawker Media and Weblogs, Inc. One of Weblogs SL's titles is Vidaextra, a blog about video games.
Julio Alonso, the man behind Weblogs SL, writes an interesting post on his personal blog today about how Electronic Arts has blacklisted Weblogs SL for publishing bad reviews about its products, despite the fact that the blog in question receives more than 700,000 visits a month and that EA is objecting to four bad reviews over a period of two years, yet seems to have forgotten about the hundreds of positive articles Vidaextra has written about its games during that time.
Don't the people who work at Electronic Arts in Spain realise that the days when a company could control what the media - especially the online media - has to say about it are long gone (if indeed they ever existed)?
"If you don't say consistently nice things about us, we're not going to send you any more products for review." Frankly, that's just ridiculous.
Tell them where to stick it, Julio!
Update (1 December): Corrected Julio's name.
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Unofficial Vista blog tour, day 3
Today's stopping-off point on the Unofficial Vista blog tour is Naked Translations, where I discuss how IE7 uses Punycode to help protect users against domain spoofing. There's even a version française.
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Whose blog is it anyway?
My guest post at Petite Anglaise, written as part of the virtual blog tour I am currently undertaking with Derek Torres to promote our book The Unofficial Guide to Windows Vista, has provoked some pretty strong reactions from her readers.
As I understand it, their main objection seems to be that I have taken advantage of Petite's audience to try to sell a product (did they notice the Sponsors section in her sidebar before accusing her of selling out by publishing my post?). Some commenters also seem to confuse Derek and me, two humble technical writers, with Microsoft, the company everyone loves to hate - a fact which clearly doesn't help matters, not least because it makes them think I'm promoting Vista itself rather than our book.
Surely it is up to Petite what she decides to publish on her blog, be it paid advertising, giving a helping hand to a friend or whatever else she chooses to write about.
Also, let me be clear about one thing. I am visiting five blogs on our tour, and I know each of the bloggers who are hosting me personally. Every single one of them, including Petite. That's what I'm taking advantage of - some of the many online and real world friendships that having a blog for over five years now has allowed me to form.
Finally, rather than clashing with the content that the readers of these blogs are used to finding (in the case of Petite, "a slice of life and a serving of self-indulgent navel gazing"), it was my intention to write posts that would link the topic of Windows Vista with whatever each host blogger normally writes about. Fortunately, at least some of Petite's readers seemed to find what I wrote worthwhile. One commenter even said she was going to forward the post to a friend, which, I hope you'll agree, more than makes up for being called "a cheap slime".
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Unofficial Vista blog tour, day 2
Today I'm visiting Neville Hobson's blog and trying to defend the indefensible in Does IE7 suck?
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Unofficial Vista blog tour, day 1
I'm flogging The Unofficial Guide to Windows Vista over at Petite Anglaise today, where I've written a guest post to tell a fellow parent how we can use Parental Controls in Windows Vista to stop our kids doing naughty things with our PCs.
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I would like to share this with you
In the absence of any real blogging from me this past wee while, here are a few delights from my RSS reader that I'd like to share with you.
Enjoy!
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Top French blogs: Blethers just in at 95
I was tickled to see Blethers is at number 95 in Alianzo's list of what they consider to the Top 100 blogs in France, just four places behind Guillaume du Gardier's PR Thoughts and, surprisingly, one place above Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda Schulz.
Apparently this ranking is based on Technorati, Google and Yahoo! links, the blog's position in Alexa and the number of RSS subscribers it has in Bloglines. Like all such rankings, it should of course be taken with a pinch of salt. The true measure of a blog's quality is what its readers get out of reading it - nothing more, nothing less.
But still, I'm sure my mother will be very proud.
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Blogs. La conversación
For a couple of weeks now I've had an email sitting in my inbox from Octavio Rojas letting me know about the upcoming blogging event he's organizing in Madrid for 19 October, Blogs. La conversación.
I told Octavio I'd give the event a mention here but I've been too busy to translate his announcement, and now Guillaume Du Gardier has beaten me to it (more or less)!
Sorry Octavio :-)
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Did you check your typing speed lately?
I'm off to download WPM Tray so I can quantify my boasts about how nimble fingered I am.
Obsessed with your typing speed? Free, open source program WPM Tray sits in your system tray and keeps track of your words-per-minute in real time, graphing your speed over time.
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Got things done
As Mr Torres announces on our book blog, we have now completed our work on the Unofficial Guide to Windows Vista.
Phew!
And for my next trick...?
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Bloggin in Scots
Whar's aa the blogs in Scots?
(Matthew Fitt, ye up fir it? Mibbe yersel an ane or twa ithers?)
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A little bit of this and a little bit of that
I'm cleaning out my bookmarks.
- The Rise of Crowdsourcing: "Remember outsourcing? Sending jobs to India and China is so 2003. The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D".
- Hello, world!: "A visual code for Google Earth"
- MyTunesRSS: "MyTunesRSS is an application for accessing your iTunes library from any computer connected through a network."
- Paris Inconnu: Walks through the parts of Paris tourists don't normally see
- "School in France is different"
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New feeds - please update
blethers.com/weblog can now be found at blethers.com.
This feed has moved to http://feeds.feedburner.com/blethers.
I hope you take the time to resubscribe.
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La rentrée
I've been asked by quite a few people whether I've given up blogging. In response to the most recent enquiry, I even replied that I wasn't sure myself. There's been a blog at this domain since September 2001, so surely after five years I was entitled to a short sabbatical, but still... it's been a while.
"I don't think it's over between me and blogs," I said defensively, but I couldn't contest the fact that the time since my last post was getting longer by the second, and the hiatus was starting to look less and less like the temporary break I had originally planned to take while I was "extremely busy with work".
Yes, I admit, even I was beginning to suspect that Blethers.com was about to become yet another dead blog clogging up the web. But here I am. The lure of the blog has proved too strong to resist, and I'm back with a new design and, hopefully, with something worthwhile to say.
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A drawing a day
Sculptor Stéphane Gantlet is selling a drawing a day on eBay, each with a starting price of just €1.50 and - best of all - drawn on Moleskine paper.
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Office hours in France
I had lunch yesterday with one of the guys behind LAC Media, a highly informative website about the ins and outs of setting up as an independent contractor in the United States. He wanted to know about freelance life here in France, and seemed to think I might know something about it.
One thing that came up during our conversation that particularly surprised him was the long hours people work in French offices. Like most of his compatriots, he had been led to believe that office life in France was based around the 35-hour week. And it is, in the sense that your salary is based on working 35 hours a week (or something close to that) and you do get time off every now and then to make up for the fact that your official working day may be slightly more than that.
What is not so well-known is that everyone - everyone - works longer hours as a matter of course. In any French office I've ever worked in, the only people who leave before 6pm are working mothers rushing home to collect their children from some form of child care. Leaving before 7pm is just about acceptable, as long as you know that it's not something you can do every day and you should stay longer in "emergencies". People regularly stay until much later than that - I've missed the last metro home on more than one occasion.
Could this be the reason that France is more productive than the United States?
I remember working in Switzerland for a few days and being amazed to look up from my desk at just after 5pm to find the open-plan office I was in was virtually deserted. I remember going to a job interview in Bristol in England one evening and nearly being trampled to death by the surge of people pouring out of their offices at 5.30pm. Indeed, in my European experience, only Spanish working hours can compete with the French in terms of I-can-stay-later-than-you bravado.
And at least in Spain they take a decent lunch break.
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Put your money where Kottke's mouth is
Jason Kottke is becoming a full-time blogger.
Anil Dash explains why he's supporting Jason's bold move with cold hard cash.
You should do the same, if you can.
As Anil says,
I want the people who get quoted about being professsional bloggers to be people who really love the web, not just people who love what the web can do for their careers, or their notoriety, or for their causes. I don't want people to start blogging merely so they can "graduate" to television or print, though I certainly am glad that there are people who do so. I just want to make sure that there's some representation for people who still get excited about what the web can be, and are still looking to find out what the web is becoming next.
Show him the money!
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The launch of Blogging Planet
Yesterday saw the launch of Blogging Planet, "a new consultancy dedicated to training organizations how to build new organizational communication networks" run by some of the people who are putting together the New Communications Forum , where I'll be leading a workshop on Writing For Blogs next month.
They're already raising some interesting questions.
The question of content is one of the major barriers to adoption for blogging and other new communications tools, as people ask:
- What shall I write about?
- What can't I write about?
- What are others writing about my company?
- How can I stop them?
We believe that this focus on content is preventing people from seeing the more important issue: the value derived through the creation, maintenance and use of a powerful network of ongoing conversations amongst the widest possible audience, all leading in one form or another back to your organization.
"How can I stop them?": excellent!
I'm not really adding much of value by reiterating that blogs are all about conversations - you know that already. But it bears repeating, especially in the world of corporate communications where far too many companies are locked in to the old top-down mentality of wanting to control everything being said about them. It's heartening to see new initiatives like this one working to change people's attitudes.
I wish Elizabeth, Christophe, Guillaume and Neville all the very best in their new endeavour!
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A business trip to London
I've been too busy to sit down and configure Flickr for posting to my moblog, so you'll just have to make do with this manually-uploaded cameraphone view of a business trip to London for now.
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Snowprint
And I thought it was cold yesterday.
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Snowleaf
A cold morning in Paris.
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Enlarge your bookmarks with BlogMarks
I'm too busy to blog, but not too busy to congratulate my neighbour Fran\'e7ois on the launch of BlogMarks, a new service in the del.icio.us vein where, as I described it in my own first BlogMark, "the bookmark meets the blog".
Right, back to work.
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Shrove
If you think shrove is a cool word, let me assure you that shrovetide is even better.
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OSN 2005
I just signed up for OSN 2005, the online social networks conference taking place from February 9-23 in a web browser near you.
That's right, the conference is actually taking place online - which I suppose makes perfect sense given its subject matter.
I'll be interested to see how important timezones are in determining what I get out of the whole thing - do we all need to join the Eastern Standard Tribe?
Still, ike Elizabeth, I too am a big Howard Rheingold fan, and I'm pretty confident his keynotes alone will be worth staying up late for.
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Blogs & street marketing (and a trip to outer space)
I got an email today from Rob Davis, who I doubt is a regular reader of this blog, about a promotional contest being organised by Volvo.
Stuart,
I thought your blog readers would go for this contest -- Volvo and Virgin Galactic are giving away a seat on Virgin's premier flight to space.
The contest will begin following Volvo's Super Bowl ad in the 3rd quarter of the Bowl on Sunday.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Jan/gee20050204028993.htm
Regards,
Rob Davis
Minneapolis
Has Rob been reading what Laurent Bervas has to say about blogs & street marketing?
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RSS feeds for Scottish government press releases
The Scottish Executive website now features RSS feeds of all its latest press releases.
I wonder if this will get a mention at the conference Loïc Le Meur is organising on Blogs and Politics next week.
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Found via dwlt.net, the blog that is also home to Tapestry, a series of RSS feeds for online comics
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Why the Mac Mini is so cheap
In Mac Mini: The Emperor's New Computer, Jorge Lopez, MCSE explains how Apple have managed keep the price of their new mini computer so low.
Don\rquote t get me wrong, I am an admirer of Apple\rquote s iPod and I applaud the company for doing things right when it does. I am glad to see that they have found a way to cut corners where they can to bring the price of their computers out of the stratosphere and somewhat closer to the price of a Windows PC. By leaving out a USB keyboard and monitor, two things you may already have if you have an old Mac, Apple can shave some money off the price of its system components and the size and weight of its packaging. By using cheap Asian child labor to assemble the units, costs have been reduced even further. I would like to see them continue this trend, possibly strike a deal with China to use inmates to assemble the Mini for even less, like Lenovo does.
From the same site: Abu Ghraib and Other "Abuse" Photos: Why is the liberal media obsessed with torture?
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Found via Joi Ito
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The Moleskine blog
Got a Moleskine notebook? Got a blog? Why not combine the two to create a blog in your Moleskine?
If that sounds just a wee bit extreme, you may find this hack for keeping your pen with your Moleskine of slightly more practical use.
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Found via Moleskinerie
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Cada loco con su tema
Rising Slowly - the UK weather blog.
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Found via Heiko Hebig
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Writing For Blogs I: A blog is for life, not just for Christmas
I was looking for information about Swatch's Internet Time (don't ask!) and came across two amusing blog posts by Tom Coates (Internet Time (Part One) and Internet Time (Part Two)) on this very subject.
Nothing unusual about that, you may be thinking - except that the posts in question were written in January 2000.
That's right, five whole years ago!
In "Internet Time", that's almost prehistory. How many bloggers have been writing that long? Even Tom himself seems surprised by the mass of words he has generated on his blog.
Such longevity is something many bloggers would do well to bear in mind when composing their next post. Of course, your blog could disappear tomorrow, but what you're writing today may still be around online years from now (don't forget the Wayback Machine). Will you still be able to stand behind what you're saying? Your ideas may evolve in the meantime, but will you at least be able to say that what you're writing and publishing today is a valid representation of your ideas and opinions at this particular point in time?
I think it all comes down to something I've mentioned before - writing honestly and in your own voice. That's going be my core message in the Writing For Blogs workshop I'll be leading at the New Communications Forum in April, for which this post is the first in an-ongoing series where I'll be gathering my thoughts (and, hopefully, your comments) on how to write for blogs.
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Jacques Villeret - un sacré con
One of the first French films I found funny - real, laugh-out-loud, tears-in-your-eyes funny - was Le Dîner de Cons (called The Dinner Game in English). The star of this film, Jacques Villeret, died on Friday at the age of just 53.
Le Dîner de Cons was shown on French TV again tonight in tribute to Villeret and, if anything, I laughed even more than I did when I first saw it. The man was undoubtedly a comic genius.
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The Voice of the Blog: research project
I'm going to be meeting Jeffrey Hill in a few days to share my thoughts about blogging and how it relates to my work as an independent communications consultant, as part of his research project The Voice of the Blog.
The purpose of this weblog to act as a resource bank for the research project I am currently working on. The provisional title is "The Voice of the Blog: An Investigation into the Attitudes, Perceptions and Practices of Small Business Bloggers." I'm planning to interview a number of SBBs and would love to hear from anyone who would be interested in taking part.
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NewCommForum in Napa
Over at PR Thoughts, Guillaume du Gardier has a nice round-up of all the blog posts he has found about the New Communications Forum held in Napa, California this week.
Don't forget that I'll be leading the "Writing For Blogs" workshop at the European leg of the NewCommForum's Blog University, which will take place in Paris on 5-6 April 2005.
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Paris - Vigo
The ever-fascinating Jean-Michel Gobet (of 09h09 fame) has started yet another blog, this time a photoblog in which he swaps pictures of Paris and pictures of Vigo with a friend who lives in Galicia.
I especially like this one: Vigo - Magritte.
For more photos of Vigo, visit Vigo en fotos. For more photos of Paris, this is as good a place to start as any.
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American Music Club at the Café de la Danse
I saw American Music Club play at the Café de la Danse last night.
To tell you what it was like, all I really need to say is that I spent most of the evening standing between Karel Beer and a woman who was sketching singer Mark Eitzel in a moleskine notebook.
I could also add that the first song they played ground to a halt after little more than one verse, when Mark's concentration was broken by a photographer who came in too close for comfort ("I'm an ugly man, but I'm also a vain man - and that's a problem," he said with a nervous laugh), and the last song they played before the encores did likewise when he forgot the words and walked off in disgust. With himself, as usual.
Introducing "Patriot's Heart", Mark said: "Today is a special day for us Americans. For the first time ever, we have elected a fascist government. Sieg Heil, Mr Bush. I hope you die today."
His mind was obviously elsewhere, but that doesn't mean the concert was without its moments of beauty. They played "Another Morning", as I'd hoped - they played "Firefly" and it was like 1988.
The evening ended with me sitting outside the concert hall scribbling some notes for this post in my own moleskine notebook. Bass player Danny Pearson came out with a glass of wine in his hand, I made an expansive gesture and said, "Here are all your fans" (we were the only two people in the street), and he laughed and walked off into the night.
And, really, that is all I needed to say to tell you what it was like.
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Bloggers now as influential as journalists!
Don't worry, this isn't going to be yet another post about whether or not blogging is the new journalism (for the record, blogging isn't the new anything).
What I want to do is share an exciting discovery I've made over the last few days - for certain communications professionals, bloggers now seem to be as valid an target audience as journalists.
How do I know this? Because a computer security firm from Baton Rouge, Florida has started sending me its press releases.
I know for a fact that it's not random spam, as I've been receiving it at an address I've only ever used as my contact address here on my blog (I have other addresses for harvesting spam). So somebody somewhere must have visited this blog at least once and decided that I would be interested in hearing about the latest news from the world of corporate firewalls. Even more amazingly, this unknown person also decided that you, dear reader, would be interested in reading my thoughts on the latest news from the world of corporate firewalls. Are you really? (If you are, I hear that these guys know a lot about it.)
When even a minor league blog like mine (2,000-3,000 page views a month and rising!) starts being targetted by corporate press teams, this to me is as clear a validation of blogs as a communications channel as the fact that the vice-chairman of General Motors now has a blog.
And, needless to say, it also does wonders for my ego.
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The media-on-demand-and-when-allowed / sociability-by-prior-arrangement world we live in
Tom Dolan at Blatant Optimism has a cunning plan - he's going to start taking DVDs to work and watching them in his lunch hour, while his "missus" does the same.
You can explore all the films you've ever wanted to, two by two, without having to worry about how long it takes you to watch them, and then talk about them with other people, in a metaphor ideally suited to the media-on-demand-and-when-allowed / sociability-by-prior-arrangement world we seem to be moving towards as mid-30s parents.
I just love that phrase - media-on-demand-and-when-allowed / sociability-by-prior-arrangement. It speaks to my very soul.
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The return of the 18th century coffee house
David Galbraith points us to an interesting article in Wired on a startup that works out of a coffee shop.
After a false start with 'hot desking' in the 90's freely available wifi, laptops and cellphones really do mean that in some case you can work anywhere. In this case, history has come full circle with some of the biggest institutions in the world, such as Lloyd's insurance, having been started in 18th century coffee houses.
I spend half an hour in my local café most mornings, reading email on my mobile phone and planning the day ahead. I suppose taking my laptop with me and working all the way through to lunchtime is just the logical next step.
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Blogs in business
Loïc Le Meur, who I interviewed here on Blethers back in the days when he was still relatively new to the blogging world, is putting on a conference in Paris on the subject of "Blogs en entreprises" (or "Blogs in business", if you prefer).
The roll-call of speakers looks very impressive - including Mena Trott, co-founder of Six Apart; Michel de Guilhermier, CEO of online photo laboratory Photoways and committed blogger; and Fran\'e7ois Nonnenmacher, corporate webmaster at Capgemeni and "padawan learner" - and I'm looking forward to being one of the hundreds in attendance (285 signed-up at the time of writing!) at the H\'f4tel Royal Garden tomorrow evening.
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The artist's cottage
Would you like to spend a night in a cottage designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh?
It almost seems worth joining the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society to be able to do so.
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Found via Armin Grewe, who has a lot more information on Mackintosh for anyone who's interested.
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American Music Club in Paris
American Music Club are playing in Paris on Thursday 20 January, at the Caf\'e9 de la Danse.
Great!
I hope they play Another Morning, my favourite song from their latest album Love Songs For Patriots.
Nothing ever seems to make you happy.
Are you miserable, babe,
or are you just plain mean?
Is there no joy in you?
Well, come on, don't keep me waiting.
...
There must have been a short five minutes somewhere in your youth
when you laughed like water breaking over the broken land,
when you laughed like the wind burning the sun blind on your face,
when you laughed like water breaking over the broken dam,
when you laughed like the starting gun at the start of the race.
...
It's when you wake up and you're glad that you're breathing.
It's when you wake up and you're glad that you're living.
Well, that's another morning.
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Strawberries
Did you know that there's a Strawberry Museum in Plougastel, in the region of Finistère in Brittany? You do now.
Did you know that two students from Plougastel went on a journey to follow in the footsteps of Amédée-François Frézier, the sailor who, in the 18th century, brought the first strawberry to reach French shores all the way from Chile to Plougastel? You do now.
I guess that must be why strawberries are called fraises in French.
Now you know.
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Decisions
Hmm, they do look pretty.
Can I justify buying one?
Update (later the same day): As they did last year when the iPod mini was launched, Europeans are already complaining about price differences between Europe and the United States.
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Tartiflette
From time to time, my local cheese shop organises tasting events where selected producers are invited to let us sample their speciality cheeses.
Next week sees the return of Philippe, "The King of the Tartiflette", who will be coming all the way from "la region nantaise" to prepare for us this hearty dish of potatoes, reblochon cheese and cr\'e8me fraiche. He will be in the shop on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 January - and I know what I'll be having for lunch on those days.
Click the image for a larger version
For a professional communicator like me, it's also heartening to see small businesses like my local cheese shop making use of web-based marketing tools. They have a mailing-list that I subscribe to, and it was in the latest edition of their email newsletter that I heard about Philippe's upcoming visit.
The shop manager is also the driving force behind our local website Belleville-village.com, which I've written about before, and the next time I'm in buying a piece of stilton (which I do just to annoy the French), I must try to convince him to start a cheese blog.
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Fromagerie Beillevaire
140, rue de Belleville
75020 Paris
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DIY micro-payment
If your content is worth paying for, take a look at TKPal as a way of handling your own micro-payment using PayPal and TypeKey.
TKPal is a snippet of PHP code you can place in a PHP enabled page to restrict access to content to TypeKey users who have specifically paid to see that content.
Don't worry, I'm not going to suddenly start charging you $1,500 to read a single page.
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Found via the linklog at plasticbag.org
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This post is in Beta
The bastardization of beta contains some thoughtful insight on how the term "beta" has lost its meaning, at least on the web.
Once I started working with software companies myself, I not only became reluctant to pay for the "beta" version of any product, I even tended to shy away from 1.0 releases - or x.0 releases for that matter, since all major updates are risky. Most software undergoes a good few minor upgrades before it gets anywhere near stable.
(I have more to say on this topic, but am publishing a "beta" version of this post while I clarify my thoughts. Feel free to comment anyway - you usually talk more sense than I do.)
--
Found via the linklog at plasticbag.org
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Broadcast democracy at last?
Armin Grewe has an amusing view of podcasting.
Well, it made me laugh anyway.
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Beautiful music, beautiful images
Hidden away on the Craig Armstrong website is a trailer for a film by David Bernard that is described as "a hommage to Paris and Craig Armstrong".
I challenge you to watch it and fail to be moved by its beauty. I simply must find this film on DVD.
Sadly, I say it is "hidden away" because finding the trailer is a challenge in itself - a site with unlabelled buttons and no direct links is just being wilfully obscure. At the time of writing, the one you're looking for is the sixth button from the right, "Piano Works Film Trailer".
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Shepherd's delight
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Not waving but drowning!
I'm writing a book that goes to the printers next week.
Please bear with me if my blogging is a little thin on the ground between now and then.
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Know your audience
I just noticed that the number of people subscribing to my RSS feeds has shot up over the past few days - if you can call going from half a dozen subscribers in Bloglines to nearly twenty shooting up.
Who are these people?
Where did they come from?
When you're a writer, one of the first things you learn is to know your audience. I know I'd definitely be interested in finding out more about those crazy folks who have recently decided to join the Blethers family.
So, if that's you, firstly let me thank you for stopping by. And now that you're here, why not say hello and leave a link to your own blog so we can all come round to your place and carry on the party over there?
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Anders will donate a dollar on your behalf
Anders Jacobsen has pledged to donate one dollar to help the tsunami victims for every blogger who includes the following links on his or her blog.
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For immediate release
Could this be the excuse I need to look for an iPod in the January sales?
For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report is the weekly podcast of Neville Hobson, ABC, and Shel Holtz, ABC, a pair of communication professionals who think they have something to say.
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Itchy Coo
Waiting in my inbox when I got back from my holiday was an email from Matthew Fitt wishing me a "guid New Year".
Matthew Fitt, for those of you that don't know him,
... made his name with a science-fiction novel written in Scots and for the past two years he's been writing and publishing "braw books for bairns o aw ages" through his Itchycoo [sic] imprint.
Matthew and James Robertson, his partner at Itchy Coo, have cleverly realised that the best way to promote Scots is to encourage its use amongst children. And they do so by publishing books that are actually fun to read, rather than dry and dusty old poetry of the sort I had to read whenever my own teachers remembered their Scottish heritage (usually around the 25th of January).
They have a great collection of ghost stories, Gaberlunzie Joe's Pure Ghosters, that I even own myself (am I too old, Matthew?) and I note with pride that the latest collection of what the Itchycooers call their "manky mingin rhymes" is named, in what is obviously a nod to this site, Blethertoun Braes.
So, to mark this event, I've written a "manky mingin rhyme" myself, which you can read below.
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A MANNIE IN A BURNIE
A mannie in a burnie
catchin fishies in his mooth
gied a great big muckle sneeze
an - Wheech! - a puddock shot right oot!
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Skimpy clothes
For better or worse, I'm back after spending two weeks in wild West Wales.
And here's one I missed during the Christmas break: my name in Periodista Digital!
If you're willing to sign up at the site (and scroll all the way to the foot of the page), you can read the article in question yourself.
Alternatively, you can view this carefully cropped screenshot in which "Stuart Mudie" appears only inches away from pechos grandes, ropa corta ("big breasts, skimpy clothes") - although, if I'm not mistaken, that may be another article.
(If you don't speak Spanish, it's all to do with my upcoming participation at the New Communications Forum.)
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Footprints on the beach
Wiseman's Bridge, Pembrokeshire
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Boxing Day swim at Tenby
The sight of hundreds of crazed Tenbians rushing into the sea for the annual Boxing Day swim went a long way towards confirming what I've always thought about Pembrokeshire folk - they're mad!
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The finest drink in the world
Irn-Bru
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Christmas in Kilgetty
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Bladerunner
... or Charles de Gaulle airport?
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Tim Burton goes wonky
I hope my daughter's ready to start going to the cinema when this comes out - "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", remade by Tim Burton with Johnny Depp in the role of Willy Wonka.
It can only be magnificent!
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Found via groc's bloggette
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A windy day in Paris: Video blogging comes to Blethers.com
This, my first experiment in video blogging, is a short, 11 second (95kb) clip taken from my living room window of a windy day in Paris.
It's a 3gp file, "the new mobile phone video format", and you may need a plug-in to play it on RealPlayer, Quicktime or your media player of preference.
For me, it launches automatically in Internet Explorer, but not in Firefox, so some research would still seem to be in order.
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Scots cuisine, and French school dinners
I've never eaten (or even seen) a deep-fried Mars Bar, that supposedly traditional Scots "delicacy", but I accept that the Scots diet is not exactly the healthiest in the world.
An article in today's Guardian reports, however, that English school dinners are even worse.
Turkey meals produced by Bernard Matthews are still being served up to English pupils - even though they fail healthy eating guidelines established for Scottish primary schools.
At least 12 Scottish local authorities have dropped the company's products - turkey Twizzlers, burgers and nuggets - from their school menus.
Living in France, I am pleased to say that my daughter, who is not yet two years old, already enjoys a wide range of cheeses (including roquefort, which she loves), often has veal for lunch at the cr\'e8che, and has never touched a chicken nugget in her life.
Read what Maciej Ceglowski had to say about the magnificence of French school dinners during the French week on his blog last year to get an idea of what French schoolchildren are fed. They eat better than I do!
I wonder if celebrity chef Jamie Oliver visited any French schools when he decided to take on the challenge of "tarting up school dinners" at a London comprehensive. Like many of the projects that Jamie gets involved in, the charge that it's as much about self-publicizing as anything else - which may well be true, but who cares? - doesn't take away from the fact that he is bringing some much needed attention to the debate.
However, when the schoolchildren who are presented with the meals he concocted make comments like "I think the new food is disgusting. I'd rather eat sausage and chips," you begin to get an idea just how far he has to go.
All the way over the Channel, perhaps.
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Guardian article and coronary heart disease figures found via Complete Tosh
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Christmas comes to Rue de Belleville (II)
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Does modesty work well in PR?
I've been invited to participate in the New Communications Forum that's taking place in Paris in February next year.
[ Update, 11 January: The European leg of the Forum is now taking place in April (April 5-6, 2005) ]
I'm being modest, so I'll leave it to Guillaume to tell you all about it.
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An authentic blogging voice
I agree completely with what Neville Hobson has to say in response to the question "What if you're not the world's best writer but you still want to blog: what are your options?".
There's one thing that matters above all when writing a blog, and that's finding an "authentic" voice. Your voice.
I was talking to someone the other day about CEOs having a publicist ghost write their blogs for them. To my mind, that goes completely against the idea of what blogging is all about. Even blogging in a corporate context - in fact, especially blogging in a corporate context.
What you need to be a blogger are opinions, and lots of them.
As Neville Hobson says, "If you have thoughts, write them." Your voice will soon come through, and people will appreciate and trust it all the more for the very fact that you don't write like a press release.
--
This post is dedicated to all my friends and family who are tired of me going on at them to start a blog.
Just do it!
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Christmas comes to Rue de Belleville
It may not be much, but it's home.
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Flickr Zeitgeist
The graphic below shows a collection of some of the most recent photos taken by my group of contacts on Flickr. (Update: Despite the fact that I'm using the script to display only photos from my contacts, it seems to insist on showing everyone's photos - whatever, there are still some great images in there.)
I'm just playing around with it for now, but if I decide I like the result I may end up adding this to my sidebar as a free way of taking advantage of other people's hard work.
What do you think?
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First seen on Microcosmos
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MT-Blacklist makes a welcome return
The wonder of Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist Plugin is well documented. This tool for fighting comment spam in weblogs that run on Movable Type is so effective that Six Apart, the company that makes MT, even ended up hiring its author.
So ... if I know all this, why has it taken me until today to install an updated version of the plugin that works with MT 3.1?
Frankly, I have no idea, other than to say that I must be fool.
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One just in
It's not often I enjoy spam, but I have just received a particularly poetic message encouraging me to buy "brand new legal software at affordable prices" rather than the pirated software the writer of the email seems to assume my machine is filled with.
The subject of this email?
No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.
Beautiful! If somewhat ironic given the context.
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The secrets of the French language revealed!
I see that the proofreaders who work on the website of French newspaper Le Monde have a blog, Langue sauce piquante.
I have a neighbour who writes for Le Monde. We're supposed to be going out for dinner with her and her husband this weekend, so I must remember to ask if she knows the people behind this fascinating, exquisitely written (bien-sûr) new blog so she can tell them they have a fan - even if he is a Scot.
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Blogs and PR and how everything's changing
I had lunch today with Guillaume du Gardier of PR Planet, a Paris-based PR agency focusing on technology-based communication tools and new media such as blogs and RSS. Guillaume is also the man behind the CEO Bloggers' Club and is currently busy organizing the European leg of the upcoming New Communications Forum: Blog University.
We had a very interesting chat about blogs and their impact on PR, and how everything's changing and the press release is effectively dead.
I can see how Guillaume might have trouble convincing his French clients that blogs are the future of PR, however - or rather, that they are one of the futures of PR. My own experience of French companies - even in the hi-tech field - is that they often seem to be quite cautious and conservative. But Guillaume has a real passion for blogs, and if anyone can bring the ideas of the Cluetrain Manifesto and Gonzo Marketing to the French PR world, I'm sure he's the one to do it.
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The custard slice
... to end all custard slices.
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O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum
... wie treu sind deine Blätter!
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Garagardo bat, mesedez
My Basque doesn't go much beyond "Garagardo bat, mesedez", and the last time I tried to order a beer using that expression in a Basque bar here in Paris, the barman apologised for not speaking Basque - he was from the "French Basque Country" himself - and asked me if I was from Donostia.
I am reminded of this anecdote by a post on Transblawg about the website for the Association of Translators, Intrepreters and Correctors of the Basque language. As Margaret says, "It\rquote s good to see the letter Z getting the exercise it deserves."
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TypePad and MT powered moblogs
Never one to turn town free publicity, I have added my moblog to this list of TypePad and MT powered moblogs.
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The Parisian postal shrug
Live in Paris for more than a couple of months and you too will learn the Parisian postal shrug. It's the only way to surive!
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Last.FM
I know I'm late to the party, but here's what I'm listening to over at the "personalised online radio station" Last.FM.
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Christmas is coming, Stuart is getting fat
We bought a (plastic) Christmas tree today, the first I have ever owned, and I was seriously tempted to buy one of these very tasteful mobile phones to hang from it.
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Nice idea
David Galbraith has an idea so nice I can't believe that Apple isn't working on it already: the iPhone.
Update, 28 November 2004: Russell Beattie has some thoughts on Apple and mobile phones too. And a lot of comments in response to his post.
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O final de uma era
Mau has left the building!
Durante mais de três anos maltratei a língua portuguesa, a paciência de meia dúzia de infelizes leitores e, afinal, a minha paciência também. Não criei movimentos, não participei de passeatas, não tive idéias geniais. Minha opinião sobre qualquer assunto não vale um mísero segundo da atenção de quem quer que seja (e nem acho que valha, por sinal ? esta foi só uma constatação óbvia do exercício bloguístico).
As one of the dirty half dozen, I have but one thing to say - "Um abraçao, amigo".
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TreeHugger
TreeHugger is the definitive, modern yet green lifestyle filter. It will help you improve your course, yet still maintain your aesthetic.
I'm sure you will be hard pushed to find grass on the tram tracks in Barcelona and disolving underwear in such close proximity anywhere else.
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Like a Spanish cow
"Parler comme une vache espagnole" - speaking like a Spanish cow - is the charming phrase used by the French to describe anyone who mangles their glorious language.
I was reminded of this expression the other day when the cleaning lady at my daughter's cr\'e8che asked me if I was a Spaniard, since it seems my accent in French resembles that of one of her neighbours, who is Spanish.
While secretly feeling a kind of perverse pride that at least I didn't have a typically British accent, I was still surprised that she would take me for a Spaniard. Eight years living in Spain is a long time and must certainly have left some traces, but surely the twenty one years I spent growing up in Scotland must count for something as well - especially since it was in Scotland that I first studied French.
Frankly, what worries me most of all is that I will end up speaking Spanish like a Frenchman. Mon Dieu, anything but that!
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The broken tooth, or literature-loving CEOs
Via a post on the blog of Mihai Crasneanu, CEO of the online DVD rental firm Glowria, I have just discovered the work of Venezuelan writer Pedro Emilio Coll (1872-1947) - in particular, the wonderful short story El Diente Roto (The Broken Tooth).
Mihai has even gone to the trouble of translating El Diente Roto into French, for the hispanically-challenged among us. If you are both hispanically-challenged and gallically-challenged, I can only suggest you use the services of that fine French and Spanish to English translator, Mr Jeremy Smith - or Stuart Mudie Communications, of course.
Disclaimer: I too have a broken front tooth.
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The tech-support generation
We are the tech-support generation.
Next week, millions of college students and young professionals will head home for the Thanksgiving holidays. We\rquote ll sit with our families in warm, candle-lit dining rooms eating stuffed turkey, reminiscing over old photographs, preparing holiday shopping lists and \'85 Please. Let\rquote s be frank. We are going home to fix our parents' computers.
Fortunately for me, in this respect if not in others, my parents and I live in different countries. Even so, I still get the odd question over the phone, but most of the grunt work falls to my poor brother, to whom I am eternally grateful for shouldering this burden.
Of course, once either of them finds out about Remote Desktop, I'm done for.
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Found via Oliver Thylmann
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Bait'n'Switch
You know it makes sense.
Kind of.
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Falling asleep at the back of the class
I have to pay more attention. Hugh Macleod has been in Paris and I missed him.
Had I known, I'd have tried to arrange to bump into him at one of those bars that "are open till 6 or 7 here". Maybe our paths will cross next time he's in town.
Hugh's impressions of France raise a very interesting point.
I am not dissing The French. I just think they're more concerned with preserving what they've got, rather than finding new things to get excited about. And anyone or any group that does that is going to pay a certain spiritual price.
He goes on to complain about a lack of "a raw, aggressive 'inventiveness'" in France. In a comment about this idea on Loïc Le Meur's blog, Esme Vos cites the fact that "there a lot of terrific engineers in France" as proof that Hugh is over-generalizing, but I think Esme's choice of words very much proves Hugh's point - the French produce engineers, the Americans produce entrepreneurs.
The system here doesn't exactly encourage entrepreneurship, it has to be said. I recently started freelancing, and I know already that the government is going to take away a much more substantial part of my income than would have been the case if I were working in the UK, for instance.
But I accept that. Why? Because I'd rather live in Paris than in London, for all the lifestyle reasons mentioned by Hugh - "the quaint little cafes with their zinc bars, the stylish couples walking through the streets on a Sunday afternoon stroll, the amazing cheese and wine".
And the bars that are open till 6 or 7.
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Can you find all the matching pairs?
My daughter, who is shaping up to be a geek prodigy, absolutely loves sitting on my knee in front of my laptop and playing this game - and so, (not so) secretly, do I.
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Notice anything unusual?
This photo, the latest in my on-going series of
Parisian doorways, shows that subsidence may be more of a problem in Paris than I had realised.
Rue Valette is in the 5th arrondissement, leading up to the Pantheon. I'm not the first person to take a photograph there, it would seem - a common problem in Paris, which may be one of the most photographed cities in the world.
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Faces of the fallen
Faces of the fallen shows the names, faces and a few sparse details of all the members of the US services killed in Iraq.
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Found via Complete Tosh
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Konfabulator
Konfabulator - what I can say? I love it.
At last, PC owners like me can experience the wonderful world of Widgets.
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Some of my best friends are American
Some people are sorry, some people are mad.
Just remember that not everyone voted for Bush. More this time round than in the last election, it's true, but not everyone.
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Doors and doorbells
In much the same way as I like to catalogue the doors and doorways of Paris, Andrew Losowsky has a thing (alright, a penchant) for doorbells in Florence.
Unlike me, however, Andrew has taken the whole exercise one step further by writing a series of short stories inspired by each of the photos he has taken. "Flicktion" he calls it - and, as you would expect if you ever read Andrew's Prandial Post or his "rummage through Catalonia" Bar\'e7ablog, the stories he writes are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant and always bloody great.
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Ostalgia
Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
Life for "OstiesOssis" after reunification has not always been easy and many of them still feel a certain nostalgia (or Ostalgia as it has been called) for the goods, symbols and culture of the former East Germany, a vein of sentiment that was mined to great comic effect by the hit film Goodbye Lenin.
While I knew this already, I must admit to still being shocked when looking for some background information on the Berlin Wall today to find an article with the following title: "Berlin Wall May Be Restored by 2006". Is life in the West really that bad?
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Interview with the co-founder of Skype
Engadget has an interview with Niklas Zennström, CEO and co-founder of Internet telephony firm Skype.
I have used Skype myself, both with other Skype users and directly to a land line. The quality when I called a land line was a little ropey, but it still stands up to comparison with calls from a mobile - and PC-to-PC was, quite frankly, great.
The only real gripe I had is that it's not exactly comfortable using a microphone and a headset or my laptop's built-in speakers. So, the sooner USB phones become widely available, the better.
I still really recommend it though, especially if you make regular international calls.
Update (10 November 2004): See Oliver Thylmann's Blog for a potential solution to my issues with headsets.
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Bill Bailey does Portishead
"Portishead" singing Zippity Do Da - you know you can't resist.
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Found via Tom Hume
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Canada 2.0
This proves that all is not doom and gloom.
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Exit this Roman shell
The day after George W. Bush's second term as President was confirmed, my Flickr buddy Leff is thinking of moving to Canada.
I'm sure he's not alone. As someone who has lived in three countries myself, I told him he should just go for it.
On Leff's blog, I found a link to an exhortation to the American people to "exit this Roman shell".
Amazingly, it was written by the Scottish recording artist Momus, whose 1989 album Don't Stop the Night I very much enjoyed when it came out. Read through some of his lyrics if you have the time; he has an incredible way with words.
(Like Joi Ito, I too am seeking consolation in music.)
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What the doctor orders
To mark today's Presidential elections in the United States, let me direct you to Hunter S. Thompson's thoughts on the 2004 campaign.
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Iconography
Has it really come to this?
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Mosh!
Even if, musically-speaking, Eminem is not your cup of tea, I still heartily recommended you take a look at the video for his new anti-Bush, pro-vote song Mosh.
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Languid
Maciej has been busy again.
Languid is a statistical language identifier. Give it at least 20 characters of UTF-8 encoded text and hope for the best.
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The City of Lights
Jim Heid, of
Mac iLife fame, has recently been visiting Paris.
As you can see from this and a few other photos in
Jim's Flickr photostream, he took some very pretty pictures while he was here.
So, I've decided to use this one showing a nightime view of Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe to test whether Flickr's "BlogThis" functionality works equally well with other people's photos as it does with one's own.
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Thoughts on the upcoming US presidential election
Make sure you vote!
You may have noticed that there will soon be a presidential election in the United States. Whoever is chosen as leader of the most powerful nation in the world will have an impact on all our lives, yet it is American citizens who will chose the next President - and, if previous elections are anything to go by, many of them are simply too apathetic to do so.
So, if you're American, please make sure you vote. As Russell Beattie puts it,
no matter what state you live in, no matter if you have to crawl through glass on your hands and knees to get to the polling booths, you better vote this year. No excuses. I swear if I meet anyone after November 2nd this year who said they didn't vote for whatever reason I'll punch them in the face. Make sure you tell every one of your friends and family that you'll do the same.
We non-Americans can still make our voices heard too, albeit in a slightly less influential way.
BetaVote: What if the whole world could vote in the U.S. presidential election?
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Foxylicious
Foxylicious is a Mozilla Firefox extension that integrates your del.icio.us bookmarks into your browser bookmarks.
Get yours now!
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Proliferating
Dave Sifry:
"Corporate bloggers are proliferating ... but it's still a tiny number ~5000".
He's right about one thing - corporate blogging is definitely growing. I must confess to having little more than a layman's interest in sheet metal, but the fact that sites like The Tinbasher exist is proof that corporate blogging is no longer strictly limited to companies in the hi-tech field.
The Tinbasher is a sheet metal blog to help provide you with news about the [Planters Direct and Butler Sheetmetal Ltd] and a little news from the world of sheet metal fabrication from a small business perspective.
And I wonder if he's seen the CEO Bloggers' Club.
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The truth behind the bulge
While Ben Hammersley may think that it was just a crap suit, Joi Ito has visual evidence that finally explains the mysterious bulge in the suit George Bush wore at last week's debate with John Kerry.
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Vitriolica Webb's Ite
Via Armin's expat bloggers list, we find the wonderful Vitriolica Webb's Ite.
Let me tell you a little about why I have a blog. I am British and live in Portugal, have done since 1999 and Portugal drives me crazy. I have to vent this. Otherwise I'd be sure to have a nervous tic.
Portugal, if you don't know the place, is an astonishingly beautiful country. For such a tiny country there is a huge diversity of natural habitats, from scrubby desert to eucalyptus covered mountains and lush meadows. There are tiny villages dotted throughout remote areas and larger towns and cities from north to south with diverse populations, their cultures and traditions and dialects changing from town to town.
But it drives me crazy for many many reasons, and you will have to stick with my blog to find out what they are. I have been blogging for the last year to a mostly portuguese blog community and many of them AGREE with me on many things.
The drawings are exquisite, and funny and insightful too.
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Lifestyles of the rich and famous
Last night, while I was out having dinner in Manchester with my new boss and old friend Karen (who really should update her blog more regularly), "Liz MacDonald" from Coronation Street was sitting at the next table.
The life I lead!
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Dogs Die In Hot Cars
While I was in Dundee over the weekend, I picked up a CD by the excellent (and excellently named) Scottish band Dogs Die in Hot Cars.
Why not visit their website and listen to some of their wonderful tracks for yourself? "Lounger" and "I love you 'cause I have to" are two of my favourites.
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Belleville village
I got an email today from the manager of my local cheese shop telling me about the launch of Belleville-village.com, a website dedicated to the little corner of Paris where I live and where, according to the site, "people say hello to each other, shopkeepers smile and children have fun".
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A special poetry
Dundee, Leuchars, Cupar, Ladybank, Markinch, Kirkcaldy, Kinghorn, Burntisland, Aberdour, Dalgetty Bay, Inverkeithing, North Queensferry, Dalmeny, South Gyle, Haymarket, Edinburgh.
For the emigrant, there is a special poetry in place names.
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Early morning, Fintry
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Hey Jack Kerouac!
In my new role as freelance gun for hire, I will be "on the road" as they say for the next two weeks. I may be able to post during that time, at least to the moblog, but I may not.
Of course, those of you who are clever enough to subscribe to this site's RSS feeds already know whenever I update anyway. And to those of you who still don't use RSS feeds, I have but one thing to say - Bloglines.
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Serge Gainsbourg and other Parisian snapshots
This Serge Gainsbourg dummy and a few more snaps of
Parisian doorways have been added to
my Flickr account.
Flickr really seems to be taking off. Joi Ito recently announced his investment in the company and, as Oliver Thylmann suggests, Loïc Le Meur will probably next.
All good clean fun? Or are they taking over the world?
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CEO Bloggers
Jez was right when he told me that I'd be too busy to blog once I started working for myself. And I don't even start work for my first client until next week!
Really, I don't know how the CEO bloggers do it. Do they have someone posting on their behalf?
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Haggis
... with my father doing the honours.
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Parisian monuments
My parents are in town, so we're on the tourist trail.
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Lunch with Laurent
I'm just back from lunch with Laurent Bervas.
As you might suspect given the tagline on Laurent's blog - "Entrepreneurship, China, Morocco, Music, Technology" - he is a man of many interests, and it was energizing talking to him.
Right now he's busy with the launch of LiveMusic, and is putting on a concert by the group Myassa tonight at La Plage (59 rue de Charonne, 75011 Paris) that should be worth checking out.
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BlogThis!
I created this image using
typoGenerator over a week ago.
I immediately uploaded it to Flickr, of course, but right now I'm experimenting with Flickr's BlogThis! feature so I'll have to ask you to forgive me if I seem to be repeating myself.
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Pasta - del.icio.us!
Maciej Cegłowski has created something very useful.
I've set up a text pasting service for users of del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site. If you want to bookmark something that doesn't have a ready URL attached to it (a text message, some class notes, a recipe, an email), Pasta will create a permanent web page from your pasted content and redirect your browser to the usual del.icio.us submission form.
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Prawns in parsley and garlic
I've been cooking again.
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Weatherfox
I just installed Weatherfox, "a highly customizable Firefox extension that brings weather forecasts to your browser", and already it's looking like it might be a very useful tool.
Right now it's predicting showers for Sunday, which is not good news as we'll be having friends round and I'd hoped we'd be able to enjoy a nice drink in the garden.
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A new beginning
Today is the first day of my new life as my own boss.
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Customer support, French style
I recently posted a comment in response to a post on Michel de Guilhermier's blog about customer support in France.
Michel is the CEO of the online photo lab Photoways, and the point of his post was that the French, whenever they contact customer support services, are always rude and aggressive. I replied that it seemed to me that being rude and aggressive was sometimes the only way to get a French customer support technician to listen to you.
For instance ...
I'm waiting for my new ADSL connection to be activated, and have been since last Wednesday when the connection with my old ISP was cut off because you can only have one ADSL connection on your phone line at a time. The technical side of things is ready, as far as I can tell; my old modem is certainly flashing away like it should to tell me that the line is working. I just need them to send me my new wifi router and give me a password.
Given that my order entered their system on 23 August - I actually placed the order nearly a week earlier, but that's another story - I find it hard to understand this delay at the end of the whole process while I wait for the material to arrive. A whole week without any internet connection is a long time. Couldn't they coordinate things a bit better?
If my modem isn't waiting for me when I get home tonight, I have a feeling that a rude and aggressive phone call might be in order.
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The Scottish Pairlament wabsite
The Scottish Parliament website is now available in Scots.
We want tae mak siccar that as mony folk as can is able tae find oot aboot whit the Scottish Pairlament dis and whit wey it warks. We hae producit information anent the Pairlament in a reenge o different leids tae help ye tae find oot mair.
And it's not only the website itself. Scots versions of certain official reports are also available, such as the findings of the "inquiry intil the role o educational an cultural policy in uphaudin an bringin oot Gaelic, Scots an minority leids in Scotland" [PDF - 147 Kb].
This is wonderful news.
It is essential for the survival of Scots in the 21st century that its use be extended into serious non-fiction writing - less poetry and song, more government reports and journalism. Only then can Scots speakers feel confident that their language is "real" and of use outside the home.
In fact, I wonder if it might not be time for me to do my bit and start a permanent Scots-language blog alongside this one.
--
Found via Ministry of Propaganda and Transblawg
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Gumbo aux gambas
- Thanksgiving, 20 rue Saint Paul, 75004 Paris
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The magnificent seven
I currently have seven books sitting on my bookshelf that I'm reading or about to read.
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Service announcement
I'm changing ISPs and going wifi, so get ready to see me blogging from the kitchen.
There are some problems - how could it be otherwise? - and I seem to have lost my internet connection entirely along the way, so please bear with me if updates to Blethers.com are a little thin on the ground over the coming days.
Typing full posts into my mobile phone is not fun.
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Painting
- Place des Fêtes, Paris, France
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Bats
As I write, there is a bat flying around our courtyard.
A cousin of mine who lives in a village in Buckinghamshire in England has dozens of bats living in his garden, but this is the first time I have ever seen one in an urban area.
I must admit to being rather surprised. I thought a bat's habitat was more rural or at least semi-rural, and although it seems they can also live in urban and post-industrial areas, I still think the one zipping around outside my window here in Paris is a little lost.
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Paris says no ...
... to anti-semitism, racism and discrimination of any kind.
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We say "No" to software patents
The European parliament is due to vote at the end of September on the introduction of software patents in Europe.
Laurent Bervas and several others (myself included) have published a statement expressing our opposition to software patents, both here in Europe and elsewhere.
In the US, software patenting allows established companies to control the innovation of others.
Microsoft has, for example, applied for a patent on "mouse clicking." This is absurd and will be invalidated by the courts.
But in the meantime, who can oppose such an adversary? Microsoft has spent $5.4 billion in legal costs during the past three years.
In Europe, the parliament will vote at the end of September to institute software patenting.
We are all concerned and this law must be opposed.
Software patents not only can have a damaging effect on innovation and competition, but are also very much open to abuse and risk being used to patent business methods and other processes, something which is clearly ridiculous. While I am not opposed to patents per se (patent lawyer John Gray has some interesting counter-arguments to the blanket assertion that all software patents are bad), I most definitely do not want Europe to follow the US model in this domain.
Show your oposition to these software patents by adding your name to our statement, talking about software patents on your blog, and signing the Petition for a Software Patent Free Europe.
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What's in a name?
I've been thinking a bit more about Flickr and del.icio.us; more specifically, about tagging the photos and bookmarks I upload.
What I'm wondering is, how do I know I'm using the "right" labels for my content?
While there's obviously no such thing as a right label, I'm interested in whether or not the tags I'm using mean my content is going to be found by people who are actually looking for it, or if they'll be disappointed when they click through to my bookmarks or photos.
Jon Udell has some interesting thoughts on this matter. As he says, "Abandoning taxonomy is the first ingredient of success". In other words - call it what you like!
Udell also goes on to point out how instant feedback makes it easy to edit your tags if the items your content is grouped with aren't quite what you imagined. This is very true - on del.icio.us I quite often "steal" tags other people have used to describe the pages I bookmark.
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Metro Saint Lazare, Paris
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ViaBloga
Good luck to everyone at ViaBloga, a new French blog-hosting company that was officially launched today.
A special thanks to Delphine (who you may also know as Mouche) for inviting me to take part in the pre-launch test.
You can see my ViaBloga blog here.
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The return of the Gruffalo
If you're a parent, or if you spend any time at all around young children, you probably already know the Gruffalo.
Well, now it seems that Julia Donaldson's masterpiece - there's no other word for it - has a sequel.
Buy it now!
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Flickr
I've joined Flickr, the online photo-sharing service.
Why not just host my own photos? In a word - metadata.
As I wrote previously about del.icio.us, associating keywords with any content we put on the web makes that content much easier to find. There are other community-building aspects of Flickr that also look promising, but for now searchability is what matters to me most.
Feel free to browse through my photos, although I must warn you that there's nothing new up there for now.
I will also be experimenting with the different privacy levels, so let me know if you'd like to be invited to see my "friends only" photos as well. Who knows what secrets might lie therein?
Update, a couple of hours later: I've just discovered that each photostream generates RSS and Atom feeds as well, which means I can keep track of when new photos are posted using Bloglines. Nice!
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Missed it
I've been off work sick for the past three days. I thought I might feel well enough to make it to the dinner Loïc has organized for Marc Canter tonight, but in the end it wasn't to be.
I'm very disappointed; I was really looking forward to meeting some very interesting people. Who knows? I might even have learned what to do with my wiki.
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Gmail - is this the beginning of the end?
While I'm not quite as late to the party as Jason Kottke (don't miss the link to a great Kylie Minogue track in the comments), it has still taken me my own sweet time to finally get a Gmail account.
Of course, that only means I'll appreciate it all the more now that it has arrived.
The only thing is, once I start using it, Google will know all my secrets. Do I really want that?
--
Thanks to Mckenzee for inviting me.
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Metadata tastes del.icio.us
Having just discovered del.icio.us, I'm still working out exactly how to use it.
del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.
The keywords are, well, key to the whole thing.
On the one hand, they let me find new content that other people have classified using the same terminology as I use for my bookmarks, content that there's every chance I will be interested in as well. One example of something I already found this way and would almost certainly never have seen otherwise is this beautiful panoramic view of Paris by night.
Equally as importantly, the keywords also make it easier for me to add my own content in a way that helps other people to find it. When I write a post on my blog - such as this one, for instance - I can create a del.icio.us bookmark to the post using whatever metadata I choose to describe its contents. Anyone who is looking for information on "metadata" or "del.icio.us" or "bookmarks" would then find this post much more easily than through a simple Google search, since I the writer - and, later on perhaps, you the reader - have decided how the content should be described.
Et voilà ! Social bookmarks - just like it says on the tin.
Update, 29 August 2004: Out of curiosity, let me know if you found this post via del.icio.us. I'd be interested to see how well it works.
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Blogging the byelection
This has the potential to be very interesting.
The Liberal Democrats today unleash their latest weapon in the Hartlepool byelection when their candidate's interactive "blog" goes live.
Jody Dunn, a photogenic barrister and mother of four who hopes to wrest Peter Mandelson's constituency from Labour, will daily detail what she has been doing, and reply to voters who log on.
All well and good.
However, there are a couple of points in the article and on the site that make me question the extent to which this really is a blog.
Extracts posted today, seen in advance by the Guardian, reveal her worrying over forgeting to eat while campaigning and struggling to concoct meals for her children ...
Since when do bloggers show advance copies of their posts to the press?
Also, on the "blog" itself, it says:
Printed and hosted by Prater Raines Partners, 16 Riviera Court, Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3RP. Published and promoted by Richard Pinnock on behalf of Jody Dunn (Liberal Democrats), both at 165 York Road, Hartlepool, TS26 9EQ, 01429 22 44 51.
"Printed"? "Published ... on behalf of ..."? Does that sound like a typical blog to you?
Having said all that, I'm willing to give Ms Dunn the benefit of the doubt for now; I'll keep reading, if only to find more beautiful lines like "I can only pity the poor sacrificial lamb who is chosen to front the Tory effort". Now that at least really does sound like a blogger speaking, rather than official PR.
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Bloggers lunch
Cheers Jez, cheers Srah; 'twas lovely.
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Bloggers dinner - get studying, Stuart
Some very interesting people have already signed up for the bloggers dinner being organized in Paris on Friday evening.
In what may turn out to be a moment of madness, I've added my own name to the list in the optimistic belief that I'll be able to learn enough about digital lifestyle aggregation between now and Friday to have even a vague hope of keeping up with the conversation.
If not, I can always try to get them to talk about the weather.
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Blogs as Tamagotchi
Blogs as Tamagotchi, now there's an interesting idea.
I just love the line, "If you don't clear up their crap - comment spam, for example - they die."
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All things in moderation and moderation in all things
I have enabled comment moderation on Blethers.com.
It's not as if this blog receives dozens of comments every day, but it does get a fair bit of comment spam and - frankly - I'm just tired of having to delete all those messages by hand.
Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
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Power to the people cos the people want peace
Listen and see for yourself.
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French CEO bloggers strike back
I wondered when Loïc was going to pick up on the recently-created Wiki that lists CEO bloggers.
He's seen it now - with the help of a little prodding from me - and has added more than a dozen French blogging CEOs!
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On English
On English is a blog by Rethabile Masilo where he looks at some of the joys and mysteries of the English language.
Let's talk about the English language, the pitfalls, the pleasures, the rules (or lack of them thereof), the art (poems, short prose, puns, 'proetry'), and so on
I particularly enjoyed the post where he sets out to correct the English of a spam email offering him US$14,300,000.00 "to stand in as the next of kin to Mr. Mathieu Jean Jacques Pol so that the fruits of this old man's labor will not get into the hands of some corrupt government officials".
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It just gets bigger and bigger
Today I added Feed number 150 to my Bloglines account (selected highlights of which can be seen in my blogroll). How ever did we manage to read so many blogs in the days before RSS?
The site in question was raelity bytes, and among Rael's posts that convinced me to make this site a regular read are one on Lynne Truss's "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" and one on linguistic problems faced when minorities becomes majorities.
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Question comma and exclamation comma
It seems we can now patent punctuation marks!
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Le Forum des Halles, Paris
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Blog addict
I think I'm one of those, so I must get one of these.
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Found via Scobleizer
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RSS calendar
I have just created an RSS Calendar.
Sharing your calendar with family, friends, and co-workers has never been easier. When you create a calendar event, an RSS Calendar Channel (or Feed) is automatically generated. Simply invite others to subscribe to this channel using an RSS Reader and they'll be able to see your calendar. Any changes you make to your calendar will be available to your subscribers in real-time.
This looks extremely useful, but I can't make up my mind whether to publish my calendar feeds here on my blog, send them only to a select group of friends and family members, or keep the whole thing all to myself.
I think I'm going to use it for a few days first, to see exactly what kind of information I put in there before deciding whether or not I want to make it public.
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Found via Oliver Thylmann's Blog
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Homogenisation
Remembering a couple of very old passwords has allowed me to bring a bit of order to my screen names for various instant messaging programs.
- AIM - stuartmudie
- MSN - stuartmudie AT hotmail.com
- YAHOO - stuartmudie
I haven't been able to use instant messaging much lately, but that will change come September when I start work for Stuart Mudie Communications.
I'm considering making these screen names available on my professional site. What do you think? Is instant messaging is a valid communications tool in business relationships?
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Blogs and Gonzo Marketing
I spent my holiday reading Christopher Locke's "Gonzo Marketing", a mere three years after the book first came out.
Don't be put off by his website; it's manic, for sure, but that's the whole point. While Locke may shout loudly, one of the big messages of his book is how addressing people (not customers, people) in an authentic voice is the only real way forward for marketing. And Locke's voice is nothing if not authentic. How many business books have you read lately where Hunter S. Thompson comes to the author in a dream, brandishing a shotgun?
Since the book was written in 2001, it touches only briefly on the subject of blogs. Today, more and more businesses that blog are opening up a two-way communication channel with their customers, and that can only have positive results in the long-run. An excellent example of this in France is the blog of Michel de Guilhermier, CEO of the online photo laboratory Photoways; reading Michel's blog really makes you feel that this is a company that is genuinely interested in what its customers have to say.
(Another good example is Six Apart - but I've written enough about them already [here, here and here, for instance], so I won't repeat myself now.)
In a more aggresive step, I read just today that Real has launched a blog to fight a PR war with Apple as part of their ongoing row over music distribution. Blogs are not just for saying nice things, of course, and it will be interesting to watch what happens there.
What all these companies have in common is a willingness to try new approaches to corporate communications. But how much of a risk are they taking in doing so? After all, as Locke and many other writers have pointed out, advertising is as good as dead; it no longer has the attention of its audience.
And if that is true, which I believe it is, then new approaches like this - where companies not only talk but more importantly where they learn how to listen - may well be the only option left.
UPDATE: Sadly, comments have been disabled on Real's new blog. It's a shame, but maybe the company wasn't ready to start listening after all.
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Bash the haggis
Thanks Leona for sending me a link to the highly chucklesome Bash the Haggis game. My highest score so far is 792, so I'll obviously have to keep practising if I'm to beat your record of 916.
Best of all, while whacking away at the poor wee beastie, I spotted among the Google Ads in the corner of the page a site called Scottish Food Overseas where, hopefully, I will be able to place an order for a year's supply of Irn-Bru and Tunnocks teacakes.
Och aye the noo!
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Tinkering
I've been tinkering under the bonnet again, and this site is now running on Movable Type 3.01D. Not that you'd notice (I hope).
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C'est moi
In case you were wondering what I look like ...
This image - which I think is actually a pretty good likeness, as caricatures go - was created with the rather wonderful Portrait Illustration Maker. Don't look at it unless you have half an hour to spare; it's hard to resist.
--
Found via Russell Beattie Notebook
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Cockles
Lovely!
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Perspective
A single serving of Chilean white wine by the beach in Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire, Wales.
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Big wheel
This is almost as exciting as seeing my name up in lights - Justine, Stuart and Ellie on the Big Wheel at Folly Farm.
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A sunny day in Paris
What a nice way to start my holidays!
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Neufblog
Neuf Telecom, "one of the fastest growing Telcos & ISPs in France", has launched Neufblog in partnership with Six Apart.
Imagine my surprise on seeing my old "prof de français" in a photo with the Six Apart crew announcing the event to the French-speaking blog world.
I'll have to ask him if he needs the services of an English-speaking marketing writer for when Stuart Mudie Communications is launched in September.
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The dirty big city
It's early - 5.45am. We slept with the window open last night and I have just been awakened by the sound of birds singing noisily in the garden.
I love it when something like that happens; it gives me hope for life in the dirty big city.
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Craphound
What's going on here? Is Blethers.com undergoing some kind of weird denial of service attack from Cory Doctorow?
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Draft Bruce
Andrew Rasiej is trying to organize a Bruce Springsteen concert to coincide with the nomination of George Bush as the Republican candidate for the presidency.
Dear Bruce:
We the undersigned need you.
Our country's leadership is in desperate need of change.
On September 1, the Republicans will hold their convention in New York City and will nominate George Bush for President. Many people will see this event as it will be broadcast on all the major television networks. However, an opportunity exists at that time to make it clear to Americans that they can choose an alternative to George Bush.
I have put Giants Stadium on hold on September 1 in the hope that you will lead the music industry in coming together and perform in a concert for change. Once it is known that you are involved, many other artists will want to perform with you. Together your collective voices and music will send a clear message to all Americans that our country needs their vote to create change. The event is called VoteAid: "Concert for Change".
While it's easy to be cynical and say that people should take an interest in politics for politics' sake, not just because some rock star says so, I love the idea of even five minutes of news time being given over to such an overt anti-Bush act on September 1.
Every little helps.
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Tall buildings
Tall buildings is an exhibition from the Museum of Modern Art in New York that looks at 25 elevated edifices.
Each project was designed within the last decade for sites around the world by an international group of architects and engineers. In making our selection, we considered three fundamental aspects of the tall building: technology, urbanism, and program. Collectively, these projects address the most current concerns confronting building tall, from issues of safety, structural soundness, and sustainability to programmatic and formal inventions that rethink the notion of the street and the top-down structure of traditional hierarchies.
Fascinating stuff.
--
Found via Microsiervos
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Wait - is that a new design I see approaching?
Just because I've been looking at sites like this, it doesn't necessarily follow that Blethers.com could be about to undergo a design overhaul.
Or does it?
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Rip it up and start again
Across the street from where I work, they're busy ripping up a building (a listed building, it would seem, since they're not allowed to change the façade) from the inside out.
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Remember these?
Next time you're looking for an excuse not to get any work done, try this - play your favourite 1980s video games online.
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Making mistakes
... we need to find a way to make mistakes without hurting the ego, because that is the really hard part. You might make it no problem that small mistakes are made, but still the ego will very likely be touched. You just need to find another word for "small little mistake that is really no problem when corrected early and provides a great resource for learning".
Oliver Thylmann thinks making mistakes can be a powerful learning tool. So, despite his recent troubles following Six Apart's takeover of Ublog, does Loïc Le Meur.
So, despite what I may have said once, do I.
Hopefully I'll make a few myself when I launch my new company in September.
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Think inside the box
Every year the figures inch downwards, and every year they are greeted as a triumph. Britain now has the best record for road safety in Europe. Only 3,508 people were killed on our roads last year, and only 171 of them were children. Only 33,707 were gravely injured. Rejoice, just bloody well rejoice.
George Monbiot has a practical suggestion for reducing the number of fatal accidents on the roads.
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Meet the Bloggers
These people are all blogging from the Democratic Convention in Boston. Make sure you read some of them for an inside, if not always unbiased, view.
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Found via Heiko Hebig
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Pink limo
A pink limousine for a wedding in Le Marais - Paris meets Las Vegas.
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You read it somewhere else first
Here it is - The 9/11 Commission Report in PDF format.
UPDATE: There's an HTML version available too.
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What's in a name?
"A quiet beautiful village, a historic place with rare kite under threat from wretched blades" - or, if you prefer, Llanhyfryddawelllehyn...
--
Found via Chocolate and Vodka
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Tactile Digital Assistant
The Jackito is a TDA, or Tactile Digital Assistant - a thumbs-only PDA.
This is a fascinating concept, as is the idea of a web-only product launch. Is it all too good to be true?
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Google, circa 1960
Web searching, the old-fashioned way.
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Furniture shopping
I'm looking to buy a new desk and a comfy chair to go with it, since I will soon be working from home and have suddenly decided that ergonomics and good posture are important.
Any tips? For the furniture shopping, I mean - please don't tell me to sit up straight.
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Can you repeat that please?
If you're learning a foreign language and would like someone to practise with over email, take a look at eTandem, an initiative set up by the Ruhr University in Bochum.
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Six Apart EMEA
Better late than never, I'd like to add my congratulations to Loïc and his team now that Ublog has officially been acquired by Six Apart and Six Apart EMEA has been born.
Exciting times are afoot, methinks.
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The boy is back in town
After two weeks of me working too hard then holidaying with my family in Dundee to recover, normal service will resume shortly.
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Not to be read on an empty stomach
Chocolate and Zucchini is a mouth-watering cooking blog that I heartily recommend for anyone with even a passing interest in French cuisine.
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Blogging by metro
Here is a site where you can add your blog to a metro map of Parisian bloggers.
So far there seems to be only two of us who live around Jourdain station on Line 11, myself and Freaky Doll.
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Return of the comment spammers
Don't talk to me.
Having just manually deleted over one hundred spam comments, I am finding it hard to be "OK with comment spam" (as, it seems, is the writer of those words himself).
And I can't get MT-Blacklist to work.
I need a beer.
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PJ Harvey in Paris
Justine saw PJ Harvey play in Paris the other night. Here's what she thought.
What an amazing perfomance! The last time I saw PJ Harvey was in K ln 1993 in a really small venue, on a tiny stage and a very serious Polly Jean playing the guitar, wearing a long red dress and sunglasses, but it was cool as f***. This time was completely different - Polly Jean dancing around the stage, loads of energy, loads of songs from her new - and if I may say fantastic - album, looking every bit the epitome of rock-chickness.
The most amazing thing about Polly Jean is that one minute she's jumping around the stage in her tiny black dress shouting "Who the f*** do you think you are?" and then at the end of the song she's saying politely "Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much Paris". Marianne Faithfull made a guest appearance. She and PJ have been working on a few songs together, which sounded pretty good. Only disappointment for me was that she didn't play Sheela-Na-Gig - my all-time favourite PJ Harvey track. But, I'll get over it. I'd go and see PJ again tomorrow and even buy my own ticket next time. Thank you Ellie.
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The posse
Can you believe this?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering deputizing the general population to create an anti-spam posse that would share out fines won in spammer convictions and settlements.
Sure, spam has more or less killed email, but I hardly think encouraging such vigilante-type behaviour is the solution. What is? Stronger action from ISPs? Italian mobile carrier TIM recently blocked all text messages from Vodafone UK in a row over mobile spam. Of course, mobile spam is not the same as email spam - the sender has to pay for it, for a start - but it's still heartening to see some decisive action being taken for once.
Nonetheless, I have resigned myself to accepting my daily intake of spam philosophically for now.
Poetically even.
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Exil
I wonder if Armin has seen Exil, a site which styles itself as the "Treffpunkt für deutschsprachige Londoner".
Maybe he could make a version for deutschsprachige Swindoner.
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SmartvCard
After reading this review of SmartvCard, I have just downloaded a trial version of what looks like a very handy tool for exporting PIM data to and from my mobile phone.
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Strawberries and cream
Taking advantage of the fact that we have a couple of football-free nights while we wait for the semi-finals of the Euro 2004, I have just watched the end of Tim Henman's victory over Australian Mark Philippoussis to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals.
I hope I'm wrong, but on today's evidence I don't think this will be the year when Henman finally wins the Championship. For one thing, it's too nerve-wracking watching him play - just when you think he has the match sewn up, his nerve always seems to fail him and he throws away a clear lead.
I was a tennis player myself once: as well as playing in the garden for at least two weeks after Wimbledon when I was a boy, one year I even went as far as attending a couple of official lessons that were organized by the local council.
I mention this because I'm thinking of taking up the sport again, after reading a flyer in the street the other day advertising lessons at an indoor tennis court not too far from where I live. I'm not sure how seriously I'm thinking about it, but perhaps writing it down here will help me actually get round to doing it.
After the summer, though. I'm too busy until at least October.
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Pont L'Eveque
Last weekend I was given a book on the fromages of France for Fathers Day, and tonight we sampled the first new cheese I have discovered thanks to this book - a deliciously creamy Pont L'Eveque from Normandy, which we nicely accompanied with a bottle of Vacqueyras from the Southern Rhone valley that wasn't half bad either.
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Beyond bullets
Beyond bullets is a blog where you'll find out more about PowerPoint than you could ever imagine needing during the average corporate lifetime.
Cliff Atkinson, the author of the blog and "a leading authority on PowerPoint and organizational communications", has some great tips - including one that I'll let you read for yourself entitled The Startling Secret of a Red-Eyed Tree Frog.
If you've ever sat through a boring PowerPoint presentation - or, worse, given one yourself - please take a look. And learn.
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Eurocopa 2004 (part II)
These European Championships are getting me down.
First, I can't keep up with my blogging obligations because I'm too busy watching all the matches - and the ones I've watched over the last couple of nights have been too exciting for me even to take a five minute blogging break.
Second, it looks like I won't be winning the sweepstake at work, as Spain, my prediction for the eventual tournament winners, went crashing out of the competition tonight at the hands of Portugal. And the other team I predicted to reach the final - France - may well be joining the Spaniards on their way home tomorrow.
At least tomorrow there's the Fête de la Musique.
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Eurocopa 2004
I've just seen the most exciting of all the games I've watched so far in this year's European Championship: Russia 0 - Portugal 2.
It was made especially exciting by the fact that the Russian goalkeeper was sent off just before half-time for handling the ball outside the area - a crime which, like the A-team, he didn't commit. He stumbled and fell over the ball, covering it with his body, but the video replays made it clear that at no point did he touch it with his hand. The referee didn't have the benefit of watching an action replay before making his mind up, however, so it was a red card for Ovchinnikov and the Russians were down to ten men.
Portugal should really have taken more advantage of their extra man, but the Russians put up a brave fight for most of the second half and it was only a goal in the 89th minute by Rui Costa that finally put the result beyond question.
Today's results mean that Group A is still wide open, with Greece - who I must admit I expected to end up bottom of this group - sitting pretty at the top of the table.
It's a funny old game.
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I might need this one later
Looks useful - a table showing how to convert from Pantone to RGB and Hex HTML.
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Extravagance
A problem in the building opposite ours has left us without running water tonight, which means we've had to resort to the extravagance of washing our baby bottles with Evian.
At least we didn't end up showering with a kettle.
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"a voté"
I voted today in the European elections.
Voting in France is a complete waste of paper. In the polling station, you are met with a table that is piled high with sheets of paper from each of the different political parties, and to ensure your vote remains secret, you are obliged to take at least two of them with you into the voting booth. You place one piece of paper inside an envelope to show the party you wish to vote for, and the other you simply toss away.
Is this a relic from the days when not everyone could read and write, making it possible for people to recognise the party of their choice simply by the colour of their paper? I don't know, but each party printing out enough sheets for every single voter in every constituency in the country is hardly a good idea. Not even the Green Party used recycled paper, as far as I could tell.
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Um abração
"O Rio de Janeiro continua lindo
O Rio de Janeiro continua sendo
O Rio de Janeiro, fevereiro e março
Alô, alô, Realengo - aquele abraço!
Alô, torcida do Flamengo - aquele abraço!"
- Aquele abraço, Gilberto Gil
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All human communication fails, except by accident
Read this excellent study of Wiio's laws, "humoristically formulated serious observations about how human communication usually fails except by accident".
My favourite:
If you are content with your message, communication certainly fails.
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Found via Phil's place
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Get out a bit more
Thinking that maybe I should get out a bit more, instead of being afraid to venture beyond my blogroll, I made my way over to weblogs.com and clicked through to a few random sites whose names caught my eye.
All are worth a visit.
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The pyramid at the Louvre, Paris
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Music shopping
I bought a couple of new CDs today, "A grand don't come for free" by The Streets and a Gilberto Gil greatest hits collection.
What I meant to buy was a ticket for a PJ Harvey gig that my daughter may or may not be giving to someone special as a mother's day gift this weekend. I'm not going to say whether or not I bought the ticket, just in case that someone special reads this between now and Sunday.
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Bush comes to Paris
Not only have all demonstrations been banned in central Paris while George Bush is in town this weekend, it seems we're not allowed to park our cars anywhere visible either.
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NotCon '04
NotCon '04, "an informal, low-cost, one-day conference on things that technologies were perhaps not intended to do", has a wonderfully minimalist website and looks like being a pretty interesting conference to boot.
I mean, with talks like "Shit, I'm a manager", how can you go wrong?
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There must be some mistake
Today, while browsing through the stats for this site, I discovered that searching for "Stuart" on Yahoo returns my blog in top position.
It must have been a fluke; and anyway, it only works on Yahoo. Google, for instance, seems to prefer that annoyingly-named little mouse.
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Dad
The nature of fatherhood has changed dramatically - and it's time our male politicians acknowledged this
As a father myself, I was interested to read this comment piece in the Guardian by Jack O'Sullivan of Fathers Direct.
O'Sullivan cites figures from the Equal Opportunities Commission that show how fathers in dual-earner families "now do a third of the childcare". I presume this means a third of evening, weekend and holiday childcare, since one of the most difficult things about being a dual-earner family is dealing with the knowledge that your children spend a large part of their day with someone who is neither their mother nor father.
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Guestblog mentioned on Oop!
The Blethers.com guestblog has made it onto the radar of Álvaro Ibáñez, who has linked to it from his blogroll at Oop!
Keep up the good work, guys!
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Chechen club to represent Russia in the UEFA Cup
Terek Grozny, the first football team from outside the top division to win the Russian Cup, will be representing Russia in the UEFA Cup next year.
Their potential adversaries will be pleased to learn that a trip to a war zone will not be required, as Terek are forced to play all their home games outside Chechnya, but this could still raise some "interesting" security issues.
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elgooG
Strange but true - backwards Google.
Did people in China really use the Google Mirror after China blocked Google?
Yes. We received numerous emails from web surfers in China thanking us for this service.
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Found via Tom Hume
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Working in the park
Jason Calacanis, Chairman of Weblogs, Inc., is trying out New York's Bryant Park as his office.
So, I've finally found office space in New York. It's free, it has high speed wifi and there is a Starbucks. I've been doing my meetings in Bryant Park this week. In between meetings I pop open the laptop and pound out a few blog posts, email and IMs.
I feel like I'm living in some Intel or Microsoft advertisement from 1996 talking about how great the world is going to be.
Let's hope for his sake it doesn't rain.
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Found via Reiter's Wireless Data Web Log
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Parabéns, Jose
Jose Mourinho arrived in Barcelona around the same time as me, in my case to train as a TEFL teacher and in Jose's to work as assistant coach of Barcelona Football Club. In fact, to begin with it seemed that Jose's main job was to act as Bobby Robson's interpreter, and I have always found the idea of a Portuguese guy interpreting between Mr Robson and the Spanish and Catalan press quite amusing. The main reason he was chosen for the job, I suspect, is that many players on the Barça team that year spoke better Portuguese than Spanish - Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Figo, Vitor Baia ...
Since then, of course, both Jose and I have gone on to bigger and better things, and he has proven himself to be not only an effective interpreter but also moderately successful as a football coach in his own right.
Parabéns!
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USB Swiss army knife
Is it nearly Christmas? I'd love one of these.
--
Found via Gizmodo
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Bookmark
Note to self: read this carefully.
Does anyone know a good accountant in Paris?
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Guess where we've been
Don't ask if I enjoyed it, or I may be forced to admit that I did.
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Another Microsoft blogger
I wonder if the writing on Micahel's blog is a deliberate parody of Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs.
If not, it's scary!
Today is my birthday -- #33. That means I've been programming for some sixty percent of my life -- no big deal I suppose to kids these days who likely were programming before they entered day care, but I was on the bleeding edge growing up.
Happy birthday, Micahel.
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Customer feedback for our friends at Six Apart (II)
Hats off - again - to Six Apart.
The new pricing scheme for Movable Type has caused a bit of a stushie around the blogging world, with some people objecting to the very idea of having to pay for something that was previously free (an argument I have difficulty accepting) and others, perhaps more reasonably, worrying that their hobby sites were about to become prohibitively expensive.
In response to this, Six Apart are asking MT users to explain in detail why their current setups don't fit in at the more affordable end of the price scale, presumably with a view to at least considering the idea of adjusting their pricing accordingly.
This is good. Listening to your customers is always good.
Traditionally, of course, this kind of research is usually carried out before announcing new prices - but who ever said that Six Apart was a traditional company?
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Customer feedback for our friends at Six Apart
Movable Type setups often seem to be quite convoluted, and mine is no exception.
I have two authors here at Blethers.com, me and mobile me for posting from my phone. There are also the four blogs (and four authors) that go together to make up the Blethers.com Guestblog, making a total of six authors and five blogs all running off of one installation.
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Eurovision
Posted at 22:50pm
While we wait for the votes to come in, here are my predictions:
- Cyprus
- Germany
- Ukraine (my favourite)
The Polish entry was good too, if only the lead singer had a more powerful voice.
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Eurovision
Posted at 22:50pm
While we wait for the votes to come in, here are my predictions:
- Cyprus
- Germany
- Ukraine (my favourite)
The Polish entry was good too, if only the lead singer had a more powerful voice.
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Six Apart: you've got to admire their cojones
Announcing a change in the pricing model for Movable Type on Mena's blog and sitting back to watch the critical trackbacks come pouring in (348 last time I looked, mostly from people making the somewhat contradictory comment that they want MT to become more powerful while still remaining free) was a brave move.
Rather than brave, it has been called insane by some, but personally I think they're right to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Turning off trackbacks for "bad news" completely goes against the idea of building up a dialogue with the visitors to your site, which is a major part of what blogging is all about.
Even corporate blogging like this; especially corporate blogging like this.
Besides, Ben Hammersley gets it right when he says that the people at Six Apart have every right to charge for their work.
Movable Type has grown up from a backroom hobby to a serious professional tool - with some serious professional customers, if only I could mention the six or so big ones that I know about. If making a living doing it means losing a few unpaying customers to WordPress or whatever, then so what? Bravi to them, frankly.
Loïc Le Meur, perhaps wisely, limits himself to reminding us that a free version is still available.
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BlackBerry
My first sighting of a BlackBerry in the wild.
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Tuareg blues
If John Lee Hooker had been born in the Sahara, he would undoubtedly have ended up making music like the group Tinariwen, whose album Amassakoul I bought last Friday and have been listening to incessantly ever since.
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Adverbe - one to remember
Adverbe is Paris-based consultancy that aims to help companies build an effective web presence.
The thing is, building an effective web presence doesn't just mean creating a pretty website, although that may or may not be a part of it. What you say there matters too.
Adverbe offers a range of services, from performing an audit of your current site in order to find out what works and suggest ways of improving what doesn't, to coaching people in your organization in the specifics of writing for the web.
As far as I can tell, they seem to offer their services in French only, which is a pity as many otherwise excellent websites may fail simply because their English isn't up to scratch.
Since casting a critical eye over websites and teaching people how to improve their writing skills is something I have a bit of experience in myself, I'll have to remember to contact Adverbe when I finally get around to going freelance and see if we can't organize some kind of collaboration.
English audit anyone?
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Living in France
Edward has asked me if I know anyone who would be interested in contributing to a soon to be launched "Living in France" section of the excellent Living in Europe blog.
If you're interested, let me know and I'll put you in touch with him.
Et si la langue de Shakespeare ne te va pas, tu peux même y écrire en français !
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A URL in a barcode
While I'm not sure that I completely understand this, even with Alan Reiter's explanation, I feel I should have it on my phone anyway.
Give me a few days and I'll get some semacodes made for http://www.blethers.com that I can start sticking up around Paris.
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Sleepless nights at Folly Farm
My in-laws' family adventure park has been mentioned on the BBC website!
A baby ring-tailed lemur abandoned by his mother is causing sleepless nights for a zookeeper at a west Wales attraction.
Tim Morphew is hand rearing the tiny primate who needs feeding every two hours - night and day.
Trelow was rejected at just two weeks but now has a surrogate family - Tim and a cuddly cow - at Folly Farm.
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Via email from Chris
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Wreck
This burnt-out wreck of a Fiat sports car was "parked" in the street outside my building this morning. I wonder if joyriders were to blame, or if it was an insurance job.
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Being boring
As we stand ready to welcome ten more nations to the European Union, now seems like a good time to pause and reflect.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "the inofficial totally subjective ranking of the EU's most boring countries".
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Blogging CEOs
I should go and work for Boonty.
That's what I've been thinking ever since I discovered that Mathieu and Romain Nouzareth, the CEOs of this Paris-based distributor of downloadable video games, both have blogs. After all, it must be great to work in the Communications department of a company where the chief executives truly understand the need for an effective online communications strategy.
(Having said that, I do wish they would tidy up some of the English on the Boonty website; they write better on their personal blogs than they do on some parts of their corporate site.)
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Breached by the blog
Loïc and Samantha are blogging from the heart of The World Economic Forum in Warsaw. Officially this time, unlike at the previous Forum in Davos earlier this year when, as Joi Ito put it, Davos was "breached by the blog".
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Purple cow
This weekend I read Purple cow by Seth Godin, a man described on the cover of the book as "the best intuitive marketer alive today".
The book's subtitle is "Transform your business by being remarkable", which sums up Godin's message quite nicely. Advertising is broken - most people don't want to buy your product or service, and those that might aren't interested in listening to you trying to sell it.
Godin uses the term sneezers to describe people who love your product so much that they can't wait to tell their friends all about it (or write about it on their blogs). Forget the mass market, Godin says; sell to the edges. The sneezers are the customers you have to go for. Give them a product that stands out from the crowd, something so truly remarkable that they won't be able to resist, and they will do your marketing for you. Give them a purple cow.
"The opposite of remarkable," Godin writes in what is for me the best sentence in the book, "is very good".
Anyway, if I'm seriously entertaining the idea of going freelance at some point, I need to start looking for my purple cow.
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Typepad in French
Loïc and co. continue their conquest of Europe by launching Typepad in French.
Bravo !
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A real European
I feel like a real European at last.
Yesterday I received a letter from Bertrand Delanoe, the Socialist mayor of Paris, containing a card that entitles me, as an étranger citoyen de l'Union européenne résidant en France, to vote in all forthcoming elections to the European parliament. Now I can't wait for the elections in June to come around so I can express my suffrage again for the first time in years!
I'm a little nervous about the practicalities of it all. How does it work here in France? Do I put an X next to my prefered candidate's name? Do I put a coloured slip in a box? Do I need to vote for my second choice candidate as well? I'd hate to get it wrong and vote for someone from the Front National by mistake.
Being British, I should probably just succumb to apathy like so many of my compatriots, but after so long without a vote - the last time I voted was in the UK general elections in 1992 - I appreciate having the right to express myself democratically far too much to let it go to waste.
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(Fear of) starting a company
There are two ways of looking at my CV.
On the one hand, you could say that I've had far too many jobs for someone my age - and I've been told just that in interviews by people who still subscribe to the outdated notion that the way to build a career is to work in the same company for years on end. On the other hand, you could say that I've taken advantage of a dynamic jobs market to move from one interesting project to another, like a consultant who enjoys the safety net of a full-time contract, picking up a wide range of skills along the way - and that's far more in line with how I view the path my career has taken.
Lately, however, I've been wondering what it would take for me to make the leap and become a real independent consultant. I have experience in a number of fields - marketing communications, copywriting, technical writing, translation, even web programming and design - and I am confident that there are plenty of projects out there that would fit my talents. So, what's stopping me from setting up Stuart Mudie, Inc tomorrow? In a word: fear.
What sets real entrepreneurs apart from the rest of us is their willingness to take a risk. As I say, I'm confident that there are lots of projects out there that would fit my talents, but I'm not certain of it; and I can't help wondering what would happen to my family if I ever let my period 'between projects' become too long.
How do you conquer this fear? Frankly, I don't think you can. People who start up companies probably have this thought in the back of their minds the whole time, at least in the beginning. The key is that it stays there at the back of their minds rather than paralysing them and preventing them from acting.
I know some of the people who read this blog have started their own companies or gone freelance at one time or another. If that's you, what finally convinced you to just go ahead and do it? Am I right in saying you feel the fear and do it anyway? Or do entrepreneurs know no fear?
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Talk to me
After a nice long chat on Yahoo with my brother last night, I've added my messaging contact details to the sidebar. I use Trillian by the way; it's great.
We're thinking of giving Skype a go too (cheers Jez). Have you tried it?
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Persuasion
I've been reading about Robert Scoble, the self-styled "Microsoft Geek Blogger", for quite a while now, but I've only just started following his blog.
He has a post today, "How do you persuade?", in which he tells the story of how he spent $150 at a vineyard last weekend after listening to a fellow customer rave about the wine on offer there.
As well as encouraging customer evangelism, Scoble also thinks that being an authority - being recognised not only as honest, but also as someone with a passion for the product or idea you are selling - is the only real way to persuade people.
How do you persuade? In a weblog world where everyone has access to all the information on your company/ideas/you/your products/ etc.?
Do you take the "our product/idea/meme/service/etc is the best and the rest are crap" point of view? Or do you take "I'm an authority on this topic and I'm looking out for your best interests" point of view? Which is more likely to persuade you to change your mind?
Online, blogging is a good way of building up a reputation as an authority. Look at Russell Beattie - spend more than five minutes reading his blog and you can quickly get a feel for how passionate he is about mobile communications. And he clearly knows his stuff too; that combination of knowledge and enthusiasm is why he's so widely quoted.
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Google AdSense
I've applied for Google AdSense.
You may remember me considering advertising before. I'm under no illusions that hosting a few Google ads is going to make me rich, but I would like to see if there's any money at all to made from minor league blogging. Quite frankly, even just observing what ads are served up on Blethers.com would be interesting, and may help me to learn a bit more about my own obsessions.
Anyway, consider this part of my continuing exploration of the (limitless?) possibilities of blogging.
Hey, if it's good enough for Tim Bray, it's good enough for me.
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What's in my gadget bag?
I suppose it's only fair that I answer the question myself - what's in my gadget bag?
My bag is a black bandoleer bag with the name e.com written on the front in raised black letters that, fortunately, are discreet enough to be visible only to someone who is looking very closely. I bought it on a ferry between England and France in the summer of 2000, and a ten year old kid who was driving all the way down to Spain with his parents and got chatting to Justine and me in the café told us that he had been on the verge of buying the same bag himself; so, either he was very precocious in his good taste or I have a ten year old boy's idea of what's hot and what's not.
Inside my bag I keep a moleskine notebook, a pocket-sized filofax and my PDA, a Handspring Visor. I use the notebook for scribbling impressionistic thoughts and collecting ticket stubs and other such mementos. The filofax is for keeping a hard copy of my friends' contact details and recently I also started using it to write down the addresses of all the restaurants I visit here in Paris, sorted by arrondissement. I store my professional contacts on the Visor and I have a very useful app on there too called MetrO that helps me navigate the Paris metro system.
I sometimes carry in my bag (but more often in my pocket) my MP3 player and my Nokia 3650 mobile phone. I've said it before, but I'll say it again - to call a smartphone a phone is to miss the point entirely. I use my 3650 to send text messages and emails, to take photos (and upload them to my moblog), to read the Guardian on AvantGo, to store my personal contacts, to play games on a ZX Spectrum emulator, to surf the web and - just occasionally - to talk to people.
What else do I carry around with me? Some spare batteries for my PDA and MP3 player, a couple of pens and pencils, and that's about it.
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Listen to this
Here's one for all the eavesdroppers among you.
Tube gossip: a weekly update of what people are saying on the London underground
Fascinating stuff.
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Found via Tom Hume
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What's in your gadget bag?
Inspired by this interview with Anil Dash, I'd like to pose the same question - what's in your gadget bag?
Low-tech "gadgets" like moleskine notebooks are also acceptable. I just want to know what items you carry around with you every day.
I'm nosey, aren't I?
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The emigrant vote
A poster encouraging people to vote for Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the recent Algerian presidential elections made it all the way to my local market here in Paris.
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Cool tools
Cool tools - how can you live without them?
Here are my recommendations for cool tools. I include books, gadgets, software, videos, maps, hardware, materials, websites or gear that are extraordinary, little-known, or reliably handy for an individual or small group. I depend on friends and readers to suggest things they actually use. Particularly welcomed are old items that you still dote on after years of use.
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Blogroll
After a long absence, my blogroll is back - courtesy of Bloglines.
For now, my blogroll is not an exhaustive list of all the sites I read, but instead shows all the RSS feeds to which I am currently subscribed. I do read some sites that don't have RSS feeds, but not many. (Come on, Mau!)
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Is Chomsky really blogging?
Noam Chomsky has started a blog. Of sorts.
Turning the tide: The official weblog of Noam Chomsky, including exclusive, original observations drawn from personal correspondence, ZNet Sustainer Forums posts, and direct blog entries.
I say "of sorts" because he's cheating a bit if he copies items he's already published elsewhere. A blog shouldn't really be "including ... original observations" - it should be made up enitrely of original observations. And his blog doesn't seem to allow comments, which is a shame - the ability to discuss and respond to posts is one of the most powerful aspects of blogging.
Still, Chomsky is an impressive thinker and it's good to see blogs making it onto his radar.
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From Spam to Spim
Do you get much Spim?
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Are you an aspiring Luddite?
This article - which dates from March 2001 - has some hilarious suggestions for ways in which those of us who spend too much time online can find satisfaction in the real world.
One item in particular caught my eye. They could so easily be talking about blogs.
High tech gizmo: Personal webpage
Low tech alternative: Purchase a megaphone and periodically scream your opinions out your apartment window. Tell the whole neighborhood what you thought of the Oscar nominations or Bush's tax cut proposal. You'll meet a surprising number of new people this way, many of them in uniform. Beware of "feedback" in the form of shoes and bullets.
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Free culture wiki
I love it!
In the latest example of blatant intellectual property abuse, self-proclaimed 'hacker' Aaron Swartz has uploaded the entirety of the bestselling book Free Culture to the Internet and encouraged everyone to modify, respond, and annotate it using the technology known as a 'Wiki'.
- Free culture wiki: piracy hits a new low
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The instant messaging handbook
I wish some of my friends would read the instant messaging handbook.
The rise of real-time text communication, known as instant messaging or IM for short, has unleashed a torrent of typing amongst teens, co-workers and colleagues. But with so many people tapping out text in so many different ways, technology has created an electronic Tower of Babel, where miscommunication and frustration are common currencies.
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IKEA has great loos!
In France, it is all but impossible to find baby changing facilities in bars and restaurants, so when we went out to IKEA yesterday I was impressed to find one of their baby changing tables - Visdalen, I believe - had been set up in both the ladies' and the men's toilets in the restaurant.
So impressed, in fact, that I even took advantage of this rare opportunity to change a nappy in public myself for once.
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While we're on the subject of strangely-named items of furniture, you may also like to try the IKEA game.
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Scots language dictionary now searchable online
The 12 volumes of the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue and the 10 volumes of the Scottish National Dictionary are now available, and most importantly searchable, online.
Read more about this important initiative from a team working at Dundee University in the BBC article Online move for Scots language.
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Original link sent via email by Craig and Leona
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Promises, promises
Puedoprometeryprometo.com is a blog that was set up to cover the 2004 elections in Spain. It features a section entitled Promesas that lists all the electoral promises made by the two main candidates during the course of their respective campaigns, with the aim of making it easier to keep track of how many (or more likely how few) of them are kept.
Sounds like an ideal candidate for inclusion on the wiki on the state of Emergent Democracy and political blogging in Europe.
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Paper
Where I work, we print out ridiculous amounts of documents; every desk has piles of scrap paper on it, and there s even one person in my office who prints out her emails.
Now, I don t want to come over all preachy, and it s open to debate just how bad computers themselves are for the environment, but since we re already obliged to work with digital documents, I really don t understand why we don t try to read as much as possible on screen.
I ve started to do my bit, convincing my team not to print out the PDF versions of every single press release we publish only to store them in a folder that we never open again, and I was pleased to see that someone else recently put up a sign next to the printer imploring us all to print two sheets to a page whenever possible.
It s not perfect, but it s a start.
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Six Apart coming to Europe
As Loïc announces on his new weblog ...
Six Apart and ... Ublog SA have signed yesterday an exclusive representation agreement. Ublog SA becomes the exclusive agent of Six Apart in Europe, Middle-East and Africa and has started distributing its leading weblogs publishing products, Typepad and Movable Type.
Not bad for a lad who was interviewed on this blog back in December.
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I want my MP3
I recently purchased a portable MP3 player, as I may have mentioned, and now I'm looking for music to listen to on it. Not the CDs from my collection that I've been busily burning over the past few weeks, but new music that's out there waiting for me to discover it. And I'm even willing to pay (a little) for the pleasure.
So, do you have any suggestions of good sites for downloading MP3s, legally or otherwise? There are quite a few out there, if "Can't Stop The Music" by Ben Hammersley writing in the Guardian is anything to go by. Have you tried any of them?
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Say no to those who say 'non'
Don't vote for this man.
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Pollock
Has Jackson Pollock been painting the stairs of my building?
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11 de marzo
A dark, dark day for Spain and for those of us who love her.
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Regaining your personal space
Listening to a Walkman or portable MP3 player could be a way of regaining your personal space, according to an article published on the BBC website.
I recently bought an MP3 player and I must admit that listening to the soundtrack from Cidade de Deus on the way to work in the morning does make me feel differently when I arrive at the office ...
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Original link via Smart Mobs
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Fishcakes
Lovingly prepared and greatly appreciated.
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Snakes and ...
Ladders
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Four million dollars and one million euros
Four million dollars and one million euros - that's the amount a mysterious terrorist group calling itself AZF has asked the French government to pay up or else they will plant a bomb somewhere on the French railway network.
While this may turn out to be very serious indeed, I couldn't help but be reminded when I first heard the story of the scene in Austin Powers where Doctor Evil asks for a million dollars or he'll blow up the world (or worse) only to be met with squeals of laughter for demanding such a paltry sum.
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Blogs to go
Now I can indulge in two of my favourite vices - reading blogs and playing with mobile phones - at the same time.
Bloggo is an RSS feed reader for WAP 2.0-capable phones. If that sentence makes you choke, try this one: Bloggo lets you read blogs on your phone.
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Link found via Smart Mobs
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What does this sign mean?
Any ideas?
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The shape of words
If you love words as much for what they look like as for what they say, you'll love this - The evolution of writing.
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Shut up, just shut up
I think I may be having a premature middle-life crisis.
How else do you explain the fact that I bought the new Black Eyed Peas album yesterday and that my favourite track on it is "Where is the love?", the one featuring none other than Justin Timberlake?
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As good as it gets
Enjoy the mobile phone you have today. This may be as good as it gets.
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Self-portrait in a doorknob
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Holiday Inn Paris
My parents are on holiday in Paris this weekend. Here we all are having a drink at the Holiday Inn on Place de la Republique.
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Permission to surf, sir?
My boss has told me I need to spend more time surfing the web, doing "research". Could I have found my ideal job?
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Peixe espada
I had a nice piece of swordfish - and a nice vinho verde - for lunch today, in a Portuguese restaurant near work that I discovered just the other day.
- Le Paris Madère, 28 rue de Caumartin, 75009 Paris
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Making a pig's ear of it
After reading how tasty eel is, I'm tempted to go out and try some. I wonder if they'll have any in my local market. The article does say they're eaten in France.
What's the most exotic food you've ever eaten? I had a pig's ear in Spain once, but found it a little too crunchy for my liking.
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Mega PC
Today I built my own PC, using the MSI Mega PC barebone (the computer that thinks it's a stereo) as my starting point. Incredibly, it seems to be working.
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Shaken, not stirred
Sipping vodka martinis with Mr Gilliver in Harry's Bar makes for a most pleasant evening.
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Old
Just as soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to delete all my old emails.
Actually, it shouldn't take long, as I lost most of the files on my hard drive when I had to do an emergency clean reinstall of the operating system on my PC recently. But, according to this article over at The Feature, the fact that I even had them in the first place marks me out as being strictly on the wrong, old-fogey side of the digital divide.
Young people may have discovered the dark truth about digital media: the person who wins the right to store a piece of data has actually won the booby prize.
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What is blogging?
It may only be January, but I am convinced I have already found the quote of the year, in a post on Loïc Le Meur's blog about his participation in a blogging panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
I said at the panel that blogging was like open sourcing myself and I like that idea. It is very weird to share our minds openly and in public to many people but [it] brings so many good ideas and opportunities that I like it more and more.
Blogging as open-sourcing your life - I like that idea too.
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Comments spam revisited
If you've ever tried deleting more than two thousand unwanted comments by hand, you'll appreciate that I am showing remarkable restraint in not using some very explicit adjectives to describe the person or persons who today decided to bombard my site with links to what is I'm sure a fascinating online casino and betting site.
You may also understand why I have given up halfway through. I'll get rid of the rest of them over the weekend.
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Dundee poet wins TS Eliot prize
Dundee poet Don Paterson has won the TS Eliot prize just days after also winning the Whitbread Prize for Poetry.
Is this an example of Dundee's culutral revival that Armin is always asking me about? Probably not - Don now lives in Kirriemuir.
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Where am I?
When I got on the metro to go to work this morning, I thought I was in Paris - but when I got off at my destination, I seem to have ended up in Stockholm.
I'm confused.
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The Blog Philes - Mouche
I asked French blogger Mouche to share some of her thoughts on blogs and blogging.
How long have you been blogging? How did you get started?
I started to blog as a challenge in February 2001. I was addicted to reading blogs and Jeffrey started Blogstory, as in Loft Story [Editor's note: A French reality TV show in the same vein as Big Brother]. I though blogging was too complex for me, and that I had nothing to say, but if he agreed to take me everything would be fine. Of course I did everything to be selected and win. I lost the game, but gained a few interested readers who followed me when I opened my own weblog(s).
Because of this experiment, I wanted to separate my private life from my ideas and created two separate weblogs. One for my family and friends, one for the (blogging) world.
Your blog is very much of the old school, where what matters most is finding an interesting site and linking to it - as opposed to some bloggers for whom links are secondary, if they appear at all. Was this a deliberate choice on your part, or has your blog just evolved this way?
Linking is an habit, almost a way of life. ;) I've always kept interesting articles for my family and friends. Now I just link to them. Because I don't believe I'm a fantastic writer, it is also an attempt to give something more than average to my readers by giving examples, stories... To me there are two major kinds of links: the look-at-it-link and the see-what-i-mean-link. Everybody should be able to link in the see-what-i-mean way, using the web notion in weblog. You can use the internet just to publish your ideas or stories, but there's more to it than that. The very nature of the medium gives you many possibilities to easily deepen your text. That's why links are essential to blogging for me.
Why do you write using a pseudonym? Do your friends and family know you have a blog?
My friends, my family, my coworkers... they all know about my weblogs. I can't stop talking about weblogs all the time. Everybody knows about them, but very few actually read my weblogs. I use my personnal weblog to stay in touch with my family and my friends. When I was abroad some of them were occasional readers, now that I am back home with my family I am very pleased to learn that my Godfather and another aunt keep on reading. I believe that weblogs are a very good way to stay in touch. (Did I tell you that I hate the phone?) And I keep on asking everybody to open a weblog so that I can read them, and learn about them.
As for L'oeil de Mouche, Mouche was an obvious signature. Kind of logical joke. My name can be found in the weblog but I don't see a reason why I should proclaim it. It's just a name. I don't give more credit to someone just because his name is on his weblog. I give credit to those who know what they are talking about. I'm more interested in a long term relationship. It's a little strange and unusual but I have friends whose names I don't know.
What do you think of events like ParisCarnet, the monthly Parisian bloggers meetup? Is it important for you to feel part of the French blogging community?
I like the idea of ParisCarnet. It give some reality to this blogosphere and justifies (for the real people in my life) the time I spend on the internet. It's very nice to be able to put a voice, a face, an attitude to a weblog. It is a very funny thing to do because it's a kind of reverse meeting: you already know the person from the inside. Or, more frequently, you can go read someone you know. Going to ParisCarnet is an effective way to boost your audience. I'm not sure there is a French blogging community. Every weblog has its own ecosystem, and most of the time they just ignore the other ecosystems. The only important part is that you find your community, and weblogs are fantastic for this.
Can you give some examples of a few blogs you like and explain why you like them?
Well... most weblogs I like are in my blogroll.
I like Everybody's weird because I like the way Manur writes. Reading his weblog you can feel a voice.
I like Le lien public because it's funny and you can't predict what's coming next.
Canclaux is like a portal telling you what's worth reading.
Reading Plasticbag is usually interesting for the ideas or the links.
I usually like weblogs where people express their views and opinions. It could be a collection of links and commentary, an explanation of the latest developments in rss or simply a text. Give me food for thought.
What plans do you have for the future development of your blog?
Well, I don't have any plans but I do have projects. I'm currently working on a new weblog hosting solution - but I can't say any more about it for now, so stay tuned for more blogosphere news. ;)
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Starbucks arrives in Paris
What's wrong with having a perfectly nice French coffee in a brasserie?
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Life, bellybuttons, metropolis
Now that I'm back working in the world of marketing, I can really appreciate a good strapline - and the one on toshikomi is without doubt one of the most intriguing I've ever seen.
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Where to eat by Saint-Lazare
On my French-language blog, I asked if anyone could suggest somewhere nice to eat near Saint-Lazare station, which is where my new office is located.
By nice, of course, I mean cheap.
At the time of writing, the only suggestions anyone has come up with are to buy a guidebook or to follow one of the women who work at one of the department stores on Boulevard Haussmann to see where she goes (for which I fear I may get arrested).
Any other ideas?
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Colours
I love the colours in this picture. On my phone, it looks like a painting.
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LinkedIn: it works!
I mentioned not so long ago that I'd signed up for the professional networking service LinkedIn.
Well, it seems to work.
I was contacted over the weekend by someone looking for technical writers in France and, although I wasn't interested in the type of work on offer myself, I was able to put that person in touch with a couple of contacts of mine here in Paris who may be more actively looking for work than I am. Let's hope it works out well for all concerned.
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Normal service will resume shortly
Like Jez, I've too have been a bit busy for blogging lately. He's been starting a translation agency, I've got my new job to keep me occupied.
Still, unless I end up having an entirely blog-free January, I should be back soon.
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The iPod mini is here (well, there anyway)
Can I have one of those iPod minis please? Not until April unless I move to the US, it seems.
At least that will give me a couple of months to justify the price tag. At $249, it's still not cheap. And Ben Hammersley thinks we Europeans will be ripped off even more with Apple playing their usual games with the exchange rates.
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Solutions that read your mind
Adaptive Disambiguation is a great article that Justin Hall has written for TheFeature.com on the future of predictive texting. In it, Hall compares several text input systems, including the T9 system from Tegic, which you've probably already seen on your mobile phone, and its competitor AirTx, a company proposing "solutions that read your mind".
AirTx anticipates not only next word, but also next action. They've had some computer intuition systems up and running, but a usability expert at the company recommended they tone it down for consumers "to avoid the big brother effect: oh wow - it's noon and my phone just asked me if I want to get lunch with my girlfriend'."
As well as being an entertaining and informative writer, Hall is also lucky enough to have an extremely cool address for his personal website - links.net. This man has obviously been on the web for a long time.
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Link found via textually.org
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Epiphany
Today, the 6th of January, is Epiphany, the day when the Three Wise Men came from the east bearing gifts for the infant Jesus.
In France this occasion is marked by the eating of a cake called the Galette des Rois. Each galette contains a tiny figure that is supposed to represent one of the Wise Men, who are called Kings in French. Whoever finds the figure in his or her slice of cake gets to wear a paper crown.
In Spain, children receive gifts from the Magi (or coal if they've been bad), while Spaniards of all ages try to avoid being hit by falling meteors.
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Haggis and black pudding tower
What a wonderful way to start a meal!
- The Ship Inn, 121 Fisher Street, Broughty Ferry
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Hogmanay
It doesn't look like my father's car will be taking us to many New Year's Eve parties tonight.
A guid New Year tae ane an aw - lang may yer lum reek.
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Patatas bravas
I never thought the day would come when I'd be eating tapas in Dundee.
- Bar Valencia, 16 Dock Street, Dundee
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Michael Marra, live at the Westport Bar
A brilliant gig. And "Frida Kahlo visits the Tay Bridge Bar" may well be the best song title ever.
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Cheers!
Let's make sure everyone has a drink.
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Bronchiolite
Understaffing at Parisian hospitals means that during this winter's flu and bronchitis epidemic, parents are being all but begged to consult their GP before dragging their sick children off to hospital.
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Self-publicizing (or how to make me feel important)
These people think my moblog is "of interest".
(I love Mimi Ito's bento moblog, by the way.)
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Is it errata or erratum?
I was wrong, and I apologise.
It has been pointed out to me that Goscinny and Uderzo, the creators of Asterix, were not in fact Belgian as I thought.
That's blogging - there's always someone else to check your facts for you.
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Bribery and corruption in the blogosphere
A few weeks ago, I got an email from someone at Convea, a company that produces an open source business application platform. This person asked me to review the company's groupware here on my site, and although I haven't got round to looking at the tool in any comprehensive way yet, I can say now that it does seem very complete. A full report will follow as soon as I get around to testing it more thoroughly.
I was particularly struck by this technique of using other people's blogs as a marketing tool. Bloggers as a breed do not require much bribery and corruption - the mere thought that someone has found your site interesting enough to contact you in the first place ought to be enough for most of us.
The company is still taking a risk by inviting bloggers to talk about their tool, since product reviews on a blog can be negative as well as positive, as my recent criticism of Photostation on my French-language blog demonstrates.
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Twa pehs, a plen bridie an a latte please pal
My hometown is changing - and turning continental, if what they have to say on the Dundee City Council website is to be believed.
Café society has taken off in Dundee, and in the summer the streets turn into an al fresco coffee house.
Now, I'm sure Michael Marra (who I see is going to be playing at the Westport Bar on the Sunday between Christmas and the New Year - do you think I could still get a ticket?) could come up with a great wee song about that.
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The Blog Philes - Loic Le Meur
I asked Loic Le Meur, CEO of blog hosting company Ublog and a man who has been described as "the Robespierre of French blogging", how he became a blogging evangelist.
Reading your blog, one of the main messages that comes through is that you're very keen to get as many people blogging as possible. What do you say to people to convince them they should start a blog? What's your elevator pitch on why blogging matters?
People usually have two main questions, and here are my answers.
What is the difference with a standard personal homepage? I do not see anything interesting in blogs.
I explain that each post is sent via ping to many servers that reference it, and that Google and other search engines such as Technorati reference the content - so one key difference is that their voice spreads fast.
Here, I use my own example. If you google for "create a company" you get 21 million pages and my posts about it appear in fourth position, just two weeks after having started. Usually this example shows how easy it is to get heard and how powerful weblogs are.
I also explain that the comments fields add discussions. Blogs are live discussions, not static homepages. They build a community that has the same interests as you have. Again, take my example; I made a lot of great entrepreneur contacts by publishing my posts about creating a company.
I often use Howard Dean's campaign as an example of power of blogs, as well as Christophe Grébert on a smaller scale in France, who blogs everything he dislikes about the city of Puteaux close to Paris. Christophe is now quoted in many traditionnal media and I can tell you the mayor of Puteaux has to react continuously to that new pressure. Many inhabitants of the city publish comments on his blog to agree with him.
To show the fun part of the blogs, I take my digital camera enabled phone and post a picture from it into my blog. That usually creates a reaction, and then I show the posts of California fires on Textamerica to demonstrate that no photo agency has this live content.
Why should I take the time to blog? It takes a lot of time!
Blogging creates a network of people who may or may not know you beforehand but who read your blog and interact with you. As they have the same interests, they very quickly bring interesting ideas to your own, suggestions, comments, and other contacts. It is as if my ideas are suddenly connected to thousand of people. This way they get tested, sometimes criticized and more often than not enriched by the whole process.
I am convinced that the time invested in blogging is highly useful.
Can you remember the first blog you read? What did you think of it?
Yes, the first one was Joi Ito's blog joi.ito.com. I would have been totally confused if he had not been there with me commenting it. Now I do the same when I show mine to people.
We were sitting with Joi at a World Economic Forum conference. He started blogging it and I saw the comments arrive minutes after from many countries. I was so impressed I thought I should immediately start a blog and a blog company in Europe, which I did with Ublog.
How long did it take between reading your first blog and deciding to write one yourself? What pushed you to make that leap?
24 hours! I wanted to start communicating with my contacts in a different way and extend it.
Stuart, we met on our blogs, right? This is a cool example.
I read a post you wrote about creating a list of "best blogs". When you're trying to introduce people to blogging, which sites do you recommend they look at first? What's your personal top five?
Difficult to say. I guess it depends on who they are. I usually show them how RSS works and make a demo of NetNewsWire and my own blogs list. It also lives every day as I add and delete some.
If they are French then JL Raymond's MediaTIC is a must. If not, then I read daily joi.ito.com, smartmobs.com, gizmodo and Doc Searls - but, thanks to NetNewsWire, I actually read about 100 weblogs.
I push them to look for their own interests on Technorati.
There's a category on your blog called Entrepreneurship. Is this simply because it's a subject close to your heart, or do you believe that blogs also have a role to play in business?
Blogs definitely have a role to play in business. They will add transparency. Think about searching Technorati for a brand, a product, a person. A product's reputation can be destroyed by blogs even before it hits the market. I rarely meet someone before googling his name. If that person has a blog, I know a lot about him, his interests. We do not have to introduce ourselves anymore - that actually happened to me very recently when I met Dave Sifry, the man behind Technorati, we had both read each other's blogs and did not need the introduction.
My view is that the business world will fast be split in two, and the people who do not get it will have hard times soon because they will not understand how others can share their information and network with their contacts. They will be late. I feel like I have two lives now, one offline which is great but too slow, one online that lacks the physical contact but is much much faster.
About my category on entrepreneurship. I just have a dream where everybody is an entrepreneur. I give the opening conference at HEC Entrepreneurs business school every year on that, so I just thought I could share it with everybody. But this is a challenge, as I have not posted on that subject recently, and I have started getting people sending me emails to start again! This is pressure...
You recently started a blog in French alongside your main, English-language blog. What was the motivation behind that?
Living in Paris, you must know that most French people do not understand English very well, unfortunately. As I also wanted to talk to other people in France, I need two blogs. But it takes twice as much time, so that's why my English weblog will always be more up-to-date.
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Tabla rasa
It's tempting.
I'm sitting here composing the first post in my pristine new Movable Type installation at my new hosting provider 34sp.com, and I must say the idea of starting afresh with a clean slate seems quite appealing.
Blogs, however, are public spaces. From the moment the first comment is left on a blog, that blog ceases to be the property of one individual. It is the interaction that takes place in the comments pages between a blog's curator and its readers that makes a blog come alive. As a reader of Blethers.com, this place is as much yours as it is mine.
With this in mind, I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that the wise, witty and wonderful comments that have been left here since Blethers.com first took on the weblog format back in September 2001 remain available for public viewing. Fortunately, MovableType makes it relatively easy to import and export posts from one installation to another, so I have been able to move my -- or rather our -- back catalogue over here without too much difficulty. Links have been broken along the way, and the design of the moblog and the techblog remains rather "spartan" for now, but a new design for the whole site is on its way.
I can't believe I'm still blogging after more than two years.
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Breaking up is hard to do
I'm changing hosting providers.
I've signed up for a reseller account with 34sp.com that gives me 500MB of storage to share between up to 15 different domains, which is plenty of space to be getting on with and will allow me to consolidate all my sites in one package.
My only concern is link rot. When I migrate my Movable Type installation over to the new host, is there any way to stop links from other people's sites to specific pages within my blog from being broken?
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No volem publicitat
It would seem I'm not the only Catalan speaker in Paris, if this piece of anti-advertising grafitti from my local metro station is anything to go by.
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LinkedIn
I've signed up with LinkedIn.
Linkedin is an online service helping professionals find and connect with one another more effectively. Whether looking for jobs, a lead for that next deal, or seeking out an industry expert, members can make contact with thousands of professionals through a chain of trusted connections.
One of the reasons I keep this site going is that I love the sense of community that can build up around a blog - why not leverage that professionally? I'm not going to email everyone I know inviting them to join, as that seems a little too much like "friendly spam" to me, but if you read this site and want to add me to your network, go ahead.
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Found via Loïc Le Meur's Weblog
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Cleaners
Until her retirement last summer, my mother worked as a cleaner for nearly twenty years.
Read in today's Guardian why cleaners are human too.
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Do you take this rock star ...?
The Sunday Herald has published a list of ten of the best marriages in pop that includes this gem of a line.
Elton and Renate
The Rocket Man married Ms Blauel in 1984 but, as with his last album, nobody really bought it.
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Guess I'd better get my old HTML books out
I recently started using Mozilla as my browser of choice, and was disappointed to discover that the main page of my site Stuart Mudie Dot Com doesn't display correctly in this browser. Specifically, it doesn't seem to apply any of the lovingly-crafted CSS that I toiled so long and hard over.
Rather than try to fix it, I think I may just use this as an excuse to redesign the entire page, which I was getting a bit tired of anyway.
Have you seen any pretty pages lately that might help inspire me?
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Time to read some new blogs
It's difficult not to become complacent in your reading habits, which in my case means I end up visiting the same blogs every day. And enjoyable and informative as the sites I visit may be, I'm sure there must be other blogs out there that are equally deserving of my attention.
As you probably already know, weblogs.com provides a list of recently updated weblogs. Earlier today, I went there in search of new blogging sensations. I nervously clicked a few links - some completely at random, others because I liked the name - and, as I had hoped, was delighted to find some new sites to add to my blogroll.
Here are a few that grabbed my attention with an interesting post or two, or a particularly attractive design, or at the very least a cool name.
A similar list of recent updates can be found on the home page of ublog, hosts of my new French-language blog, and I will be using it to discover some new French blogs as well.
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Kangaroo
Last night, I fried up a couple of kangaroo steaks for dinner.
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Confused
What are we being told here? That we shouldn't try to cross the street standing on our heads?
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The Nits at Le Trianon
Here's the set list from last night's concert by The Nits at Le Trianon. I can safely say it was one of the best gigs I've ever attended.
- Boy In A Tree
- The Train
- Bike In Head
- The Dream
- Aquarium
- Sketches Of Spain
- Doppelganger
- Savoy
- Nescio
- Espresso Girl
- Infinite Shoeblack
- Fire In My Head
- Eifersucht
- Welcome Back
- Rumspringa
- In The Dutch Mountains
- Sugar River
- Woman Cactus
- Adieu Sweet Bahnhof
- Home Before Dark
- JOS Days
Two of the evening's highlights for me were Henk playing the banjo on Eifersucht and Robert Jan's rabbit impersonation during Savoy.
And yes, Rob Kloet is without a doubt the greatest drummer in the world.
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The Nits
I'm going to see The Nits in concert tomorrow evening, and have been listening to their new album pretty much non-stop since I bought it at the weekend.
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Linux in Extremadura: Software libre para la libertad
In the latest issue of Wired magazine, Bruce Sterling writes about how the local government in Extremadura, Spain is promoting the use of free software in Linux: The Next Generation.
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Found via Caspa.tv
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Palid bat
The person who sent me this letter shows a cruel sense of humour in placing this Audrey Hepburn stamp next to one of a palid bat. Or am I thinking of Greta Garbo?
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Software choices
I'm in the process of reinstalling Windows and generally tidying up my PC at home.
I've decided to take advantage of this clean-up to rethink what software I use.
I will certainly be installing all of the following:
Do you have any other suggestions for software choices? What can't you live without?
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Information addict
What with one problem or another, most of my evenings this week have been spent trying to recover data from my PC at home before performing a complete reinstall of Windows. And cursing loudly.
Perhaps due to the cursing, or simply my general grumpiness, Justine was prompted to suggest last night that I am addicted to my computer and was suffering withdrawl symptoms. She's nearly right.
It's not the PC itself to which I'm addicted, but I do admit it - my name is Stuart, and I'm an information addict.
I normally read the online version of the Guardian on my Nokia 3650 on the metro to and from work, but this morning I forgot to synch up before getting on the train and was left with a Hobson's choice - sitting staring nervously around the carriage at my fellow passengers for the next forty minutes until I reached my destination, or hurridly perform a synch via GPRS when my train pulled in to a station with network coverage.
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Arts et Métiers
Arts et Métiers is by far my favourite Parisian metro station.
The platform on line 11 is built like the inside of a submarine, and the exhibits embedded in the portholes in its walls - like this one, Satellite Telstar - give it the feel of a kind of underground museum.
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Febre de bola
We seem to have a budding Brazilian Nick Hornby on our hands.
Senhoras e senhores, claramente inspirado por Nick Hornby, em Febre de Bola, aqui estão as memórias afetivas de um corinthiano. Não tenho a intenção de ser preciso nas informações aqui encontradas, nem vou correr atrás disto, porque o que importa são as versões, e não os fatos
febre de bola
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Thanks for reading Blethers.com
Be thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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You must reinstall Windows
My PC is in a bad way.
Error loading kernel. You must reinstall Windows.
If this doesn't work, I may have to resort to this and pray I don't lose any data.
And I must buy a CD writer fast.
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Spaces for people to inhabit
When I was a child, I used to design houses.
I worked with a pencil and a ruler and an eraser, scribbling and measuring and erasing and scribbling some more, all the while imagining what it would be like to live in these buildings when I was rich. I never had any doubt that I would see my creations built, for I never had any doubt that I would be rich enough to pay for it all myself.
I remember going through a Japanese phase during which I became completely obsessed with paper-thin sliding doors. I was aware that they probably wouldn't have afforded much protection against the Scottish winters of my youth, but I never imagined myself staying in Scotland forever, or at least not all the year round.
Now, I no longer dream of building houses, just as I no longer imagine myself becoming rich. Rather, the inside of buildings is what excites my inner architect these days. Interior design, furniture, even ceramics - making spaces for people to inhabit more beautiful.
I think I'm going to buy a sketchpad this weekend.
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A hint for my family
I know my brother and his partner read Blethers.com from time to time, so hopefully they'll pass this hint for a potential Christmas present on to the rest of the family.
Folks, if you're stuck for ideas, I've seen a couple of great gifts at Ecomania, "the online environmental shop that offers you a wide range of interesting and innovative environmentally friendly products".
I just love the business card holder that was once a printed circuit board, and the wine goblet made from a yellow olive coloured wine bottle is pretty attractive too, although I'd be a little worried about getting that home without breaking it.
I'll have to see whether they do deliveries to France.
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Il est arrivé
They're saying that, thanks to last summer's heatwave, 2003 is going to be a memorable vintage for French wine. That's good news for my daughter Ellie if, in years to come, someone decides to buy her a bottle from the year she was born.
I opened my first bottle of 2003 wine tonight. Oui, le beaujolais nouveau est arrivé. This year's offering is particularly fruity - and you can ask me tomorrow about the hangover.
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80% company
With all the talk in France of abolishing the 35 hour work week, and of doing away with one day's public holiday next year, I was intrigued to read by Nick Denton's thoughts on the "80% company".
The article was written over eighteen months ago. I wonder if he still feels the same way today.
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Office kaleidoscope
I just noticed the lights in the building opposite the place where I work. Normally we keep the blinds down in my office, so I've never been able to enjoy this kaleidoscope until now.
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Bloglines
I've been using Bloglines, a web-based news aggregator, for a few weeks now.
Bloglines is a free service that makes it easy to keep up with your favorite blogs and newsfeeds. With Bloglines, you can subscribe to the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs, and Bloglines will monitor updates to those sites. You can read the latest entries easily within Bloglines.
Very useful.
The thing is, although I use this service to know which of my favourite blogs have updated, I still find myself visiting the blogs themselves to read the new posts - even those blogs whose RSS feed includes the entire text of each post. Why? In a word: design.
Some blogs are beautiful, and some are (let's be honest) pretty ugly. But a blog's distinctive look and feel is just as important to me as the writing it contains, not least because it helps distinguish one from another (which becomes all the more important when everyone links to the same two or three sites). If I read all the sites in my blogroll in an aggregator, how will I be able to tell them apart?
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Non-virtual
Parisian blogger Vinso has a "non-virtual" photo exhibition next month that I must try to attend.
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Pretty face
A pretty face in a doorway, Rue du Temple.
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Chasing Bush
Chasing Bush, a project being run by the passive resistance network interwebnet.org, demonstrates how cameraphones and SMS messaging can be used to help organize political protests, in this case to track George Bush on his upcoming tour of the United Kingdom.
We'll have trusted operatives and volunteers on the ground reporting his movements and will encourage homebodies, wage slaves and others who cannot attend protests to keep an eye on this website and inform their friends of updates by mobile phone so they can be in the right place at the right time.
Images on the portal (mostly submitted via mobile phone cams) will be shown not only of Bush, but the protests going on and the traffic chaos caused by his over-the-top censorship-driven security.
In short, he can run and hide all he likes, but there will be no escape for George W. Bush.
Update, 20 November 2003: BBC News - Mobile users told to 'chase Bush'
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Found via Jezblog
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Spamments
I've been getting a lot of spamments recently and I don't know what to do about it, other than deleting each one by hand or just giving up and letting the spammers leave their grubby prints all over my site.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Or are all attempts to combat weblog spam doomed to failure, as Mark Pilgrim seems to think?
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Found via Znarf Infos
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Le Patio
Upstairs at Le Patio, a fine organic restaurant in the Marais.
- Le Patio, 54 rue St Croix de la Bretonnerie, 75004 Paris
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Update, 17 November 2003: I forgot to mention that one of our dining companions was none other than star guestblogger Peter Gilliver.
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Over the fields
A sunny day - it must be time to go home.
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Lush
"Lush", my favourite Pembrokeshire expression.
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Rugby World Cup
England 28 - Wales 17
Watching the match with my Welsh in-laws in Begelly gave me a good excuse to have a beer before lunchtime. Shame "we" lost, or I could have had another to celebrate.
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Camera Phone Report
Alan Reiter has a new blog, Camera Phone Report, in which he covers the latest news relating to the image production capabilities of smartphones.
Reiter has already made clear how important he believes cameraphones to be.
I believe that: Wireless + color + cameras/camcorders + user-created content = A wireless revolution.
Through the links on Camera Phone Report, I've already found a couple of interesting image editing applications that I'll be investigating further.
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Found via Smart Mobs
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Beast
This strange and fearsome creature dwells in the stairwell of our building.
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For that next trip to Iran
Learn Farsi (Persian) at easypersian.com.
Just try it once and you ll find yourself addicted!!
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Found via Blogalization
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Blur
I've noticed that by moving my cameraphone even a little, I take some really fuzzy shots. This can ruin a good picture, but it also lets me create images like this one without any post-editing.
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Google and Microsoft
Remember I wrote about Google becoming the new Microsoft?
It may yet turn out to be true, if this New York Times article "Microsoft and Google: Partners or Rivals?" is to be believed.
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World Summit on the Information Society
Here are two interesting initiatives from the World Summit on the Information Society, the first phase of which is due to take place in Geneva on 10-12 December 2003.
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Daily Summit found via Guardian Unlimited Online
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Weblog minister Zalm
It seems that Dutch finance minister Gerrit Zalm has a weblog - proof, if any were needed, that blogging has well and truly arrived.
Now all we need is for his French opposite number to open a blog as well, and the two of them could start up a flame war on whether or not EU budget rules apply to all member states, or whether France and Germany are exceptions to the rule.
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Salon du chocolat
At the chocolate fair that's taking place under the Louvre Museum this week, I saw these two lovely ladies on the stand belonging to Russian chocolate-makers Confael. I didn't buy one, mainly because I wouldn't have known where to start nibbling.
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Eurostar, Gare du Nord
My parents arrived in Paris last night.
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How to get rid of your buddies
At Telepocalypse (which is a great name for a very interesting blog on the theme of "Telecom strategy in the age of end-to-end networks"), Martin asks for recommendations for a socially acceptable way to end instant messaging conversations, and how to remove people from your buddy list without giving offence.
I don't use IM very often, and as a result my own buddy list is quite short, but even with a longer list of contacts, I can't see how this is a problem. I mean, are there really people with so many buddies that they have hundreds of chat windows popping up whenever they log on? Just because someone is on your buddy list, that doesn't necessarily imply that they want to chat with you all the time.
I recently cleaned out a whole list of names and addresses from Outlook. Most of them belong to people I haven't seen or heard from in years, and may well no longer be valid, but even then I still couldn't bring myself to delete them completely, so I ended up saving them in a backup file "just in case". I feel the same way about my buddy list - who knows when you may want to get in touch with someone again.
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If anyone's interested, here are my screen names for Yahoo Messenger and AOL Instant Messanger.
- Yahoo - smudie_AT_yahoo.com
- AIM - mudiestuart_AT_aol.com
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Tell Microsoft you hate them
Believe it or not, Microsoft is asking for negative feedback on its upcoming operating system, via the Longhorn blog of Microsoft resident blogger Robert Scoble.
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Piano tuning
At the end of my street is a workshop that repairs musical instruments. They seem to specialise in pianos, but they always have a few violins and the odd guitar lying around as well.
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These people really exist
Let me confirm that the following bloggers and other assorted citizens of the Internet truly exist. How do I know this? I have met and spoken to them all. You didn't think I was one of those anti-social types who spend all their time in front of a computer, did you?
(Although it's quite short for now, hopefully this list will grow and be updated over time.)
Update, 28 October 2003: I've thought of some more names already that should have been on the original list.
Update, 4 April 2004
Update, 24 August 2004
Update, 21 September 2004
Update, 6 December 2004
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Based on an idea by Mouche
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Home taping is killing music
Justine bought a CD at the weekend that has the following text written on the inside cover.
Please do not use Internet services that promote the illegal distribution of copyrighted music, give away illegal copies of discs or lend discs to others for copying. It is hurting the artists who created the music. It has the same effect as stealing a disc from a store without paying for it.
Remember all those old albums from the seventies that proclaimed "Home taping is killing music"? As far as I can tell, it ain't dead yet.
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Harri Potter
It looks like there's a bigger Welsh-speaking community in Paris than I thought, if the three copies of Harri Potter a Maen yr Athronydd I saw at the FNAC in Les Halles today are anything to go by.
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Le Pré Saint-Gervais
Le Pré Saint-Gervais, "one of the smallest towns in France", is only a couple of stops down the metro line from where I live in Paris. We're thinking of taking Ellie there for a stroll this weekend, just to kid ourselves that we're getting out of the city.
One feature of the town's website that I particularly enjoyed is its guided tour through the streets of the Pré, which allows you to wander virtually around the town by clicking your way through a series of photos. Turn left? Click the arrows on the left. Go straight on? Click the arrows above the picture. Turn back the way you came? Click the arrows underneath.
Hours of fun for all the family.
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Elevator going up
Finding myself alone in the lift at work this morning, I decided to take my first self-portrait with my cameraphone.
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Remember, not everyone is clicking
Today's tip of the day from the W3C Quality Assurance team: Don't say "click here".
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Rainy days
"Rainy days and Mondays always get me down."
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Doesn't the spätzle look great?
Next time you're in Tokyo, I suggest you visit the Weberhaus Tokyo German-Austrian restaurant.
Until then, take a look at their website and see for yourself all the wonderful food you're missing.
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British blog awards 2003
Should I consider moving back to the UK for a few weeks, just to be able to take part in the Guardian newspaper's British blog awards 2003?
Take a look at some of the judges:
It may almost be worth taking up British residence again just to know that these people were visiting my site, however briefly they might stay.
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Know your fonts?
How well do you know your fonts?
Once there was a typeface called Helvetica.
It was extremely popular.
Later came a software company called Microsoft.
They "borrowed" Helvetica for their operating system and called it Arial.
This inferior typeface is now on millions of desktops all over the world.
Can you tell the difference between the original and the rip-off
in these ten examples?
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Toy shopping
- L'enfant et le sortilège, 39 rue de Crimée, 75019 Paris
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Pass the screwdriver
I'm thinking of building a new PC.
Am I mad? Have you ever tried to do something like that? Where do I start?
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But is it art?
This bar stool by Louis Sognot can be seen in the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
It's a very good-looking chair, but not really the kind of exhibit I would have expected to find in a museum of modern art. Not even one that wears its plumbing on the outside like the Centre Pompidou.
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Muchas gracias, Pedro
Pedro Jorge is a generous guy.
I wrote to him not so long ago asking if he knew of anywhere on the web where I could order his science fiction novel El otoño de las Estrellas. I like the way he writes on his blog and was intrigued at the prospect of reading some science fiction in Spanish, but I couldn't find his book anywhere. To be honest, I'm not even sure it's still in print.
Rather than answering my question, however, Pedro kindly offered to send me a copy of the book instead. It came today, and I have returned the favour by getting him something of a similar value from his Amazon wishlist.
I think this kind of trading is great, especially when you consider that we only know each other through our respective blogs. Do you think it could take off?
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"Where have you been hiding?"
I was off work sick for most of last week.
I always find French doctor's notes amusing - there's a section which says whether or not you have permission to leave the house, and specifies exactly the hours during which you can do so. I had permission to go outside between the hours of 10am-12pm and 4pm-6pm each day, but the "permission to blog" box was left unchecked so that's why I've been offline.
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Le best of
Loïc Le Meur talks of creating a list of the best blogs made in France.
Any such list is obviously going to suffer from subjectivity, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. My only fear is that, depending on how widely publicised in the carnetosphère it became, le best of may run the risk of being taken as canonical, when in fact one of the greatest pleasures to be had in reading blogs lies in discovering new bloggers and new voices.
So, by all means share your personal favourites with the world Loïc - that's what blogrolls are all about - but please don't pretend your list is exhaustive.
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La tournée du chat noir
I have a Theophile Steinlen print on my bathroom door. It's not quite the Mona Lisa, but I like it.
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Guestbloggers go wild at Jezblog
While Jez is busy sorting out his move from Paris to the wilds of Yorkshire, he has taken the bold (some would say foolhardy) step of inviting five guestbloggers to go wild all over his site.
Let's hope for their sakes that they don't break anything. And that they remember to fill up his bottles of whisky with cold tea so that he doesn't realise they've been tippling in secret.
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A triumph of East German engineering
Someone must have driven this Trabant a long way for it to end up parked by the Canal St Martin in Paris.
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The Blog Philes - Katia Grimmer-Laversanne
Katia Grimmer-Laversanne is the woman behind blog template store halfwaygully.com. She also has a blog of her own, An Aussie Lass, A Frenchman & A Burmese, on which she writes about her life as an Australian living in Paris. I asked her a few questions about blogging and blog design.
How long have you been blogging? How did you get started?
I've been writing in a journal since I was twelve. I was encouraged by my English teacher at the time to pick it up, and haven't stopped since. Since I type far faster than I write, it was only natural for me to progress to journalling on the internet. I've been blogging online for about two years now, and I finally decided to go public in January 2003. As a result, my style of blogging changed, but I'm writing essentially for the same purposes as when I started thirteen years ago.
As a blog template designer, what's more important for you in a blog, the writing or the design?
They both play an essential part. For many bloggists, writing online is about sharing ideas and interests with other people. The readership of a blog will increase eventually, but a good design can get a new bloggist off to a good start, generating interest as they establish their niche in the blogging world. Essentially, a well-designed blog will catch the eye and grab new readers, but a well-written blog will keep them coming back.
Can you give some examples of a few blogs you like and say why you like them?
Like most people interested in internet and technology developments, I like to get my fix of blogs like zeldman, a list apart and webgraphics every few days. Blogs are a marvellous way to regularly keep in touch with the ideas of some of the "web gurus" amongst us.
I enjoy reading blogs written by expatriates, as well as those that are dedicated to daily life. My reading list seems to evolve by itself, growing longer and longer each day as I find new and interesting blogs to read. But my real weakness for those which have a sense of humour - one of my favourites is Uncle Bob's Diary o' Chuckles - I just can't get enough!
Tell us a bit about Halfwaygully. What kind of templates can we find there?
I consider each new template to be a challenge to my technical abilities. With each new design I make, I try to challenge myself, to reach beyond my realm of knowledge. The templates are primarily based on CSS and XHTML, and there is a wide variety of technological styles. That said, they're simple to use, and I try to make them as robust and user-friendly as possible. I enjoy experimenting with colour, so many of the templates are bright and energetic.
Since blogging is pretty much an amateur phenomenon, don't you find that most bloggers would prefer to design their own sites, even if the end result may not be as attractive as if they'd paid someone like you to do it instead?
This is true. Many bloggists like to play around with graphics and codes, and there is undoubtedly an immense satisfaction in creating an layout all by yourself. Yesterday I received an email from a lady who said, "I just love playing around! I spend more time tweaking my blog than I do blogging!"
On the other hand, many bloggists simply don't have the time or desire to learn how to do it, or even know where to begin - they would simply prefer to get on with the business of blogging. The layout, however, is still important, so that's where designers like myself come in, making things just that little bit easier.
What do you think of the default templates that come with tools like Blogger or Movable Type?
They're very stable, reliable and robust designs, particularly those of Movable Type. If your intention is simply to wow your audience with your wit, sticking with the defaults is not a problem. On the other hand, if you're looking to catch the eye of some new readers, you may as well dress to impress. The default templates are a great place to start, and even just a simple colour change can make all the difference - the only downside is that they are not "personal", and that is what most people want in a weblog.
How standards compliant are your designs? Do your templates validate?
I'm a huge standards advocate, but that said, I don't design for outdated browsers, such as Netscape Navigator 4.x - in this situation, the majority rules and I make sure that each template can be seen in the latest versions of IE, Netscape, Mozilla and Opera. I eventually run all of my code through the various W3C validators, but unfortunately, once you put third party code into the pages, a page can become unstable. Even a simple visitor counter code, a tagboard or "blog tags" can throw out the entire page.
Do you customize your templates for people who don't know HTML and CSS?
I support usability in a big way, therefore halfwaygully templates are extremely simple to install and customise. Detailed readme files are included with each design, and the actual template files are filled with "signposts" where things can be changed to suit personal tastes. As a result, I have found that people generally don't need help installing and customising, but I am always available for email support, and often it's just a matter of an accidentally deleted bracket or something. For a small fee, I do provide customisation and even installation services for people who really don't know what to do.
Do you only design blogs?
The majority of the designs on halfwaygully are aimed at blog users, but I've recently been developing website templates as well, and many of the designs can be used either way. The shareware and exclusive designs come replete with all of those important website headings, like "home" and "contact", so the novice can develop their own website quite easily. A website can contain a blog, so I am trying to develop my templates to emphasise this.
I have also done freelance work for small companies looking for a modern and bright online presence.
What are your plans for Halfwaygully?
My personal plan is to find a freelance or permanent web development job here in Paris. I hope that I'll be able to continue to develop web templates for halfwaygully - I just love design, so I think that whatever happens, I'll make the time.
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Eyes
Le livre d'yeux in the window of a bookshop in Rue du Jourdain, Paris.
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The healthy option
Chocolate cake, redcurrants and a drop of cognac.
- Le Zephyr, 1 rue du Jourdain, 75020 Paris
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Further words of wisdom from the Catholic Church
Jez reports on how the Catholic Church is once again telling people in countries stricken by AIDS not to use condoms.
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All you need is ...
Rue de Belleville, Paris
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Asterix
This little man sits on my PC at work to remind me that I'm in France.
It has always struck me as ironic that the creators of such a French icon were themselves Belgian.
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Mobloggers are everywhere
Blethers.com guestblogger Peter Caestecker and I are not the only people posting blurry photos to the web that we have taken with our cameraphones.
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Poppy cat
Ellie's friend Poppy Cat wouldn't stay still for this photo.
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My landlady's blog
You know you're living in a joined-up world when even your landlady has a blog.
Here's a sample entry from Tracy Rolling's The Sputterly Utter, taken from October 7, 2003.
Cranialtech
Reshaping skulls since 1988.
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A walk across the rooftops
Belleville, Paris
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Speccy
Remember the ZX Spectrum?
I got a Spectrum when I was about ten years old, and it was bashing away at its rubber keys that I first tried my hand at programming.
10 PRINT "What is your name?"
20 INPUT name$
30 PRINT "Hello ";name$
I have just installed the Spectrum emulator ZXBoy on my Nokia 3650 phone, typed in the above code, and marvelled once more at a computer - my phone this time - greeting me with the immortal words "Hello Stuart". And, not content with creating such complex programs myself, I also installed Manic Miner and Lemmings for the complete tech nostalgia experience.
Hours of fun guaranteed!
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Text only
To be considered moblogging, does a blog entry have to include a photo, or is it enough just to post a text-only entry direct from my phone?
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How to take nicer pictures
At the suggestion of Kevin Cameron, whose mfop tool I use to upload pictures to my moblog, I have joined the Japan Photography Mailing List.
I don't live in Japan, and I'm not really much of a photographer either, but Kevin seems to think he's learned a lot from this group and hopefully I will too.
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Flower
This wilderness is our garden.
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Pat Kane
If you only know Pat Kane as the crooner from jazz-pop group Hue & Cry, you don't know him at all.
I saw Pat talk once, when he came to my university in 1992 to give a speech on behalf of the cross-party political organization Scotland United, whose aim was a multi-choice referendum that would allow the people of Scotland to vote for independence, devolution or leaving the constitution unchanged. He was very eloquent, more so than the career politicians with whom he was sharing a platform that evening (one of whom, Jack McConnell, went on to become the First Minister of Scotland), and I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said.
During the 90's, he also began to build a reputation as a journalist, and in 1999 he was one of the founding editors of the Sunday Herald newspaper.
Now, it seems, he's into play, and he even has a weblog to prove it.
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Frankly, it's time we started talking euro
We had a plumber round the other day, making a few measurements before preparing us a quote for some work that needs to be done in our kitchen. Needless to say, it's going to cost us a lot of money, but we're not sure exactly how much because he kept talking in francs, despite the fact that the euro has been the legal currency of France since January 2002.
I noticed over the weekend that my local hairdresser also still displays the reference price in francs, with the real price in euros tagged on almost as an after-thought.
And yesterday, a friend of ours who is looking for a new job was telling us about the salary on offer for a couple of positions she's applied for, again in francs. How can she even know what the salary is in francs? She must have taken the euro amount and converted it into a currency that is obsolete, which seems like a rather futile exercise to me.
Is this what awaits my fellow countrymen when the UK finally joins the euro?
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We don't want your kind round here
I noticed today that several stickers have appeared in my street urging people to "defend the Republic" and to protest against the "islamisation" of France. They were put there by supporters of the far-right political party the MNR, which is led by Jean-Marie Le Pen's ex-sidekick Bruno Megret.
As I was taking this photo, one of my neighbours was busy tearing all the stickers down, hopefully making it clear to Mr Megret and his cohorts that such racist views are not welcome round here.
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Desktop
Take a close look at the mouse mat.
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Black Desire
On the night of Sunday 27 July 2003, Bertrand Cantat, lead singer of French rock group Noir Desir, had a violent argument with his partner Marie Trintignant in a hotel room in Vilnius, Lithuania, where she was shooting a film. As a result of the injuries she sustained during the dispute, Ms Trintignant fell into a coma, and she died a few days later after being flown back to Paris. Mr Cantat has admitted responsibility for her death, while claiming to have been under the influence of a dangerous mixture of alcohol and pills, and he is currently awaiting trial in Vilnius.
Following this tragic event, press coverage here in France made much of the fact that Cantat and his group were very politically active, campaigning against the Front National, and supporting José Bové and anti-globalization protestors. One of the first concerts that the group cancelled after Cantat's arrest was their headline appearance at the Fête de l'Humanité, a festival organized by the newspaper of the French Communist Party. I think this is missing the point a little. A woman is dead, and we should not be more disappointed because the man who is responsible for her death holds some laudable political views. Spouse beating is always equally abhorrent; it is not true that some cases are worse than others.
I am writing about this today because I saw in a bookshop yesterday that Nadine Trintignant, Marie Trintignant's mother and herself an actress, has just published a book entitled, "My daughter, Marie". I don't know what to think about that. Is it part of her healing process? Or is it just some sick opportunism?
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Get writing
The-phone-book.com are accepting submissions for their final edition until midnight GMT on 1st November 2003. If you've ever wanted to write a story in 150 words or less, and even get paid for it, send them your work today. I did - and they liked my story enough to send me a cheque for twelve pounds, the first (and so far only) time I have been paid for creative writing. I was so delighted to have my work accepted that I decided to keep the cheque as a souvenir instead of cashing it. I think I'll get it framed and put it on the wall above my desk if I ever become a famous novelist.
If you feel that 150 words cannot do justice to your overflowing creativity, you may wish to consider the National Novel Writing Month instead. You can sign up now for the fifth edition of this glorious event and accept the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.
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ParisCarnet
I attended the gathering of Parisian webloggers last night, although unfortunately I arrived a little later than intended and missed Jez as a result.
It was fun, once I got over my initial awkward shyness. A couple of people knew Blethers.com already, which was nice, and I knew a couple of other people's blogs as well, which I hope was nice for them too. It certainly made things easier at the beginning; I felt like I already had a connection with at least some of the people present, even though we had never actually met.
A few of the people I spoke to seemed reluctant to read Blethers.com when they discovered that I write in English. I tried to convince them to give it a go, even if their English is not perfect, and just click on a few random links - that's what I do with many of the Flemish posts on Uren.Dagen.Nachten.
I didn't catch the names of everyone I spoke to, but here are those that I did.
You can also read the official report, which includes links to other people's impressions of the evening and even a few photos.
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Le Carnétosphère francophone
I suppose I should try to learn some French blogging terms before I go along to the ParisCarnet tonight.
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Politics: it's all a lottery anyway
I'm not sure what to make of this: whowillbeatbush.com.
While it makes me suspicious, I'm tempted to sign up and try to guess who will be the next resident of the White House anyway, just to see what it's all about.
$30,000 isn't a lot of money for them to buy all those email addresses, is it?
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