One random thing about me

I know it's been fashionable to dismiss the "25 random things about me" meme that's been viralling round Facebook by saying, "I really couldn't care less, you narcissitic chump", or words to that effect.

But I've actually really enjoyed reading these infonuggets - after all, these people are my friends, and uncovering a small part of a familiar person's secret history can be quite thrilling, even if it is something slightly mundane like, "I secretly fancy Stephen Mangan."

I started a list myself, but only got to 12 because I was starting to sound like Woody Allen, and not in a good way. So I'll just publish the first "thing about me" I came up with here. To be honest, it makes anything that could possibly follow it seem insignificant and futile. Ready?

1. Until 24 February 2002, I had never seen an episode of The A-Team. By chance, I ate the first bagel of my life exactly five years later, on 24 February 2007. Neither experience was particularly life-changing.

It ain't me, babe

Ah, hell. Listen, if you're Google-ing my name - and I'm sure you are, every second of every day, can I just say: this is not me.

The Twits

I keep vacillating between "getting" Twitter and "not getting" Twitter. Signed up in May last year and didn't get it. Then started to get it. Then didn't use it for a few months, which meant I forgot why I got it and had to start regetting it. But with a load of friends signing up fairly recently, I’m currently getting it, so here’s where you follow me: http://twitter.com/electricgoose. Oh, and you can see recent updates on the right hand side of this very blog, just below my profile picture. Neat.

Free Firefox Fo Fum

Today's the big day for the Firefox gang. With the release of the third version of the IE-killing browser, the boffins at FFHQ are hoping to set a world record for the most worldwide downloads in 24 hours. They must have a server the size of Swindon.

If you're not already using Firefox at this stage in the game - and I use the word "using" very much in the hopeless addict sense of the word - well God, Jed, I don't even wanna know you!*


*As The West Wing's Mrs Landingham once said, talking about something completely unrelated.

Easter Monday part 2

Easter Monday

Boxing clever

In other boxing news (ahem), could this advert - from a Ricky Hatton fan website - be the most badly-targeted in the history of the internet?

So long, suckers

Goodness. I’ve just had the most extraordinary idea for a Facebook application. I’m off to the Bahamas, it’s been nice knowing you.

Double whammy

So, the previous post ended with the sentence, "Hey, speaking of doubles..." and this one probably should have begun with those very words. Got into work this morning and found this...

LAN of hope and glory

I’ve been a bit obsessed with wireless technology recently, due to the fact that I’ve been trying to set up a miniature Local Area Network (LAN) in my flat. And failing, quite a bit.

Basically, I realised, as I inserted and unplugged Ethernet cables like the activity of inserting and unplugging Ethernet cables was going out of fashion, the whole world should be one big free wireless hotspot.

And I also came to this conclusion: if Woody Guthrie was alive today, not only would he agree with me, but he'd be writing songs about this hot social potato. And his guitar would probably have “this machine kills dial-up” written on the side.

As he’s not around to do this, I’ve updated his classic socialist folk song 'This Land is My Land' to incorporate Guthrie’s (projected) views on the developments in wireless technology. Feel free to join in.

This LAN is your LAN, this LAN is my LAN
From the mobile IP, to the wireless tri-band
From the manual keying, to the content filtering,
This LAN was made for you and me.

As I was walking the information superhighway
I saw above me a WEP key,
I saw below me an SSID.
This LAN was made for you and me.

I've routed and scrambled and I've followed my firmware
To the subnet mask of her dynamic DNS
And all around me a secure HTTP protocol was saying
This LAN was made for you and me.

As I was wi-fiing, I saw a sign there
And that sign said: “no tresspassin'!”
But in the hotspot, it didn't say nothing.
That gateway was made for you and me!

In the squares of the city, in the shadow of the IP,
Near the internet cafes, I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this LAN’s still made for you and me.

I've got a lot on my template

Woah, check out my amazing new blog template! Ace, isn't it?

Okay, okay, it looks almost exactly the same as the old one. In fact, only Goose obsessives (you know who you are) will notice a change. But underneath, it's all Blogger 2.0, so bog off. Or jog on, your choice.

I AM THE NEW FACEBOOK.

Ready Steady

iTunes' FREE single of the week is The Hold Steady's majestic Stuck Between Stations. Go and get it immediately, it's a blinder of a song (provided you like REM, Springsteen and, like, music).

It also has the best opening line, nay verse, of any song this year. Well, last year - it's been around quite a while now. Which means you've probably got it already. And you're probably bored of it already. Sigh. There's no pleasing you, is there? I mean can't you just pretend to be interested even if you're not? Fine. You've got an attitude problem, you know that? And sort yourself out, you look a mess.

Anyway, that first verse:

"There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right.
Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together.
Sucking off each other at the demonstrations,
Making sure their make-up's straight.
Crushing one another with collossal expectations;
Dependent, undisciplined, sleeping late."

Full lyrics

Homepage bound

The Google homepage fills my heart with joy.

Having experienced a multitude of problems with home internet in my adult life (mainly thanks to the shoddiness of NTL's service), I've spent a lot of time testing the connection by pressing Alt+Home to bring up my browser homepage, which is, of course, www.google.co.uk. The "page not found" signals disappointment and the need for further work. The Google homepage equals success and progression.

Even now, with my internet troubles over (at least until I have another go at setting up wireless), the sight of those primary colours on that big white background is dear to mine eyes; I am one of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov's puppies, with Google as my bell.

How to break up, web 2.0 style

"Let's just be Facebook friends."

"Our relationship is just not worth the Blogger."

"I've got so many 43 Things going on in my head right now."

"It's not YouTube, it's me."

"You're a chauvinist Digg."

"You're not my TypePad."

"I just can't see us being together for Revver."

"I need some MySpace."

Fakes and pains

I have perpetrated a fraud against my friends.

It was supposed to be all in the interests of curiosity and experimentation, but now I just feel guilty. Basically, all I did was change my listed birthday on Facebook to Thursday 12 July (it's actually in April). Unfortunately, I'd underestimated how much people now rely on Facebook for truth and fact, and the birthday and anti-birthday messages started flooding in.

"Happy birthday!! (I admit, I wouldn't have known if facebook didn't tell me!!)" wrote one on my wall. "Fuck off is it your birthday" added another. More abuse/congratulation followed.

Then it started getting worse - the messages moved away from the enclosed sphere of social networking and into the 'real' world. An old school friend now living in Australia appeared on Instant Messenger and wished me numerous happy returns. My old flatmate Jamie sent a birthday text (even though he had offered to buy me concert tickets for my real birthday just a few months before). The next day, my mate Dan emailed with some "things to do before you're 30" advice. Then my boss came up and told me she'd made a trip to WHSmiths the previous evening and bought me a card, before remembering she'd bought me one back in April too.

I started 'fessing up. Jamie texted back, "You are a sick fuck. Tho a sociologically interesting one, I grant you." A work colleague admitted on IM that she found out late in the day, then "went home and thought 'you utter shit, you didn't do anything' and felt really guilty". Dan emailed: "dam, can't believe i fell for that one, i knew when it was, how schoolboy of me, didn't even think to question it."

Oh dear. Sorry everyone. In my defence, all I can say is this: if Facebook told you to jump off a cliff, would you?

Faysburke: know the dangers

There's new drug Sweeping The Nation – and it seems everyone's on it, except me.

In recent months, I have heard the drug mentioned more and more frequently. Generally it happens like this: I'll be chatting to someone in an interactive social space like a bar, pavement or foyer, thinking I'm being charming with my off-the-wall banter, but possibly sounding like an off-the-ball wanker.

But then, despite the ostensibly civilised conversation going on, the person I'm talking to will break off to ask me if I'm high on said drug, usually asking, "Are you on Faysburke?"

Typically, I reply along the lines of, "Look, it's quite rude to ask whether someone's stoned in polite conversation – and no, I have not been smoking Faysburke, or however the hell you're supposed to take it."

At this stage, the person will look at me askance. They clearly think I am on Faysburke, but just in denial. Either that, or they'll try to persuade me how good Faysburke really is, and how it's helped them make loads of friends. Many of them talk about how they're "totally addicted to it".

A quick scan of the news shows that 23m people around the world are ruining their lives by taking this vile substance, or "signing up to Faysburke", as the youth lingo goes. Last year, drug charities managed to reduce worldwide intake of the equally dangerous Miaspays. Let's hope they can do the same with Faysburke.

This just in: the Sky is broken

Wow, look, the Sky News website's gone and got itself a smart new redesign!

Mmmm, sweet, now it looks like a cross between the Yellow Pages and an entire screen of adverts. But what’s that on the bottom right? A tour of the rejigged site?

Yes it is. Looks interesting: I'd love to see the kind of new Web 2.0 interactive multimedia features they'll be offering me. Bet the tour's really flashy too. Click!

Oh dear. Perhaps they should’ve held off the launch just a few days longer...

Wikid behaviour

This is football hooliganism at its worst.

Reading matters

The Guardian was on form yesterday. If you didn't get it, please read these:

Funny old world
As a show featuring Muslim comedy starts a British tour, its star tells Sarfraz Manzoor why Islam can laugh at itself, why fundamentalists don't get the joke - and why he's definitely hanging on to his beard
"Usman will be opening his British shows with an observation about how different the vibe is in Britain compared to the US. 'When I walk down the street in America I get dirty looks for being Muslim - here I'm hated just for being an American.'"

Sunshine
Peter Bradshaw reviews Danny Boyle's new film
"Icarus I was the first mission, led by Capt Pinbacker (Mark Strong) which went out some years ago and disappeared with crew and mega-bomb unaccounted for. Perhaps they all became demoralised by the frankly rather tactlessly chosen name."

How the web became a sexists' paradise
Everyone receives abuse online but the sheer hatred thrown at women bloggers has left some in fear for their lives. Jessica Valenti, editor of Feministing.com, reports
"It was, without doubt, the most humiliating experience of my life - all because I dared be photographed with a political figure."

Moira Stuart profile
Media celebs question BBC decision to dump one of its older female newsreaders
"She comes from an older generation, where the journalists did the journalism, and the newscasters, with magisterial authority, read the news without any inflection of opinion or judgment, except possibly a tiny half smile at the skateboarding canary."

East Coker does not deserve the taint
of TS Eliot's narcissistic gloom
A Somerset village with a golden-toned church was done a serious disservice by this bleak, American poet
"In my beginning is my end," he began the poem and ended it, "in my end is my beginning". This faintly oriental paradox leaves Eliot pilgrims scratching their heads before stomping off to the Helyar Arms down the road.

Let's Go See: 18 Doughty Street

[Originally published in Total Spec magazine, February 2007]

Welcome to Doughty Street: Politics on an internet rocket

In the depths of London's Bloomsbury, to the north of Chancery Lane, lies Doughty Street. It's one of those roads most of us can't imagine living on without an unlikely change of career, large inheritance or lucky lottery ticket, lined as it is with stately Georgian terraces which stretch out symmetrically into the distance. There are, naturally, iron railings all over the place and at number 48 sits Charles Dickens's only surviving London home, now a museum.

I wander further up the street and get to number 18. It's a bit hidden by scaffolding, but behind that imposing black door something rather interesting is going on. For, over the last few months, 18 Doughty Street has not just been an address, or a number on a door: it's the name of an internet-only political TV channel. Go to their website between 7pm to 12am on Mondays to Thursdays and you can watch a range of live and pre-recorded discussion programmes about everything politics. Launched in October last year, it's financed by YouGov founder Stephan Shakespeare and run by a small group of intrepid right-of-centre politicos who seem to be making the whole thing up as they go along.

But for what is, compared to the likes of the BBC or Channel 4, a low-key operation, the channel has been known to get in some prestigious guests, albeit of the kind not so often seen in the mainstream media. The launch show featured an exclusive interview with Australian PM John Howard, followed by a discussion with Ian Duncan Smith and Australian High Commissioner Richard Altston. Since then, 18 Doughty Street has had visits from Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Conservative Party Chairman Francis Maude, MPs Mark Oaten, Ann Widdecombe, Stephen Twigg, and so on.

Not everything will be to everyone's taste - "I've never really watched [news discussion programme] Up Front," admits one guest, and "I avoid the tax programme – it's a kind of Tory tic," says one of the channel's presenters - but watch an evening of programmes and you get the impression that the whole point of 18 Doughty Street is that all opinions are welcome. Although there are no pretensions of impartiality (this is internet TV, so it's not regulated by Ofcom), the station is aiming to be about discussion, not indoctrination. "We're not seeking to ram propaganda down people's throats, we want to make people think," says one of the channel's lynchpins, Iain Dale.

Dale's background shows him to be something of a jack of all trades, as long as the trades in question involve politics (and often Conservatism). As well as numerous appearances on television and radio as a pundit, he founded political bookshop and publishers Politicos, has edited 14 books on politics, and his rather excellent blog is one of the most popular of its kind in the UK. There's also a few things he's probably less keen to shout about: standing in the May 2005 general election and losing to Lib Dem; working as David Davies's chief of staff in the MP's unsuccessful Conservative Party leadership campaign. But, hey, that's politics, right?

Now Dale is one of the four directors of 18 Doughty Street; the others being Stephan Shakespeare, Tim Montgomerie, the founder of ConservativeHome website and the Conservative Christian Fellowship, and Donal Blaney, who is CEO of the Young Britons' Foundation. If that wasn't enough, Dale is, unofficially, the channel's chief presenter, garnering more air-time than anyone else (he's trying to cut down: "from a viewer's point of view, you want more variety than that," he says). He's new to presenting – "I absolutely love it" – but wasn't the only one who's had to learn the ropes.

"None of us had been involved in television before and we've got no professional production staff," he says. There were, he adds, two people on the staff who had worked on TV documentaries, and the team, with their scant knowledge, found themselves having to bow to their whims. This was not good. "We kept coming up with ideas, and they'd come up with 20 reasons why we couldn't do them, which proved to be very wearing," he says. "Eventually we got rid of both of them." Free from the shackles of convention, they were free to experiment.

The channel's willingness to try to do things differently from the traditional media outlets is one of its main selling points. But in its current incarnation, a factor that seems even most integral to its identity is the freedom of time. Dale cites the channel's coverage of the US mid-terms as a key example: they broadcast for six hours starting at 8pm and analysing the exit polls before the BBC did (where coverage started at 12am). Oh, and this was only three weeks after Doughty Street had launched.

The looseness of time constraints is a crucial factor in day-to-day programming too: "If we have a politician on to be interviewed for an hour, they can't just come out with a two-minute soundbite, because they've got to fill 58 more minutes," says Dale. "In that time, they're bound to say something that’s different from what they'd say in a three-minute interview on the Today programme."

"In the mainstream media you can't even have a half-hour discussion on one subject with one person because they think their audiences have got the attention span of a flea," he adds. "The number of times you hear an interviewer saying on Radio 4, "I'm sorry, but that's all we've got time for," just as the interview has got going – it's incredibly frustrating."

It's this willingness to give politicians and pundits time to breathe that suggests the channel is about taking politics seriously – backed up by their slogan "Politics for adults". But because of the political position of the founders, another slogan which has inevitably come their way is the no less snappy "Tory TV". Dale disputes that Doughty Street is a centre-right propaganda tool, mentioning the left-of-centre guests who have appeared and adding that the Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs who have been interviewed are perfectly comfortable with the station's stance. However, he doesn't deny that when interviewing someone, he won't pretend to be impartial or shy away from getting his own views across.

One regular show on the schedule is Claire Fox News, which aims to look at "what's really going on behind the headlines". Fox is now head of think tank the Institute of Ideas (IoI), a former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and once co-publisher of the now defunct Living Marxism magazine. In short, she's a long way from your traditional old-school Conservative. Did she have reservations about collaborating with Dale and co? "I've long since given up caring what people can work out by association," she says. "I'm much more interested in people listening to what I've got to say and what the people on my programme have got to say."

Fox says she doesn't see 18 Doughty Street as a challenge to conventional television, but does see a gap in the market left by broadcasters trying to sidestep serious discussion. "There is a tendency in the media to reduce things to a black and white argument," she says. "There's an obsession in contemporary media circles, particularly in relation to current affairs and politics, with trying to sex it up using rather superficial tricks, whereas I think these issues are interesting enough in themselves – they should be trying to make things intellectually sexy, by allowing open discussion."

No stranger to controversy, Fox relishes the chance to get some more leftfield opinions out there. "In the mainstream media if you have a discussion on, say, environmentalism and you aim for impartiality by inviting all three main parties, they'd actually all say that they're greens. Because of that, there's no longer any sense of that debate really occurring. For a more impartial approach, I try to look around for people who are saying different things."

Dale agrees that one of the channel's plus points is the editorial freedom which allows it to bring together unlikely combinations of guests. "We had John Redwood and Andrew McKinley, a left-wing Labour MP on recently," he says. "It's a combination that most programmes wouldn't even think of having. But it was fantastic, they both found that they actually agreed on a lot of things, which you would never have expected."

***

Step inside 18 Doughty Street itself, and, passing a brightly-lit brand new office on the left, you're faced with flaking and cracked pink-tinted paperless walls, and some rickety-looking stairs heading upwards to some rooms which look like they've only just been built, and which wouldn't look out of place in a haunted house. Dale apologies – "the builders are in" – and, not unreasonably, seems keen to hurry us through. We head downstairs, past an unlit "on air" light, and suddenly, we're in what feels more like the real 18 Doughty Street – the studio.

Under hot bright lights, five cameras surround a Good Morning-like pair of sofas, a brown globe, a shelf of political biographies. On one of the tables, there's a laptop, with the 18 Doughty Street logo printed out on A4 and sellotaped to the back. It's a funny combination of the technological and the makeshift, and seems to aptly symbolise the whole operation.

That laptop, usually situated to the right of whoever's presenting that night, brings with it another interesting aspect of the channel. As well as viewers being able to comment on the programmes via the website, they can also add the channel to their Windows Messenger contacts, and so are able send their questions and viewpoints via instant message to presenters while they're live on air. It emphasises the democratic and conversational aspect of the channel and seems far more satisfying and instant than emailing or texting in.

"We may have a small audience, but it's a very interactive one," says Dale, who came up with the instant message idea in the studio, set it up himself, and announced the plan on air. Within a few minutes people had signed up. "If I dry up, there will always be something there that I can latch onto. You can always tell when you're doing something interesting, because that's when the orange message boxes start lighting up."

As interactivity goes, it sure beats 'pressing your red button now'. However, Claire Fox is not so convinced. "That's not an innovation for Doughty Street," she says. "Every time I turn on the BBC, they'll be saying 'we've got an email from Joe in Sunderland, he's got a great insight' or something. There's always a danger of that being patronising and trying to pretend that you connect."

"On the front page of the December issue of Time magazine, for their person of the year feature, they had a picture of a computer screen, which they did as a mirror. You look at it and you see yourself. It says 'You control the information age. Welcome to your world'. This is what's called an abdication of responsibility. It's absolutely ludicrous. I think that's one of the ways people fetishise new media - as bringing democratisation."

She's hit her flow now. "If Time can't give a lead in deciding on who the person of year is without overly flattering its readers by pretending it's us, there's something seriously wrong with the mainstream media. I don't want to emulate that kind of spineless, craven, chasing of the audience."

"I'm not opposed to audience interaction," she adds. "I just don't think that's what will make 18 Doughty Street successful. For me, it's a really stupid way of understanding what's important about an audience. Honouring an audience is giving them something that think about, that they're interested in, that challenges them."

Fair enough, but who is this audience, and why should they turn to 18 Doughty Street? "We're not catering for political geeks," says Dale. "We're catering for people who are fed up with the current affairs coverage on the BBC and other channels, which are being dumbed down to the extent where on Andrew Neil's programme on a Thursday night after Question Time, you have important issues being discussed with comedians. I'm sure comedians have views just as much as anyone, but to have a political programme where they don't have any politicians on seems utterly ridiculous to me."

"The aim, in the end, is to try and get people watching who aren't interested in politics at all, who are just put off it. At the moment, it is a small audience, we don't deny that, but we think as word travels about what we're trying to do, we really think that we've started something that could be quite powerful."

***

"Any gestures you want?" says Dale as he poses for the Total Spec photographer. "We're an on-demand service." Well, it's not quite there yet – at the time of writing, the channel still relies heavily on its audience tuning in to watch programmes streaming live, rather than choosing when to view a la YouTube. But there should be a new website live by the time you read this, and Dale hopes that technology that allows viewers to watch internet video on their television sets will begin to take off in 2007. And if it does, that scaffolding outside 18 Doughty Street will be down in no time.

At 6.55pm we break off our chat; at 7pm, Dale has to do a live two-minute piece to camera introducing the night's programmes. He wanders off to get a crib sheet; a make-up girl appears from nowhere; he sits back on the sofa as she starts dabbing at his face. She finishes and starts adjusting the camera – it looks like she's the camerawoman as well. Dale glances at the sheet of paper, is counted in, looks up, and begins to reel off the evening's programming. The week's viewing has begun.