There is no I in Community

Before you start yes I know the title is wrong. There is an i in community, it’s towards the end of the word. But like the saying there is no I in team I’ve been slowly learning that there should not be I in community either.

As regular readers of my blogs will know I'm setting up an website about historic churches. It is currently at www.peterandsusan.co.uk/church and I think that that could be one of the issues with it. Does it not give the impression that the site belongs to Peter and Susan. It did start as a personal website but slowly and I mean far too slowly, I've come to the realisation that I can’t do it all on my own. It's too big a subject matter for one person. I need to either scale it down or build a community around it. I've slowly taken off personal things from the site. Like marking which churches I have visited, but I've just come to the realisation that this was no where near enough.

I think a good example of a community website that is similar to the one I'm hoping to create is Open Plaques (www.openplaques.org) . A site dealing with the Blue Plaques you find on sides of buildings. It's quite a simple site but it is effective in getting its message across. You can see when you look at the site exactly how you are to interact with it. Yes you can look up details of the Blue Plaques around the world, but one word is repeated again and again across the website. That word is Contribute. It's clear that the owners of the website want you to submit data and photographs to the site and give you various ways to submit your photos. That is what is clearly what is missing from my site. You look at it and it is not obvious what it is all about. The transition from personal website to a community website has been too long forthcoming and the website has suffered as a result. There is far too much mention of the word 'I', on my site. I is not a community. And if you did want to contribute to my site, there was no easy way of doing it.

So this is my top tip for any of you doing any sort of community website. Stand back and look at it from the users perspective. Make it obvious that their interaction is key to the site by making it easy to contribute to the site. Show contributions from other people and make it clear that other people have contributed to the site. This will encourage more and more people to join in the community that you are trying to create.

In the mean time, I bought a new domain for the site. www.historicchurches.co.uk (the .org version would be better but is already taken.) I'm also doing a site redesign and I'm using the Open Plaques site as a major source of inspiration. As it's a community I'm building, I'm replacing the subtitle of  'Our mission to visit and photograph every church in Great Britain' with the less individualistic line of 'Documenting Historic Churches of Great Britain'. I'm also adding lots of ways that people can contribute to the site but mainly I'm taking out the word I as there is clearly no I in Community.

South West Trains and Engineering work.

For the past couple of months Network Rail has had engineering work around the Southampton area on every weekend causing passengers to have to use a replacement bus service. Normally when this happens South West Trains run two replacement bus services. One a direct service from Southampton Airport Parkway to Bournemouth and a second that calls at the intermediate stations.

As you may know, I follow AFC Bournemouth and so on home days a commute down to Bournemouth is necessary. Normally I’d get off at Pokesdown station as this is the nearest to the ground. But on rail replacement days I don’t want the hassle of going on the bus that calls at every station to get to Pokesdown, so I catch the one direct to Bournemouth. This does push up the price of my ticket though but it’s my only realistic option.

So for the past couple of months, myself and many other AFC Bournemouth fans have been catching the bus down to Bournemouth. One of our regulars actually lives in Birmingham. Now that’s dedication.

South West Trains issued tweet the other day stating that they appreciate the patience of Southampton FC fans during the recent Engineering works. Erm so its only Southampton fans that use the trains then? I know plenty of us Bournemouth fans that have been inconvenienced as well. Plus we pay extra for the privilege. I'm sure that there are Portsmouth fans who travel through Southampton for their games that have been inconvenienced as well. Do we get a mention, no we don’t.

Maybe I'm being a bit over-sensitive on this, after all more Southampton fans would have been inconvenienced that from other clubs. But living in this area we do have to push Bournemouth to get a mention above Southampton. I think the last time we got mentioned on the local news ahead of Southampton was when we beat Man Utd in the cup and that was thirty years ago, back when Man Utd. Believe it or not Man Utd were a half decent team back then.

I’m sure South West Trains meant the tweet as a gesture of good will. However it grated with me and didn't help with my opinion of them. Lesson here is to think of all your customers when doing a tweet. They didn't need to mention Southampton FC at all in the tweet. I guess that that they were hoping that the tweet would get re-tweeted by Southampton fans or even mentioned in the press / match day programme. Thus raising their image. For me it actually lowered my image of them. As I said this may be an overreaction, but it’s how I feel and I'm not going to apologise for that.

Personal Heath Matters

Following on a bit from my last blog. One more thing that I think there is one thing that many of you don't know about me. It's something that I don't think I’ve ever blogged about it but it's something that has come to the front of my life again. About four years ago we changed our mortgage and we had to get new life insurance. Part of that process involved me getting a medical. The nurse from the insurance company tested my urine and commented on me being a diabetic. I told her I wasn't. She told me to see a doctor. I saw the doctor and yes she was right I am a diabetic (Type 2). Thing is I had no obvious symptoms of the disease. Looking back on that time I did notice that I was going to the loo more. But I just put that down to my age and my weight. Even now I still don't feel that I've got any real symptoms and that's the trouble.

Around this time each year I have an annual review. The results this year are not good. My weight, blood sugar level, blood pressure etc which were going down are now up. Trouble is I can't see why. I think everyone's health does suffer at this time of year. The excesses of Christmas play a part. Also for me I know that my activity levels are down. The terrible weather we have been having recently has meant that I've not been able to do any gardening. My walks from the train station to the office have become bus rides. Also I've not been out and about as much as I do in the summer.

So what am I doing about it? I have been having sessions on the exercise bike at home. It's not much but it's a start. I'm trying to get out and walking as much as possible. I have an old aircraft spotting buddy who runs a group called Care for a Walk. About every six months they do walks in the New Forest for the MacMillan Cancer Charity. They do two walks, one of 16 miles and the other of six. I'd love to join then but I feel I need training. I know that I can walk a couple of miles no problem. But six miles? Don’t want to end up in the middle of the forest exhausted. I need to practice, but the weather is just not playing ball at the moment. I do want to push on and maybe, just maybe, join the group for one of the 16 mile walks. But in the mean time I’ve just got to get out there. My health depends on it.

The man with two middle names.

Couldn't think of a suitable subject for this weeks blog, so I've decided to use the suggested theme this week of things that make me smile and / or things about me that most people don’t know. Trouble is, as any who has met me know I don’t smile a lot. It’s not that I'm an unhappy person, it’s just that I have one of those faces that doesn't smile.  I was at my nieces wedding reception many years ago and I was having a good time. Just sat there chilling out, people watching. I was approached by one of the other guests who told me to cheer up. I tried to explain that I was OK but she wasn't having any of it.  A photograph of me with a genuine smile is a rare thing. That's just me.

So what makes me smile and laugh. Well I do love comedy programmes, they are my favourite genera. I’ll quite happy to watch endless repeats of comedy show, even if I have seen them before. I do like and watch other programmes but never too much. I think I've said before about having a short attention span and getting bored easily with stuff. I can’t watch too much other stuff in a row, but I can watch endless repeats of Harry Hill’s TV Burp.

So, on to the section about me that most people don’t know. Well I'm sure through this blog I've released all sorts of information about me, but here goes.

I was born in 13 East Way, Bournemouth. I weighed over 13lbs at birth and I was nearly a month late.  My mum wanted to called me Darrin. My father wanted the name Oliver. Neither could agree. One evening my mum sat everyone down and went through a baby name book. All names were rejected (or used in the family before) until the they got to the name Peter. My sister said that she liked that name and it a fit of exhaustion my mum declared that it was decided. My name would be Peter Darrin Oliver.

One of my earliest memories was standing the class room on my first day of school crying my eyes out as I didn't want to be left there all day. Another parent was stood next to my mum and said that I could be friends with her son and we'll sit together and look after each other. His name was Gordon and we did become friends. We went all through school together, both primary, junior and senior school. At the age of 16 I went to college and he moved up north and we haven't seen or heard from each other since. I often wonder what happened to him.

My first crush was while I was at junior school. I watched the film Whistle Down the Wind. In it was a young girl named Hayley Mills. When the film was made, she would have been about the same age I was when I watched it. I thought at the time that she was the prettiest girl in the whole wide world. I now have a web page about her which needs updating big time. I did see her for the first time last year in a play in Guildford. 

Well there is a few things about me. Maybe if I'm stuck for a blog post topic in future I may reveal more about the man with two middle names. 

Best fans in the world (part 2)

First of all I must print a correction to my last blog. AFC Bournemouth didn't beat Burton Albion in the last game of the last season to gain promotion to the Championship. But we beat them the last game of the season the year before to gain promotion from League 2 to League 1. Apologies for that.

It would appear that I wasn't the only one talking about the fund raising by Bournemouth supporters to pay for the away fans coach travel. The story has gain interest in the media.  Our local paper covered the story. They lap stuff like this up and are always on the look out for potential stories that will interest the readers and sell more papers.  But the BBC picked up the story and was on the BBC website. I believe a few national papers also ran the story. Even the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera interviewed someone from the Bournemouth Echo about the story.

Its amazing how this story went from local to international is such a short time. In my opinion it shows how much the media loves a good story and how hungry they are for them. One time the BBC invited comments from people on train travel and I sent it a (cheeky) comment about how us train spotters had been getting hassle. The BBC queried my comments and I told them about how I got kicked off the platform at St Pancras in London for train spotting. They ran the story. That afternoon I had phone call after phone call from various newspapers and radio stations. BBC Radio Scotland wanted me for interview the next morning on their breakfast show. About five minuets before I was due to go on air they called to say that they were not going to run my story as Paul McCartney had just announced that his then wife was expecting. Apparently that was a bigger story. 

The moral of the story is that it doesn't take much for a story to go ‘viral’ as they say these days and equally quickly for it to disappear again..

And in case you are wondering, the re-arranged match has been played. At half time some of the Burton fans did a circuit of the pitch carrying a banner thanking the Bournemouth supporters for their generosity.  We applauded them. It was football supporters getting together and I’m glad I witnessed it. It’s a pity that both teams couldn't progress to the next round. Both teams would have benefited greatly from the fourth round tie against some club called Liverpool. ITV thinks this will be a good match as they are going to show the match live. Looks like all media channels want a bit of AFC Bournemouth at the moment,  

Best fans in the world?

The FA Cup third round is an important day in many football calendars. In previous years I've dreamt that my team, AFC Bournemouth, would reach the third round and be drawn against a 'big' club. Usually we'd go out in rounds ones or two and so that big prize of a exciting third round tie would never be achieved. However 30 years ago we did reach the third round and did get a ‘top’ club, namely Manchester United. I was there to witness that game. Man U were the cup holders at the time and nobody gave little Bournemouth a chance. But even top teams have a bad day especially on the mud bath that was our pitch at the time. As the Mail on Sunday put in the next day 'The FA Cup, so hard fought for at Wembley last May was thrown away in the mud at Dean Court'. You see, Bournemouth won the match 2-0 and if you ever visit my place, I'll willingly show you the video of the match.  But reminiscing of something that happened 30 years ago isn't the main subject of this blog.

AFC Bournemouth won promotion to the second tier of English football for only the second time in our history last season. Being a championship side we now get a bye in the FA Cup straight to round three. Dreaming of a big tie we got drawn in round three against Burton Albion. A team we beat on the last day of the season last year to secure promotion to the Championship. The cup match should have been played last Saturday but you may have noticed that the weather hasn't been too good of late to say the least and an hour before kick off the ref called the game off.  Most of the Burton supporters would have already arrived in Bournemouth by this time and so what do you think was the reaction of the Bournemouth supporters? Point at the Burton fans and laugh. Tell them that they 'might as well go home' or other such banter that is dished out during the match on the terraces. Yes we are proud to be 'southerners southerners southern-eeeers' who are 'sea sea seasiders'. We live a lovely part of the country away from the 'northern slums'. By the way we consider 'The North' anywhere from Reading upwards!

Anyway back to our reaction to Burton. Well quite simply, we remember how good their stewards and fans treated us when we won promotion last year and this was a chance to thank them. An AFC Bournemouth fan set up a webpage to collect money to pay for coaches to bring the fans down for the rearranged match. They had already forked out money once, it would not be nice for them to have to do it again. Last I heard the webpage had received around £3000, more than enough to pay for all the fans coaches. Any surplus money will go to charity. The spirit  of being part of the football community has reached beyond this small clubs and the webpage received some donations from around the country and abroad. Football fans have long had a bad press but hopefully those days are behind us. For the moment I'm holding my head high and saying that I'm proud to be an AFC Bournemouth supporter because I'm amongst some of the best fans in the world. 

I don't believe it!

Always been a fan of the comedy series One Foot in the Grave. A well written and well performed piece of TV. I'm also like the programme for one other reason. The vast majority of it was filmed in the Bournemouth area. I love watching it and seeing bits of Bournemouth in the background. We had quite a few TV series films here around that time. Brush Strokes, Waiting for God and The Collectors were done the Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch conurbation. I once walked out of the town hall and almost accidentally appeared in Waiting for God who were filming in the car park.

Victor Meldrew’s house was in Christchurch. He also did some filming outside Bournemouth Town Hall (the scene where he has an argument with a rugby team about the parking of their minibus). Many locations around the town were used in filming.

The very first episode of One Foot in the Grave is when Victor is made redundant from his security job. He gets replaced by a box! I walk past the office where they filmed that everyday I'm in Bournemouth, as it is just down from the train station. The building used to be offices of an insurance company but has been empty for quite a while. Walking past it this week I was horrified to see scaffolding against it and fencing around it with warning signs saying that the building was being demolished (pictures to follow). Given the importance of that building I don’t think it should be demolished. It should be restored and have a blue plaque.  Another piece of TV history will soon disappear and I don’t believe it!   

Did I tell you that I'm on the payroll of AFC Bournemouth. For an hour and half before each home match day you’ll find me selling tickets for their half time draw. It’s something that I've been doing for nearly 20 years now.. I have built up a bit of a rap-pour with some of the people that I sell tickets to. On the whole it’s an enjoyable experience. Even if my regulars do give me plenty of stick when they don't win.

Up to last season the fixtures were such that we generally had one home game followed by an away one. So my services were called on one a fortnight. We had cup games as well. Johnson Paint Trophy, FA Cup, League Cup etc. But generally there was a pattern. Saturday home game then Saturday away game. Sure we had the occasional two home or two away on the trot, but that was on the odd occasion.

Last season we got promoted to the Championship. It’s only the second time in our history that we've been in the second tier of English football. It was a proud moment.

One big change this season is the fixtures. For a start the Johnstone Paint Trophy has gone. Also we now longer play in rounds one and two of the FA Cup. We do play in the league cup but this year went out to Watford in round two. But long gone in the one home game followed by one away game routine. There doesn't seem to any pattern to our current fixtures. Also, we now get the international breaks as well. This is when the England (as well as many other nations) teams are playing, they arrange it so that there will be no matches in the Premiership and Championship that weekend. This has resulted in some bizarre fixtures schedules. We’ll only have one home game in the whole of November. This will be this Saturday against Derby. This is immediately followed by another home game against south coast rivals Brighton.

(Sings to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory)
We hate Brighton Hove Albion
We hate Reading too
We hate Pompey and Scummers but
Bournemouth we love you

The wife doesn't like the way the fixtures are organised this year without any sort of pattern and I know she isn't alone. Speaking to other people at the football they get similar comment from their other half.

My wife also commented that we get a game on a Sunday as well soon. Namely the 29th December. I'm not sure the reasons behind it, Whether its Christmas, if we are on TV or what it is but it will be odd to play on a Sunday. I have told her that when* we get promoted to the Premier League then due to Sky TV’s influence then Saturday games will probably be a novelty. However a mixed up fixture list would be worth it for a season in the Premier League.

Up The Cherries (In all departments)

*notice I said when and not if!

Update on my Historic Churches Website

For my #weeklyblogclub blog this week I’d thought I would do a quick update on my Historic Churches Website, www.peterandsusan.co.uk/church

The story so far - I started photographing pretty looking churches. I set up a website to display the photos, I added a section to list churches I’ve yet to visit. Mainly to list stuff that is interesting in that church so I don’t miss it when I visit. This lead me to download the Places of Worship data from the Ordnance Survey Open Data website. This gave me 22,000 points on a map of various Places of Worship, some modern, some historic. And also some missing e.g. Westminster Abbey and the like.

Since then I’ve been working on that data. Deleting the modern churches and putting names (dedication) to the historic ones. It’s a big task. Whilst all counties have had some work on them, so far I managed to ‘complete’ three counties. I’ve deleted all the modern churches and put names to all the historic ones. Those counties I’ve done are Hampshire, Dorset and Norfolk. I’m not saying that my list is the definitive list of historic churches in those counties but I’d like to think that it’s the vast majority of them. My next step on those pages is to add photos and a bit of text about each church.

So far this has taken me some 18 months of work. There is still a huge about to do. So any information from #weeklyblogclub people would be very welcome. Adding names to churches, useful information about them and any photographs would be very gratefully received. Even a line to say that church number 12345 on your site is a modern building would help. So I can remove that dot on the map and concentrate on the historic churches. Any general comments on the site, constructive criticism would also be very welcome either as a reply to this blog or direct to peterolding at gmail.com. In the mean time, I’ve got some work to do!

Spotting (Part 2)

Aircraft spotting. What does it entail? What are the rules? Are there rules? These questions I hope to explain in part two of my occasional series on spotting.

All civil aircraft (I’ll talk about military aircraft in a later blog) will have a registration allocated to it before it is allowed to fly. (I’ll gloss over A-class and B-class registration for the time being as well). The beginning part of the registration will denote which countries civil aviation authority the aircraft is registered with. Aircraft registered with eth Civil Aviation Authority here in the UK will have registration starting with G-. Ones registered in Ireland will start EI-. Aircraft registered with the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in the US will start with a N. A complete list of all the country codes can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_registration. Now the idea of aircraft spotting to try and collect as many registrations as possible.

So what are the rules of the hobby?

Well quite simply, there aren’t that many. Obviously you can’t count aircraft that you haven’t seen. Seeing them on TV doesn’t count. In the old days you used to have to have read the registration yourself to count it. That is something no longer the case. I’ll talk about some of the electronic gadgets we have in a later blog, which makes seeing the registration obsolete.

There are those spotters that the registration isn’t that important to them, so called frame spotters. An aircraft could have many different registrations during its life. A frame spotter will count the first registration they see the aircraft carrying and not worry about any subsequent registrations and they have already seen that airframe. A registration spotter will want to see the aircraft carrying as many different registrations as possible.

Apart from identifying each aircraft individually are there any other reasons for a registration?

Three things I would like to mention here, First is that it denotes which countries aviation authority the aircraft is registered with. Ryanair, being an Irish company, registers all its aircraft in Ireland. The plane will fly under Irish aviation rules. The Russian airline Aeroflot register their aircraft either with the Irish authorities or with the authorities in Bermuda. Again when you fly with them, you fly under the rules of that country.

Secondly, if you own a pilots licence of one country you can only fly aircraft registered in that country, unless there is a reciprocal agreement between the two countries to allow pilots from one country to fly the aircraft of another. So if you have a British licence, you can’t fly and American registered aircraft, as there is no agreement between the two countries.

Lastly, one other quirk of aircraft registrations. Breaking up aircraft for spares is big business. But customers prefer spare parts that have a traceable history especially when it comes to something like an engine. They like to know the paper work for that spare part is in order. The most trusted source of spare parts will come from American registered aircraft. As such spare parts from US registered aircraft will attract a premium. So to maximise their profits, the first thing an aircraft breaker will do when they buy an aircraft for breaking is to registered that aircraft on the US register. This is really a paper exercise as many of the aircraft would have already been grounded before this registration is allocated. So the aircraft would never fly under its US registration but the breakers can advertise the spares as being from a US registered aircraft and thus attract a better selling price.

Abbi Signs

In my last blog I talked about subtitles on foreign language films and why I tended to avoid them. Of course there is one section of our community where subtitles are a must, even on TV programmes and films in English. They are of course members of the deaf community. I’ve seen on occasion how deaf people can struggle in this hearing world. As far as I know British Sign Language (BSL) isn’t taught in main stream school and my main question is why not. This is a section of our society that we are alienating here.

I have dabbled on and off learning BSL, even singing up for a very basic on-line course once. But the cost is an issue for me here. Yes they do evening classes in them, but the cost and knowing that I won’t be able to make every class has put me off.

I turned to YouTube to see if anyone had uploaded any learn BSL videos. Whilst many people knock YouTube for some of its content. There is a huge amount of educational stuff on there. It was searching for learn BSL videos that I came across a young lady named Abbi.

Abbi is a twenty year old Cambridge University student who, suffers from steogenesis imperfecta (Brittle Bones) and in her younger days it was thought that he condition would eventually cause her to go deaf. Hence she learnt BSL. Luckily, thanks to ‘Yay science’ (her words) she underwent surgery which has meant that she has kept her hearing.

Abbi has two YouTube channels. One dedication to Learn BSL tutorials and I’m working my way through them. I thought that even if I could just fingerspell the alphabet it would help in communication with any deaf people I meet.

Abbi’s other channel is dedicated to Music . Songs are played and she provides a sign language interpretation of the lyrics. She describes herself as a Sign Singer. Her videos are brilliant. Now if any school teachers need something to encourage their pupils to learn BSL then these videos are an excellent way to learn BSL whilst the kids are enjoying their favourite songs. Even I enjoyed listening to a One Direction song thanks to Abbi providing the sign language interpretation.

Young people of today get such a bad press, but here is one young lady, who is showing that young people can make a great contribution to the world. Check out her video and if you are a parent / teacher or just someone with an interest in BSL then use them. Abbi’s videos are a great learning resource. She deserves credit for her innovate use of YouTube and how she has added to the wealth of educational content that is available on the net.

Just what is ACTUALLY wrong with films with subtitles

The subject line of this blog was a question asked to me by an actress friend of mine namely Rebecca Callard. I say friend simply because it sounds better than ‘I’m a fan of hers’ In truth I’ve been an admirer of her work for 20 years, seen her in plays on four occasions in that time. I have a web page on her for which she gives me the odd bit of information for and we exchange the odd tweet from time to time. We exchanged tweets a few months back after a friend of hers said that she didn’t want to see a film as it had subtitles (i.e. foreign language film with English subtitles). Rebecca couldn’t believe this as she was missing out on seeing a highly regarded film.

Her taste in films was the subject of some gently mickey taking on twitter by a dear friend of Rebecca’s of late and I (a little bit rudely I must admit) joined in with comments on films with subtitles, with reference to the earlier conversation. Rebecca replied with the comment ‘Just what is ACTUALLY wrong with films with subtitles’. I thought that this would be a good subject for a blog.

The thing is my preference of films without subtitles says far more about me than it does about the films. I fully appreciate that Britain and the US aren’t the only ones to make great films and there is a whole world of cinema out there waiting to be discovered. But to me having a film where I’ve got to read the whole way through. Making sure that I read fast enough to finish each line before the next line appears. Sounds like hard work. The old line is of course, if I want to read I’ll buy a book, but there is more than that. A film is a visual art which transports you to a different place, It can entertain. It can educate. It can play with your emotions. I’m sure each director aims to ensure that their film does all of these to the best they can. Can you have a full experience if you are reading subtitles the whole way through?

Another problem I have is my appalling attention span. I really cannot concentrate on anything for any length of time, I’ve missed many a key moment in a film or TV programme due to me not giving it my full attention. I’m writing this blog on the train home and I’ve probably spent 50 percent of my time writing and the other looking out of the window. I have wondered if I’m borderline dyslexic. They have short attention spans and whilst my math and ICT skills are really good. I always struggled with English at school. My teachers blamed it on me missing nearly a whole year of school when I was very young with various chest complaints (whooping chough, bronchitis etc). Though this isn’t stopping me trying to write a book. However, I’m sure that if I saw a film with subtitles I’d miss some key dialogue along the way and loose the plot of the film.

Life can change in a second

The Tannkosh Airshow is one the highlights for us light aircraft buffs. Held every other year at the Tannheim Airfield in Southern Germany it is billed as the largest aviation event in Europe it attracts well over 1,000 private light aircraft from all over Europe. It also has a small, air show elements with some rare, vintage or otherwise interesting aircraft. Weekend before last I gorged myself on this feast of aviation.

The airfield is split into two sides. The main public side contains the exhibition stands, parking for the display aircraft, some parking for visiting aircraft and the main food and drink outlets. It’s where the majority of the public spend their time.

However the majority of the visiting aircraft part on the far side of the airfield. Also the airfield is surrounded by corn fields, in which are gaps. Gaps that they taxi aircraft down and park in field behind the corn. It’s the sheer number of aircraft that make Tannkosh a must for us light aircraft spotters. Many different types. Some common, Some unusual and rare. Highlight for me was a Cessna that had come all the way from Qatar.

Unfortunately Saturday was marred by an accident. The pilot of a visiting biplane lost control of the aircraft on take off, swerved off the runway and crashed into the parked aircraft on the far side of the airfield, before ending up in one of the cornfields. I sat and witnessed it all. It was quite noisy there up to that point with the queue of aircraft waiting for their turn to depart. A weather front was forecast to hit the area that afternoon and many pilots were trying to get home, or at least out of its way, before it hit. The airfield was immediately closed and the engines of the aircraft in the queue fell silent. This silence was an eerie experience and me and a friend sat there for a while contemplating what had happened. We were told that the two pilots of the aircraft had got out quite quickly and were OK. But what about anyone on the ground. Three ambulances and an air-ambulance were called and we could see at least one person being transferred to the air-ambulance. Never a good sign.

We hoped that none of our group was involved in the accident but we knew that all of us would probably have passed that location at some point that day, logging and photographing the visiting aircraft. Sadly our fears were realised when we got back to the coach, to be told that someone who I have been friends with for years was hurt in the accident and was the one taken away in the air ambulance. The tour operator had spoken to him in hospital. As he dived out of the way, the wing of the aircraft had hit him on the back of the head. He landed on his binoculars causing him to fracture some of his ribs and causing lung damage. He knee also took some damage along the way. He spent a week in hospital in Germany but is now back home. It could have been far worse. He can say that he was inches from death, for had he been hit by the propeller rather than the wing the outcome would have been very different.

He was in the wrong place at the wrong time but the sobering thought is that it could have been me stood there. The day before I did the airfield in a clockwise direction but ran out of time so started the Saturday in an anti-clockwise direction. My friend did it the other way round. If I had managed to see all the aircraft there on re Friday I too would have done the airfield in a clockwise direction on the Saturday as well.

All in all it was a very sobering experience. One minute you are enjoying your hobby. Fit and healthy and the next, BAM! Life changes.  

 

(Here is a link to a local  news story on the article. It does contain a picture of the aftermath of the accident and on my friend in hopital, you have been warned.

http://www.bild.de/news/inland/hubschrauberabsturz/drei-verletzte-beim-tannkosh-fliegertreffen-31972360.bild.html )

catch up

It’s a catch-22 situation. The busier I am, then more I have to blog about, however the busier I am, the less time I have to blog. So just to prove that I am still here I thought I’d do a very quick blog update.

The airshow season is drawing to a close. Just two big, and I mean BIG light aircraft events to go. One in Germany the other in Northampton. Hopefully over a 1,000 light aircraft at each one. Really looking forward to them. And it a strange was looking forward to when it is all over, so I can catch up on my photographs and other projects I have going..

Talking about photographs. I won a very nice silver plated photo frame at the village show in the village where Sue grew up. Having won 4 of the classes in the photography section I was awarded top photographer. Also had success in lots of other sections as well. I’ll do a blog about that in time.

Done a few more photographs for the British Postal Museum Archive. I try and take photos where I can for them. Same with blue plaques for blueplaques.org.

My main project, my Historic Churches website had just reached a milestone. Well it has for Hampshire. You may recall that I obtained a list of locations of churches from the Ordnance Survey and have been processing them to put names and places to the points on the map. Well finally I’ve got Hampshire to a stage that I'm happy with. The modern building being removed from the site and all the historic ones having names put to them, So now when I get information  on a Hampshire church I know which dot on the map it refers to. Next step is working my way through the Dorset data, Really feel that I’m finally getting somewhere with this.

Football season has started and I knew that it was going to be a rollercoaster of a ride this season for the mighty AFC Bournemouth and so it has proved. We won promotion last year to the second tier of  English football for only the second time in our history. Survival in this league is our main objective. I know that we will get hammered in some games this season but I also hoped that we’ll pull some results out of the bag. This has so far proved to be the case. Loosing 6-1 away at Watford and then pulling off a victory against Wigan. I still can’t believe that last result. This is going to be one interesting season. More hammering and more amazing results to come I think.

One section of my life that I haven’t spent enough time on is twitter and blogging. My twhirl software packed up on me and so did tweetdeck. This has caused me issues with twitter. Currently trying out hootsuite.

As a founder member of the #weeklyblogclub ‘’m still passionate about it, but lack of blogging recently meant I have nothing to offer them. Hope they will accepts this ramble as a blog. At least it’s better than nothing, which is what they have had from me recently!

Well Done Andy

I see David Cameron has just on the Andy Murray bandwagon and declared that he deservers a knighthood. This has set off a huge debate in the media. There is a big no he shouldn't get it from many. However, how many of them is just a knee-jerk reaction to Cameron. If he hadn't said anything about it but yet in the next honours list Andy did get a knighthood would we have the same debate as now? I don't think so.

To me the whole debate says far more about Cameron than it does Murray. I can't recall any Prime Minister pre-guessing a Queens Honours List in such a way. Was this done for purely political purposes? I hope not but I rather suspect it was.

I do like the idea that it has bought out the debate as to who deserves and who doesn't deserve recognition the honours list. Maybe ordinary people should have more of a say. Despite the increase in 'ordinary' people getting their name on the honours list, the list is very top heavy. One of my friends mum did make the list one year for recognition of the thirty years she'd helped out at the local school. But there was many politicians, heads of big business etc who were on the list as well.

Of course we can't go to far on a people's vote. I hate to see the likes of Katie Price, Peter Andre and the other so called 'celeb' role models we have today reeive awards. To me Andy Murray should get all the praise he gets. Some have said that all he's done is win a tennis match. Even if that is all his did, to me he's still a better role model that many of the celebs we have today.

But to me Andy Murray is more than that. Something he, understandably, doesn't wish to talk about, are the events of 13 March 1996. The day Andy and his school friend had to hide under the headmasters desk whilst Thomas Hamilton, the scout master that Andy knew and his mum had given lifts to, burst into the school and shot dead 16 children and 1 adult before turning the gun on himself. This must have had a huge physiological affect on the young Andy. Many years ago, I pass through Dunblane and decided to pop in to the cemetery. It was such a sad sight to see a row of tiny graves all with the same date of death on them. Very moving. They say that Andy never smiles, to be honest if I went through something like the events that day I don't think I'd ever smile again.

So for putting something like that behind you and going on to achieve all that Andy has achieved I think that he deserves all the plaudits he gets. But Cameron please, don't make this political.



 

My report from UK GovCamp 2013

Open Data

First session was on Open Data.

The room was full of people like me passionate about Open Data. We nearly all felt that councils should take the lead and publish more Open Data We should try more to promote the use of Open Data and the benefits it brings to the community but we acknowledge that it is never high of councils priority list. Except in cases where legislation forces councils to publish Open Data. It is a pity that this is the only time the councils really take Open Data seriously.

How to Hack into a Government Website

A very intriguing title for a gov camp session. Talked about the security around networks and systems. First of all the issue of passwords was discussed.

No matter how robust an organisations password system is, bad password choice by users would still create holes within the security system. If you want to hack into a government system that the password system is an early port of call.

The presenters were amazed about the number of times that they came across the word password being used as a password. Some organisations insist on a capital letter being used in a password as well as lower case. In the majority of times the user will make the first letter of the password the capital letter. Some organisations insist on a number being in the password. For this the majority of users will add these digits to the end of the password and in 30% of cases they will add the number 1. If a special character is required this is most often an exclamation mark added to the end of the password. The more rules to add the more likely it is that users will create complicated passwords and then write them down and stick them under their keyboard or around their desk somewhere.

Password Length.

13% of passwords have 6 characters
17% have 7 characters
21% have 8 characters
16% have 9 characters
13% have 10 characters

Meaning that 80% of passwords are between 6 and 10 characters.

There is a temptation to add system names to passwords to obey the different passwords to different system e.g. Passwordtwitter, PasswordYammer, FacebookPassword etc. This should be discouraged as once you know the format you'll be able to access all that persons systems.

Also the use of names are common. Wives, Girlfriends, Lovers, Secretaries names being the most common. Research has shown that where a man has a name as a password in 80% of cases that name is female.

Going back to the use of digits. Whilst 30% will use the number 1 other popular variations would be persons age when setting up the password, their house number, Office room number etc If a 4 digit number is required then most popular choice would be either 19xx or 20xx.

Password good practice should be implemented from the day someone starts in the office and that security should be part of the induction process. An example was given of a US organisation which ran a competition to see who could break into their system the quickest. It was won one year by a guy who called IT helpdesk and got through to someone who had just started that day. He told the called that as he just started he might not be able to help, to which the caller replied. Don’t worry, I think you are the perfect person to help me..

One side issue about the helpdesk was mentioned in that in so many organisations one call to the helpdesk can get someone’s password reset without any cheking as to who the caller is. The helpdesk will even give the caller the new password.

Cross Site Scripting and SQL injection

These were also mentioned but these deserve a whole blog posting to themelves.

Wordpress

Wordpress was initially released in 2003 and its current version, version 3 has been reported to have been downloaded over 65 million times. Initially it was a blogging tool but now it is claimed to be more of a CMS. I attended this session to learn more about Wordpress. I use blogger.com for my blogs but I’m not happy with their stats package. Looking around the web and looking at my twitter friends blogs I see that many use Wordpress. Indeed the @weeklyblogclub which I support with my own blogs, use Wordpress for their site.

The hosts of the session were experts on Wordpress and it seemed that a lot of the attendees were at the same level as myself. Though there were some there that seemed to be experienced users of Wordpress and praised the software. The basic Wordpress software can be downloaded free of charge from their site main site wordpress.com but it’s main advantage is the over 1,700 themes and nearly 25,000 plugins that are also free to download from Wordpress.org. These have been written by other Wordpress users. A question was asked on how to know which plug-in were safe and which were not. The hosts of the session advised that it states on each plug in it shows the number of times each has been downloaded and users give a rating on each one. They suggested that you can be confident that those with high download figures and a high rating would be the best to use.

I had no idea at the time on how many themes or plug ins were available otherwise I would have seeked advise on how to search through the huge list to find the right plug in to use.

Had a small chat afterwards with someone from Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) who use Wordpress for their site. They use it as a more fully fledged CMS. This is something that I am defiantly going to explore further.

Wikipedia

The final session of the day was hosted by someone who I have got to know very well on Twitter after meeting him at last years UK Gov Camp. Since then Andy Mabbett has received the (well deserved) honour of being awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society of the Arts for his work in the fields of Open Data, Wikipedia and Social Media. So who better to give a talk on Wikipedia.

I first created an account on Wikipedia back in September 2004 and have made hundreds of changes to the site since then, created some pages, added some photos to Wikipedia commons etc but nothing to the extent of Andy.

He talked about the time he spends being Wikipedia in residence at various museums, art galleries etc around the country. He talked about the time that he (and others) spent in Monmouthshire creating Wikipedia articles about the area and adding QR codes around the place to make it easy for people to access those articles via their smart phone. This really helped visitors get more from their visit to the area. It must also have been incredibility interesting for them to do such work and learn about that area. This is something that all councils, art galleries, museums can do. Editing Wikipedia is free and creating QR codes is free.

I also quizzed Andy about how I could use Wikipedia to help with my Historic Churches of Great Britain website and he gave me valuable help with this. Pointing to the many articles on churches on Wikipedia and we talked about the photographs on Wikipedia commons that are licensed for re-use by anybody under the creative commons licence. Since then I too have added to the collection of photographs on Wikipedia commons.

I was truly inspired by this sessions and feel that despite its detractors Wikipedia is a valuable tool.

Spotting (Part 1)

Fellow @weeklyblogclub member Louise once said to me that she would be interested in reading an article about why I go spotting aircraft, train, bus, tram etc and I’ve been thinking long and hard about this. I thought I’d start off with a brief introduction as to how I came to take part in all these hobbies.


It started in Junior school, Roy who was my best mate at the time told me that he went out to our local airport to spot planes every Saturday and he asked me if I would like to go out with him. I got permission from my mum and the following Saturday we headed across the fields to the airport. On arrival he told me that civil aircraft have registrations painted on them (military aircraft have serials) and the object of the hobby was to see as many different aircraft as possible. Pocket money was saved up to buy a book called Civil Aircraft Markings. This listed all aircraft on the British and Irish civil aircraft register. Plus listings of foreign airliners that came to the UK. I started ticking off all those that I saw. Whilst the Civil Aircraft Markings and it’s sister publication Miltary Aircraft Markings books are still published. I have computerised my sightings in a piece of software Aircraft Spotters software called Aerodata for which I pay £8.25 to receive updates for at regular intervals. Thanks to this software I can tell you that I have so far logged over 35,000 aircraft registrations.

During the early days I went on trips with other local aircraft spotters to far flung destinations such as Heathrow and Yeovilton. My friends at the time also collected numbers of other things whilst on route, some collected BMW car registrations (they were quite rare back in those days), some collected all car registrations that just contained a one in them (e.g. EL1 etc). I wanted something like this but different. Also I needed one fundamental thing. To have a list that I can check off. So I knew how well I was doing. I’m sure there is some physiological reason why I need a list but I do.

My list came in the form of a book. Buses of South East England by A M Witton. It listed buses own by the major bus companies. Buying that book lead me to start bus spotting. The actual collecting of bus numbers ceased when I was in my very late teens but I still like to photograph them. Which is strange as this is one area that I do deviate from my need for lists. Whilst I maintain my own on-line list of bus fleet lists of operators that I have an interest in. I don’t have complete lists of every bus and coach but do take photos of all that I can, both British and those from abroad.

Whilst I was in secondary school I was chatting to another friend about spotting who said that if he did any form of spotting then it would be trains. So we both agreed to start train spotting.

Going back to the need of lists. The train spotting books at the time only listed diesel and electric trains, not steam. Hence I’ve never collected steam train numbers, Again I photograph them when I see them, but never go out of my way to see them. I’m in the process of building a model railway and I read somewhere that people often model scenes from their childhood and this is certainly the case for me. My layout is set in the 1980’s and features British Rail Blue throughout

So that’s why I started. In future blogs Ill answer questions like. What exacyly is spotting? Does it take up all your life? How sad do you think it is? Ill also be talking about the plus side of the hobbies and some of the negative.



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Dorset Enterprises

Started in 1914 by a Bournemouth Councillor, Dorset Enterprises was initially set up to provide work for injured soldiers returning from the First World War who would make a variety of wooden objects for use by the council and externally. Over the years it slowly became a disability workshop employing a range of disabled people.

About 10 years ago they wanted a web presence for their two trading arms, DeckchairsUK and Escor Toys. I must say that working with them was one of the most interesting and enjoyable piece of work I’ve done.

Escor Toys as the name suggests made quality wooden toys. After I had set up the website I was stuck by the number of enquiries from parents and even grandparents who had Escor Toys as children and wanted to pass on their toys to their children or grandchildren but over the years figures had been lost and they were asking if they could get a replacements. I don’t think many toys that get passed down the generations these days. These toys were built to last

DeckchairsUK made wooden deckchairs, luggage stands, windbreakers and the like. The luggage stands can be seen in many top hotels around the country and other customers range from the Prince of Wales High Grove estate to a company that I shouldn’t really name, just to say that they have hosted the UK Gov Camp in the past.

Sadly EU regulations on the testing of toys became too expensive and with cheap imports the Escor Toys side of the businesses closed a few years back. Dorset Enterprises has struggled over recent years their turnover reducing by half what it was a few years back. It the last three years they made an operations loss on average of £470,000 a year. Bournemouth Borough Council has decided that it can no longer afford to subsidise the company and has pulled the plug on its funding. It was a sad day when I received the e-mail asking me if I would put a message on their website stating that the company will cease trading on 31st March 2013 after 99 years of trading.

Many people have companied against the closure, citing that the Council could find the £8.5 million to buy a building (the Imax) and then demolish it and spend huge sums on a surf reef that has never lived up to expectations. They asked if the company was given time and with the right business support and sales advice they believed that Dorset Enterprises could return to profitability. Unfortunately their campaigning failed and 30 odd staff, 19 of which have some form of disability (some severe) will loose their jobs at the end of the month.

My overriding memory of Dorset Enterprises will be the tour of the premises I took when I first got involved. Seeing people with severe mental and physical disability operate the huge machinery that I was too scared to go near. They were truly an inspiration.

Looking for aircraft in France, Ireland and Portsmouth Harbour

As many of you know I spend some of my spare time travelling round the UK and Europe aircraft spotting. Indeed last night I booked a day trip to Toulouse in France for later this month in order to visit the Airbus factory there. I also put my name down for a week long aircraft spotting trip around Northern and Southern Ireland for early next year. It will be so interesting to do Northern Ireland a place I’ve never been to.


One thing aircraft buffs like myself down here on the South coast like to keep an eye on is movements in and out of Portsmouth Naval Base. Not because we are all ship spotters as well, but some navy ships carry helicopters. A navy frigate might have a helicopter deck on which there will be helicopters. We like to keep track of any visiting foreign navy vessels in case they turn up with a helicopter or two on board. Last year I did manage to bag a nice Australian Navy ‘copter when one of its ships visited Portsmouth Navy Base. Rumours fly around when ships are due. Even more so when it is an American Carrier due. They are too big to enter Portsmouth but will anchor in Stokes Bay just off the coast. Local harbour tour companies will run trips out to do circuits of the carrier when they are in. I know a few lucky people who manage to get on the carriers when they are in but how they get on the official invite list is kept a closely guarded secret. I’d love to know how they did it.

Anyway, the reason I’m writing this today is that rumours abound that on Friday a French Helicopter Carrier is due into Portsmouth. The rumours state that it is off on a five month tour and therefore there is a good chance that there will be helicopters on board. Confirmation of the ships arrival will be publicised at lunchtime on the Thursday when the Queens Harbour Master at Portsmouth publish their list of movements planned for the next day. Its on their website in HTML and PDF formats. Perhaps a good candidate for an app or #opendata? Anyway, I’ll be checking those lists to see if the rumours are true and they ship is coming in and if the weather is good I’ll take some time off work to go and see it and hope that there are helicopters on board. The rumours state that the ship will go out on Saturday but I’ll be in London at UKGC13. Fingers crossed that it does come it and that any helicopters on it will be on deck.

However I’m always fearful that it could be a wasted journey. I remember one time in the very early days of the internet when the amount of information on it was nothing like what it is today. We had basic email lists to exchange rumours and one such rumour at the time concerned a US Navy ship that was due to visit Portsmouth. People were asking if the ship had helicopters on board. The rumour mill kicked into full force, to such an extent that by the night before the ship was due that rumours stated that the ship was a Frigate and defiantly had a helicopter on board. The ship was due at around 7.30 the following day and one guy got up really early and drove down from Oxfordshire to Portsmouth to see it arrive. By nine o’clock he was at work and posted on the email list how he drove all that way but it was a total waste of his time and money. The ship had arrived but he confirmed that it defiantly did not have a helicopter on board due to the fact… that the ‘ship’ was a submarine!

Fast, Cheap, Good

Whenever people come to me wanting a new website we always discuss cost, timescales and exactly what they want in the site. Normally at some point in the conversation I end up saying three little words.


Fast. Cheap. Good.

I then tell them to pick any two out of those three words.

A website can be done quickly and cheaply, but it won’t be world beating. That might be enough for some who just want a web presence or somewhere to point peoples to.

A website can be done quickly and be good, but it won’t be cheap. You’ll need to throw a lot of resources at it, or maybe even buy in some features and coding.

A Website can be cheap and good, but it will take time. Planning, designing, wireframing, coding, user testing will take time. Longer if you want to do surveys at to what you customers require from your site.

So many people want all three but it just won’t be possible.