Perhaps I need to travel a little faster. Or more often. Or something.
The new Dopplr profiles are fun.
I was at Mashed 08 at Alexandra Palace yesterday. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go back today, but I've made some progress on my project from home.
It was a successful day all in all though. Here's what I did.
Update: I should, of course, reiterate that what I've done so far on Political Web is largely just to repackage stuff that's available from from They Work For You. I have plans to add other stuff soon(ish).
Update: Having just got to a Windows PC for the first time for days and tried using Political Web in IE6, I see that it doesn't work for some reason. Probably some Javascript glitch. I'll try to look at it in more detail later on. But in the meantime, use Firefox - you know it makes sense.
It was a successful day all in all though. Here's what I did.
- Watched Jonathan Tweed talk about the BBC /programmes api. If I hadn't already had an idea of what I was going to do I would have been very tempted to play with this. A year ago, I was working for the BBC on one of the projects that underlies /programmes, so it's great to see it being given a public airing.
- Watched the Guardian's Damian Carrington talk about what the Guardian's enviroment web team are hoping to inspire people into doing. Well, to be honest, I sat in his talk whilst getting my wireless connection working. Sorry Damian.
- Met up with a fellow Perl hacker. Last year the venue was full of Perl hackers. Shame there were so few there this year. I suspect many of the cooler kids were at Interesting instead - note to organisers: having two events like this on the same day is all a bit silly.
- Had an interesting conversation with someone from the BBC who is working on the next version of the Radio iPlayer. It sounds as though following the release of this new version, my BBC streams page will be redundant. Alternatively, it might be easy to make it far more useful. And I'll be able to retire all the grungy old HTML scraping code.
- Had an interesting conversation with the O'Reilly UK people. Might be some announcements coming out of that in a couple of months. Oh, and I might have opened myself up to lots of hassle about writing another book.
- Watched Doctor Who on a huge screen. In the wrong aspect ratio. Honestly, you'd thing that if there was one organisation who understood aspect ratios then it would be the BBC.
Update: I should, of course, reiterate that what I've done so far on Political Web is largely just to repackage stuff that's available from from They Work For You. I have plans to add other stuff soon(ish).
Update: Having just got to a Windows PC for the first time for days and tried using Political Web in IE6, I see that it doesn't work for some reason. Probably some Javascript glitch. I'll try to look at it in more detail later on. But in the meantime, use Firefox - you know it makes sense.
It's the BBC Mashed hack session this coming weekend, so I suppose lots of people are trying to think of a project to work on. I have an idea that involves UK political web sites.
I expect that most MPs have a web site. A far smaller number of them have a blog. Some of them use blog-like software to publish news and other similar web feeds. Part of what I want to do is to build a directory of those URLs. I can't see any way to do this other than trying to track down each of the 646 MPs on the web and poking around on their sites to find all of the interesting URLs. I'm hoping I can get some help with that.
But there are also sites about MPs that are run by other organisations. These ones are easier to track down. For example, They Work For You has a page for every MP. The page for my MP is
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/martin_linton/battersea
So that looks easy enough. You just use the name of the MP and the name of the constituency. Public Whip has a similar mechanism. My MP's page on Public Whip is
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Martin_Linton&mpc=Battersea
Then there are the news organisations. The BBC has a page about my MP. It's at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/mpdb/html/35.stm
In this case there's a magic number (35) and in order to construct these URLs for other MPs, you'd need to map these numbers to MPs (or constituencies).
The Guardian has two pages. One for the MP and one for the constituency.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,,-3146,00.html http://politics.guardian.co.uk/hoc/constituency/0,,-696,00.html
Again, each of those contain magic numbers that you'd need to get a complete list of. And I assume (or, at least, hope) that these pages will one day be given shiny new URLs like other parts of the Guardian site.
It's this second part of the problem that I want to concentrate on first. Building URLs to external sites pro grammatically. And this is where you, gentle reader, can help me. I have two questions that you might be able to answer.
Of, and one last thing. If you're going to Mashed and don't have a project to work on and this sounds interesting to you, then please get in touch. Feel free to link up with me on the backnetwork site.
Update: If you listen, you can probably hear the sounds of my kicking myself very hard because I forgot to check the They Work For You API before writing this entry. It does a lot of the kinds of things that I will need. There's even a Perl module - which makes me very happy.
I expect that most MPs have a web site. A far smaller number of them have a blog. Some of them use blog-like software to publish news and other similar web feeds. Part of what I want to do is to build a directory of those URLs. I can't see any way to do this other than trying to track down each of the 646 MPs on the web and poking around on their sites to find all of the interesting URLs. I'm hoping I can get some help with that.
But there are also sites about MPs that are run by other organisations. These ones are easier to track down. For example, They Work For You has a page for every MP. The page for my MP is
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/martin_linton/battersea
So that looks easy enough. You just use the name of the MP and the name of the constituency. Public Whip has a similar mechanism. My MP's page on Public Whip is
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Martin_Linton&mpc=Battersea
Then there are the news organisations. The BBC has a page about my MP. It's at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/mpdb/html/35.stm
In this case there's a magic number (35) and in order to construct these URLs for other MPs, you'd need to map these numbers to MPs (or constituencies).
The Guardian has two pages. One for the MP and one for the constituency.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,,-3146,00.html http://politics.guardian.co.uk/hoc/constituency/0,,-696,00.html
Again, each of those contain magic numbers that you'd need to get a complete list of. And I assume (or, at least, hope) that these pages will one day be given shiny new URLs like other parts of the Guardian site.
It's this second part of the problem that I want to concentrate on first. Building URLs to external sites pro grammatically. And this is where you, gentle reader, can help me. I have two questions that you might be able to answer.
- I'm sure I'm missing some external sites. To be honest, I haven't really looked very hard yet. I'd be surprised if some of the other national papers didn't have similar pages to the Guardian. Do you know of any other good sites that have pages dedicated to each individual MP or constituency?
- Do any of you work for organisations that publish these pages? If so, is there any chance that you could sent me lists of the "magic numbers" that appear in your URLs? What I'd need is something like a CSV file (or whatever format is convenient for you) that maps your magic numbers to a recognisable name for an MP or a constituency. I can then map your data to my list of MPs. I know it's a bit cheeky, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Of, and one last thing. If you're going to Mashed and don't have a project to work on and this sounds interesting to you, then please get in touch. Feel free to link up with me on the backnetwork site.
Update: If you listen, you can probably hear the sounds of my kicking myself very hard because I forgot to check the They Work For You API before writing this entry. It does a lot of the kinds of things that I will need. There's even a Perl module - which makes me very happy.
Well that about wraps it up for the Labour Party as far as I'm concerned. Less than three years after they doubled the the amount of time that a suspect could be held without charge, they have pushed through a bill which increases the time by another 50%. If the bill gets through the Lords, you'll be able to be held for 42 days. This is far longer than in any other western democracy.
Like pretty much everyone I know, I've been becoming more and more disgusted with the Labour government. But through it all I clung to the belief that they were the best alternative. And I (usually) still voted for them.
But that's all over now. A party that has so little regard for human rights is not one that I can possibly vote for. I left the party and sent back my membership card in protest over the Ken Livingstone/Frank Dobson fiasco in 2000. I'm beginning to wish that I hadn't as this is a far more important matter to protest over.
The problem is, of course, who do I vote for now? Only the Labour and Conservative parties have a chance of winning my constituency. I've always been physically repulsed by the idea of voting Tory. Is it time to try and overcome that revulsion. Or do I effectively waste my vote by voting Green or for one of the more extreme left wing parties. I suppose I have a year or two to decide.
But this is a sad day in British politics. The modernisation of the Labour Party has gone too far. It's time for "New Labour" to go. We want our party back.
Update: Blimey. A Tory politician with principles. Hats off to David Davies.
Like pretty much everyone I know, I've been becoming more and more disgusted with the Labour government. But through it all I clung to the belief that they were the best alternative. And I (usually) still voted for them.
But that's all over now. A party that has so little regard for human rights is not one that I can possibly vote for. I left the party and sent back my membership card in protest over the Ken Livingstone/Frank Dobson fiasco in 2000. I'm beginning to wish that I hadn't as this is a far more important matter to protest over.
The problem is, of course, who do I vote for now? Only the Labour and Conservative parties have a chance of winning my constituency. I've always been physically repulsed by the idea of voting Tory. Is it time to try and overcome that revulsion. Or do I effectively waste my vote by voting Green or for one of the more extreme left wing parties. I suppose I have a year or two to decide.
But this is a sad day in British politics. The modernisation of the Labour Party has gone too far. It's time for "New Labour" to go. We want our party back.
Update: Blimey. A Tory politician with principles. Hats off to David Davies.
We were at our usual weekly pub quiz last night. One of the questions was this:
Who is the current captain of the Starship Enterprise?
I have to confess being rather confused by this question. Given that Star Trek is set two hundred (or so - I'm not a big fan, I don't know the details) years in the future, how can the word "current" possibly have any meaning?
The answer that the questionmaster accepted as correct was Jean-Luc Picard. Is there any way that answer makes sense?
As I understand it, he was last seen as captain in Star Trek Nemesis in 2002. But Jonathan Archer was seen as captain (of a far earlier Enterprise) until 2005.
I hate it when quiz questions are illogical.
For probably the first time ever, I'm almost getting tempted by an Apple product.
I mean, it's still a lot of money to pay for a phone. And who would be happy with a music player that a) only has 16Gb of storage and b) won't play sensible formats.
But they do look nice.
I mean, it's still a lot of money to pay for a phone. And who would be happy with a music player that a) only has 16Gb of storage and b) won't play sensible formats.
But they do look nice.
Time for our newly elected mayor to start earning his money. I may not agree with him on many things, but I love what he said about George W Bush.
The President is a cross-eyed warmonger, unelected inarticulate, who epitomises the arrogance of American foreign policy.
I wonder if Boris will be meeting Dubya on his forthcoming trip to London. Maybe Boris is a secret supporter of Operation Manticore.
Look, posters based on the this quotation!
Update: Ooh. New! Improved! Pictures
I like a bit of controversy in my RSS feeds. I subscribe to feeds from the Daily Mail and the Sun - papers that are guaranteed to get my blood boiling. An occasional increase in blood pressure can be most invigorating.
But I've just removed an RSS feed from my list of subscriptions because there was a distinct danger that it was going to give me a heart attack. I've been reading Biased BBC for about a year (I'm pretty sure that it was Martin who first pointed it out to me).
The premise of the site is pretty uncontentious. They say that the BBC is staffed exclusively by left-leaning Londoners and that the opinions in its output don't reflect the views of the general population of the country. Having worked at the BBC a couple of times, I have to agree that there is a large number of people working there with left of centre political views. However, I've only ever worked in the IT group so I can't say whether the same applies to the editorial groups.
And whilst anyone can point to occasional lapses in editorial balance by any media outlet, accusations of an organised attempt to brainwash the country fall far wide of the mark. I pretty sure that most of the contributors to Biased BBC would continue accuse the BBC of bias unless it was broadcasting exactly their opinion all the time. They seem to be confusing "bias" with "failure to agree with me completely".
But anyway, I found it an interesting read. Occasionally they'd point out some real example of BBC bias. More often it was an amusing way to read about a completely different view of the world.
All that changed a few months ago when Biased BBC introduced a new contributor called David Vance. Vance doesn't see the BBC as a generally reasonable organisation which exhibits occasional lapses of judgement. He sees it as a tool of the devil and find examples of left wing (oh, and pro-islamic) bias in everything that the BBC broadcasts. He is posting several entries a day, each one a foaming-at-the-mouth rant about the BBC. It's boring and depressing.
So that's why I've decided to stop reading the site. It went beyond parody and just became a waste of time. The site takes comments, so I've been tempted to get involved in discussions there occasionally, but looking at the opinions held by most of the contributors there, it would be a waste of everyone's time. They aren't going to listen to reason. They are happy to sit there with the veins in their neck throbbing away bashing out conclusive proof that everyone in the BBC is a potential terrorist who wants to implement shariah law in the UK.
It used to be good fun, but now it's just dull.
Can someone please let me know when it goes back to how it used to be?
But I've just removed an RSS feed from my list of subscriptions because there was a distinct danger that it was going to give me a heart attack. I've been reading Biased BBC for about a year (I'm pretty sure that it was Martin who first pointed it out to me).
The premise of the site is pretty uncontentious. They say that the BBC is staffed exclusively by left-leaning Londoners and that the opinions in its output don't reflect the views of the general population of the country. Having worked at the BBC a couple of times, I have to agree that there is a large number of people working there with left of centre political views. However, I've only ever worked in the IT group so I can't say whether the same applies to the editorial groups.
And whilst anyone can point to occasional lapses in editorial balance by any media outlet, accusations of an organised attempt to brainwash the country fall far wide of the mark. I pretty sure that most of the contributors to Biased BBC would continue accuse the BBC of bias unless it was broadcasting exactly their opinion all the time. They seem to be confusing "bias" with "failure to agree with me completely".
But anyway, I found it an interesting read. Occasionally they'd point out some real example of BBC bias. More often it was an amusing way to read about a completely different view of the world.
All that changed a few months ago when Biased BBC introduced a new contributor called David Vance. Vance doesn't see the BBC as a generally reasonable organisation which exhibits occasional lapses of judgement. He sees it as a tool of the devil and find examples of left wing (oh, and pro-islamic) bias in everything that the BBC broadcasts. He is posting several entries a day, each one a foaming-at-the-mouth rant about the BBC. It's boring and depressing.
So that's why I've decided to stop reading the site. It went beyond parody and just became a waste of time. The site takes comments, so I've been tempted to get involved in discussions there occasionally, but looking at the opinions held by most of the contributors there, it would be a waste of everyone's time. They aren't going to listen to reason. They are happy to sit there with the veins in their neck throbbing away bashing out conclusive proof that everyone in the BBC is a potential terrorist who wants to implement shariah law in the UK.
It used to be good fun, but now it's just dull.
Can someone please let me know when it goes back to how it used to be?
We've acquired a cat. My step-daughter has come back from university bringing a cat with with her. And we get to look after it while she goes off on a two-month world tour with her boyfriend. I have no objections to this at all. I like having a cat in the house. What has been particularly interesting is watching him trying to establish his place in the food chain. We have plenty of local wildlife.
On the first day that he started exploring beyond the back garden he met one of the local urban foxes. I'm not sure what the circumstances of the their meeting were. The first we knew of it, the cat was dashing into our garden with the fox in hot pursuit. The cat ran up a tree and the fox couldn't follow. I went out into the garden and the fox ran away. It took ten minutes to persuade the cat down out of the tree though.
A couple of hours later the cat managed to re-establish some kind of superiority. He brought in a mouse. Fortunately (for us, I mean, not the mouse) it was dead. I disposed of it.
So we've established that cats trump mice but foxes trump cats. This morning there was an altogether more interesting contest. I was still in bed when I heard the cat flap open. Shortly afterwards there was an unearthly screaming from the kitchen. I was dispatched to investigate.
There was a cat vs squirrel fight going on under the kitchen table. And it was really hard to see who was winning. The cat obviously had the weight advantage, but the squirrel had the speed and agility. And the aforementioned screaming which seemed to be putting the cat off a bit.
I closed the kitchen door and opened the back door to ensure that if the fight moved elsewhere, it would be in the right direction. But neither of them showed any inclination to go back into the garden. Until suddenly the squirrel decided to make a break for it through the (closed) window. He sat on the radiator beneath the window scratching frantically at the glass. The cat sat on the floor watching. I grabbed a tea towel, wrapped the squirrel in it and threw it out the back door, where it picked itself up and made a sharp exit up a tree.
I went back to survey the damage. I was dreading finding the floor covered in squirrel poo or something like that. But I was spared that. I did, however, have to wipe rather a lot of squirrel blood off of the radiator. It seems the cat did more damage that I had first assumed.
Squirrels are just rats with good PR. They deserve anything the cat can give them. I just wish he didn't bring the fights indoors.
On the first day that he started exploring beyond the back garden he met one of the local urban foxes. I'm not sure what the circumstances of the their meeting were. The first we knew of it, the cat was dashing into our garden with the fox in hot pursuit. The cat ran up a tree and the fox couldn't follow. I went out into the garden and the fox ran away. It took ten minutes to persuade the cat down out of the tree though.
A couple of hours later the cat managed to re-establish some kind of superiority. He brought in a mouse. Fortunately (for us, I mean, not the mouse) it was dead. I disposed of it.
So we've established that cats trump mice but foxes trump cats. This morning there was an altogether more interesting contest. I was still in bed when I heard the cat flap open. Shortly afterwards there was an unearthly screaming from the kitchen. I was dispatched to investigate.
There was a cat vs squirrel fight going on under the kitchen table. And it was really hard to see who was winning. The cat obviously had the weight advantage, but the squirrel had the speed and agility. And the aforementioned screaming which seemed to be putting the cat off a bit.
I closed the kitchen door and opened the back door to ensure that if the fight moved elsewhere, it would be in the right direction. But neither of them showed any inclination to go back into the garden. Until suddenly the squirrel decided to make a break for it through the (closed) window. He sat on the radiator beneath the window scratching frantically at the glass. The cat sat on the floor watching. I grabbed a tea towel, wrapped the squirrel in it and threw it out the back door, where it picked itself up and made a sharp exit up a tree.
I went back to survey the damage. I was dreading finding the floor covered in squirrel poo or something like that. But I was spared that. I did, however, have to wipe rather a lot of squirrel blood off of the radiator. It seems the cat did more damage that I had first assumed.
Squirrels are just rats with good PR. They deserve anything the cat can give them. I just wish he didn't bring the fights indoors.
Finishing the reviews of things we did in York last weekend.
The Biltmore
Had a bit of a lucky escape here, to be honest. We walked past one lunchtime and it looked nice so we went in and booked a table for that evening. It took them ages to find someone who knew how to take our booking and we were on the verge of walking out. When we got there in the evening, it was completely different. It was like the set of Footballers' Wives - full of really tacky and loud people desperately trying to impress each other. Not our kind of place at all. We changed our mind and walked out.
Four High Petergate
Having walked out of the Biltmore, we went here instead. And we were so glad that we did. This was exactly our kind of restaurant. Top quality modern British food served by knowledgeable and friendly staff. The place just exudes class from the second you walk in. It's apparently a hotel too. We'll definitely consider staying there the next time we're in York.
Jorvik
It's over thirty years since I was last in York. And Jorvik wasn't there then, so I really wanted to go to see it. It was ok. I suppose that when it first opened it was revolutionary. But I've been on so many "dark rides" that they stop being exciting. I thought it was quite expensive for what it was. It would have probably seemed better value for money if we had spent more time in the bits of the exhibition after the ride. But it was quite crowded so we wanted to get out pretty quickly.
York Castle Museum
This was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. We saw the signs as we came out of Jorvik so we decided to have a look. And I'm really glad that we did. We spent about half an hour in Jorvik and for a pound less we spent about two hours in the castle museum. I particularly enjoyed their Sixties exhibition.
Wilde's
Nice little wine bar that we went into for lunch. Particularly enjoyable plate of nachos.
El Piano
Very interesting restaurant that we popped into for a quick bite before going off to the concert on Saturday evening. Almost like a tapas approach - all the food turns up on small wooden boats - but completely vegetarian. Another place where we would have spent more time had we discovered it earlier.
The Black Dyke Band
This was completely unplanned, but on our first evening wandering round the city we saw a poster advertising the Black Dyke Band playing in the Minster on Saturday night. It's not really my kind of music but I thought that we couldn't turn down the opportunity to see one of the world's best brass bands in such a great venue. We managed to get restricted view tickets for a tenner each. The concert was largely enjoyable - although we both agreed that it could have been a piece or two shorter. I was surprised at how much of the material was classical pieces. I didn't realise there was such a bit crossover between brass bands and symphony orchestras.
York Art Gallery
It was raining heavily on Sunday morning, so to kill a couple of hours before our train left we decided to wander round the city art gallery. Unfortunately, it was the kind of art gallery that takes about half an hour to see. There was a big Stubbs exhibition on, which would have been great if you like Stubbs - which I don't. There was an interesting exhibition about political cartoons and some nice stuff about still lifes. But it didn't engage our attention for long enough so we ended up back in the Guy Fawkes Inn.
The Biltmore
Had a bit of a lucky escape here, to be honest. We walked past one lunchtime and it looked nice so we went in and booked a table for that evening. It took them ages to find someone who knew how to take our booking and we were on the verge of walking out. When we got there in the evening, it was completely different. It was like the set of Footballers' Wives - full of really tacky and loud people desperately trying to impress each other. Not our kind of place at all. We changed our mind and walked out.
Four High Petergate
Having walked out of the Biltmore, we went here instead. And we were so glad that we did. This was exactly our kind of restaurant. Top quality modern British food served by knowledgeable and friendly staff. The place just exudes class from the second you walk in. It's apparently a hotel too. We'll definitely consider staying there the next time we're in York.
Jorvik
It's over thirty years since I was last in York. And Jorvik wasn't there then, so I really wanted to go to see it. It was ok. I suppose that when it first opened it was revolutionary. But I've been on so many "dark rides" that they stop being exciting. I thought it was quite expensive for what it was. It would have probably seemed better value for money if we had spent more time in the bits of the exhibition after the ride. But it was quite crowded so we wanted to get out pretty quickly.
York Castle Museum
This was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. We saw the signs as we came out of Jorvik so we decided to have a look. And I'm really glad that we did. We spent about half an hour in Jorvik and for a pound less we spent about two hours in the castle museum. I particularly enjoyed their Sixties exhibition.
Wilde's
Nice little wine bar that we went into for lunch. Particularly enjoyable plate of nachos.
El Piano
Very interesting restaurant that we popped into for a quick bite before going off to the concert on Saturday evening. Almost like a tapas approach - all the food turns up on small wooden boats - but completely vegetarian. Another place where we would have spent more time had we discovered it earlier.
The Black Dyke Band
This was completely unplanned, but on our first evening wandering round the city we saw a poster advertising the Black Dyke Band playing in the Minster on Saturday night. It's not really my kind of music but I thought that we couldn't turn down the opportunity to see one of the world's best brass bands in such a great venue. We managed to get restricted view tickets for a tenner each. The concert was largely enjoyable - although we both agreed that it could have been a piece or two shorter. I was surprised at how much of the material was classical pieces. I didn't realise there was such a bit crossover between brass bands and symphony orchestras.
York Art Gallery
It was raining heavily on Sunday morning, so to kill a couple of hours before our train left we decided to wander round the city art gallery. Unfortunately, it was the kind of art gallery that takes about half an hour to see. There was a big Stubbs exhibition on, which would have been great if you like Stubbs - which I don't. There was an interesting exhibition about political cartoons and some nice stuff about still lifes. But it didn't engage our attention for long enough so we ended up back in the Guy Fawkes Inn.
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