currybetdotnet Other archive
Introducing...
If you'll indulge me with a very personal post today, I'd like to introduce Emma Rose Belam, who was born yesterday at 3:34am. Mum and baby are doing absolutely fine....
'Too dangerous' for Southern Electric or EDF to fix their own equipment in my house
This is the astonishing story of how, thanks to the disconnected way our utilities have been privatised, a woman expecting a baby in 7 days time has been left in a house with no electricity for two nights. At first neither EDF or Southern Electricity could agree on whose responsibility it was to look at the problem, and then, when one of them did finally take the job on, they decided it was 'too dangerous' to send an engineer to...
The Royal Mail's multiple #fails
Now, I haven't complained on currybetdotnet about the Royal Mail since August 2004, but in the last couple of weeks they have produced a couple of absolute corkers. The other Thursday we got a bill. Somebody else's bill. Sent to an entirely different address. OK, to be fair, it was to the same house number, but on a different street. But the real added bonus? The free gift of some used chewing gum stuck to it. And yet they say...
Wind up the Barclays clockwork robot
We are quite used to 'amusing' failure messages on the web. The Twitter 'Fail Whale' has become a meme in itself, and we are also familiar with characters like the Bloglines plumber. The other day I spotted this online trend escaping from the virtual into the real world. Apparently, if you can't get money out of a Barclays ATM in the UK, it isn't because our banking system has broken, but because their clockwork fifties sci-fi b-movie robot has ground...
"I'm sorry, we're not allowed to have laptops here"
"I'm sorry, we're not allowed to have laptops here" And with those words I had further evidence for my theory that whilst I was out of the country for a couple of years, everybody in Britain slowly but surely went bonkers. A bit of context. I was in a small coffee shop and patisserie on Bedale Street near London Bridge, having a quick shot of caffeine and getting some work done before meeting up with some friends. I'd already found...
"To all young couples I see together..."
Now, it is just a hunch. But I couldn't help but think that the fact you were scrawling graffiti like this in the toilets of the British Museum might, just might, be a clue as to why you find yourself in the relationship predicament that you do... "To all young couples I see together, f&%k off. I should be with a wife or girlfriend, not by myself."...
"Desirable Future?" at the Dana Centre
I mentioned last week that I was at an event at the Dana Centre to mark the launch of Jack Challoner's book "Desirable Future?: Consumer Electronics in Tomorrow's World". Despite having a couple of friends who have worked at the Science Museum, I've never been to one of the Dana Centre events before, and I was impressed. The format was a five minute presentation from each of the panel, and then the audience broke into groups. I was rather hoping...
The Halifax - always giving you a little extra aggravation
Now, without wanting to start sounding like a grumpy old man, or indeed like Roshan Doug in the Birmingham Post, I have to indulge myself with a rant about some recent poor customer service from the Halifax. We wanted to open a new savings account for my wife, and, having taken advice from the boys at t'Fool, we opted for the Halifax. I applied to open the account online, with the expectation of dropping a cheque into a branch next...
Fake plastic waste from British Airways
One of the problems with setting yourself high ethical standards in public as a brand is that you are easily judged on them. British Airways are proud of their 'green' credentials, and like to say so. "We were the first airline to produce an environmental report and we've issued an update on our progress every year since 1992." "As a global airline, we're proud to connect people, places and cultures and keep business on the move. But the freedom of...
A month of Twittering
I never really had much interest in Twitter when it first launched. Despite it being almost exactly tailored to a compulsive blogger and early technology adopter like me, I really, really couldn't see the point of it. As the service has developed, people have begun to find more and more ways of using it to do research, market their blogs, get questions answered, get engaged, and to arrange when to meet down the pub. Increasingly I've been reading about what...
8 random facts about me
I've been tagged by Dan Taylor on Fabric of Folly in an '8 random facts about me' blog chain letter type thing. I thought of just linking through to "5 things you probably don't know about me" and adding 3 more, in a Blue Peter here's-one-I-made-earlier style, but that didn't seem to fit the spirit of the thing. 8 random facts about me: I owned a terrapin for much of the 80s and all of the 90s, until it went...
"East Meets West" at Tower Bridge
I was rather lucky on Monday to get to go to a promotional evening on the walkways of Tower Bridge, called "East meets West". I've been up there a few times, as my wife used to work there, and I've even DJed up in one of the towers. The bridge itself is unique in being both a heritage monument, a working bridge, and an astonishing feat of Victorian design and engineering. The event was being held to celebrate the success...
Sacred at the British Library
In between zipping around various BBC buildings last week for a series of meetings, I took a half-hour out to visit Sacred at the British Library - their exhibition of religious texts from the history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The material on display is undoubtedly spectacular from a historical point of view - with surviving fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest known Christian Gospels, and rare parchments from Islamic Spain. There are also bibles in Syriac, Slavonic, and...
Print versions now available for some currybetdotnet articles
Some time ago a student emailed me to say that a couple of my articles about search had been very useful to them in their studies, but to complain that there wasn't an easy way to print out entire articles from this site. About a year later I've finally got around to producing downloadable and printable versions of the articles on the site, so if you ever fancied your own cut-out-and-keep guide to a day in the life of BBCi...
My plastic bag photo is re-cycled by New Consumer
It is always nice to see some of my creative commons licensed photographs on Flickr getting recycled, and last week New Consumer were using one of my pictures of a plastic bag. It is a little ironic actually, as they are using it to illustrate Adam Vaughan's article about "High street pledges to slash plastic bags by 2008" The photo of the Tesco's bag is part of my Flickr series "Things Our Neighbours Have Thrown Into Our Garden". Thanks...
Investigating the history of witches in Salzburg
Unlike the behemoth of the BBC, I seldom take the opportunity to cross-post to or cross-promote the blogs I contribute to, but I wanted to make an exception this week. Those of you who ever followed the posts on here about the ghost walks that I use to do in London, and in one case in Haunted Malta, with my wife, might be interested in a series of posts she has published this week on 'A lemon tree of our...
5 things you probably don't know about me...
...(unless you are my mum) I've been tagged directly by Dave, and indirectly on This Is Not My Country, so just imagine all the usual humbug about how I wouldn't normally do this kind of thing but... 1) I played the lead role in my school's annual production of Macbeth when I was an insecure troubled teenager. A couple of months spent brooding over the Scottish play at the age of 17 didn't really help to be honest. 2) I...
"Church and blur" on Druid Street
I noticed that on Wednesday one of my Flickr photos - Church and blur - was reproduced on the rather enigmatic Druid Street site. It is a picture, I believe, of a French church taken when I was on a school trip there back in the 1980s. It was one of a whole wallet of photographs that my parents recently found, which were taken by me between the ages of 9 and 13. Funnily enough, having posted them on Flickr,...
currybetdotnet 2006 review
I have never previously done this kind of end-of-year review type thing, well, except for making mixtapes of the year for friends back when cassette-by-post was the preferred method of delivery rather than mp3-file-delivered-to-your-phone-via-Bluetooth or whatever it is the kids are doing these days. However, on Friday I wrote about some of my favourite blogs from 2006, and today I wanted to do a quick run through of the highlights (and lowlights) of writing and running currybetdotnet this year. I...
Greta Blue due to be a highlight of the Design Interiors show
It is always nice to see one of the companies I do some web work for getting praise. Greta Blue, who import Indian made organic cotton bedding, are launching their range at the Design Interiors show in Birmingham in January. As one of 5 suppliers of "Eco and Ethically Sound Sourced Products" they have been picked out as a highlight of the show. Eco and Ethically Sound Sourced Products Many Design Interiors exhibitors are at the forefront of sustainable design....
More of my photographs included in Schmap's European travel guides
Illustrator Jhinuk Sarkar launches Paper-Fig.com
You can't exhibit code - a tour around the Scottish Museum
Introducing 'A lemon tree of our own'
Currybetdotnet archive restored
Most Haunted Live at Tower Bridge
"I Used To *Really* Love H&M" - Reaction To H&M's &denim Romeo & Juliet Campaign
Airfix Dumbs Down. So Does Subbuteo.
It's Not The Disability That Is The Problem, It's The Sex
Behind The Scenes At Tower Bridge
Big Bus Tour - How Tourists Get To See London
Things Our Neighbours Have Thrown Into Our Garden
Dinosaur Fun at the Natural History Museum
Graffiti on Novy Most -> Wormfood
Speedway in Cardiff, and White City
You Can Collect More Gamecards Tomorrow
An Elusive Camel and A WEEE Man
A gallery, a monument, a museum and a spot of shopping - Day-tripping in London
Il Fumo Uccide - but they look good
Martin Belam presentation at IP Lezing in Amsterdam
The Adventures of Tintin at Sea
Caution - Royal Mail genius at work
Things you never thought of...
The interface between technology and brute force
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Talks & presentations
"Journalism in the digital age"
I'll be appearing on a panel with Sarah Hartley and Iain Hepburn at the Edinburgh International Science Festival on Sunday April 11th. More details...
Posts of the moment
Day of the Triffids
If everyone suddenly went blind, how long would the Internet survive, and could you still publish news on it?
With professionals of this quality, who needs 'citizen journalist' enemies?
It is hard to argue that ethics and quality set the 'professional journalist' apart from the amateur blogger, if the 'professional' keeps publishing articles so wrong that they have to be deleted.
Read more about...
- The future of news
- IA and UX events
- Local and hyperlocal news
- Martin Belam talks and presentations
- Media policy and regulation
- New media best practice
- Newspaper website design
- Notes and quotes from media and web events
- 'Old' media relationship with 'new' media
- Site search management and design
- Working at the BBC (2000 - 2005)
- Working at The Guardian (2008 - now)
Also on the site
or any current or former employers or clients.
Contact: martin dot belam at currybet dot net. © Martin Belam where appropriate.
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