So this happened… out of the blue on April 13, Pete said: “Will you marry me?” And I said are you serious!? And he said yes and I found myself saying yes back and promptly fell into the wall during the ring bit – but that’s another story. It’s discombobulating but in a lovely way. See Pete’s post for more articulate words. I expect he will produce a scribbled whiteboard brainstorm on how to nail this thing in June. I’m on honeymoon duty, naturally. 
Engagement
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Coworking spaces London #1: Google Campus review
I’m spending January in London for work. But my Fridays are free for random work, meetings and hopefully a bit of Friday School. So today, on Stef’s recommendation, I tried out Google Campus and met with Andy Bull, author of Multimedia Journalism to chat about brand journalism training.
My one line review of the free basement cafe of Google Campus as a coworking space is: busy Shoreditch hipsterish beardy semi-friendly MacBook hangout with good coffee, lack of food (only two ham croissants left at noon) and superfast wifi but crap phone reception.
Here are a few pics…
2012 in review: volcanoes, photos and a few personal firsts
So that was 2012: work was good, travel was good and life was good. That’s 2013 jinxed then. Here’s what went on in 2012 in the form of a quick(ish) roundup…
January
New Year opened with me standing agog at my first sight of a horse and hound (non-fox) hunt in the North Cotswolds. Two weeks later, I was on a train headed to the Cantal in France to snowshoe Europe’s largest volcano. The month ended with the inaugural Friday School – my invention of a weekly freelance training programme involving a moveable cake-fuelled feast of learning.
Continue reading
Five tips for journalists trying to make the digital transition
Today was a first for me – being a speaker on the social media panel at the NUJ’s one-day conference on the enjoyably menacingly titled New Ways to Make Journalism Pay II. I’d originally signed up to attend the event before I realised I probably had something to pass on from my own experience of shifting from print to online, hence ending up on the stage with this view of a packed room.
Our session took a purely Q&A format but, as prep, I’d put together the five things that have helped me get to grips with digital content work. Here they are… Continue reading
Jo Fairley and the rainbow glitch
My first-ever animated gif is of a series of pretty glitches that appeared in a video with chocolate entrepreneur Jo Fairley, co-founder of Green & Black’s. She’s generating rainbows…
And here is a glitch still of the lady herself in a room snowing colour pixels… Continue reading
RebelMouse ‘social front page’ on test
Okay, so I’ve tried ScoopIt, Bundlr and Storify but not Pinterest. Let’s see how the curation element of new RebelMouse works, which is similar to Pinterest. So here’s my social media splash page, which pulls in my blog feeds, selected tweets and clipped content, and which I’ve customised. It looks ok and took about 30 minutes to set up and sort, but there were some glitches and hitches…
Plus points…
- Quick set-up.
- Pretty intuitive (especially if you’ve used similar apps). Continue reading
Pedestrian manga love story
Inked by Pete Ashton using his new iPhone app Manga-Camera and captioned by me from a real-life event.
A baker called Tom Baker…
Today a baker called Tom Baker opened an awesome community bakery on Stirchley high street. Here is Tom (and, I believe, Dom).
Ein! Zwei! Drei! Vierrrrrr!
I don’t know what I can tell you about Birmingham Opera Company‘s latest – Stockhausen’s six-hour avant garde epic Mittwoch Aus Licht aka “Wednesday from Light”. It was an experience that was not wholly enjoyable and yet at the same time it was pretty darn great. I’ll let this video and these photos do the talking because I’m all out of words. Continue reading
Visit to a parallel time
Modern stories of Victoria/Chamberlain Square, Birmingham #3 – my final and favourite photo narrative started out as a warm up exercise to get my mind into gear. I went to find a distant, deserted corner and found myself in a parallel Chamberlain Square where it was sometimes impossible to tell what was real…
[Photos taken for stories class of Matt & Pete's Photo School; next up: Spaghetti Junction photo walk and picnic on 29 July.]
