First day back

So today was my first day back at work at the BBC after a month off - and what did I miss?

The site finally got a BBC logo favicon - - it probably doesn't meet the absolute letter of the law of the branding guidelines, but then they probably weren't written for a 16 pixel by 16 pixel graphic. After all even the pulsing TV advertised logo of the bbc.co.uk website wasn't made with the practicalities of putting it on the web in mind.

backstage.bbc.co.uk got launched - although I had already noticed that through my logfiles with referrals to my two prototypes - BBC Complaints in RSS and Where Is The BBC News?. There is also a so-far entertaining mailing list to go with it

There was some great work done in altering the homepage for election night with an explicit postcode look-up box. It reminded me that we are still under-exploiting the ability to deliver location-targeted information on the homepage, and not really signaling clearly enough to the user that they can at the very least customise the weather they see on the homepage.

Talking of which, a lengthy review of the way the BBC presents the weather - Project Storm - went live today. It meant some changes to the graphics used on the homepage, and I'm sure will lead to a torrent of complaints from people who were either i) quite happy with magnetic clouds stuck onto a board circa 1967 and don't see the need for change and ii) people who don't care what the forecast looks like as long as it is never, ever, ever, ever wrong. Sample comment from BBC News Have Your Say:

BBC, what have you done? The new map looks like a post-nuclear wasteland with dark menacing shadows creeping across the country. Awful, awful, awful.

We've also changed the corresponding weather graphics on the homepage, although in truth by the time the new extruded 3D icons get reduced to 24x28 pixels the change amounts to one slightly different shade of pixel per raindrop.

The Points of View message board got a new off-topic area - Points Askew. It also attracted a hardcore band of moaners who can't stop writing about how much they dislike the Doctor Who series, even though, as has been pointed out, they continue to watch it in order to criticise it ;-)

I also missed around 1,800 emails - fortunately due to a zealous application of rules before I left, around 1,000 of them got moved straight into the deleted items folder. Hey, if something important went into there by mistake they'll get back to me I'm sure. If I've learned one piece of wisdom on my month off it was that email rules rule.

And what did the BBC miss whilst I was away?

• I got a bike, and renounced coffee.
• I had a fantastic week in Malta and Gozo.
• I took days out to galleries and museums, open-air art installations, and bits of the tube network.
• I went to gigs that were awesome, and some that were a curate's egg.
• I saw and enjoyed the Hitch-Hikers movie, if not the kids throwing popcorn at us during the show.
• I made some new blogger templates for my dad's venture onto the web (more of which later no doubt).
• I bought an iPod, then my iPod broke, and then it was fixed it again.
• One of my best friends turned forty and had a great party, at the end of which I got a night bus back from the centre of town with not just my wife, but my parents as well, which is something I can't honestly say I've ever expected to.
• Speaking of parents, I had a fantastic day with my dad tinkering around with his computer and then going out for a pub-lunch together.
• I babysat my nephew on my own for the first time.
• I took loads of pictures of stuff related to the election campaign, and loads and loads of pictures in general.
• I went to a general election hustings meeting that was interrupted by protesters against democracy.
• I bought a bass guitar with a friend.
• I watched "Father's Day", "The Long Game", "Dalek" and "World War Three".
• But, as several people have pointed out to me today, I didn't manage to go through with my idea of not updating this site for the whole month ;-)

Posted by Martin Belam, May 17, 2005
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