XFactor Heralds Month of Nonsense

Sat here on the train on the way back from antoher Friday drinks session with Anna, Chris, Helen and Anthony and the easy thing to blog about would be our conversatios about the Norwich accent and the general ephemera of life around Norfolk’s country town. But I’ll dare to be different. This time I’ll get cerebral. The prose might not be the best I’ve ever produced but the benefits of a few pints and a bit of iTunes shuffle should mean there’s some coherence to my rthoughts.

Laura mentioned today at work that the new series of Xfactor starts on Saturday night. Worryingly I had no awareness. I prided myself on the fact that I’d avoided Big Brother this year. Don’t get me wrong, having watched four seasons of it, I was b ound to pick up an idea of what was going on and who the major players swere but I had no real understanding of each member of the house. I was amazed really at my own nonchalence. This was only ever challenged at the vweekends duering the eviction shows. Anyway, I watch Xfactor only for the voyeuristic enjoyment of watching peculiar Britons exposing there tragic lack of talent in a faceless conference room at a second-rate hotel. That’s what’s so appealing about Saturday’s show. Not the thought that we’ll stumble across some amazing vocal talent or the glitzy production and backstage gossip but the feeling that your watching someone hurl themselves at the pages of Closer/Heat/Now with everything they’ve got. You see the thing is these woeful wannabees used to be a sideshow as we romped towards the reveal of the final contestents. These days the tragicomic warblings of the socially outcast are the main attraction for the first few weeks. Surely we can expect literally minutes of ITV2 and GMTV footage to be devoted to the poorly costumed, vocally challenged and socially inept of society in the next few weeks.

These shows invariably now take a turn for the worse as we tumble inexorably toward the Christmas climax in a studio of Coke-addled pre-teens presided over by a perma-tanned Kate Thornton. You ended up pinning your colours to the mast of one act in the vain hope that it will say something about your musical taste and social class at the the coffee machine in the office on Monday. “I like Steve, he can hold anote and seems to be quite diverse in his output”. Bollocks. You can’t identify with the camp-as-christmas interior designer from Hitchin and the urban funk of Chantelle from Streatham seem to have passed you by, the middle class nu-soul of Steve is safe and at least you recognise some of his act.
By Sunday we’ll have an idea of where this show is headed. Is it destined to be the awkward second series or does the amount of dross.

one opportunity to shine ... missed

Another bit of dialogue between myself and one ...

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Email to Customer Relations
customer.services@onerailway.com

Dear Sirs,

A quick enquiry as to your revenue protection strategy, otherwise known as fare enforcement.

For the past two weeks I’ve noticed a particularly irritating trend. Passengers boarding the train at Ipswich without tickets and then waiting for the conductor to ask them for a ticket before buying a single to Stowmarket … as the conductor takes time to do the rounds they are being asked to pay for their tickets just as the train arrives in Stowmarket. They then concoct a story about ‘are you sure that’s the price’ or similar and as this takes enough time they have to leave the train for their stop before a ticket can be issued. Even if they get their ticket, I can’t help but feel that should be charged a penalty fare.

I always understood that you need a ticket to travel, in fact, you should need at least a ticket-to-ride before stepping on to the platform (a so-called ‘compulsory ticket area’). On commuting lines in the south east and in many other areas there are revenue protection barriers – Colchester seems to be the last point on the one line where these are used. Surely improving your revenue protection will increase your income and enable you to invest in more station and service improvements? Why is it that idiots like those doing the shuttle-run to Stowmarket are so able to get away with cheating you out of revenue and (by implication) increasing the need to raise standard fares to compensate.

I know there is a cost implication for barriers – as a commuter on the South Eastern lines from Kent a few years ago, Connex produced a figure to show the cost per barrier and per member of staff to supervise these barriers. This cost I recall seemed more than manageable when taken into consideration with the fares being lost by customers evading them at unmanned stations or by duping the conductors such as is happening daily on one.

The occasional ‘show of force’ that one put in place every couple of months with inspections at Norwich and Ipswich stations does little to deter people. Again, the public know they could arrive at the station and just pay the fare with no penalty. If we all just ‘took a chance’ then we’d only ever have to pay 50% of the time and, even then, only to/from the nearest stations.

One is lagging far behind in modernising its practises. A new ‘virtual assistant’ on the website is going to do nothing to improve journeys on the line, more money in your coffers from dishonest travellers definitely would.

Please explain.

Yours sincerely,
John Gibbard

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Email from Customer Relations
customer.services@onerailway.com
reference: 143988

Dear Mr Gibbard,

Thank you for your recent email.

Ticket inspection is carried out by Revenue Protection Inspectors (RPIs) on a 'spot check' basis - both at stations and on trains.

We do not aim to have an RPI on every train: indeed, it would not be cost effective to do so. However, the fact that we operate a Penalty Fare system and have automatic ticket gates at eight of our busiest stations is sufficient to deter a substantial amount of fraudulent travel. However I have passed you comments to the Revenue Protection Team based at Norwich who are responsible for this service.

Since 1992, the level of ticketless travel has been reduced from approximately 4% to about 1.2% - although this still represents a significant loss of revenue on an annual turnover of over £300m.

Although I am sure you will appreciate it is not possible to eliminate fraud altogether, all revenue protection data is analysed by computer so we can identify and target specific trains and stations where there is a higher risk of revenue loss. Also, we are always willing to follow up on specific reports from passengers who have believe that someone is travelling fraudulently. Such information is, of course, treated confidentially.

I hope these comments reassure you that we do make serious efforts to protect our revenue.

Yours sincerely,
xxxx, Customer Relations Advisor

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Email to Customer Relations
customer.services@onerailway.com
Reference: 143988

xxxx, I'm afraid your response is rather disappointing. It appears you only read my email in a cursory manor and sent something like a stock response which read more like a corporate statement than an attempt to address specific concerns.

You, rather optimistically state: "the fact that we operate a Penalty Fare system and have automatic ticket gates at eight of our busiest stations is sufficient to deter a substantial amount of fraudulent travel" However my issue in the original mail was that the penalty fare was not being charged. When the conductor on the service discovers someone without a ticket they are invited to pay the standard open single fare and allowed to continue their journey. Whilst this is the most expensive fare it is, in the case of the travelers to Stowmarket I mentioned, just £3.20 and therefore hardly a deterrent. Likewise, there is little to stop me traveling to Norwich from Ipswich without a ticket and, on arrival at Norwich if presented with a spot-check, simply paying the price of a single from Diss. Granted I may be approached by a conductor on the train but it would pose no problem for me to ask for a ticket from the most recent station. The point I am trying to make is that every passenger should have a ticket before travel. If it is discovered they do not have one when already traveling they should be charged a penalty fare on top of the ticket price.

How much would it cost to install barriers at the mainline stops at Ipswich and Norwich? Ipswich has one major platform exit and that could easily be served by 6 barriers in the ticket hall. Norwich could have 4 or 5 per platform. As most people North of Colchester are traveling to these hub stations it makes perfect sense to install barriers here. Doing so would be a highly visible deterrent and make the opportunistic fraudulent traveler almost extinct. Granted, it would not solve the short-trip fraud I've witnessed in recent weeks between Ipswich and Stowmarket but it does send the signal that one are more serious about ticketless travel.
Sincerely,
John Gibbard

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Email from Customer Relations
customer.services@onerailway.com
Reference: 143988
Dear Mr Gibbard

Thank your for you email, although I am sorry if you were disappointed with my response.

Although my reply was certainly the company stance regarding Revenue Protection, I can assure you that we do take concerns such as those you raised very seriously. I also stated in my reply that I would send a copy of your e mail to the Revenue Protection Team at Norwich responsible for the route.

You are right when you state that to travel, a valid ticket should be held (with a few exceptions applicable ie unmanned stations). As a company it is certainly in ours and fare paying passengers interests to maintain a constant revue as to how effective our current methods of revenue collection are. Although any alteration in the scheme that we currently operate would have to be agreed by the Strategic Rail Authority.

Once again. I can confirm that your concerns have been forwarded to the relevant department and thank you for contacting me.

Kind regards
xxxxxx

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Email to Customer Relations
customer.services@onerailway.com
reference: 143988

xxxxx,

Once again I appreciate you taking the time to write to me and once again I have to smile at your complete avoidance of the issue of penalty fares. My point is simply that your policy (which, if you are unfamiliar is available on your website at http://www.onerailway.com/contents/download/penalty-fares.pdf) states that you'll be charged a penalty fare "if you travel on a penalty fare train from a penalty fare station without a valid ticket for your entire rail journey, ‘Permit to Travel’ or other authorisation." I have since discovered from this that the section from Ipswich to Norwich is not a penalty fare route. This answers my question and would have been the simplest way to rebut my response. Of course, it does raise another question, "why is this route not a Penalty Fare route?" and I believe you may have answered this in a previous email with some reference to statistics on fare avoidance/evasion.

It might surprise you to know xxxx, that you can not know how many people are travelling without tickets on this section of the line as by virtue of the fact they are avoiding fares they avoid any opportunity for 'one' to collect statistics - no-one from 'one' is standing at Norwich or on the train saying "no ticket? Ok, thanks for letting us know, I'll note that down for our statistics".

So, to finish up, I re-assert that 'one' are incompetently missing a trick by not being diligent with revenue protection in the apparently 'lawless' wilds of North Suffolk and Norfolk. Combine this with my earlier correspondence surrounding a fire on the train in May, the broken air conditioning, regular delays and rolling stock from the 1970s and you've got an over-priced shambolic regional train operator that no-one in this region has any right to be proud of.

Don't worry xxxx, I'm not after a response as I think I've pretty much exhausted the talents of your customer liaison team and will revert to writing to other people to moan about why the burgers in McDonalds don't resemble the pictures and why my Blue Nun comes with a screw top and not a cork. I'm sure you'll understand how busy this keeps me.

Lance in the Bush

Well, technically, ‘Lance in the Bush Ranch’ but then that doesn’t make a good headline. What does make a good headline is “Rabid Rabbi Runs Amok” which was what a paper in Dunstable recently ran with after, surprisingly, a rabid Rabbi did indeed run amok. But I digress, whilst that headline may have written itself, this blog will not.

I opened my pocket (if it was a clown’s pocket) sized Times today to find a story about (multi Tour-winning) Lance Armstrong spending some time at the Bush family ranch in Texas. It’s hardly a revelation to me that a fellow Texan is being invited to share campfire stories and herd cattle but what is a revelation is the President’s apparent level of fitness. Having heard about his mountain biking accident at the G8 and various mishaps in the past I was shocked to discover he has a resting pulse of 47 and can run 3 miles in under 20 minutes. I used to be reasonably fit and strong and am hoping to regain that and more in the run-up to our wedding in 2007 but I’m fairly sure that reaching those levels of fitness could take some considerable work … and I’ve got 31 years on the President. Ok, so he might be a bit clueless at times but you can’t dispute those figures. He must ensure his security team have similar levels of stamina to keep up … unless he supplies them with horses. (aside: more about the Prairie Chapel Ranch)

Oddly, the article goes on to describe that Lance is actually a bit left of centre. How odd that we are even made aware of a sportsman’s feelings on abortion, the Iraq war and so on (more about Lance's political aspirations)… does this affect the ordinary man? It says more about the long hours spent in the saddle pondering the Big Questions than it does about the political aspirations of sporting champs. In the UK I can’t imagine asking Paula Radcliffe, David Beckham, Ellen McCarthur or Steve Redgrave where they stood on such issues. But it’s not unlikely that a tabloid paper could discover and discuss Tony Blair’s resting heart rate. I’d wager that our premier isn’t in quite as rude health as his Cowboy chum. Best he gets Paula round to Chequers post haste.

Cottage Industry Teaches 'Customer Experience'

I’ve had a bit of a mental drought in regards to what to write about. Which is peculiar really as there’s been plenty going on in my life and the wider world. There’s a desire of mine not to say much about my own career or mention much of those closest to me so I guess whilst I have felt personally busy, they’re not things I’d necessarily blog about.

To some extent there’s a desire of mine not to expose myself by commenting on wider political issues either. Whilst I’ll happily talk about the London bombings, I feel less informed and secure in commenting on the Israeli pull out from the Gaza Strip for example.

Which is all academic really as the blog should be about (web) usability and customer experience. I won’t embarrass myself by linking to the last time I wrote on one of these topics because it’s a bit too long ago so I’m resolved to start getting a bit more informed again. After all, putting articles on the blog about the ephemera of daily life is all well and good but doesn’t really serve a purpose other than to ‘brain dump’.

As a customer I’ve experienced a couple of new online things recently, selling stuff on Amazon and eBay. It dawned on us one Saturday morning that we had loads of unread and partly read academic books, some CDs that were redundant after being copied to iTunes and a couple of unopened presents from Christmas, I even had some old PC and consumer electrical products too. I knew you could shift stuff through Amazon so we set about listing items. This is a relatively straightforward process. You register your details and literally input ISBN or bar-code references into a search field and Amazon picks up the details, asks you how much you want to list the item for and then simply emails you to dispatch once it’s handled a transaction.

Where their system falls down is not identifying before you list the item what the prices that other people have listed their items for are. It does show you the lowest price, but that might be for a tatty old copy and yours could be ‘like new’. This is where Firefox’s tabbed browsing is a boon, open a new tab and search for the item in question and work out who’s got what prices for each quality. But how much simpler would it have been for Amazon to serve up a table saying ‘Like New’ = £x, ‘Good’ = £y and so on? eBay is worse though. There are so many boxes to complete when you go to sell an item, so many options and listings choices (many with associated costs) that frankly I can’t be bothered to list anything other than things that Amazon won’t.

This overly complicated option selection and form filling isn’t long forgotten before your items sell and you realise that eBay / Amazon have taken a big cut from your earnings. At the small end of the market where books and CDs are selling for a couple of pounds each, you almost pay more in admin than you get back. The postal charges levied on your behalf by Amazon are generous for small items – particularly if you post same day second class and thereby meet the delivery obligation for the minimum cost – but start posting larger books and you really need to be selling books at £10 or more. Everyone’s got the same idea, so popular items are listed several times and American services are offering them at discounted rates – you’re forced into listing at uneconomic prices or risk them never selling.

That said, it has been a revelation in terms of providing excellent customer service. As an embryonic cottage industry, I’m fastidious in making sure the item is in as good a condition as possible before dispatch, it’s packaged neatly but safely and simply (to avoid higher postal costs) and the item is sent with a compliments slip promising a full refund if the buyer is unhappy. Items are sent as soon as physically possible and I often email the buyer on dispatch to let them know it’s on its way. All of this is done with the intention of getting great feedback scores and yet, despite this, only two people have left feedback on Amazon for their purchase. This does make me wonder whether people:

.: Just expect this level of service – it’s nothing exceptional
.: Can’t find the Amazon feedback link
.: Can’t be bothered with leaving feedback
.: Are unaware of feedback and its importance to the seller.

In all seriousness it has affected my interpretation of the consumer experience. Just because I work in this field and, when I’m out and about fill in surveys to help other businesses improve, doesn’t mean others will. People, when pushed, say they care about the customer experience but do they really? If you’re buying through Amazon, even through the used ‘Marketplace’, you probably just want the item at the lowest price and service will only be an issue if it’s shocking. Ultimately, as a low volume seller, customers aren’t going to return to purchase more from me as I’m unlikely to be selling their next purchase with such a small stock and range.

However, my own sense of duty and ethics means I’m unlikely to revert to a simple stuff-n-post style of service, it might be a drop in the ocean but I’m learning so much more about the demands in customer experience from it.

That said, feel free to buy something from my Amazon Marketplace shop!

Shittingbourne: David Baddiel Slates Sittingbourne

A geographical theme to this posting I think. Got sent some cuttings from two former local rags earlier this week, firstly the Kent Messenger and secondly the East Kent Gazette. Both were covering the same story, David Baddiel’s comedic slating of Sittingbourne. Having been invited to open the Rodmersham School fete (my old primary school), Baddiel launched into a routine of material that served up a few home truths for this shambolic little town. He then used this material again in his Unplanned show with Frank Skinner.

Let’s be fair, Sittingbourne is a dump. In the 60s the town showed genuine promise. A linear settlement along the A2, a busy Roman Road between the Kent Ports and London, Sittingbourne was a short commuter ride to the capital. Trains reached the town in under an hour and my parents along with many others left London to set-up home. Unfortunately business never followed. The major development and chains that populated towns like Maidstone, Canterbury and the Medway towns (Gillingham, Chatham and Rochester) shied away and the town has – through the next 40 years – continued to lose trade to nearby commercial centres and out of town developments. The regional charm of the High Street with a range of independent shops has been eroded by the proximity of major supermarket chains and the rise in car ownership. Meanwhile, train times have worsened and it now regularly takes over and hour to reach the capital, forcing commuters to look further up the line to Chatham and the emerging residential areas around the Thames estuary and high-speed rail link.

Sittingbourne is little more than a North Kent joke. Not quite as desperate as Sheerness and possibly not as down-at-heel as (potential birthplace of the ‘Chav’ phenomenon) Chatham. Baddiel described it as “a terrible dump” and, quite controversially, suggested Miss Sittingbourne, Lucy Bakerfield, should have corrected her sash to read “Miss Shittingbourne”. Incredulous residents have expressed surprise at his outburst, insistent that he has been seen shopping in the town. I’m not sure this constitutes the seal of approval they think it does – they only mention his presence in Sainsburys and McDonalds for instance, hardly a glowing indictment of the town’s commercial cache. The residents named in Lizzie Cook’s tongue-in-cheek article hardly make a strong case and fail to see the comments for what they really are. Baddiel clearly used poetic licence in his act as many comedians do, so to argue that their daughter was older than he suggested and was laughing and not crying is missing the point. People laughed at his material because it’s true. Sittingbourne is undeniably a (local) joke. A small band of forum posters would like to persuade you otherwise

As it happens, Baddiel lives in a remote part of the village of Rodmersham, happily far enough from the bustling metropolis of Sittingbourne but close enough to know that passing through it on the way to somewhere else is about all he, and the Romans before him, would ever wish to do. There have been claims to a few other 'famous' residents but, once again, they variously live in the surrounding villages.

That said, I was schooled in Sittingbourne, a town with two impressive Grammar schools and two half-decent comprehensives and my observation is that this says more about youngsters’ desperate desire to achieve greatness and move away than it does about a generally astute population. Indeed, it says much about the Borough of Swale that the most prevalent local story of recent years has been the wandering ‘Piano Man’ of Sheerness. Baddiel even made reference to this in suggesting the disorientated mute wandering dishevelled in the streets is a common site at the weekends. Again, he’s not far off.

Baddiel described the town as a place where you feel “overdressed with two ears” it’s fair to say that if residents did have two ears they may have been more likely to hear the message that was being communicated. Sittingbourne is horrible and bordering on pointless, observational humour is funniest when it’s at its most true and reflective.

Coming up next time, reflections on Danny Wallace’s “How To Start A Country” (a viable option for residents of Sittingbourne?)

MonsterMob's Unethical Unsolicited Marketing

For the second time I received a message in my WAP Push Inbox on my phone. I’m no expert in this technology but I set my phone to ‘prompt’ me before receiving these messages after I got the first a few weeks ago and yet this one still got through.

The reason I asked for the prompt is simple. I was intrigued by the message and clicked through only to discover that I’d probably just signed up for some ridiculous download club for ringtones and other teen phone nonsense.

The message I got today read: “FREE> Music Downloads!” and was linked to an opt-in page on http://www.mob.tv/ A browse on their website shows their address to be MonsterMob, 76 Church Street , Lancaster , LA1 1ET.

Thing is, I’ve subscribed to the telephone preference service and had assumed this protected me from this sort of intrusion. When I find the time I shall be contacting MonsterMob to demand an explanation as to how they can do this. Full correspondence on this will be maintained on this blog. A Technorati search doesn’t really yield much on this company other than suggesting it’s a burgeoning and successful business.

I just don’t like these tactics. You click on the link and suddenly you’re signed up … little T&C messages whilst hinting at some kind of compliance actually do nothing to signpost the fact that you’re about to haemorrhage money through your phone bill for a load of gimmicky and smutty junk. £3 per week might not sound much but that’s nearly £160 a year and for what,”full track music downloads 2 ur moby” apparently. Well, for £0.79 I can download full tracks to my iTunes and don’t need a subscription. I can port these over to my phone, if I wanted, using a bit of Bluetooth trickery, so what’s the point? On the 3rd August I sent a STOP command and was told this had “been processed and you have been unsubscribed from THEMOB” … is this different to MonsterMob? Why do T-Mobile have no apparent control over this crap?

Harvey's Potato Pile-Up

Not sure what I make of Brian Harvey’s claims today that his pelvis-crushing accident was the result of excessive spud-consumption. Previous reports had hinted he had be trying to commit suicide in the weeks before his death, quite why you’d choose this bizarre staged car accident is beyond me. I do, however, like the detail around this story … we know his heel ended up above his head, that his pelvis was crushed and that he had been filling up on jacket potato that evening, yet no-one is any the wiser as to really what on earth actually happened. I’m sure the promised TV/book deal will reveal all at some point. Amazed Emma B is staying with him though and I have to admire his determination to walk again.

Technorati Tag Brian Harvey

Demolition Day

Noticed on my walk home last night that progress seems to be being made at The Flour Mill in Ipswich. Having been derelict for something like six years (I only moved to Ipswich in 2003) and held by developers since at least April 2003 there have been various articles promising developments in Ipswich’s second-rate press, The Evening Star.

Back in June (council’s decision and the discovery of 15th buildings on site. I received a series of emails from Wharfside Regeneration’s Spencer Style in May (before the section 106 development agreement) in which he made reference to the delays in starting work. He was expecting an 8 week delay in mobilising contractors. Anyway, all that aside the demolition contractors are moving their banners into position and – presumably – beginning the slow and painful process of stripping out the machinery, asbestos and decaying remnants of this crumbling building. As far as I can tell from the images around the web, a lot of the original building is being demolished, including the giant 1950s concrete silos. As much as people might like to see these stay – for reasons of architectural heritage – they would serve no purpose and would instead be vacant monoliths. The proposals, amongst which is the flagship Dance East studios, should do much to enhance this neglected corner of Ipswich

However, there’s still much work to do along the exisiting waterfront. The regeneration that begun at the start of this decade has had some tangible effects. A quick list of developments so far: Cardinal Lofts at the Burtons factory (ongoing), Neptune Marina (completed, Redrow homes), Orwell Quay (Persimmon homes), Neptune Square (Bellway), Stoke Quay (Bellway), and in the 1980s, the Stoke Bridge Maltings. This piecemeal development has left areas apparently unloved and uncared for. Along the road in front of these developments by the quay, the weeds grow up from the council’s neglect. There are precious few bins and no trees. Planting of any kind is scarce and left to individual properties to maintain. Street furniture is damaged and patchwork-repaired.

The ‘vibrant’ waterfront itself is not quite what it seems either. There are two restaurants, another, The Salthouse Brasserie as part of a four-star hotel, a friendly independent café, a pub, hairdresser and that’s it. The remaining units are let by various 9-5 businesses (although there is a breadth in these from yacht companies to social care and from picture framing to property development). Major commercial units are vacant in Neptune Marina and the Orwell Quay development has only a faded and seedy pool hall and absolutely nothing else. Whilst commercial units are promised in the remaining developments, it’s a wonder why no-one significant has wanted to catch the worm by booking an early spot on the waterfront. The council is quick to sing this area’s praises but it just isn’t the vibrant commercial and residential melting pot they think it is.

Maybe the proposals for Mint Quarter and St. Peter’s Port can add fuel to a barely smouldering fire of regeneration but unless the council get stuck in and attempt to beautify the area, thinking about environment, heritage, arts and social dynamics then all that will be left at the end of 2010 will be empty steel and glass structures and a whole lot of vacant residential lets. The demolition flags signal some progress, I’ll await the true transformation with more than a degree of scepticism.

Finally, I’ve noticed that Mortimers, a previously independent and rather successful seafood restaurant in a former electricity building on Duke Street, has been bought and redeveloped as part of the Loch Fyne chain. I never got the chance to eat there before it was bought-up, I only hope that this doesn’t mean I’ve missed the boat wth regards to quality seafood and a restaurant with real character…

Technorati Tag : ipswich waterfront

Murders Unsolved As Debate Rages On

Following on from my entry yesterday in reference to the increase police presence on the streets in London, today’s Metro (that bastion of journalistic integrity) features a piece bemoaning the apparent slowing of progress on non-terrorist related high profile murder cases. Presumably at some point we’ll see a return to detective activity in these outstanding cases but as to when I guess we just don’t know.

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Anyway Metro seeded the other element to this entry. The fertile letters section of the paper (why it occupies such a small spot is beyond me) once again attempts to debate the explanation and justification for the bombing campaign in the capital. As far as I can tell the debate is polarised thus:

The bombing campaign can be attributed to British involvement in Iraq:

YES: The apparent invasion of an Islamic state and the unwarranted deaths of muslims can be considered justification for Jihad. The manifestation of Jihad in this instance are the suicide bombings in London. Had we not been involved in Iraq, our sanctuary and tolerance of radical Islamists would have protected us from attack.

NO: The attacks on the USS Cole and the World Trade Centre pre-date the military action in Afghanistan and Iraq and indicate that Jihad was in operation before any clear attack on an Islamic nation. The presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait cannot be considered an invasion as it was with Saudi Arabia’s permission.

Of course, the debate is not this clear cut and therein lies the problem. Christianity was historically used to justify the Crusades, puritanical Witch Hunts and all manner of other intolerances. If one takes the bible literally it is perfectly possible to explain and justify numerous immoral and contradictory behaviours. The Koran, as far as I can tell, can also be interpreted many ways. The sheer variability of the messages of Islam – as typified recently by the different messages emerging from different Islamic groups and the tribal fractions in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan – means that it is nigh-on impossible to identify a single objective or agenda for the current terrorist campaign.

Just taking a view of the backgrounds of all the terrorists committing crimes under the banner of Islam shows a significant diversity: Jamaican, Somalian, Eritrean, Ethiopian, British and Pakistani, white American, Chechen, Sunni, Taliban, Indonesian, Algerian, Palestinian and many others. There is inconsistency here, as well as in their agenda.

With no clear direction, no tangible group to engage in dialogue and negotiation, it’s apparent that the only places where we can seek any kind of answers is on such letters pages, blogs, late night TV debates and, of course, in moments of personal reflection.

The Invisible Met

Our 'cycling correspondent' (who's gleefuly been sending me pictures of his new Penny Farthing adorned with red tyres and yet - illegally - no bell or reflectors) alerted me to an article in today's Times by Janet Daley.

'Coppers out of thin air' raises the valid point that the recent increased Police presence on the streets of the capital implies that the manpower we were always assured was too costly to deploy, is in fact available and able to burn shoe leather on the pavements, platforms and in the parks. This perambulating deterrent has been gloriously absent during the increase in violent crime, the stabbings and shootings, the drug dealing and vandalism. Yet now we're treated to assault rifles on the train to Paddington.

What I expect will happen is that a gradual scaling down of non-essential duties will occur until someone realises this and officers will be recalled back to desks to clear admin backlogs and generate some speeding-fine revenue. Anyway, she puts it far more eloquently, read her article.

Ring of Plenty

Following a disappointing trip to Hatton Gardens, some disappointing emails with a bespoke designer, disappointing diamonds from a High Street chain in administration and finally an impromptu drop-in to an independant jewelers in Ipswich, we now have an engagement ring. Wonderful service, wonderful quality and we both feel much happier. Wasn't quite the customer experience I had expected (originally had expected us to go for a Mappin & Webb purchase with lengthy consultations and fawning staff...) but the benefit of this is that we feel we've been involved and involved with people who genuinely care about producing an engagement ring that lasts a lifetime. This wasn't sales, this was about (ahem) realising our wants and needs.

Intelligent Gathering

Saw this article about how the security services used IMEI tracking on Hamdi Isaac’s (previously Hussain Osman) mobile to trace his movements across Europe and, ultimately, track him down. What was disappointing however was the Italian Carlo de Stefano’s decision to post this information which will now mean that future criminals will know to switch handsets and SIM cards.

This has called me to reconsider another couple of issues that have bothered me in recent days regarding the international efforts to track down the people behind the terror attacks. Leaving aside the issue of whether the security services identified meaningful chatter amongst the communities responsible for the attack before the event (and thereby inferring something about their efficacy) we should be looking at some idiotic press releases in the aftermath.

First there is the US intelligence agency leaking classified images of bomb equipment to the TV networks. A gross misjudgement and indicative of the ineptitude of certain people involved in the relevant agencies. This sort of imagery does nothing other than spread the design plans of such devices and produce poster artwork for every budding martyr to display on their wall.

Second there is the Italian legal system happily leaking all manner of details of what has been said in custody awaiting extradition. In our country, for all its failings, the defendant – once in custody – is protected from further speculation in order to avoid prejudicing their right to a fair trial. By publishing this information (which I accept the British Press are guilty of) they add fuel to the defence lawyers claim in Italy that in extraditing this man to the UK they would prevent him receiving. All the information that Antonietta Sonnessa [above right] has revealed in an unnecessarily extrovert way (we saw pictures of her in a spaghetti-strap camisole outside court, highly sensitive to her Islamic client…) could have been effectively reported at trial. On the BBC 10 o’clock news tonight we rather pointlessly saw her inside the self publicising lawyer’s glamorous gilded office during an interview with Jeremy Bowen.

Thirdly our ‘cycling correspondent’ writes in reference to French passport control (which reputedly failed to check any relevant documents for ) “I passed through 4 times (i.e. 2 return trips) with an 8 month out of date passport, and nobody said a thing until the very last one, who took a scan of it and then let me through anyway.” First there was Sangatte and now there is this, why are the French so cavalier about their borders? Of course there’s some argument that the British should check passports at London but my understanding is that from the gates at Waterloo, security and immigration is in French hands? The Evening Standard tonight has suggested that Labour cuts in 1998 led to the removal of outbound border checks in cost cutting exercise.

The British police – and in particular the oft-maligned Metropolitan Police – have done an amazing job. The Spaniards did well to secure their suspects but the British have worked on two separate events with (to begin with) less forensic material and have detained numerous suspects including all of the attempted bombers from the 21st, alive and unharmed. Our terrorist correspondent writes: “the police have done fantastically well. I’d love to be at the centre of the investigation and see the true power of the police and intelligence services full resources thrown at a problem.” He continues (somewhat optimistically) that once nations work together on tracking down a suspect you can’t: “communicate, purchase anything unless with cash, withdraw cash, travel through ports or even use public transport. … unless you have suitcase full of cash and the French are manning the immigration controls for Eurostar.”

Whilst the vast majority of us abhor the tragic events of 7th July and the ‘near miss’ of 21st, many of us simply wish that we demonstrate an effective, moral and ethical process in bringing the perpetrators to justice. That, in the strongest terms, sends the signal to the extremists that they will be defeated by fair and due process. That democracy and justice is alive and well.

---

In other news..

Oh, and maybe bloggers will be interested in this article. And for those of you reading this where I work this piece on Boardroom Bloggers might seem relevant if unduly cynical.

Visual Envy & The Power of Mind Mapping

Am growing a bit tired of the appearance of this blog. It’s basically set-up from a blogger template and as my interests before all this started were in aesthetic usability design it seems a bit rich to present an awkward and ugly blog. I’ve seen some amazing blogs recently and love Chromasia with a passion. If only I could code (think he uses Movable Type) and run something similar. If I ever get a substantial period of free time I’ll do something like that probably. I also wonder whether I should put a counter or some metrics on here as I have no idea how many people read this. Does anyone read it who's never actually met me? If so, add a comment..

That said, simple sites work well too. A director here at work runs a blog on our intranet and his is bereft of images and typographic design – save for a lonely (if cheerful) mugshot at the top. The difference being his content is always engaging in both the corporate and personal sense and as such it speaks for itself. Hadn’t thought it before but perhaps he’s another Jakob Nielsen fan?

I spent some time looking around for blog entries on one of my favourite conversation topics – Simon Baron-Cohen’s theory of the systemising vs. empathising brain – and I stumbled upon PsyBlog (in reference to BBC Secrets of the Sexes) and MindHacks, two others to add to my blog watch list. PsyBlog is a simplistic design but no poorer for it and it featured an article on Mind Mapping too – another interest of mine. Read some related critique of this software-supported brainstorming but it hasn’t put me off using my recently acquired copy of Mindjet's MindManager – a piece of software I am nowhere near utilising to its maximum.

With that in mind, it’s off to mind map some ideas for new site designs. I’d wager ‘ideas’ is as far as they’ll get. As long as I don’t do as I’m tempted and rip-off the design of Adaptive Path.

Vive Le Tour: French Press Reaction A Bit (Arm)Strong

I got sent a series of articles today from our cycling correspondent which referred to the end of Le Tour from a French perception. I’m not naïve enough to believe that the French press represents the populist view of the French public but it does, nevertheless, give one pause for thought.

If we look back on some of the world’s undeniable sporting greats (and this list might suffer from a gender bias and recency effects): Steve Redgrave, Michael Schumacher, Michael Johnson, Pete Sampras and Lance Armstrong, they are roundly criticized for being (variously) obsessive, stubborn, arrogant, control-freaks, miserable and selfish. Is it not obvious that this commonality demonstrates the side effects of being a champion? These personality traits are a corollary to success and represent the abilities these (admittedly male-brained) athletes use to control the environment around them to suppress the variability, to focus on the system of winning and be acutely in-tune with cause-effect-implication. Their performances are so magnificent simply because they have learnt to limit their exposure to anything that is apparently unconnected to their next event.

Lance’s illustrated his contempt for the ephemera of press opinion about his inovlvement with drugs and the sheer unhelpfulness of it to his race preparation. His relationships were formed not with the PR men and journalists that parasitically cling to Le Tour but to the riders in US Postal or the Discovery Channel and his rivals in the peloton. These were relationships worth understanding and, in some cases, exploiting.

In 1998 Le Tour had hit the wall. No amount of food sachets and isotonic fluids seemed to lift its broken body. The Festina team had been riddled with doping scandals and the press equally riddled with the fallout. Lance, the cancer victim in the maillot jaune, provided hope, a rebirth and vision of human endeavor against scientific certainty. That this spirit of competitiveness then proved itself a subsequent 6 times is without equal in the sporting arena. However, the reasons for vilifying this achievement are numerous and complex.

As The Times writes: “…you will not find too many bemoaning his departure. Indeed, they will be queuing up to drive him to Charles de Gaulle airport and breathing collective sighs of relief to waft his private jet back to Texas for the final time…”

Chris Boardman, evidently smarting from the recent loss of his 1hr record and the knowledge that he never made a serious impact on the world’s greatest cycling event, has said he wants to see more of a race. This nonsensical viewpoint is borne of our questionable desire to maintain that “it’s the taking part that counts”. Witness the middle-class hysteria for Tim Henman’s valiant struggle to reach a Wimbledon final. Surely a race in Le Tour is guaranteed, does Boardman believe that second, third, the green jersey and King of the Mountains are all just handed out? There are races and victories daily, sometimes hourly, on those French roads. Because one man dominates the ultimate prize does not mean the rot sets in around him.

Armstrong’s legacy is not just a sporting one. TV rights have increased five-fold, sponsorship and Tour visibility is on the rise, the momentum he created that lifted the race from its nadir will Livestrong in the mountains and flatlands of Europe. The peloton is peppered with new nations and old and one senses a great deal of bitterness stems from the disappointment in the French achievements.

This great malaise, the Gallic sulk has deeper origins. From the defeat in the Olympics, back to the no vote in the referendum and the fallout over the Iraq war, France is feeling a bit sorry for itself. The president himself personifies this bitterness and although he’s not commented on the twenty years of French failure in their flagship cycle race it’s pretty evident that there’s a collective resentment amongst certain sectors of French society that other countries seem to be getting all the good stuff. Sad as this is, it will pass. The French demonstrated in the Solent that their military might still regularly eclipses ours and their foreign and immigration policy, championed by the likes of the enigmatic and eloquent Dominic de Villepin has kept them largely free of Islamic terrorism. Before we feel too sorry for the French and their sporting endeavors, let’s not forget their rugby and football team - now dispatching us with consummate ease in games we invented.

In short, let us acknowledge Lance Armstrong as one of sport’s greatest achievers, as a consummate professional, a human being and a staunch advocate of one of the finest endurance races in the world sensitive to the European way of life. Accept that Lance Armstrong’s domination was both awe inspiring in its persistence and gloriously effective in it’s ability to heal a damaged event. The race lives on without him and lives stronger because of him.

Catch-up with events

SLK 350 after a comprehensive test run to Thetford

A bit of a catch-up post this one. Am sat at home and have just put Jamiroquai's Funk Odyssey on iTunes. Which is sort of fitting as I forgot to catch up with you after I popped out for the afternoon with a good mate on Tuesday and we ended up taking a brand new Mercedes SLK 350 for a test-drive out to Thetford. Now this thing shifts. My mate's got an S2000 which - to be fair - is a maniac revving engine in a full-on Jap sports car. The Merc however was just rudely powerful. So often the complaint about the SLK was that it was an underpowered hairdressers' car. The prerequisite to owning one being an over-styled haircut and mahogany skin with a texture not unlike that of a rhino. This SLK's different. Not quite the AMG that Clarkson tried to outrun the British Army in but an awesome car nonetheless.

It's certainly more capacious than the S2000, I'm 6' 2" and aside from some unruly buffeting at 120 mph I was comfortable. That might have something to do with the 'air scarf' technology though, oh and the fact that I was boiling the marrow in my skeleton with the heated seats on. The 3.5litre gave plenty of people on the A11 something to think about. Coming off roundabouts we reached 60 in about as long as it took me to remove my Oakleys from the glove box, with the Formula-one nose appearing in your rear view mirror at those sort of speeds you'd better be driving something even better than a Boxster 3.2S to even think about competing. Especially as the one we had was equipped with the 7G Tronic gearbox and paddle shifters on the wheel.

What's more, we hadn't even engaged 'sports' on the box. There was more under that gorgeously sloping bonnet. I have to say I wouldn't contemplate the junior models (200 and 280) and there were faults (the stereo display is unreadable in direct light, the wind deflector is rubbish and it's got a ludicrously daft steering rake adjustor ... but park up at watch that folding roof disappear in 22 seconds and you'll forgive this obscenely efficient Teuton the vast majority of its sins. If I had £38k to spend on a car I'd consdider it. But I'd probably end up getting a brand new Elise 111R and use the change on a used Golf for trips to the supermarket. What the Merc lacked - and the Elise has in spades - is a sense of being a driver. The Merc cosets you along at frightening speeds and you can hear the stereo, but you're a pilot, flying by wire and there's just something about that that leaves you a little bit hollow.

If you think this is a rubbish appraisal, What Car? did a good one.

London Explosions: 21st July

IMAGE: (c) BBC News online


News is emerging of explosions on the tube in London again. The BBC site is running ok on low graphics mode but Reuters, which were talking of a nailbomb is struggling.

** UPDATES BELOW & IN COMMENTS ***

Rumour: dummy explosions using detonators (BBC)

Three stations closed and three lines: Warren St., Oval, Shepherd's Bush.

Also incident on Route 26 bus in Bethnal Green (Hackney Road)

More on its way...

14:18 BST At Shepherd's Bush station, police told reporters that a man had threatened to blow himself up and then ran off. (BBC News)

14:19 BST The Ashes (a major British sporting event in cricket, England vs. Australia) are being held at Lords cricket ground not the Oval ground - site nearby one of the tube evacuations. Current score: Australia: 175-6

14:22 BST Other stations closed: Westminster, Waterloo & Kings Cross Thameslink. Devices have been found that appear to be dummies (Andrew Winstanley)

14:25 BST Reuters struggling to keep up to date. More news from Sky reporters concerning passenger's backpack on fire

14:32 BST COBRA have be convened

14:39 BST Reporters log up on BBC site ... gathering news quickly. There are various reports still coming in of a man with a rucksack either fleeing with it on or throwing it on the tracks. Other sources suggest someone threatened to blow themselves up before fleeing.

14:45 BST BBC, armed officers deployed at UCL hospital.

14:51 BST I'm trying to get confirmation that St. Pauls & Oxford Circus may/may not be closed ... official TFL site is only showing two stations closed

14:57 BST Victoria line closed (Warren Street), Hammersmith & City (Shepherd's Bush) and Northern (Oval). One injury reported - possibly individual with the rucksack (vide supra) .

15:04 BST Met Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair: - there have been 4 explosions / 'attempts at explosions'. He is to join COBRA.

15:09 BST Clearly timed to coincide with the 14 day 'anniversary' of those on 7th July.

15:21 BST news reels slowing down now ... some mention of explosion being consistent with a tear gas grenade . Even if this is a series of elaborate hoaxes, there's going to be an waful lot of people not travelling on the tube tonight. Frankly this situation's going to have to radically improve before I get back on one. (see earlier comments on so-called stoicism). I was in favour of the invasion of Iraq but it's clear to me today that - whilst Iraq cannot be blamed for the emergence of Islamic radicalism it has certainly added fuel to an increasingly uncontrollable fire.

15:28 BST Authorities are dealing with a suspect package on a number 37 bus in St. John's Avenue, Putney Hill. Apparently the Police are trying to ensure valuable witnesses are not ushered from the scene as they were two weeks ago. My radio on my desk has stayed turned off and the online sources are all I'm going with.

15:36 BST Just checking what the situation is with trains up to Norwich from London ... apparently everything on one is running ok. For a change. Would seem Liverpool St. mainline is still open as normal.

15:59 BST apparently the technology is holding up better than a fortnight ago (there was a lot of criticism about their ability to cope) with only Vodafone reporting problems with network traffic. The BBC site is already showing pictures of the events from mobile phones.

16:32 BST Waterloo is open and South West Trains are running a normal service. This echoes an annoucement on the One service line from Liverpool Street that they are running ok too. The emphasis is on getting London running again for the rush hour(s). SPORT: we bowled out the Aussies for 190 and are 10 without loss at tea in return. Oh, and Paolo Savoldelli won stage 18 of Le Tour.

16:37 BST The Times are amongst others producing more complete reports of the afternoon's events. This blog entry ends at 16:45 and any further comment will be hours later.

ENDS: For the latest, use BBC News Online (low graphics version)

A Wiki Way To Waste Time

I love this site. So much information on it … it’s profile was raised (well, raised to the extent that I become aware of it!) after 7/7 when it had already begun to reflect the events of the day in an historical past tense just hours after the blasts. What’s great about it is that it harks back to the contextual hypertext of the original web model. In many ways blogs do too and this is a lost art on so many pages which are just copy and menus … even celebrated news sites such as the BBC News site could benefit from good contextual linking but then there is a risk that text can get swamped with links. The other major selling point for me is that the site is free and users can effectively contribute to its genesis. I, for example, recently contributed an entry for the village of Wormshill in Kent.

Of course, there’s a downside to this in that information isn’t readily verifiable but, and without looking through the FAQs, I’m sure there are ways that Wikipedia overcome this. There is always the possibility that someone can check and amend the entry anyway so hopefully philanthropic users will ensure the validity and reliability of the entries evolves naturally.

In recent weeks the site’s provided me with answers to some of life’s taxing questions such as “What’s the difference between a horse and a pony or a ship and a boat?” and “What’s the Latin for ‘see above’ ?“

My only criticism is the search engine; it’s not quite up to Google standard. A lot of results come through with the same title and the relevance scoring isn’t up to scratch. It didn’t stop me from haemorrhaging about ten hours of my life this weekend though in browsing.

Technorati tag: Wormshill

Commuting's better by bike ...

Bit of a disparate entry this one, cycling, Olympic dreams and more ‘one’ nonsense.

Another observation from our cycling correspondent:

“I was very amused by a recorded announcement at Waterloo this am. ‘Passengers are reminded that cycles are not allowed on this train. Any passenger with a cycle should pre-book before travelling.’ Verbatim. Which made me wonder if the x % of menstruating women in waterloo were stressing about whether or not they should be boarding the train.”

I observed whether such cycle-restrictions included the water cycle or anyone involved in re-incarnation (the life cycle)?

However, his observation does raise the possibility that such officious train announcements are being made as a consequence of an increase commuters unfamiliar with the train-cycle procedure? This would fit in with observations of an increased use of bikes in London as a consequence of the terrorist atrocities. This can’t be a bad thing. I’ve always maintained that if I lived within an hour’s cycle of my workplace in London then that’s how I’d travel.

But then I’ve maintained a lot of fitness nonsense in the past (q.v. SkinnyMan) and recently I’ve become preoccupied with the plausibility that, in seven years, I could train myself from my current condition to be an Olympic triathlete competing at London 2012.

In the meantime I’m stuck with more woes on the London-Norwich line, this week has been appalling. Downed cables yesterday morning, a train failure and cable problems at Trowse last night and this morning a signalling problem at Bethnal Green. Not to mention carriages with no air conditioning. There’s the possibility of one having their own blog rant section. Regular readers will recall my recent fire on one railway posting and one railway’s response.

Taco Bell and Abercrombie & Fitch to launch in the UK

:: NEW! This article is referenced with some updates on the Abercrombie London store on a later posting

Meandering through the streets of Norwich this morning I happened across a discarded drinks cup from a fast food outlet. Nothing ordinary in that you might think but it caught my eye because it was imprinted with Taco Bell. I’ve been to the US on several occasions and, in the past, have tried Taco Bell, I have to say the food (whilst not even close to true Mexican cooking) represents some of the best of the American ‘junk’ food sector. It’s with that in mind that I’d longed for the day when one would open in the UK. But then I remembered the disappointment I felt on trying Subway, a poor imitation of the US version – sloppy service and inflated prices.

Taco Bell is part of the Pizza Hut and KFC group (Yum!) and so I’d originally thought that this cup must have come from the nearby KFC but it turns out it was probably more likely to originate from one of only two outlets in the UK – unsurprisingly behind the security fences at Lakenheath and Mildenhall. Presumably the recent London travel ban has meant that personnel are confined to the base and its environs prompting the need for indulgent Taco Bell excursions whereupon the detritus is discarded amongst our streets as a teaser, like chocolate wrappers discarded by GIs in 1940s London…

That said, there is noise on this blog that franchises are being explored. In the meantime I seem to remember Mountain Dew being launched in the UK a few years ago – presumably that was pulled too? I understand that there are American supply shops available to UK residents but surely the biggest omission in the UK market has been Abercrombie & Fitch. This has long been the preserve of those who have had trips to the US – the logo t-shirts being worn like badges on the High Streets of England alongside the ‘Little Brown Bag’ (or indeed anything branded Macys or Bloomingdales). Of course, you could always shop online for A&F stuff but you’ll pay heavily in customs & excise duties unless you track down one of the poorly stocked ‘distributors’ in the UK. I heard a rumour that A&F are exploring the possibility of launching in the UK (Simmons & Simmons have been advising them). With any luck they’ll displace the ageing (sooo 90s) ‘FCUK’ as the designer for the middle class. Their presence at a London graduate recruitment fair suggests moves are afoot…

Finally,

Other news, good deal on Evo subscriptions for anyone interested:

Get 3 issues of Evo for £1 (instead of £3.95 each) and get a DVD of the Italian Job and a model of a Mini Cooper Dunlop edition.

After the 3rd copy it is then £18.20 for 6 issues (23% discount) and best of all you can cancel after the 3rd copy so it is win win win.

Cambridge Usability Group Event: 25th July

From London-ia mailing list:

Cambridge Usability Group are pleased to announce their next event on Monday 25th July.

William Newman will give a talk on "How can Human-Computer Interaction Research help the User Experience Professional?" at Microsoft Research in Cambridge.

Date: Monday 25th July
Time: 6.30 for 6.45
Venue: Microsoft Research, Cambridge
Cost: The event is FREE and you do not need to be a UK UPA member to attend (note future events may not be free for non-members).

More information on the UK UPA site

Alpine Wolves Disrupt Le Tour

From our cycling correspondent (with ref. to BBC Sport)

"This is precisely why the French didn't get the games: Wolf attacks Frenchman's sheep. Frenchman attacks the one single sporting event in the world that he actually claims he has ever had the slightest bit of interest in.

Presumably French farmers feel the tour organisers are in some way responsible.

'The route of the 10th stage features two Category One climbs. The start of the stage has been modified to ward off farmers who planned to block the riders to protest against wolf attacks on sheep and cows.

The stage was meant to start in Grenoble, but will now begin 11.5 km away in Brignoud at 1100 BST. Farmers had planned to block the race along the route to the ski station of Courchevel to protest against attacks on their herds by wolves in the Alps, organizers said.

Armstrong is hoping Monday's rest day will help to rally his Discovery team, who have shown rare signs of fallibility in the opening stages of the 2005 tour.'

I see fat Jan [Ullrich] stacked it again. Maybe he'll crash into a wolf today. Or maybe T-mobile need to arrange for a wolf to chase him up the mountain. Maybe they could sew I nice steak into the lining of his shorts." ... Quite.

Alertbox Reviews June & July

Finally got round to commenting on Jakob’s ‘Usability: Empiricism or Ideology’ alertbox. I do generally feel a sense of disappointment when opening Jakob’s emails. A bit like watching Top Gear on a Sunday. I look forward to it quite a bit and it takes the wind out of my sails when I discover he’s not covering a topic I’m interested in or, in the case of TG, Clarkson & Co. are looking at a Hyundai instead of a DB9. On June 27th though, Jakob’s mail was a good one.

I remember going to a UK UPA event a year or so ago where Marty Carroll, a charismatic advocate of results-led usability and Director at The Usability Company, talked passionately about having to prove measurable benefit to a business of employing user-centric development. To me this blended my academic perspective with my emerging awareness of the world of business. Until that point I’d assumed that academic usability study, in a sense the pursuit of purely empirical assessments, was not really relevant to the world of commercial web and interaction design. What Jakob describes in his alertbox is that usability is only non-scientific in the sense that it produces guidelines as opposed to exact formulae. In essence usability is still the result of empirical observation upon which conclusions are drawn. Makes for interesting reading.

His alertbox this week ('Scrolling and Scrollbars') is another common-sense statement (makes me assume he writes these pages simply to increase his hit count from Google … ) on usability, covering ground he’s covered before. The article is – amazingly for Jakob – illustrated with examples of scrollbars that work and those that didn’t. I don’t know how much he fussed over which examples to use, but the ones he’s chosen perfectly illustrate his point. There are exceptions to his guidelines (there invariably are) but as a quick reference for the interaction designer this is a good stab.

Nothing to fear but fear itself?

It’s taken five days of reflection before I really felt able to comment on the London transport bombings. Since then I have read acres of coverage in a range of papers. From the profound people-stories in commuters’ paper ‘Metro’, to the analysis and gravitas of the Times, Telegraph, Guardian and Observer. Never before can I recall a time when our capital has, in ten hours, gone from such exultant revelry to profound despair. I’ve saved the sequence of papers from those three days last week: The prelude to an Olympic decision and G8 on Wednesday, the triumphant headlines of Thursday morning and the first reflections on Friday.

The clamour for news on Thursday morning appeared to be painfully slow. Our web connection at work crumbled, we were asked to restrict use to ‘business critical’ (woefully unrealistic). In light of this I switched, as I had done the day before, to Five Live and found myself frustrated by the lack of information. On reflection it’s clear that this was a well managed drip-feed of information to suppress panic and to ensure that the necessary movement of resources and strategy could be achieved. Whilst the first reports were of eye witness accounts and mobile phone pictures/footage the following days brought the most moving tales of individuals euphemistically and optimistically referred to as ‘missing’. This pictoral roll-call, profoundly reflective of London’s socioeconomic DNA, was juxtaposed with grainy pictures captured from phones all purporting to show the ‘moments after’ without much sense of a moral obligation to allow families to begin to grieve [It is in fact interesting to note the need for journalistic control on this unsolicited material]

What these days also brought with them was a raft of survivor stories and David Aaronovitch in the Times deftly commented on our perverse and guilt-laden need to link ourselves in some small part to the tragedy. These ‘could have been’ vignettes seemed to punctuate conversations about the events … “a mate of mine was evacuated”, “I normally catch that train”, “my sister works round the corner”. In some way these are our attempts to form a solidarity and bond with the victims, to announce: “An attack on you is an attack on all of us”.

Though the war in Iraq has undoubtedly exacerbated the worsening perception of Britain in the Muslim fundamentalist world it cannot be the only justification for this event. If Iraq was the reason here, what was the reason for Bali before the march on Baghdad? Afghanistan perhaps? Well, September 11th pre-dated the fall of Kabul, what justified that attack in the West? There are no simple answers and the worsening crisis against a faceless, nameless enemy with a non-specific agenda leaves London and cities like it even more prone to these indiscriminate attacks. Many politicians, public figures and, sadly, celebrities have rushed to echo the legions of bloggers and letter-writers in proclaiming London’s indefatigable spirit. All at once failing to identify that London today represents little of London in the Blitz. The stoicism and humour at facing the Luftwaffe was borne of a less ethnically diverse population who knew the enemy they faced and could, in part prepare for their raids. Furthermore, the London that faced Irish terrorism was one that knew the Republican agenda, that pre-supposed there would be an accented warning and that, predominantly, the payload’s target was stone, steel and glass. No one doubts that people are resilient to these events, but it’s not some dormant wartime spirit conjured up from dusty east-end Anderson shelters.

It’s all well and good for people to defiantly recommend we rejoin the tube and hop on board the friendly red bus, but for many of these taxi-using figures, the feeling of descending into the tube, sitting in a carriage or next to a rucksack-wearing passenger, is one they’ll avoid experiencing. As I travel through the regions, employed outside the capital, I cannot begin to imagine a time when I will travel to London without considering those terrible moments but I can read the papers and hope that so many of those who work in London can and will begin to find some normality again.

A spectacularly beautiful end to a tragic day in the UK. This shot taken in Ipswich at Orwell Quay. 

Sick As A Paris

Try as I might to reign in my enthusiasm with the thought that seven years is a long time, I can’t help but feel swollen with British pride at securing the 2012 Olympics.

This morning was nerve-wracking. I struggle to recall a time when my heart has pounded in anticipation for something I have not been personally involved in. It’s been a strange few years. I started rather nonchalantly believing we had an outside chance but expecting the bid to go the way of the Dome. In many senses it started badly (I got a real feel for this from a Five news report on Monday evening) and we were some distance off the mark until we got to the first elimination. From that point onwards the public awareness and professionalism of the bid team has accelerated ahead (it’s difficult to avoid sporting puns).

London won for several reasons. We displayed a genuine and admirable moral focus on the youth and sporting legacy of the games. This is what makes Australia great at sport and what made their games so extraordinarily successful. London put in place a real strategy for the venue legacy too – a criticism of Athens and just about every Olympics to date. London captured the public’s imagination with great sporting achievements in Athens (Kelly Holmes, the coxless four) and engaging world famous sporting and political support (Nelson Mandela, Cathy Freeman and our own sporting legends). We showed how our transport system would be improved and how we would regenerate as well as recycle to provide the facilities we’d need.

Today we avoided spin. Tony Blair applied text book diplomacy, pressing flesh and talking passionately about the people who the games would effect. Maybe even the effect of G8 and Live8 has shown us to be a nation with a truly global perspective. We benefited from the French bids weaker presentation, their recent mud-slinging and the negative feeling toward France felt by ejected candidate cities New York and Madrid. It would be easy to get jingoistic and talk of the Trafalgar anniversary and so on but frankly this year also see the 60th anniversary of the end of WW2 – an example of us fighting together. Had Paris won the Olympics I would have been proud to say a great city won and would have been in the front of the queue for the Eurostar in 2012. Would we have booed in Trafalgar square? Possibly, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing to hear it from the centre of Paris today. I followed the announcement on BBC online and Five Live and I read with interest that journalists had crowded round a self-congratulatory French team moments before the announcement. Only a handful stood with Britain. Seb Coe had run on the shoulder of Paris until the final bend, but no-one knew until the photo finish.

The Olympics in London is years away but the benefits will begin in months with the creation of jobs, the buzz of enterprise and the ambition of athletes in training. The political wrangling, the tax implications and the soaring budget are all things we’ll have to cope with. But when the flag is passed to us in Beijing and the torch is lit in London, who in this country won’t stand up and be proud to say we won?

Lots of links to be added to this article later.

Toby Young

Was fortunate to finally get to see “When Toby Met Julie” last night on BBC4. I’ve been a ‘fan’ of Toby Young since his appearance on BBC3’s underrated "The Other Boat Race" in 2004. Straight after that series I went out and bought “ How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” which, by that time, was in paperback. It must have soared in popularity again because the book was re-launched in a new cover, the stage adaptation returned to London (with TY rather egotistically taking the lead … “you must be the Toby Young you write so much about”) and Toby re-launched his website – turning it into a weblog and portal for his recent work. It’s funny how you can live years in ignorance of something then, once you discover it, it appears everywhere. In my case, the world of Toby Young is just like that. Barely a week goes by now in my life without an article relating to Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair, The Modern Review, Julie Burchill, or Martha Stewart appearing in some culture supplement or online. The BBC4 documentary was witty (confronting them repeatedly with their alternative versions of the past) and nicely textured with relevant cultural waymarkers during the (boy-band obsessed) cut-scenes (e.g. Duran Duran , Bros & Take That) and featuring all of the main protagonists in the magazine that arguably changed the face of British arts & culture journalism. It even showed a very likable side to both of them – quite self-effacing at times. What I found hardest to watch (other than Julie’s horrific dental portcullis and the numerous shots of bleeding thumbs) was that two coke-addled bohemians were writing with such obvious intellect and wit about such trivial things in much the same way I try to. They still write like this (although without the innovative resonance that they had in the early 1990s) and it puts my attempts at the keyboard to absolute shame. I’m now trawling eBay for copies of the MR…

Observations today:
Ferrari 355 in a sinister black over-taking on Rouen Road, Norwich at 08.30 in the morning. A powerful early morning stimulant. Afternoon was perked-up by the arrival of an Aston Martin DB9 on the same street.
The white gypsy skirt, ubiquitous and, unless adorning the waif-like hips of a nubile girl under 30, quite bilious.

Hair By Doogie

My idiotic sibling suggested a novel hair care routine this weekend. This morning this has left me looking like Neil Patrick Harris in his junior physician days instead of the intended Jenson Button. Good job I’m having it sorted this weekend. Someone suggested I look more like James Harries, which is frankly a grotesque exaggeration.