And then I discovered I was required to pay to get in.

It’s not an invitation if you’re asking me for money. That’s called fundraising.

My parting shot in that post was to revisit my ten hopes at the end of 2012 to see how I got on. But I can’t wait that long. I wanted to see how things had progressed so far in the new year in an impromptu one month appraisal.

Here’s what I hoped for at the end of last year:

1. I will – somehow – end up feeling proud that London is hosting the Olympic Games in 2012.

2. A piece of musical theatre will be commissioned, filmed live and then broadcast to critical acclaim.

3. I will exercise regularly, be it at the miserable gym at work or on my bike.

4. I’ll manage to get through the 2012 BBC Proms without making a video, writing a blog post, tweeting or uploading an AudioBoo.

5. I’ll go (maybe) go to Eurovision 2012 (pending unfolding Azerbaijani politics & personal financial situation).

6. I’ll get asked back to do something/anything a second time.

7. I’ll blog less about myself.

8. I will start podcasting again.

9. I will relax more at weekends.

10. I’ll quit worrying about Twitter and stop relying on Facebook.

As it stands, I’ve managed point 8, definitely point 9 and pretty much sorted the last point. Three out of ten isn’t bad. I had made a reasonably good start on point three doing a bike ride from Lewisham to London Bridge two days a week up until my bike lock jammed shut (now the bike remains attached the station bike stands – only an hour with a hacksaw will release it). The very fact I’m writing this post does rather mean that point seven is a complete failure, of course.

But more than this (quite unplanned and equally unexpected) … I’ve managed to go nearly a month not biting my finger nails. Now that really is a triumph.

Yes Gareth, the rest of us are a little surprised. We kind of assumed you’d walk Channel 5′s Celebrity Big Brother. Handsome, safe, strong and spectacularly inoffensive. A gay man’s dream. A LGBT lobbyist’s dream too.

You missed your Mum while you were in the ‘house’ for three weeks. That’s lovely. We like that.

Now, take a moment to find yourself a special someone. Then take some time to decide on what to do next. Make it good. Make it sound. Don’t be misled. Think carefully. Don’t let yourself be exploited.

Well done sir. You done well for us.

x

In the podcast, there’s a handful of recollections from the pilot event in the Star of Kings on 9 September 2011.

The Night Shift January 2012 Podcast by The Night Shift

Chief Superintendent Gavin Stephens from the Surrey Police Force and mobile app developer Angus Fox spoke to Digital Surrey attendees on Wednesday 25 January, explaining the thinking behind a recently launched mobile app for police officers and members of the public alike. One to help combat crime in Surrey.

The idea for the app is simple. Give police officers a mobile device which connects up to a police database which is updated both by them and by members of the public. The app is currently made available for police officers on Android. Members of the public can download it for the iPhone. There have been 6000 downloads thus far (according to Angus Fox make it a far more popular communication tool than Twitter when compared to Surrey police force followers). Future plans include rolling out the app to a variety of different plans.

Chief Superintendent Stephens outlined the overarching goals for the app, including the need to make access to police easier for members of the public, help the community influence police work, help make police ‘interventions’ swifter and help people give feedback on police action.

A mobile product sold to public and police officers with a snappy tagline – ‘Policing in Your Pocket’.

This isn’t a gimmick. The advantages are obvious. With the framework for the application established, the software built and back-end systems in place, the app’s first few months (or years?) in existence will be about introducing the advantages this kind of policing based on multiple sources and multiple types of crime-related information both to police forces up and down the country as well as the community at large. An app which harnesses the advantages of social media networks with all the multimedia sharing such networks support and packaging it up in a handy, easily accessible app for non-social media types to use.

In that respect, the app isn’t revolutionary. Indeed, the way in which Stephens spoke about how this development helps the Surrey police force made it sound more like an extension of developing and defending police reputation online. “Nipping a problem in the bud is far cheaper than an intervention,” said Stephens at the end of the evening.

Against this background, the app was an upgrade to the “email your local community police officer” entry point advertised on the Surrey Police website. Technically and editorially, the force was striving to do what most other organisations with a wide customer base, with lots to gain and painfully humiliating losses to suffer do to get ahead of the game.

Think how big brands use social media to promote themselves online via social media and then think of the challenges you’d face doing that in an organisation like the police.

So whilst I spent most of the evening not regarding the technical challenges inherent in building an app like this as nothing short of achievable, it was the getting the buy-in to the project in the first place which was the more impressive and – with no offence to app developer Angus Fox – noteworthy.

How do you sell the introduction of a new tool (both the app and the idea of the community contributing to your real-time knowledge base) to a large, sprawling public sector organisation liable to fragmented, disconnected project work (or worse, ‘turf wars’) with none of the competitive streak of the financial sector, no budget, vested interests and an ongoing distrust of new technology?

Given some of the perhaps not so unsurprising anecdotes Fox shared about how he found it difficult to get buy-in from other police forces (one even included being warned off the project due to ‘tendering rules’), his subsequent success can be pinpointed to one critical factor: connecting with an engaged, forward-thinking individual in a position of reasonable influence who can seed his influence across a top-down organisation who weren’t saying ‘no’, but instead “what can you do for us and how much for?”

Work on the app began in December 2010 and was finished in March 2011. It was trialled in an area of Surrey with around 100,000 members of the population. There were 6000 downloads of the public facing app.

The potential seems huge. It might also seem huge because it’s the story of a relatively commonplace technical solution into a traditionally conservative part of our life experience. Imaginations began to run away just a bit.

Would it be possible for example for someone to ring 999 via the app and send photos as well as geo-location data, so aiding the police in dealing with a crime being committed and being reported on? And what were the implications for the user and for the police?

Increased community involvement in policing was an obvious advantage along with the knock-on effects of an increase in public confidence and the emergence of local ‘advocates’. All very good things for public sector organisations.

But on the flip-side is the potential for the police having to change their skillset. With an influx in different types of evidence coming their way – community members effectively being the police’s ears and eyes and sending the ‘raw evidence’ in direct – don’t the police have to adopt ever increasingly rigorous techniques to corroborate evidence before taking action? Far from helping make combatting crime a swifter action, will there be more steps involved in checking authenticity before action can be taken?

Stephens response to the question threw light on the way in which he and Fox probably sold the idea to Surrey Police force and what other public sector organisations will need to help integrate themselves with current now mainstream technological trends.

“The next UK atrocity is going to see evidence posted on social media first,” he warned. “We need to prepare for that. And in the meantime, we need to practise on something manageable first.”

Digital Surrey was introduced by Abigail Harrison, supported by James Firth and Open Digital and hosted by the University of Surrey. The next event is scheduled for Thursday 23 February 2012.

Graphics of note include London 1963, Sweden’s efforts from 1975 and 1985, Israel’s 1979, Denmark 2001, Estonia 2002 and definitely Latvia 2003. You can watch some of the graphics in this compilation video.

Look at the graphics post-2003 and you’ll notice there’s a unified graphic – a heart – consistent in all of them. Such is progress. The Eurovision brand is stronger and so must be consistent.

So, in it’s place is the rise of the Eurovision ‘motto’. Each country has a chance to put it’s own stamp on proceedings before the event by ushering in it’s host responsibilities with a punchy phrase to sum everything up.

Norway went for the all inclusive Share the Moment (2010) when they hosted it, Germany the more obvious reference but actually rather lovely Feel Your Heart Beat (2011). Serbia (2008) plumped for the phrase Confluence of Sound (corporate speak for ‘we’re not entirely sure what that means but no one will notice and it sort of sounds good’). Greece (2006) pragmatism with Feel The Rhythm was surpassed by Finland (2007) who adopted a Ronseal approach, naming the 2007 contest as Total Fantasy. Those Finns. They’re so funny.

This year’s motto does raise an eyebrow, however.

Azerbaijan have reckoned on Light Your Fire. A rousing call, conjuring up armies of Eurovision fans to build log fires in their front rooms or – at the entirely other end of the scale – embark on a campaign of arson attacks. *

I’m sure I’ll get into the swing of things as we move inexorably towards the big week of semi-finals and final in May. But at the moment, I can’t help being a little bemused even if it is in a slightly smug way.

* Please note, I am not advocating criminal activity in the run-up to, during or after this year’s Eurovision. Just so we’re clear.

I’ll admit I haven’t listened to BBC Radio 3 that much just recently, preferring to follow a personal route through ‘classical music’ (and various other genres) and blog about reccomendations here.

The Kronos Quartet’s recent appearance on BBC Radio 3′s In Tune may possibly force me to change that self-imposed strategy. Maybe the time has come to immerse myself once more. More on that story later. (It’s a developing story at the present time.)

If you missed the quartet’s spot, then watch a video of their appearance in Studio 80a at Broadcasting House below. They – along with the repertoire they focus on – are jaw-droppingly brilliant. Stunning commitment and breathtaking energy. A welcoming entry point for more of their work. This one being one of their early appearances on American TV.

Haydn’s great, so too his and Mozart’s string quartets. But this breathes new life into the quartet.

There were some people who wandered around the White City Media Village with a brolly.

I didn’t have a brolly. But it didn’t bother me. For sixty minutes I wanted to get out of the BBC-bubble. To peer at what skirts the boundary of the world I occupy every day.

It’s easy to get sucked in to the safe and reliable world of the media. It cocoons. A brand is a powerful thing. A brand with a well-chosen font, irresistible. To break out of that world requires a bit of a leap of faith. Personally speaking, I rather enjoy seeing something different. It may not be immediately visually appealing to everyone. But if you’re looking for something arresting, a lunchtime walk in the environs can be invigorating.

My walk took me past the lunchtime footballers sliding around the artificial pitch off Wood Lane, on through the mean entrance to Hammersmith Park. On arrival it’s not an especially welcoming place.

Grey. Wet. Abused? Hammersmith Park isn’t somewhere you’d necessarily choose to go to have your sandwiches. It’s not picturesque. But there’s a path to follow. Some historic locations – the place where the vandals scaled the walls into the Blue Peter Garden – and some weird design moments too. Take the Hammersmith Bowls Club signage. As hard as I looked, I couldn’t find a bowls green anywhere near. So why the sign?

No matter. Turn around, walk a bit, retrieve your iPhone from your pocket and frame a shot and Hammersmith Park will – if you’re lucky – surprise. It’s a calm place. Full of hope. Full of good intention. A place in the shadow of a ridiculously large and overbearing building. A space designed to fill a dead space which emerged as a result of  large – overbearing? – rocking up in town. There’s guilt here. Sorrow. Resentment. Most walk through it. No one stops to pause.

The real unexpected joy I stumbled on was walking around the pond. It was still drizzling. The air was cold against my face. I felt sad. Everything around me felt rather sad too.

Amid all of this self-indulgence, there was the sound of the rain on the leaves and on the water. I heard birdsong too. It may sound like I’m being sickeningly poetic. Overbearingly so. Even so, hearing the rain and the bird was a bit of a wake-up call. Almost like it was the kind of ambience I don’t normally hear, day to day.

So by the time I took this picture of the raindrops on the railings, I was feeling reasonably relaxed. It had only taken thirty minutes. Half an hour away from my desk to feel calm, collected and re-focussed. Why don’t we all do more of this? Possibly because those of us working in conurbations don’t think to break out of our usual space and start exploring. Something we should all promise ourselves to do more of in the future.

As I started to wonder how I could eek out this slightly weird lunchtime excursion, it was the flowers which drew my attention.

It may be late January, but there’s some early growth to get excited by.

And let’s make it official. Here and now. The earliest whiff of a naturally occurring perfume really is the best experience. The natural equivalent of being the first to tweet potentially viral content.

But spare a thought for Joseph Shury. A plaque on a bench and nothing to be found on the internet.  Sixteen years old when BBC Television Centre was inaugurated, a significant space for him (or his family) that he his life was commemorated in Hammersmith Park.  What was his story? What was their story? How did their lives abut that of Television Centre and the BBC? Is this an example of how the BBC brushed with the local community?

It features a part of London which still remains my favourite – the Southbank – and which has in the past few years seen much pay-off for the considerable refurbishment undertaken to it and the Southbank Centre.

One part of London to feel proud of.

The South Bank from Alex Forey on Vimeo.

Shot with the Canon 600D (T3i), a Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM and a Canon EF-S 18-55mm II. As I did not want to bring along a full-sized tripod, I used a Gorillapod SLR Zoom, with a Jessops BH-40 Ball head.

Then compiled, stabilized and colour-corrected in After Effects CS5.5, before being sent to Premiere Pro for the editing.