Systeme D (canals feed)

More competition for PR person of the year

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:44:56 GMT

Andrew over at Granny Buttons occasionally writes - always entertainingly - about how the magazine world needs reinvention. Now in fairness to Andrew he's a very engaging cove and I'm sure is a rare exemplar of how PR people should carry out their business. But other than him, the PR world doesn't need reinvention, it needs taking outside and shooting (this blog, passim).

Given that CCD PR has now claimed the "Lifetime Achievement Award" for PR cluelessness, that still leaves the 2008 title wide open, and this week's nominee is a Yorkshire-based PR agency whose name I'll withhold... for now.

Until this week the 2008 award looked like a dead cert - see Portsmouth Poll over at Boating Business, who chronicles a particularly snitty little "why haven't you published my release yet IT'S VERY IMPORTANT" spraymail to the editors of several boating magazines. All of whom were in the cc: line, making it far too easy to make sure you could share the put-down with your fellow hacks. Hours of fun.

But this new entrant is making a surprise bid for the prize. The episode begins with a pretty dumbly-phrased enquiry - from their receptionist, so it's clearly a high-priority matter - about getting a reprint of a quarter-page feature we'd done.

"Our client had an editorial" NO THEY DIDN'T. We put stuff in the magazine because we think it'll interest the readers, not for the benefit of your client. If your client wants to "have" some space to get their message across, we have this interesting concept called "advertising". I recommend it.

"...in October or November last year, we think". Right. Thanks for that. "It was called ****** **** Boats". Er, that doesn't sound much like a headline we'd have used, but no matter.

So I search through the files and find an article in January referring to ****** **** Boats somewhere in it, which is close, I guess. Send PDF across and explain how we can sort them out a reprint of the whole article, or if they just want to whizz off a thousand colour copies on their laser, that saves us a lot of hassle and all we'd ask is an acknowledgement.

"Can you send me a copy of the magazine first class". Well, usually how this bit works is that you go down a newsagent, you give them £3.50 and they give you a magazine in exchange, but I haven't really got the energy to cause a fuss so yeah, go on then.

So this morning I get a follow-up e-mail.

"I didn't seem to receive a copy of the issue of Waterways World I had requested, did you send it first class?"

"Yes." (You're really endearing yourself here, Ms Receptionist - as you can imagine we're now going to be doubly keen to give your client "an editorial".)

"Ok, I haven't received it though, did you send it to the address below?"

"No, I thought I'd send it to 10 Downing Street for a laugh."

She's gone a bit quiet now. Gah.

Chief Executive trashes countryside organisation, resigns

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:24:59 GMT

Roger Clarke. YHA. Who did you think I was referring to?

And some more excellent news. Connect2 won the £50m Living Landmarks prize, which means: the first obstacle on the Melton Mowbray Navigation will be removed, making navigation theoretically possible as far as the site of Syston Lock; plenty of towpaths will be improved, bridges built etc. etc.; and a handful of annoying lacunae in the NCN fixed, such as the place where we got lost in Didcot.

WW website

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:22:28 GMT

Waterways World now has a website. No, really. Lots of plans for future development, but this is, I hope, a good starting point.

I could get worried about what the other canal magazines will do next (they've had websites for years, after all - I did Canal Boat's first site back in 1999). But then, five minutes ago, I read this story about the content management system chosen by Canal Boat's parent company, Archant. Hee hee.

Bow Locks to the Waterways Minister

Thu, 03 May 2007 17:52:53 GMT

Best caption so far: "Yes, Minister, we did name Prescott Lock after the Deputy PM - and look, we've named one for you, too."

I've started a petition on the No. 10 website asking Mr Tony to appoint someone who isn't a muppet.

Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Parts of the Prime Minister's Response Regarding the Petition about BW Funding

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:44:07 GMT

Source: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page11521.asp
With apologies to: John Gruber

Over the past ten years British Waterways has been enormously successful in the management of its waterways and the Government is committed to ensuring it is able to continue to do so.

Insofar as "committed" does not involve giving them any money.

In just the past seven years, British Waterways has facilitated the restoration of more than 200 miles of canals and waterways and reduced its maintenance backlog under this £180 million programme. This has only been possible because of substantial government investment by Government in England, Wales and Scotland of £524 million since 2000.

This has also "only" been possible because of volunteers and the Lottery, but the Olympics should sort the latter out.

British Waterways is a good example of where the Government's increased investment should be viewed against performance over the last 10 years and not just on the basis of a short term adjustment.

We are cutting budgets everywhere, so get used to it.

Over the past six years in England and Wales British Waterways has received £452 million, and its waterways in Scotland have received some £72 million from the Scottish Executive giving a total Government spend on £524 million.

At this point, let us pause to give thanks to our colleagues in Scotland without whom all these figures would look substantially worse.

This includes £42 million between 1999 and 2004 - which helped British Waterways clear its £90 million backlog of safety arrears. It did this eight months ahead of target.

So we don't expect BW to mind that our funding cuts will keep the maintenance arrears there for another ten years.

British Waterways agrees that in the long term, it needs to become more self-sufficient, so that it can reduce its reliance on money from central Government.

British Waterways agrees that standing on a City street corner soliciting donations is probably a more attractive future than slowly starving in a crack-house in Brixton.

In light of this, the restructuring of British Waterways was already in progress before the budget realignments were announced.

We can safely say this because British Waterways is always restructuring something or other.

It is for the Board of British Waterways to decide how best to apportion its reduced budget in relation to its activities

Fuck you, BW.

and I very much welcome the way it is taking positive action to actively manage its own funding situation and put itself on a firm footing to ensure the sustainability of its canals for the future.

After all, we're not quite sure what the fuck else it could do.

Over the course of last summer and autumn, Ministers reviewed Defra's budgets. The Chief Executives and Chairman of British Waterways, along with others in the Defra family of sponsored bodies, were invited to contribute to this process.

We gave their contribution about the same shrift as we've given this petition.

British Waterways' grant for 2007/08 remains at just over £55m. It has also received £2.048m for the repayment of the principal on a National Loans Fund loan, bringing its total budget for 2007/08 to £57.545m.

We have seen how the banks get good PR from refunding exorbitant charges on overdrafts and we figure we might as well try the same trick.

I am pleased that we have been able to safeguard this level of funding, given spending constraints. British Waterways needs greater certainty of funding if it is to be able to plan sensibly and run its business. This is why we notified it of its funding for 2007/08 before Christmas in order to help it manage the consequences and any risks associated with this level of funding.

When we say "before Christmas", we mean it in the traditional Governmental meaning of 4.45pm on December 24th.

It is now the Government's intention to provide British Waterways with greater security of funding, through a three-year funding agreement, from 2008/09.

About £0, £0, £0 should cover it.

How to install web 2.0

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:27:27 GMT

From January's BW Board Briefing Paper:

"By mid 2007 the site (Waterscape) will be upgraded to reflect BW's new marketing strategy, customer feedback and web 2.0."

I love the implication that you can simply upgrade to web 2.0. Presumably you just need to ssh into the server and apt-get install web2.0, or something.

Nnnnnnnnnngh

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:18:21 GMT

Woke up this morning (da-da-da-da-da)
Rain... drummin' on my head [1] (da-da-da-da-da)
Too much goddamn whisky [2] (da-da-da-da-da)
Felt like I was dead [3]

[1] well, on the roof of the boat
[2] one glass of Westons Organic Vintage cider
[3] not really; just a bit peeved at being woken up two hours early

I woke up early this morning to the sound of torrential rain on the boat roof. Not a problem - quite soothing, in fact - other than for the leaks around the vents.

Then I heard an insistent "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" noise from somewhere.

At first I paid little attention to it, because Burton is full of strange sounds and smells, largely connected with the breweries. (Living downwind of Marstons is a whole load better than living opposite the Kerry Foods factory, and the attendant 5am deliveries, as I did last year.) "Eeeee"s and "rrrrrr"s and "sssssss"s are quite common.

After about five minutes I realised this was a bit louder than the average "eeeee".

Fall out of bed. Walk up to the bow. Noise gets quieter. (I'm starting to have suspicions.) Walk back to the stern. Noise quite loud. Fumble around with the back door locks, which were designed by a cretin and require poking things with a stick, finally get them open, noise now very loud. Open the engine compartment.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Ok, so the survey wasn't quite accurate when it said the bilge pump wasn't connected to anything.

So much rain had fallen that the float switch on the bilge pump had kicked in, which is good. This is what float switches are meant to do. Sadly the bilge pump doesn't (pump, that is). Nor does the panel switch work. If the boat was going to sink it'd have done so when we loaded the organ in, so I'm not too worried about that, but a bilge pump burning out is not a whole load of fun. Especially as it'll stop me getting back to sleep.

The bilge pump system was also designed by a cretin, or possibly an underappreciated genius. (I think the survey described it as "ingenious", or maybe it was "stupid".) It involves a tray floating in a sump for no apparent reason, a bunch of hoses, and the hitherto undiscovered ability of water to flow uphill. And, of course, a lot of nasty bilge water.

A lot of shlepping about with saucepans didn't make the pump start pumping, or just shut up, but it did change the noise to a rather more impressive sounding "Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh". Eventually I ended up using the hand-pump to manually empty the bilge, at which point the bilge pump decided its USP was clearly under threat and that maybe returning to hibernation wasn't such a bad idea.

Unfortunately I was now sufficiently wet, and awake, that returning to hibernation wasn't an option for me.

Some other stuff:

Mmmm, iPhone. That will be Google Maps on your mobile, then. Actually, the interesting stuff (for me, at least) is that the intention seems to be that third-party applications are delivered through a browser, whether Safari or Widgets. All of the OS X-specific extensions to Widget HTML make a bit more sense now. Doubtless it'll play Flash, too - yay.
I did finally get a new phone over Christmas, to replace the Motorola V2288e I've had since 2001. I wasn't planning to, but well, for £30 (clearance shelf, Jessops, Manchester) - somewhat cheaper than an iPhone - a little Siemens cameraphone seemed too good to resist. All I need to do now is work out how to get Dupre's Prelude in B major as the ringtone.
Potlatch is not only finished, but the PHP bits are now in Ruby (and much more compact, Ruby's a very efficient language even if the typing boggles my head) and I've started on some of the v0.5 features. Wheee.
This year's London Boat Show is crap. Don't go. February's WW has turned out ever so gloomy - a bit of "BW are bastards" followed by "the Government are bastards", "the European Commission are bastards", and "the London Boat Show is crap". Ah well.
I kind of keep a watching brief on all this paparazzi-legality stuff, not least because we run hundreds of pictures an issue, none of which have any form of "model release" or any other such consent malarkey. MediaGuardian and Press Gazette online have both been full of Kate Middleton coverage over the past couple of days: is it right to camp outside her house? Is it legal? And so on. But I did have a sharp intake of breath at this Daily Mail story (I know, blogging about a Mail story, I'll shoot myself later). The caption says "Before: Frumpy in a jumper. After: Stunning in a BCBG gown". I'd personally place the "frumpy" before as "quite dashing, really" and the "stunning" after as "dim Sloane". One of these days I'm going to put something up on Pledgebank to say "I'll buy £1,000 of Daily Mail and General Trust shares, with the intention of buying the company and closing down the Mail, but only if one million other people will join me." Anyway, WTF is BCBG? Is it something like MDMA?
And on the subject of DMGT rubbish, Metro front-page headline from last week (an extended quote): "The man beside me might have been dead because he had a glazed look". Quick, move your facial muscles, not doing so can be fatal!
Last weekend Sandy (Mum's dog), with 16 years of sprinting to Uppingham and jumping on and off tables/sofas/visitors behind her, could no longer get up off the floor. Mum called the vet, and on Monday it turned out that she had broken her leg almost irretrievably. So Sandy is now a three-legged dog. Apparently it hasn't stopped her running (hopping) in from the back garden and up the steps because it's far too wet out there for any self-respecting mutt.

Eat your heart out, Keith Flett

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 14:25:51 GMT

Mentioned in despatches: the Guardian and the Independent.

Head-banging about metal

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 16:56:14 GMT

DoeS aNyBody know a way (a haxie, I guess) to thoroughly disable, extirpate, trash, kill the non-spatial Finder in OS X?

I mean those dratted metal file browser windows with forward/back controls, sidebar, tools and all of that. I have (I think) all the preferences set to stop them appearing in the regular course of things. But when I mount a new .dmg, or open certain CDs, back they come. If I wanted extraneous clutter around my windows I'd have bought, well, Windows.

Had a great week on Iago around the Birmingham Ring, slight problems with prop-shaft detaching itself from the coupling notwithstanding (hey, a bit of unmotorised cruising felt just like Hagley). Pics and posting to follow, maybe. And I got back yesterday to find a zillion (well, three) projects using the New Popular Edition maps - wahey!

Logging off

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 21:53:45 GMT

I'm going to be a little more intermittent than usual over the next few weeks, because tomorrow, I relinquish my Burton flat.

This means no evening web access until I figure out what to do. Maybe get a T-Mobile Web'n'Walk card (hmmm, someone really needs to mock up "Web'n'Wa*k" for b3ta... and did I ever mention that great idea for a stupid waterway site called b0ta?). Maybe arrange to share an AirPort connection with someone. Maybe, just maybe, decide I spend far too much time on the web and actually it would be quite smart not to get a connection on the boat at all.

I wrote a big, big long posting yesterday evening in an absolute fury, and for once, had the good sense to retract it about five minutes after posting. Here's a sanitised, less angry, five-second version.

British Waterways announced 180 job losses yesterday, and once again, there are some really good people going. All attention right now, of course, is focused on trying to reverse DEFRA's decision to cut BW's grant. But after that, we need to have a good look at whether what we've saved is really what we want... and whether the people currently running the canal system are those with the best idea of how to do so.

Sorting out a load of old files in the aftermath of WW's move next door, I found the Conservatives' defence of their plans for BW at the last election. I'm no Tory, by a long chalk, but I'll return to that in a future posting.