I’ve enjoyed my time with my current host 34sp.com, I’ve been with them since 2003, when I graduated from University and needed a hosting account. In those 7 years I have made many progressions with my site, from static HTML files to Wordpress through Mambo and the podcasts were even run from this server with 34sp.com. These progressions are set to continue long into this decade too! The reason for the move is simply to consolidate all my domains around a central hosting account. I’m looking forward to providing lightning fast load times and PHP 5 functionality.

I’m also in the process of setting up a number of domains too, so there’s plenty going on in the ideas factory back here at HQ, it’s just gonna take a while to get everything web that I do (possibly your website, if you are thinking of employing me), consolidated onto one server. It’s a very exciting time for me and I’m keen to keep you at my side as I start this journey :)

“After a significant petition from the listening public, the BBC’s online radio station, 6 Music, has been reprieved from closure”

Excellent, so pleased to hear this news, perhaps Digital Radio does have a future in the UK afterall. All we need now is DAB+ and we can begin the task of saving the whole of Digital Radio :)

This week marks, my last week at work, quite fittingly this blog post is written on Independance day! I’ve been in my current employment for a tad over 3 years now and have worked on some pretty interesting projects as well as been a major light in the web team. I’ve learned a lot, met some fantastic people and had some good laughs, but there comes a time when you see that life is too short to stagnate and progression must be kept on track.

When I began this current period of employment, I was unemployed, living with my parents and had to start again and I had to pick myself up from some pretty devestating circumstances, in which I didn’t expect to see much past my 30th birthday, but I kept going regardless. I’m confident that I had the resolve to do it once and so I shall keep on doing it, rising to fall, knowing the next rise will be higher, knowing each kick in the nards only serves to make me fight back harder. Plus I’m nearly 30 now and far from being depressed, even reaching 30 years old is for me a major two finger salute to cancer. So have it! Let’s get on with the show, just in case.

“Sucess [it was once said] is the ability to go from one failure to another without loosing enthusiasim”. — Winston Churchill

The past three years have been awesome, forgeting the bad and focusing on the good, I honestly can say it has been the ride of my life, but I’m exhusted. The train though kinda got derailed in 2009, when things just became a stressball and I have become ill as a result. It’s not just myself going through hard times, many of us will be facing our own tough challenges right now at ths start of this decade, we’ll be rethinking and taking stock during this post downturn phase. It’s something I’m used to doing. What do we want to be when the good times return? I’m greatful that through the downturn we had enough stability to press on, a little bit sheltered but none the less aware and so I could emerge as a butterfly, gaining my own home and increasingly building my life, following my bliss. Though it was a suprise that most of my best progressions came outside of my working environment, but every day builds the future you want and things certainly went back to my roots and that’s where the real foundations of my future are.

“The future hasn’t been written yet, so make it a good one!” — E.L.B

That progression doesn’t end here, far from it, although it will be tough, I have enough resources, friends and contacts here where I’m settled to push forward with the next chapter of my life, which hopefully will see me gain the experience I need to manage my own business. I couldn’t choose a better place for it, you’d be suprised at how well connected Walsall is in the information age, loads of talented people live or work here or very close to here and we’re all cracking on with some pretty amazing things.

So rather than be fearful that I’m leaping into the unknown here, I’m pretty darn excited and itching to get on with it! A flood of emotions, a mixture of life admin and hard graft to secure the future but what I’m fighting for is happiness and your own happiness is priceless and worth more than anything else. My train is departing this station, which was a half way house get fed and watered on the route to someplace even better, I’ve also picked up passengers on the way and there’s plenty more room to jump on board this flying train!

I think that’s enough of the Back to The Future in-jokes!
I promise I’ll be back on the blog in August with some actual creative updates.

It was on the way back we decided to make the most of the day, although exhusted we waited for the sun to start setting. Ian found the best spot via GPS on his new iPhone and we found ourselves on the edge of the river mouth looking out over to Wales (after walking past a field of yet more cows, a water treatment plant and an electricity substation), it was a proper adventure, trying to figure out the angles and playing with filters. I have to say we do have the world’s greatest hobby in photography, it takes you places you wouldn’t have thought about going.

While in Weston Super Mare, we saw the crew setting up for T4 on the beach, we got off the beaten track and got some great shots from nearby Uphill, which was up a hill, strangely enough! I guess to get the best shots, you have to be prepared to wonder into fields of cows, attempt to walk on quicksand (some kids did, a sticky situation for sure) and wait in a service station for the day to die so you can get the sunset over the bridge.

The Red Balloon – By John Dalkin (Uploaded July 18, 2006)

John explains in his description of the photo that it was the result of a little girl letting go of a balloon in a shopping centre in Coventry. He adds “All you need is a little imagination………..”. I love his composition and the way the sun has been caught reflecting off the balloon. Quite a capture for a spontaneous moment!

“Caldmore is a multi cultural area on the edge of Walsall’s town Centre. For many years it has been the natural home of Walsall’s artists and artisans from many cultures around the world.” — Festival’s Blog

Organised by a massive effort in the local community, you have to admire these guys for getting this off the ground and making it work. A main stage was put up in a school green, hosting live music, dancers, poets and all manor of live enetertainment. Satellite venues provided further events and places of worship held open days, to top it all off there was a parade through the village green, involving things made by local people in workshops. It was a great thing to see in our town.

Community Photographers Found!
The reason I found myself taking photos there this weekend is because the organisers reached out through Walsall Council to our wonderful pool of talented photographers via Flickr. I posted a message up on the group discussion board which attracted a lot of interest and we had a core group covering the events over the weekend. Not every photographer sees the same thing in the same way and I’m really looking forward to seeing the diverse variations and angles from the weekend. This is what I love about getting the photography community involved, in the mix you get a wider range of shots.

It was a great show of various cultures coming together and saying, “you know what, let’s have a really good time!”.

Why did this work?
Simple, community! Everyone pulling together and at times like this when funding is tight you really have to applaud the efforts made. It was a great show of various cultures coming together and saying, “you know what, let’s have a really good time!”. And once again the council showed that they can reach out to the creative community and get us involved too!

Links

• Caldmore Village Festival Blog
• Best pictures from Flickr Community
• My Photoset

I found myself in Weston Supermare with a nice cool breeze, a walk in the sea and a visit to the Sand Sculture Festival, which was just amazing! To imagine someone can turn a block of sand into a work of art with all the detailing that you can see, it’s just astounding and worth a visit if you are down that way!

Forget wizzing around in tubes like in Futurama, or having your own bubble car as seen in the highly optimistic era that produced the Jetsons, we are facing an under reported challenge to carry on moving in the face of oil depletion. You see if you look back just 70 years, we started building our local transport networks around electricity. We had trams and we lived so local that one would not even need a car to get to the shops, lest need a bus pass to get to work or school (people could and did have lunch at home), and oh the bus ran on electric too.

Ah but don’t worry, the bofins in central government have a plan; Faster electric trains to London is what we need, for the low carbon economy (to produce a “modal shift” away from domestic air travel) and so in March the spotlight was thrown on a High Speed Rail (HSR) network. This would be linking London to Birmingham in around 45 minutes as phase one, work to begin in 2017 and run (or run over) into 2026 and beyond, phase ONE, which doesn’t really involve linking to Scotland which would make the Third Runway at Heathrow, surplus to requirements. Now I don’t know about you, but the last time Labour sighted the words “45 minutes” in a report, it was rather dodgy and highly sexed up!

You see if you look back just 70 years, we started building our local transport networks around electricity, our rail system was vital to our economic growth. We had trams and we lived so local that one would not even need a car, lest need a bus pass, and oh the bus ran on electric too.

As you can already see, High Speed rail then, has nothing to do with helping us get around day to day any faster or without a high carbon car or bus to move us around. Reading between the lines, the fact that it’s 2010 and we need a plan by 2030, is perhaps the driving force behind this focus on rail.

What About Local Rail in the Face of Oil Depletion
I’ve been so motivated by this issue recently that I’ve asked for information from our local transport authority what the plans are to improve local rail infrastructure. They sent a thick prospectus that raises hopes that Walsall will be connected to Lichfield by train and the suburbs of North Birmingham by light rail, and also highlights the bus routes that are an absolute must to keep running. There is a focus on increasing the area in which the “journey to work” is less than 45 minutes, again I point you in the direction the dodgey dosiers department. All these plans, are just that. Plans.

All these plans, are just that. Plans. Next to the Walsall to Birmingham via Great Barr Metro route, there is marked “phase two”. Next to Walsall to Lichfield by direct train through Brownhills there is marked “no formal status”.

Local public transport is in the grip of a crisis. Our national infrastructure is fine. It takes the best part of an hour and a half to get from Walsall to Lichfield by rail (a 25 minute car journey) because we don’t have direct local rail links. Walsall to Wolverhampton? Forget it, the 529 bus service has put that one on the back burner. Yet you see the problem with the bus is, it hasn’t got a future! Only rail has a sustainable base on which to cope with the coming ceasing up of local travel. The Green Party argued in this months local elections that it is madness to consider a High Speed Rail link bewteen Birmingham and London, when local rail is in desperate need of improved journey times and as a traveller on our local trains, I have to admit, that won my vote.

Now look at Manchester, take a look at Sheffield, consider Newcastle and perhaps take a deep breath, consider European cities who managed to hold on to their trams and improve them despite rising car ownership.

Whatever Happened To our Trams?
The Yam Yam are doing an excellent job on covering the ups and downs of our “tram network” that is made up of just one route, hardley a network then?! We have a light rail system called the Midland Metro, on paper it sounds great. In reality, it was theorised in the 1980’s, it took almost 20 years to open, I rode one of the first journey’s in 1999 (11 years ago), and that’s the only route we have (needless to say it duplicates a much faster rail link between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, but the point is it serves the communites of North West Birmingham and the Black Country, whereas the train doesn’t). Plans for further routes either have no formal status or are facing major funding problems, and Walsall is at the heart of these plans, but they are just plans with no commitments. Now look at Manchester, take a look at Sheffield, consider Newcastle and perhaps take a deep breath, consider European cities who managed to hold on to their trams and improve them despite rising car ownership.

Funding Crisis
With cut backs already being announced, I fail to see how we will even get a second or third Metro route off the drawing boards, let alone a duplication of a service between two major cities. 2010, is a bit late to start putting plans in place for the coming oil shocks, of which we had one at the start of this current downturn, July 2008. High Speed Rail, which is there to replace air travel, can only sap funding away from more local rail projects and HSR would benefit the minority not the majority, therefore we can argue with some vigour that it is wholey unfair to replace air travel with high speed rail while not investing in local rail which would benefit you and me day in day out.

As a commuter who wants to leave the car at home every once in a while and get around to see my friends and get to work in less than 2 hours, I find it highly frustrating that all this money should be going into projects to create a low carbon economy, that fails to 1) get me out of my car 2) improve local journey times and 3) ignores the very real fact that local rail and rapid light rails systems are SO hugely important as we get closer to 2020, it begars belief we are still putting our faith in the bus! We need to look again at this, and localisation is one way we can cope with the idea that we may have to travel a lot less in the future.

It would be great to see lanes turned over to trams, to see local train stations such as Willenhall, Brownhills, Aldridge, Streetly and more, re-open! It’ll take a long time, perhaps we won’t get this before 2030, perhaps we won’t get this at all

I hope this blog post has motivated you to contact Network West Midlands and push for better local travel. I drive a car because our public transport system can be utterly shocking, but I also see it as a vital part of the future of the region of which rail was immensly important. When the next oil shock comes, perhaps £2 or £3 a litre, it might be time to start investing that money which we do in our road travel, into our rail roads instead!

It would be great to see lanes turned over to trams, to see local train stations such as Willenhall, Brownhills, Aldridge, Streetly and more, re-open! It’ll take a long time, perhaps we won’t get this before 2030, perhaps we won’t get this at all. Perhaps our best hopes are the mixed used developments and walkable communities that are poping up in Walsall. I do know one thing, all of us are going to have to get used to a world without the bus or the car, or pay through the nose for oil based transportation systems.

Climate Change? Look Closer!
If this has really aroused your interest in peak oil, there are some excellent films out there to watch, mainly American in presentation, but they did peak in the 1970’s ;) One film comes to mind, “Escape from Suburbia“, highlights these very issues as does “The End of Suburbia”, how we went from living local and having trams and grand train stations, to commuting 50 or 60 miles a day and letting our rail system die. Another “A Crude Awakening”, follows similar lines and interviews the same people. A BBC docudrama set in 2016 (that’s 5 and a half years from now) but made in 2006 put petrol at £1.33 a litre (we are close to that), that was called “If” subtitle, “the oil ran out” and highlighted two years before the downturn that oil at $100/barrel would trigger an economic collapse, low and behold I kid you not, we know what happened at the end of 2008! We hit $147 that summer and the Dow Jones nose dived. We have to sort this out!

Which usually means new projects! When I saw that he was touring material for a new acoustic EP, and that he was re-visiting The Glee in Birmingham, I just had to go! My third Natty gig then was stripped back and very intimate, he introduced new songs and told us what the deal was with the EP, hence the blog post about this great idea!

Natty – Bedroom Eyes

Pledge Music
Through pledgemusic.com he’s selling the EP as it is being created, which is just about as far away from a traditional business model as you can get, but he’s also raising funds for chairty at the same time. How amazing is that! In this case The Sarcoma Research Fund. It’s like pre-ordering even though the product isn’t yet finished, in essense the fans become investors in the production and recording of the EP as well as doing something for a charity that means something to the artist!

In essense the fans become investors in the production and recording of the EP as well as doing something for a charity that means something to the artist! A very different way of moving through the music industry!

The “Things I’ve Done Ep” of which we got to hear songs from, live, then sounds really good. It’s a slight departure from Man Like I, there’s a different vibe as Natty puts it but there is still the Reggae aspect heavily at work in the songs. The new song “Street Lights” raises an interesting question for us social media types; If Internet connections were ripped up, would we still be able to meet up and chat, would we want to go out into the streets at night if all the street lights were turned off? Are we really connected or are we just crossing paths only on a digital basis? I thought about that a lot as I returned home by train, quite often we could and do get by offline, but are we too invested in our bubbles? Lyrically he is a genius, the gig itself was very intimate and towards the end everyone was feeling the love and myself, well I just danced like nobody was watching.

Click the following badge to get through to his pledge site and listen to a snippet of Street Lights