Under Saturday morning Extreme Trivia, I’ve just been reminded of two Twitter incidents from way back in 2009.

Firstly, Armando Iannucci’s reaction when he was listed as a “Guest Contributor” by Labour List for this article:

Who is the twat-thumper who put me down as a 'contributor' to the Government's weep-rag LabourList? I want his or her cock for a salad.

May 7, 2009 16:18 via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@Aiannucci

Armando Iannucci

Secondly, Nick Lezard the Guardian / Observer’s reflector-in-circles, on why Twitter is only for:

idiots with a steadily decreasing attention span

Nick joined Twitter last week as @nicklezard.

Nicholas Lezard: So you’re eating lunch? Fascinating

Where does one start with the momentous news that Stephen Fry was considering leaving Twitter? Apparently someone, although broadly sympathetic to Fry in general – no, better, someone who admired and adored him – complained that some of his tweets, as I gather they are called, were “a bit… boring.” Fry took hurt, and announced his intentions before having a re-think.

Now, I have nothing against Stephen Fry, although one questions the wisdom of someone with an easily-bruised ego telling 800,000 people that he’s eating a sandwich and expecting every one of them to be thrilled by the news, but I certainly have something against Twitter.

The name tells us straightaway: it’s inconsequential, background noise, a waste of time and space. Actually, the name does a disservice to the sounds birds make, which are, for the birds, significant, and for humans, soothing and, if you’re Messiaen, inspirational. But Twitter? Inspirational?

No – it’s inspiration’s opposite. The online phenomenon is about humanity disappearing up its own fundament, or the air leaking out of the whole Enlightenment project. In short, I feel about Twitter the way some people feel about nuclear weapons: it’s wrong. It makes blogging look like literature. It’s anti-literature, the new opium of the masses.

Its unreflective instantaneousness encourages neurotic behaviour in both the tweeters and the twatted (seriously, the Americans have proposed that “twatted” should be the past participle of “tweet”, which is the only funny thing about the whole business); it encourages us in the delusion that our random thoughts, our banal experiences, are significant. It is masturbatory and infantile, and the amazing thing is that people can’t get enough of it – possibly because it IS masturbatory and infantile.

Answering the question: “Why do so many people seem to like Twitter?” Twitter itself does not say: “Because people are idiots with a steadily decreasing attention span, and 140 characters is pretty much all anyone has space for in their atrophied brains any more,” but instead, “People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter makes that simple.”

Twitter asks one question: “What are you doing?” (It also adds, in the next paragraph, that “Twitter’s core technology is a device agnostic message routing system with rudimentary social networking features”, and I hope that clears everything up for you.)

Oh God, that it should have come to this. Centuries of human thought and experience drowned out in a maelstrom of inconsequential rubbish (and don’t tell me about Trafigura – one good deed is not enough, and an ordinary online campaign would have done the trick just as well). It is like some horrible science-fiction prediction come to pass: it is not just that Twitter signals the end of nuanced, reflective, authoritative thought – it’s that no one seems to mind.

And I suspect that it’s psychologically dangerous. We have evolved over millions of years to learn not to bore other people with constant updates about what we’re doing (I’m opening a jar of pickles … I’m picking my nose … I’m typing out a message on Twitter …) and we’re throwing it all away. Twitter encourages monstrous egomania, and the very fact that Fry used Twitter to announce that he was leaving Twitter shows his dependence on it. He was never going to give it up. He’s addicted to it.

(There’ll be a real post along soon.)

How Twitter Times Change is a post from: Anna Raccoon

From the thrumming intellectual engine at the heart of the Occupy movement, earlier this month:

(Davane)

I just wanted to point out that I found the Sack Boris Campaign website the other day, and took the opportunity to donate some cash to get some Sack Boris Oyster card wallets. A friend of mine works in the TFL Lost Property Office, so I am thinking of “accidentally losing” a few and asking if he has found them.

…

With the TFL fare increase, and the state of the economy, one way to give back to the community might be to look into handing out free PAYG oyster cards with the wallets. We could top them up with say £5 each, and let people hand in their old PAYG oyster cards (and wallets, naturally) to be topped up and donated. That’s a free day’s fare in and out of the city, to visit Occupy London.

We all know TFL/Boris did this to try and prevent support for Occupy London, by pricing the poor off of public transport, and thus limiting their access to the camp and the facilities that they provide. We shouldn’t let them get away with this. Instead, we should turn it to our advantage.

(No exaggeration of their own importance here. Oh no.)

(Hairyloon)

Really!?

(Davane)

Okay, maybe this is just a conspiracy theory of mine, but fares are something Boris has direct control over, and if you have a registered Oyster card, then your journeys are tracked, so TFL can see how many people are travelling to the sites closest to the Occupy camps. You don’t think they would be monitoring that sort of information?

…

In fact, the Oyster card itself, while convenient, is also a thinly disguised means of tracking people’s movements. This is WHY they offer a discount on journeys made using Oyster – they want people to use Oyster, so they can track what people are doing. Now, it has always been my philosophy that you cannot hide what you are doing, rather you should always act and be prepared as if you are being watched. In my case, I generally don’t care whether people see me or not. If something needs to be done, I will do it, and it doesn’t matter if I am being watched or not.

(I have a certain sympathy for the ‘tracking people’s movements’ concern, but more because I think that such a large database will be likely to be cocked-up, misinterpreted in error out of context in ways which will harm people, and possibly stolen.)

…

Maybe I should run for London Mayor this year? As an Occupy candidate?

(Hairyloon)

Go for it.

Until you played your card as a conspiracy theorist, all of your posts have been pretty sensible: even I might have voted for you… Except I am not registered in London.

(Davane)

I think most conspiracies are a matter of perception myself – There are many theories, and I am a theorist. It comes from being a psycho-sociologist. It’s just that sometimes they happen to be about conspiracies. All the good conspiracy theories do actually have sense in them, which is why it can be so hard to work out whether they are true or not. My attitude is to always keep an open mind and an open eye. I come across a lot of interesting information all the time.

Watch out, Ken.

You may have competition in the mad Mayor of London stakes.

(* Pyscho-Sociology: the study of subjects, issues, and problems common to psychology and sociology. )

Photo credit: Sugarmelon.com.

Occupy Psycho-Sociology is a post from: Anna Raccoon

I’ve always enjoyed the links between maths, physics and music, even though I stopped at Grade 4 Trumpet and have been strictly a ‘chorus’ member.

This is a brilliant video illustrating the relationships.

It is fairly long, at 12 minutes.

Now we need one about the Fourier Transform.

Polymathematics is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Irresistable.

Source.

Occupy the Motor Trade! is a post from: Anna Raccoon

The beauty of Google, here demonstrating the flawless ability of our favourite pundit to predict the future.

For the record, Jacks has 3000 or so followers, and last Tweeted on September 5th.

The article highlighted has some interesting bits, and was written in August 2009, but also some marvellous semi-polemic:

The proportion of 15 to 24 year-olds using a social networking site has fallen from 55 % in the first quarter of last year to 50% in the first quarter of this year. But the number of 25 to 34 year-olds has risen and among 35 to 54 year-olds there was a big jump, from 28% to 35%.

This is not a huge shift, and social networking mania remains remarkable. A third of British adults have a social networking profile and half of all Britons who use the internet have a Facebook profile. Even those teenagers who are giving up Facebook are still spending time online. They’ve moved on, but not to Scrabble.

Nevertheless, the changing age profile of Facebook is interesting. It confirms something I’ve noticed: the slightly desperate enthusiasm among some parents to develop their online profiles. It’s one thing to be doing it as a way of spying on their children (not admirable, but understandable). It’s quite another, unnatural and mildly cringe-making, when the middle-aged say they love nothing better than Twitter, or demand that you become their “friend”. Thank you, but no. If I want to tell you what I’ve been doing, I’ll tell you. If I want to show you some pictures, we’ll meet for coffee. And I’ve got plenty of friends, as opposed to “friends”.

Friends in my book are people I meet in real life because I enjoy their company. Middle-aged cybermania, by contrast, is just people trying to boast about how wonderful their lives are now. It’s bald former public schoolboys telling you they’re into hip-hop. No wonder the poor teenagers are fleeing.

…

It’s like the caricature of the Japanese rist with the cine-camera who spills out of the bus and doesn’t stop to look at a cathedral, painting or sparkling bay, because they are so busy filming it. Likewise, if you are watching yourself and reporting on yourself, how can you fully feel, when everything is mediated? Reality takes second place to a life in which you become the star of your own dull movie, and the director too.

Who’d-a-thunk-it?

Since Jackie’s now on Twitter, she can explain how she can feel fully when she has become the star of her own movie.

I can’t wait.

Jackie Ashley on Twitter is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Having been … er … encouraged by a certain landlady to write what is normally called a ‘boast post’, I thought I’d post this picture which crashed my mail program when it arrived.

I only received the top half and it looked like Ken Dodd in a manic moment.

Anyhow, the news is that we are no 2 in the Libertarian Blogs section of the Total Politics Blog Awards, behind Guido. And ahead of Old Holborn, The Underdog and Crash Bang Wallace. And B&D but no one takes any pleasure from that (I wasn’t encouraged to say that last bit, by the way).

We are also number 19 in the Media Blogs section.

My initial estimate (i.e., guess *) is that if people use all of those badges linked back Total Politics is going to cop something like 1500 backlinks.

I’m also encouraged to thank all our readers who took the time to vote.

So thank-you. Very much.

It doesn’t mean much for the content of Anna Raccoon.

But it does mean that, for example, when we contact Politics Home to request to be included in their “PhiWire” ‘scrolling headline feed’ across the top of the page in order to reach new readers, we can give them a meaningful reference point.

* That ‘i.e.,’ has reminded me that my only ever ‘lines’ at school consisted of eye-dot-e-dot-comma x25 and e-dot-g-dot-comma x75, because we had a stickler of a teacher. And it appears to have worked. e-dot-g-dot-comma was x75 because I had written it incorrectly three time.

Photo credit: Twisted Vintage

Somebody’s Cup of Tea is a post from: Anna Raccoon

One of the defining features of the comments section of political blogs is the propensity for reasoned debate to slide into hysterical abuse. Frequently the comments can be better than the original blog posts as commentators relieve their frustration that other commentators hold views equally as virulent as their own, just as entrenched, and flatly refuse to back down for one second from the outer reaches of the opposite political spectrum…

The anxious moderator sits hovering over the ‘moderate’ button, trying to fathom the moment when ‘acrimonious debate’ turns into a ‘defamatory time bomb’ ready to explode under the web site owner. Or prays that their social position in life, based under their Mum’s back stairs, unemployed and unloved, leaves them free of the tender attentions of Mssrs Carter and Ruck.

Free Speech has been a minefield ever since blogs were invented. The judiciary has appeared unsure whether blogland defamatory abuse is a virtual extension of neighbourhood pub conversations, and should be treated as slander, or whether it is truly libel to be punished as seriously as defamatory words published in the permanence of the printed book. (I’m not getting into the finer points of legal definition here, kindly un-jerk knees lawyers; this is addressed to all bloggers, not just you).

On Wednesday last, (only a faxed copy is available to date, permanent link when available) Mr Justice Peter Annis, sitting in the Canadian Superior Court of Justice in Ontario, waded into this philosopher’s bourn and emerged bearing words of wisdom.

Whilst the Canadian decision is obviously not binding on the London High Court, it will be read with interest and may inform future judgments. It suggests that there may be a difference between defamatory words ‘printed’ in a comments section and those hurled with gay abandon into print during a lively exchange where the ‘injured party’ has had both the opportunity to respond to them – and refute them, and has also been part and parcel of such lively debate.

In short, you may not be entitled to stomp away from a lively virtual pub exchange of insults and then later pointed to printed words in hurt tones and claim ‘libel’.

That is an interesting ‘fag paper’ slid between the world of slander and that of libel.

Internet blogging is a form of public conversation. By the back and forth character it provides an opportunity for each party to respond to disparaging comments before the same audience in an immediate or a relatively contemporaneous time frame.

 This distinguishes the context of blogging from other forms of publication of defamatory statements. One exception could be the live debate, of which blogging constitutes the modern written form.

That is not to suggest that if you find yourself libelled on the internet that you must step into the fray and respond to defamatory comments if the opportunity exists, just that it is no use slugging it out with the best of them and then retire from the ring muttering ‘anywhere but the face darling’ and later point your lawyer in the direction of the parting shots from your previous combatants.

The case of Baglow v. Smith, taken out of its legal context and turned into blogging terms, was between ‘Dr Dawg’, owner of Dawg’s Blog, aka John Baglow, a left wing commentator of some renown, and three defendants – ‘Peter O’ Donnell’, in fact the user name of Roger Smith, and the two owners of the ‘conservative’ – perhaps code for right wing – Free Dominion web site.

Left/Right, seconds away. Let battle commence. More popcorn.

The subject at issue was the treatment of a Guantanamo Bay detainee, Omar Khadr, a Canadian captured by American forces when he was 15 years old and thus covered by the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.

In the course of the on-line argument, the left wing Dr Dawg referred to supporters of the conservative government as ‘yokels with pitchforks’, indeed he publishes on his blog a piece entitled ‘Off with his head’ in which he refers to the incumbent government as a ‘horrific gang of sub literate hoodlums’. He thinks Omar Khadr should be released as a matter of International Law. You get the picture.

Other right wing blogs join in the fray and tempers rise to boiling point. Commentators swing between the various blogs hurling abuse at each other. One such comment runs:

In the moral sphere, you seek complicity with the recent murders of American aid workers under the spurious (if outrageous) charge of spreading Christianity, when you sign up to support Omar Khadr. I think such public declarations of support of Al Qaeda and the Taliban amount to treason, given that we are engaged in a war against them. It’s really only because the war is contained and not likely to be lost on our soil that these normal laws do not apply, or shall I say, are not being applied. But the government of Canada would be quite within its legal rights to arrest the lot of you for treason.

Dr Dawg had by this time returned to his blogging haven of Dawg’s Blog and failed to respond to a comment that branded him ‘one of the Taliban’s more vocal supporters’. It was in respect of this comment that he claimed he had been libelled.

The case was summarily dismissed, but not before Mr Justice Peter Annis had made some obiter remarks.

“a statement is not derogatory when made in a context that provides an opportunity to challenge the comment and the rules of the debate anticipate a rejoinder, unless the statement is wholly outside the scope of the debate or otherwise so outrageous as to prevent meaningful argument from continuing.”

Bringing an action on the comment in mid-debate runs contrary to the rules and has the effect of chilling discussion. If allowed, it places the opposing party in a defensive mode, rather than an offensive one, strategically putting that party at a disadvantage. 

The judiciary are beginning to grapple with the challenge of defamatory words that the utteror may part with under the impression that they are the same as lightly spoken words, (Robin Hood airport anyone?) but which hitherto the law has been forced to treat with all the respect previously accorded to the published word – commissioned, edited, and duly reflected upon.

h/t to Matthew Nied

Blogger’s Handbags at Dawn: The *More Popcorn* Sagas. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Would anyone like to buy an Anna Raccoon mug to support the site?

There’s a bit of a story here – the first experiment in an idle moment was with a mug using the slogan “Phil Woolarse MP”, after an article published here late last year.

[Update: I have been summarily corrected in the comments, and suitably grovel in apology, it was actually *this* article by Daedalus X Parrot which coined "Phil Woolarse MP", and inspired the original thought. My pathetic excuse is that "Woolarse" did not come up in an archive search.]

We experimented with a mug from Spreadshirt, who are a European company, but the Phil Woolarse MP slogan was refused (my account of that is here) on the basis that it might offend somebody. Amongst others, Fleet Street Fox uses Spreadshirt.

Calling MPs arses from time to time is a necessary, honourable and public-spirited activity in any democracy; therefore we are now with Zazzle.

The cost of the mug pictured is £12.80 plus p&p, but ‘classic white mugs’ (not dissimilar to Starbucks mugs if you’ve seen those in the past) are currently £11.30. On a mug you get not one, but two Raccoon logos.

And if you are so inclined, you can apply the design to everything from a teeshirt to a mousemat.

This mugs can be purchased here, and any suggestions, comments, ideas or raspberries can be made or blown in the comments.

We also have a version without the slogan:

Anna Raccoon mug by politicsshop
View more Anna raccoon Mugs

There is also the original Phil Woolas mug at the site, but that is now part of history.

If you do visit the shop, please follow the referral links from this article, as it is worth an extra 15% of the selling price for the website.

Anna Raccoon the Mug is a post from: Anna Raccoon

I’d have expected the inescapable Damian Thomson, who runs the Daily Telegraph blog operation (three million page impressions in a week, natch), and Tweets as HolySmoke, to have picked this up, but if he did I can’t find it.

A US company – also Holy Smoke, with attached slogan “Celebrate Your Life” – is offering to make the ashes of your cremated body into bullets. You have to organise the cremation and supply the ashes; no sending in of corpses by Parcel Post, even if a traditional coffin would save on the packaging.

The girls from NMATv covered it back at the start of August, complete with a rematerialising Granny catching a burglar.

Granny became a Shooting Star is a post from: Anna Raccoon

This week, there was a bit of a Twitterstorm when Twitter user Lord Credo, who posed as a spin doctor for the Conservative Party was revealed to be something of a charlatan.

Now, it’s not exactly unusual for people to have an online persona, but it’s very rare for people to maintain the persona when meeting up in real life.

Credo: contra contemtio is a post from: Anna Raccoon

[Update Sat 11.45 am.

I've installed the Mobile Theme, so readers on Smartphones, Mobiles and perhaps iPads should see the changes. There's still a lot of configuration (aka buggering about) to do, so there will be adjustments later.

Anyone wanting to see what the Mobile Version looks like using a PC can use the User Agent Switcher extension for Firefox.]

This is a quick update to my previous piece about reading Anna Raccoon on a Smartphone.

Many thanks for the comments on the first thread from readers via iPhone, Android Phone, iPad or other devices; it is much appreciated.

We’ve moved away from the idea of doing special Apps, because that will mean a higher maintenance overhead as they may have to be updated as new devices become available, and each reader will have to install the App on their Smartphone or iPad.

Instead we’ll be experimenting with a WordPress Plugin called WP Touch which detects which device is reading the blog, and then displays an appropriate version. In effect it installs a new ‘theme’ for Smartphones.

You can get an idea of the difference by checking out the Mobile Version of Guido’s site, which uses the same WP plugin.

If you don’t use a smartphone or other device, I’ve included screenshots from a simulation of an iPhone reading Guido’s site at the end of the post. There is the ability to switch between the two versions of the site.

We hope to do the change sometime over the weekend to an initial 5-6 day experiment. Feedback on any problems will be very welcome.

I’ll do a post when we make the change. At the same time we’ll switch the RSS feed to a full text feed.

If you have any queries, please ask in the comments.

Anna Raccoon on a Smartphone (Update Sat) is a post from: Anna Raccoon

This is the last day of voting for the Total Politics Blog Awards. If you intend to vote, for Anna Raccoon or other sites, you have until midnight.

At this time of year Total Politics Magazine are running the Total Politics Blog Awards blog awards, where you can vote for Anna Raccoon, and some of our individual bloggers.

It is useful to the blogs and bloggers because the list is a reference source for anyone outside blogland, and everyone is lazy and likes Total Politics to write their lists for them.

At annaraccoon.com, we are not aligned to a single political party, and we don’t have legions of voters who vote for us as a matter of course. The party here is an army of regulars in the Raccoon Arms (hic !), who may or may not remember to vote.

So this is a prod – please support the site, preferably in the non-aligned, libertarian, and media categories. You also get to vote for up to 9 others. You *must* vote for at least five sites.

You also have to vote for individual bloggers, and I’d encourage support for our regulars, who all work hard, but I’m not allowed to promote anyone by name.

Here are the rules in full.

Voting opens at 9am on Monday 8 August and closes at midnight on Friday 19 August. Any votes submitted after that will not be counted.

The rules are simple.

1. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. The higher you rank a blog or author, the higher up they will appear in the aggregated results. You must enter a minimum of five names for your vote to count. If you don’t want to enter more than five, just write ‘blank’ in the remaining boxes. Every box must have some text in for the vote to be submitted successfully.
2. Only submit your vote once. If you vote more than once, it won’t be counted.
3. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents or based on UK politics are eligible.
4. Anonymous votes left in the comments on the Total Politics website or emailed to members of staff will not count. You must submit your vote via the survey and you must enter a valid email address when you do so.
5. Do not publish a list of ten blogs on your site and try to persuade readers to vote for them. Any duplicate voting of this nature will be disallowed.

Any queries, contact caroline.crampton@totalpolitics.com

Happy voting.

Total Politics Blog Awards is a post from: Anna Raccoon

The Gnu song was mentioned in the comments on yesterday’s 10pm post, so I looked out the Muppets’ version of the Gnu song:

And the original Flanders and Swan version:

The Gnu Songs is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Do you read Anna Raccoon on an iPhone or other Smartphone?

We’re taking a quick look at whether the site is easy to follow on Smartphones, and we’d welcome comments on how well the existing setup works.

For example, is our RSS feed easy to follow and click through to the site from, or should we be looking at doing a Full Feed? That is,  should the feed carry entire articles rather than just a snippet as at present.

How do you read the site on your Smartphone? Can we make this easier? Do we perhaps need our own iPhone or Android App.

As a test, I’ve created a bloapp iPhone App for Anna Raccoon, which gives the site looking roughly like this:

The header image looks distorted in the screenshot, but it’s precisely the dimensions specified.

If you would like to try out this App, you can access it via iTunes:

Download My App

Anna Raccoon has the following QR Code (if you don’t know what that means, you probably don’t need to worry about it).We’ve also done various minor tweaks, such as adding a small section of “Essential Reading” links to highlight some articles from here and elsewhere, and creating a @raccoontage Twitter Feed which Tweets whenever a comment is made.

Comments and suggestions are most welcome.

Do you read Anna Raccoon on a Smartphone? is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Atheists of a vigorous stripe are sometimes known as Gnus, and Richard Dawkins is sometimes quoted as the archetype.

I say it is the other way round, and that the Dawk has modelled himself on the original Gnu – the one that advertised Typhoo tea in 1976. Here’s the real Gnu, advertising Typhoo:

And here is Richard Dawkins explaining the history of the world, two decades later, sounding suspiciously Gnu-like.

Earth History in C Major! brought to you by Funny Pictures

I wonder if next time there is a fundraiser for Non-Believers Giving Aid, Richard Dawkins might do a sponsored Gnu-song.

(Apologies for the slight initial glitch on the player display, but some joker at Channel 4 seems to have blocked Youtube from displaying anything other than the full length documentary in the UK, so I’ve used a non-Youtube version.)

Richard Dawkins and a Gnu is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Not political, not media, not anything else – I just like it.

Revolights are LED lights which fit on your bike wheel rim, and turn on and off as it turns, so as to give an arc of white light at the front, and a red arc at the back. I think it is probably a supplement to, rather than replacement for, traditional cycle lights – but I can see huge benefits in visibility from the side.

revolights. join the revolution. from revolights on Vimeo.

Here’s how they are put together:

What are Revolights? Revolights consist of 2 thin profile LED rings (white in front, red in back) that mount directly to each wheel rim (just below the brake calipers) using a series of rim specific clips. Power is supplied via a thin wire to the hub where a lightweight and slim, USB rechargable polymer lithium-ion battery is held in a special bracket. A small magnet is secured to the fork to provide speed and orientation information to the rings.

It is a project for which they are seeking $43,500 using the Kickstarter service; they have achieved almost $17,000 already.

The one obvious downside I can see is that they are slightly more difficult to put in your pocket than a normal light.

via Swiss Miss.

Revolutionary Cycle Light is a post from: Anna Raccoon

After a couple of days of mainly serious postings on Anna Raccoon, this video is just what it says on the tin.

It is not recommended for consumption with your dinner.

Going downhill very quickly is a post from: Anna Raccoon

One of the businesses pitching for Episode 1 of this week was the Present Club, which is a ‘wedding list’ type service for children’s gifts.

The Present Club makes its money from commission deals with suppliers, some exclusive. The business model sets the Club up as an extra distribution channel for the businesses, in return for providing customers.

One way of looking at the relationship from the point of view of the product supplier is that the Club provides an affiliate selling channel with a captive customer base.

The most widely known affiliate sales model is Amazon Associates, where anyone sending Amazon a visitor can receive from roughly 5% to 15% of the value of any sale, subject to a *lot* of Terms and Conditions.

Georgette Hewitt, proprietress of the Club, revealed that a typical commission rate received was 6%, which is similar to that used in some internet affiliate programmes, and lower than many.

It also – and I don’t think anyone one mentioned this – may be making some money, or at least working capital, from the money received before there is sufficient to trigger the supply of the product. Use of customer money for financing working capital of the business was one of advantages used by Albert Gubay in building Kwik Save.

In her presentation, Georgette Hewitt died on her feet – see a report at the Arts Desk blog:

Trying to get the Dragons fired up about her children’s gift site, The Present Club, poor Georgette could barely remember her name, let alone rattle off financial statistics or explain how many suppliers she had.

It also has a nice setup for targeting Google traffic, as each different category of gift or individual product can be emphasized for search engine promotion purposes as required.

There was a classic PR Fail, in that the website for the Club was unavailable during the programme, displaying only an error message from a crashed database. It is not clever for a service to be missing in action at an unusual time when you can guarantee that there will be a lot of interest, especially when that time can also be predicted.

Internet communication has allowed Georgette Hewitt to provide two nuggets of explanation as to what happened.

Firstly, that the presentation was poleaxed by a BBC producer:

The executive producer decided to remove one of my boards, as he said I had too much information with the 3 boards and to pick the 2 boards I wanted. This was a disaster for me as I referred to all 3 boards in my pitch and I had practiced for 2 weeks until I was happy. I knew that even if I adapted my pitch I would struggle to remember it over my original pitch, which I had rehearsed time and time again.

Secondly, that the website died due to demand, via Facebook:

Sorry guys, I was told to expect around 100k hits as that’s what most Dragons’ Den candidates get, but The Present Club got 950k ! That’s why we went down and I can only apologise. It’s up now!:)

That statement itself could be PR of course.

One idea that has arisen is that, in addition to Birthday and Party Presents, the website can be used to reward (OK – bribe) children with gradual sums towards a ‘present’ for good behaviour.

I like it, but will it work?

I’d say yes,  probably. The interesting point will be who would buy the Club in two or three years’ time.

Georgette Hewitt’s account of her Dragons’ Den experience is here.

The Present Club on the Dragons’ Den is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Yesterday evening, I asked in the comments for favourite Underground videos.

This is one of mine. A sensible gent who is late for work skis down the escalator at the Angel tube station, which is 60m long; a good time saver?

Skiing Down the Angel Escalator is a post from: Anna Raccoon

By way of a follow-up to my piece about the Liverpool Waters project earlier in the week, I see that Building Design magazine currently have their annual “Carbuncle Cup” running.

The Carbuncle Cup is awarded to the most ugly building nominated by the readership of Building Design:

Anyone can nominate an ugly building for the award by submitting a photograph of the offending structure to BD’s Carbuncle Cup Flickr group, along with the name of the building, its location and the name of the architect responsible. You can also include your reasons for nominating it to boost its chances of winning.

To be eligible, your carbuncle must have been completed within the UK in the past 12 months.

If you want to do so, you can take part over at the Building Design website, but to see the full entries you need to register (which is free, and you will be asked when you arrive).

Here, I’ve briefly summarised four of the nineteen entries. Architects can be spectacularly bitchy, which is – naturally – excellent value.

All of these may be, perhaps, buildings where you want to be inside looking out, rather than outside, looking in.

Museum of Liverpool

One of the nominations is also in Liverpool, the newly opened Museum of Liverpool.

Museum of Liverpool

Excerpted Citation:

“Next to our three gently ageing Edwardian Beauties, The Three Graces, The Port of Liverpool Building, The Cunard Building and the Liver Building, they stick a trashy tart.

“A building that jerks against the restrained classiscism that made Liverpool famous, that escaped the blitz, that managed to survive against all odds……….only now to look alien in their own settings.

“Is it only Liverpool that thinks it can get away with destroying its history in a World Heritage Site. It is being bravefaced but it really is like giving a pretty girl a black eye, knocking all her teeth out and saying ’smile you look lovely’.”

One Hyde Park

One Hyde Park

One Hyde Park is the famous ‘glitziest, priciest piece of real estate in the world’, built by the Candy Brothers.

Personally, I equate this one with an Ikea Billy Bookcase, with glass doors. Here’s the citation:

Ikea Billy Bookcase

It’s no surprise that Knightsbridge has sprouted this glistening silo of sheikhs.

Another towering monument to Gulf investment in London, it would always have been a mean-minded gated enclave for the super-rich.

What is shocking is that, after five years in the making and a £500 million construction cost, it is quite so bad.

Towering above the trees like a fleet of power yachts moored ostentatiously on the shore of the park, its stacked racks of clunky bolt-on balconies could have been lifted from one of the “aspirational” canal-side developments that line the waterways of Leeds or Liverpool – only vastly blown up in scale.

Phoenix High School Post-16 Centre, London

Phoenix High School

This one is in a Conservation Area. and is nominated thus:

“The school seems to have been built in Jenga blocks by someone who is colour blind … children do, of course, like to draw pictures of buildings in bright colours at funny angles but there is nothing that says architects have to build them.”

Ebenezer Chapel and Housing Development

Ebenezer Chapel and Housing Development, Brighton

When I looked at the photo, I didn’t think it was a new building, as I’ve seen (and lived in) very similar blocks of flats from every decade since the 1960s. No matter, it is recommended as follows:

“This recently completed block of flats by Molyneux Architects gives East Brighton yet another feeble building and reinforces the divide between rich and poor.  So bad on so many levels. Described by the architects as ‘a lively contributor to the immediate locality’.  It is these mediocre buildings that damage our cities more than bolder failures.”

You can see all the entries here.

(Photo credits: Building Design and Ikea).

 

Carbuncle Cup is a post from: Anna Raccoon