We've just moved to a place that's a little less inhabited. Here's the view as I walked out this morning. One of our neighbours was also enjoying a wander.

My wife and I went to see a production by Headlong Theatre of Salome by Oscar Wilde at the Theatre Royal Brighton last night. It. Was. Just. Awful.

First off we have the image used on the poster promoting the play. To us this suggested a roaring twenties decadence. Our mistake to assume that the imagery used to promote the play actually had anything to do with the production or that the person in the image was actually one of the performers. If you set an expectation it is a poor decision to fall below it. The next immediately obvious problem that should have been fixed in casting was that apart from Jaye Griffiths as Herodias none of the rest of the cast could either act or were suitable to play the interpretation of the role they were in. Con O'Neill, "one of Britain's most exciting theatre actors" according to the blurb, as Herod could have been interesting as a despot with a Napoleon complex. As it was he just couldn't hit the notes the role demanded. He shouted. He showered the rest of the performers in a non-stop barrage of spittle. He over-acted in a way that made us embarrassed to a point of being unable to watch. Zawe Ashton, playing Salome, was similarly poor, a "star of tomorrow" according to Screen International she exhibited no star characteristics. The idea of playing Salome as a spoiled teenager should have remained just that; the juxtaposition of the description of her as "... like a dove that has strayed . . . . She is like a narcissus trembling in the wind . . . . She is like a silver flower" with the coarse and unrefined character as portrayed fell flat. The Dance of the Seven Veils, performed here as a fumbled striptease, was the prime example of ideas that you could see the reasoning behind but just did not deliver the requisite emotional impact.

 

Ultimately the failure of the production arises from a series of logical but inappropriate directorial decisions by Jamie Lloyd that add up to an interpretation that grates on the eyes and ears. The language has been obscured by yelling, the lightness of touch that would contrast with the horror we end up experiencing is reduced to incoherence by the heavy-handed execution of set, costume and acting. Where the direction deviates so markedly from the text it takes real ability to play-off these differences, something not in evidence here. Avoid.

 

There's a better written review over here by Webcowgirl that goes into more detail if you'd like to know more.

 

Swissflex are an interesting case in that their product is fantastic yet their Flash only website is dire. Their advertising is the worst kind of bland pan-European / International market work going (think those Mazda 'zoom zoom' adverts). I emailed their UK supplier and got no response. I emailed them via their website and got no response. Were it not by chance I wouldn't have been able to get hold of a pair. Even today the retailer section has the same contact details that I could elicit nothing from. 

 

I can't find this stated on their website but was told by the optician that for a small additional payment they will cut lenses to any shape you provide a template for within reason, so if you have an existing favourite shape you could get a Swissflex version made-up.

 

Before these I favoured ic! berlin; the previous two pairs I have weigh in at 14g and 16g and were nice but just not as comfortable to wear all day.

 

As a footnote if you're a Brighton glasses wearer I recommend Bromptons for their excellent customer service and range of interesting specs. I always have my eyes tested here as they're spot on. They recently made up a pair of prescription sunglasses for me with large lenses, frames by orgreen. They are something that any other optician would have baulked at as I think my prescription is at the limits of what a large lens can stand. They really persevered and found a supplier who could do the job so hats off to them, they really deserve your business.

 

DO NOT go to Specs in the North Laines. A while back I saw a pair of ic! berlin frames I liked and thought as I'm here I'll buy them. Big mistake. I feel they were using a cheap lens supplier and just could not get the lens for my left eye correct despite several attempts. The answer "the computer says it's fine" is not helpful when my eye says it can't see through it properly. Sadly they were pretty rude about the whole thing. Eventually they rang Bromptons, found out where they sourced their lenses and ordered from there. Came back right first time. Lesson: write down the name of the frame and go to Bromptons.

 

We took a walk to the Long Man of Wilmington over the May Day weekend and experienced pretty much every kind of weather in the course of a half hour. Down below next to Wilmington Church is a yew tree reputed to be 1,600 years old. It stands supported by beams and bound in chains like some mythic creature erupting from the ground.

 

Update: my wife has written a post about the wonder that is the yew over on her blog.

Last week I attended the excellent Self-building an earthship course run by Brighton Permaculture Trust. I've long had the idea I wanted to build a home with straw bales and have been inspired by my friends Simon and Jasmine whose amazing work I blogged about back in 2006. They're now an instrumental part of the Lammas project, have constructed another roundhouse and will be building an earthship for themselves. This form of construction is one I've found more and more appealing as, if approached correctly, is environmentally responsible throughout the build and subsequent years of habitation. It safely locks away used tyres, a material that would otherwise be considered hazardous, is a passively heated design requiring no energy input other than that of the sun and allows for the recycling of water and waste, turning this into food as a component of the design.

I regard the term 'eco' when appended to building work with the same jaundiced eye I apply to the notion of being 'green'. It's thrown around casually in mainstream discourse on programmes such as Grand Designs as part of the aspirational pornography that underlies the message of the show. Usually each project is underpinned by tonnes of concrete with a mere nod to efficiency in the form of a costly technologically controlled heating system or other expensively produced components. Environmental credentials are worn as a direct display of wealth and privilege dressed up as a courteous modesty, the very antithesis of the ethics that need to be at the core of modern construction if the embodied energy of the building is to be brought into anything like a sustainable frame of reference. Earthships can answer these considerations in both the short and long term if insulated properly, cement is avoided when more suitable alternatives will do and if materials are chosen carefully, always adapting to local climatic conditions. 

There is a difficult balance to strike here between wanting to see this kind of design become the favoured form of dwelling but without seeing the values that make it a viable alternative become co-opted and reduced in significance. Earthships are intended to be a philosophical outlook as well as an efficient, practical and enjoyable part of our habitat. 

Read Wikipedia's definition of an earthship.

You may also find the books Building with Straw Bales and the 50 Dollars and Up Underground House Book of interest.

It's in an article in last week's issue entitled Social Media Analytics. Sadly a subscription is required to read the whole thing; I wonder how much traffic they actually get to older features? Be very interesting to know whether it is really worth locking all that content away. I digress, here's what the article covered:

 

 

Here's what I said:

 

 

It's interesting to read what other people had to say, particularly those that favoured Radian6. They've revamped their dashboard since I last tried it out; all well and good but I remember being pretty unimpressed with the quality of the actual data collected, although given how quick they are at responding to blog posts about them there must be something to be said for it. Andrew Girdwood of Bigmouthmedia is quoted as saying:

 

 

I would recommend in the strongest possible terms that you spend your budget on human analysis and insight over an expensive tool with weak data but pretty charts. At iCrossing our reports are generally bespoke, the size of client we deal with means we need to be flexible enough to fit in with existing reporting and a self-serve dashboard just doesn't serve that need. Also, as I say above, this analysis does not exist in a vacuum; it needs to be acted on and that requires it to be substantiated.

 

There is also an emphasis from other commentators on the importance of real-time reporting. This is actually a distraction from the core features you need. There are exceptions but this level of response is really only applicable to activity around your own profiles, which is simple enough to do. Until online social behaviours become more embedded most people I speak to say that they would find a brand responding to them directly around something they've said online that did not specifically occur on a brand-managed property as more akin to stalking than useful customer service. Analytics tools should assist you in gathering useful data in aggregate, from which you can derive intelligent and considered insights. They should not encourage you to make unnecessarily rapid responses.

 

If you are interested in real-time social results Google launched this feature about the same time this New Media Age article was coming out. It's available from the regular search results. Just click 'show options' above the first item on the search results page, then click 'updates' in the section entitled 'all results'. This will give you a timeline you can scrub through as well as mentions as-they-happen. It's a really nice implementation.

 

Essentially all analytics tools are search engines with a few useful filters on the data. They have an index of sites to crawl, process the data collected and allow the user to filter the results. It's a hard job and there's only one business out there doing it outstandingly well and that's Google. Despite millions invested, the most intelligent engineers and an ever-expanding cloud of hardware even their results have significant flaws. It is a tough task to condense meaning from the vapour of nuance where language is concerned.

I've just donated money to two causes I find worthy. They were the Celia Hammond Animal Trust and Sea Shepherd. 

Celia Hammond's Lewisham branch was where we found the beautiful cats we take care of; the trust do an amazing job trying to give animals a better quality of life and frequently seem to face overwhelming numbers needing care and attention. I'd suggest very strongly that if you're thinking of co-habiting with an animal you start here and avoid breeders and the like who are doing nothing but exacerbate the problem of too many animals and too few homes to give them the love they all deserve.

The crews of the Sea Shepherd vessels deserve a special mention for laying their lives on the line for a cause they believe in. They don't stand by and 'bear witness', they actually stand up for those that can't defend themselves and stand against illegal whaling activity when governments around the world will not.

Which reminds of this great article I read: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'. Too true. One day. And hopefully soon.

Related posts: Sea Shepherd boat rammed by illegal Japanese whalers and Sunday evening....

I picked a leaflet up off the doormat from Brighton's Labour parliamentary candidate, Nancy Platts, attracted by the stern warning in capital letters on the back that read "Don't risk it". I could guess what it was going to say. Apparently "voting Green will mean a Conservative MP for Brighton". Nancy is no mathlete as that isn't what is borne out by the figures she quotes. The Greens were apparently only 867 votes behind the Conservatives in the 2005 General Election which by my reckoning actually means it is wide open for either party. Behind the fear-mongering statement is genuine worry; the Labour party is clearly terrified that a 'minority party' is actually in with a chance. Labour obviously feel they're unpopular and that a majority of a few thousand last time isn't enough to guarantee victory this time around. Big events have caused this unease, though if you read Nancy's leaflet you'd be forgiven for thinking she was running for the local council rather than national office. 

Let's remember that under Labour, a party in which Nancy plays an active part, this country committed the crime of aggression against another nation and remains embroiled in a nine year long fight involving some of the poorest people on the planet. I can't forget this when I vote and it makes me sick that Nancy is, in essence, asking me to tacitly approve of what Labour has done in government these past years. I suggest that you don't either. Nancy looks a decent enough person, she makes the right noises, appears to be acting on behalf of local interests, is a member of any number of laudable organisations. But then again she might be a career politician, arriving in Brighton as recently as 2007 to take over from David Lepper, to live here with the express goal of running for office.

When I vote I'll vote for the candidate I want to win or, in the absence of a meaningful way to express my dissatisfaction, 'spoil' my ballot, subject as we are to the vagaries of our first-past-the-post system. Nancy recognises this though; she supports voting reform, but only after Labour win the next election will they hold a "referendum on a fairer voting system". Jam tomorrow from the party that has held power for going on 13 years. Whatever happens, we the people get the government and the representatives we deserve, so vote with your conscience and don't be swung by an idiotic appeal to party rivalry that means nothing changes.