London #140conf - all it could be?

On November 17, @JeffPulver came to town with his 140 Characters Conference show, following in the footsteps of past 140conf events in New York and Los Angeles. Selecting the Indigo at the O2 as the venue was an interesting decision, given that the conference supplied no coffee nor meals (which must have annoyed those paying the full fee of £425 though it seems few, if any, did so) and none of the coffee shops at the O2 opened until shortly before 9am, so that with registration from 8am there were lots of people wandering around looking for their caffeine fix. It was also discovered, fairly quickly, that there was no WiFi available to attendees, and that there was no heating. But these weren't why people were attending.

We were there to hear about what other people were doing with Twitter, and occasionally other short message services: the "140 characters" of the title. Indeed the most interesting presentation, for me, was from Kevin Holly (@gadget37, co-inventor of SMS text messaging) who gave us the technical background about the development of texting and just why the limit is 160 characters — the 140 for Twitter et al is because the remainder get used for the 'from' and 'to' — and their using 7-bit characters to squeeze them all in.

So, initially, all the seats were filled for the sessions and the event was opened at 9am by Jeff Pulver alongside Jeffrey Hayzlett (@JeffreyHayzlett, CMO of Kodak, who sponsored the event). Pulver presented his 'State of Now' spiel — you can find it on YouTube — and Hayzlett talked about how Kodak had made use of the crowdsourcing opportunities to improve their products and their customer service, including a very interesting review of how we used Twitter to rename a product he felt had a somewhat non-marketable name. Pulver was due to be followed by 66 other people discussing everything from music to education, news services to eBay, The Police service to dreams. Although a technical breakdown with the connection to the USA and a few people having travel difficulties changed the timings it was a still a busy schedule and, with only the single lunchtime break, possibly too intensive for some.

After Stephen Fry (@stephenfry, pictured) gave us a wonderful — and extended — review of how the immediacy of 140 characters has effectively changed the world (and was crowned as a 'Twillionaire') many of the seats emptied as people moved to the back and sides of the hall or left for the coffee shop for their own discussions and a multitude of laptops and netbooks appeared.

According to Twitter, the highest concentration of their users is to be found in London and this conference had attracted many of what could be termed 'the usual suspects' on the London Social Media scene: we already have a vibrant social cafe circuit active most days of the week and spreading over the whole country. In that sense, and because just about all the attendees were experienced users and promoters of the use of these services, there was a strong sense of 'preaching to the converted' here which may not have been the case in New York or LA. Nonetheless there were other gems in the day, including hearing about the tweeting Police of the West Midlands and the education panel.

All in all a day to remember, but not necessarily repeat.

This is an extended version of my guest post on The Next Women.

A thought or two about porn.

This is going to be one of those blog posts where you first ponder whether you should actually make such a post on your 'real name' blog, or whether you should place it on one of the pseudonymous ones given that everything is searchable on the internet and future employers or, indeed, lovers might read it and conclude they are, um, 'disquieted' by the content. But, after a long soak in a nice bubble bath just now, I've decided to go ahead with writing it here anyway!

So then … Porn.

Yes, you head me, Porn. Pornography. Erotica. 'Material of an adult nature'. Whatever you call it it is probably one of those things that 'you know it when you see it'. The first time I recall seeing it was accidentally finding my mother's copy of The Perfumed Garden (الروض العاطر في نزهة الخاطر) when I was in my teens. Since then I've been proud to be the Technical Director for the last few years of the Night of the Senses and the Erotic Awards, both organised by the wonderful Tuppy Owens (whose birthday it happened to be yesterday, so many happies dear!) and which raise money for the charity organisation Outsiders . Alongside meeting many great sex workers, pole dancers, BDSM and fetish performers, strippers and erotic artistes of all kinds there I've had partners, lovers and friends who have been 'in the business' — and happily supported their choice.

Everyone I've known has done the work because they enjoyed it; they hadn't been forced into it or had to do it to pay for drugs (more often for college fees actually!) and although I'm now way to old to get involved myself (and the body went south for the winter years ago and never returned) I've never seen any big problem with the concept of the erotic world, just as I came out as bisexual at school one day age 12 and have been ever since. As a young adult in the 1970s I still stand by the saying "if it feels good, do it".

So, back to why the reason for this post. About four or five years ago I saw a photo set of a very cute redhead who was clearly enjoying herself in front of the camera — and was very sexy and extremely fanciable! Yes, they were 'porn' and showed all the flesh she had — we each have skin so why it acceptable for us all to look in mirrors or at our partners naked and during sex but not to see the same on film or in stills I really don't quite understand — but it was the subject's smile, not to say grin, that really struck me. I'd found the set amongst a load of other stuff I was scanning so didn't know anything more about it than the file names of the images, which included the name "Sarah". The backgrounds in the pictures made me think the set was possibly Polish or other east European, but that was all.

Then, earlier this evening, I followed a link from someone's tweet on twitter. That page had an offsite link elsewhere and I then found I was on a porn site. I wasn't intending to look for such things at that point but, now that I was there … and so I clicked on the free videos link to see if there was anything of interest to this jaded palette of mine. I say 'jaded' as I usually find textual erotica much more interesting than purely visual stuff, which often makes me go "ooh look! what lovely shoes!" than anything about the bodies concerned.

And as it played through, amongst the men and women I saw a brief glimpse of a face I recognised from so long ago. Yes, you heard me — a face! Searching the rest of the site for more I couldn't find her amongst all the thumbnails, so I checked back on my archive server to find out the file names from so long ago and then searched the html of the site I'd now found, and there she was. I had a full (professional) name. A little more searching and I discovered a wikipedia entry about her!

Turns out she is actually from the US mid-west and has turned her talent in to a multi-faceted vibrant business , catering for many of the 'tastes' out there. Wonderful, therefore, to see that someone was being so successful and enterprising. Except I then found a YouTube video.

Now if you recall the film Singin' in the Rain you will remember that Lina Lamont (wonderfully played by Jean Hagen) had a very squeaky voice not at all suitable for an audience in the talkies†, and now I wondered would hearing her voice would spoil it for me. It didn't, and I think the video deserves a wider airing so include it below (you are ok; it is quite safe for work, as they say).

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to introduce Ms Sarah Blake:



† Although the film revolves around the idea that Kathy has to dub over for Lina's voice, even in the talking scenes, it was actually Jean Hagen's normal voice. Reynolds herself was dubbed in "Would You?" and "You are My Lucky Star" by Betty Noyes and also when she is supposedly dubbing Lina's voice in the live performance!

Addendum: I mentioned this post to Ms Blake via twitter. Response? "Wow, thank you for the huge compliment!" ::grins::

State-sanctioned murder

Earlier this evening I watched a powerful drama on Channel 4. The Execution of Gary Glitter was — in its final outcome — expected from the very name of the programme. A superbly made film, with an absolute tour-de-force from Hilton McRae in the lead role, it was disquieting and terrifying in the possibility that state-sanctioned murder could ever come back to this country.

The ' death penalty' (ie Judicially-sanctioned murder) does not work - just look at the countries which still have it and note how often those crimes which get 'death' as the punishment still happen regularly. It has no deterrent effect whatsoever and instead, just as this film showed, we end up with a population in a state of 'excitement' of mob rule and their belief that they should have their way. A (fictional) Home Secretary saying that a decision was based on the desire of the people to have a killing is not an acceptable way for the elected government to act. Death, for practical purposes of the person found guilty, is no different from a whole-life sentence served behind bars, yet just as we abhor death by terrorists so we must find state-sanctioned murder no better.

In many ways we are all children of the modern era, in that most of us - thankfully - rarely see death in front of our eyes. We watch hundreds of fake deaths daily on television and in films, yet news programmes ensure they do not show the act of violent death when reporting from war zones or relaying film from al-Qaeda showing another captive being beheaded — little different to the effect of a hanging. Cowboys and Indians as children again make us learn that death is an impermanent state of being and little happens to change that early view. Even in the case of this dramatisation the executive producer, Samir Shah, has said "The director Rob Coldstream felt we had to show enough to convey the grim reality of the execution but it would have been gratuitous to show more."

That some comments on the Channel 4 website have said things such as "that drama put a smile to my face. bring back the death sentance (sic) and hang huntley and glitter. they won't be smiling then", and "The only dissaponting (sic) thing about this programme is that it wasnt for real" makes me feel very sad and disappointed, not to say very worried.

For the state to accept mob rule and fail civilisation in killing offenders for the fun of the few should never be acceptable. That polling suggests 54% of the UK adult population want the 'death penalty' returned shows both that there is a lack of education about what it really means, and — arguably — that the result of any polling is questionable, based on the way a question is asked ( Sir Humphrey in Yes, Minister comes to mind) and how inaccurate electoral polling often is.

Whilst some may believe in the (Judeo-Christian) bible's "an eye for an eye" approach, I believe we have moved on. Even Gandhi noted "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" and we no longer permit many activities sanctioned in the bible and to kill someone because they did something we find totally, utterly, and completely reprehensible makes us as bad as them.
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clip from Yes, Minister
"Are you worried about the number of young people without jobs? … Are you worried about the rise in crime amongst teenagers? … Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our comprehensive schools? … Do you think young people would welcome some authority and leadership in their lives? … Do you think they'd respond to a challenge? … Would you be in favour of re-introducing national service?"

"Are you worried about the danger of war? … Are you worried about the growth of armaments? … Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill? … Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will? … Would you oppose the re-introduction of national service?"

Subtitles

No, not the ones which are ever-so-useful to many people on the television or at the opera, but the one on this blog. Initially I set it here to Mostly Harmless, a term used by some friends many years ago to describe me (long before the late Douglas Adams had used it) to someone who had asked them what I was like. Now I've used something much more reasonable for a blog: caveat lector.

Heed this advice, dear reader!