WANT! (Dom's unofficial birthday list)

I saw this great book in WHSmiths in Euston Station yesterday. It's on a genuinely fascinating topic and more to the point has received good reviews on Amazon. So to all of my chums out there, or any particularly generous strangers, this is top of my birthday* wishlist!

 Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo

* I turn 26 on 11 April,2010 just in case you were wondering......

Snow fun outside tonight

I'm sitting in a warm pub at the moment, with the cricket on and a pint in hand but I can't settle. For I know that out in London tonight, thousands of shivering, sodden souls will be huddling in slush-filled doorways praying for the soft release of an unbroken night's sleep that'll never come.

I know this because it's a documented fact. Not because of ten people I've passed this evening, all wanting the change from my pockets. No, the hard fact is that we all live with the knowledge that there are those outside our cosy houses in the dead of night, vulnerable to the elements and to other people.

So what do you do? What do we do? Throw some coppers? Keep your fingers tightly clasped around your wallet, afraid you might be funding another's drug habit? Well no actually, thanks to heroes like Ken Deeks and John Bird, there are real options.

John Bird is the founder of The Big Issue and Ken Deeks created the annual tech industry sponsored sleepout, Byte Night. Both are individuals who through their work have extended a ladder to those on the street, giving them the opportunity to climb back to a position of safety and respect.

John is especially interesting to me, for his utilisation of a capitalist model as part of his charity. This was bourne out in a column of his I read in The Big Issue before Christmas. In the piece John railed against the now common practice amongst consumers of paying the cover price to vendors without taking the magazine. His argument was simply that people on the street learn a a culture of dependence. Being given help and aid rather than earning it, diminishes your desire to support yourself and robs you of the self-confidence to believe that you can. By giving the money without taking the mag, you're undermining the work being done by The Big Issue. After all if you're going to do that why not just chuck some change at the guys feet instead.

This is a fairly hard line to take for someone who used be homeless himself but it makes sense. Make someone work for their money and not only will they respect themselves and the cash more but they can then take forward skills that can be applied in the future.

So this bleak mid-winter, if you want to help out those thousands on the street, I urge you to do a little research into the work being carried out by both Byte Night and The Big Issue. It's good for the soul and a a good way to make sure that your cash goes towards a solution rather than simply supporting the status quo.

Why Britain needs a re-brand

British people don't care about the UK any more. The era of national pride has passed and all that is left is a divided, self-interested populous with more loyalty to celebrities and brands than to British people.

I know this because I am one.

Over the past decade, for this is all I can talk knowledgeably about, Britain has become a fragmented state. We have experienced quasi-devolution whereby Wales and Scotland have their own parliaments but still kowtow to Westminster, leading to further anti-British fervour. We have seen a breakdown in society where communities are so transient, especially prevalent in cities, that neighbours don't know each other's names - nevermind actually communicating with each other.

In a society where the crowd is this disparate, without any common bonds, how can we expect to rise and rage against the tide of anti-social behaviour that exists in every nook and cranny? You might argue that anti-social behaviour isn't that rife but think; how many times have you been forced to listen to someone else's music because they didn't think to check whether it was audible; how many times have you seen the elderly stranded in tube carriages because no-one will move; how many times everyday do you see people queue jump, push in front or just show disinterest in the needs and well-being of others?

These minor offences happen all the time and yet each unchecked incident of anti-social behaviour erodes the commonly held values of the masses. If teenagers, children and even middle-aged bankers learn that they will not be pilloried for focusing on themselves to the detriment of others, it reduces their sense of shame. What's more every observer to that act feels more alone by the failure of a cohesive response to it, leading to fear that will harden into anger and disinterest.

So back to the main thrust of this piece, why does Britain need a 're-brand' of all things? A brand is what? A brand is a distinguishing name and/or symbol, intended to identify a product Well, I guess we have the brand but it represents an undefined product. What is it that Britain represents to you? Leave me a comment if you can think of anything positive that represents every head of populous but after ten minutes I'm still stumped.

What is Britain other than a collection of individuals tied together by mutually held - or in years gone by - enforced beliefs? Imagine if a company tried to separate itself into three divisions and each one was allowed to create its own mission statement independent of each of the others. Very soon you would have three companies with no evidence to ever suggest that they were once part of a whole. This is the situation in Britain except the divisions are smaller, sometimes to the level of individuals.

How about instead we act and create a consensus of the small, relatively inconsequential values that we all would like to adhere to, for example something as small as "always give up your seat for those more infirm or in need than yourself". These ideologies would stray away from matters of faith or creed and focus on the day to day. Each time that a citizen wanted to apply for a driving licence, National Insurance, benefit payment or passport they would be required to sign up to these basic values. Any transgression would result in suspension of the use of any and all of those items, empowering people to try to enforce them.

The benefits would be multiple. People would feel empowered to stand up against anti-social behaviour and the shoots of anarchic behaviour would be cut down by the crowd. The best thing is that it does nothing to stifle revolution or kowtow to policy, it just says that there is something powerful and beautiful in this random assortment of people. FFS let's just all be nice to one another!

Paying it forward (lessons from Madrid)

So this is a fairly funny post all in all. It’s a quasi-travel post and yet I haven’t finished (not even nearly) writing up my travels in Vietnam from over two months ago. The thing is though that something fairly amazing happened to me this weekend and I would feel remiss if I didn’t share it.

It all started with an alarm that went off a little too early for my liking at 4am on Thursday morning. An alarm that was ignored and a holiday flight to Madrid that was consequently missed. Two hours later and £40 lighter than necessary, I did however arrive in Madrid ready to start my five day jolly in Spain’s capital.

I was staying in a hostel dorm to keep costs down and to provide a little company, as this was an excursion I was taking on my own. Luckily the place I was staying had a great set of evening activities and so after half a day wandering the city I went to experience some nightlife. After a night checking out the local hostelries I retired in the early hours of the morning full of excitement and ready for the days ahead.

The next day was spent in the massive park to the east of the city with some new Aussie chums from the night before and that evening we planned a tour of some of Madrid’s tapas bars.

Three beautiful out of the way bars later that evening, a short bald-headed man dropped some change at my feet and on his way to pick it up played a comedic little game grabbing my legs. A second later my wallet - and with it all of the money I had for the trip, my bank cards and my driving licence - were gone.

This is where the story really gets interesting. In this position on a random icy Madrid street with - to all intents and purposes - complete strangers, I was screwed. I had no money to eat or to get to the airport and no way to access money even if it were wired across. Without intervention I would have spent my remaining days in Madrid begging for emergency funds from the consulate and generally being a burden to all I met.

Instead, my companions of only a couple of hours took pity and fronted me enough money to not just survive but to enjoy my remaining days in Madrid.

Without Claire, Bethany, Lucy and Matt I wouldn’t have seen the Palace, spent an evening with some of Madrid’s best flamenco musicians or had anything even approaching the experience I did. To those four people I will reiterate my utter gratitude. I had my faith in mankind thoroughly restored.

Obviously I was never in a position of real strife but there are plenty of those that are. If you’re reading this it means you have access to the internet, that you can read and that you have a predilection for pretentious self-involved writing. All of the above single you out as a misguided but ultimately fortunate individual and I urge you to pay some of your good fortune forward.

This Christmas when it gets cold, and every month from now on, please don’t just walk on by. Don’t be cynical because it’s easier than showing trust and belief.

Be the nice guy and make someone’s life a little better.

My Travels in Vietnam - Part One

So before I start I guess I should explain that the following blog posts are a summary of my activities abroad in Vietnam travelling with a friend. A lot of what we did is fairly standard amongst travellers but some elements were entirely by accident and were a welcome and exciting deviation from the norm. I’ll try and cover our whole journey with the bits we found useful along the way, keeping it as readable as possible. I hope you enjoy it.

So Why Vietnam?

I REALLY needed a holiday and so I, along with a mate of mine who had just finished his last finance exams, decided to head off somewhere.

My mate in this case was Matt, a long-suffering school friend, and both he and I had previously decided that a fortnight on an anonymous Mediterranean beach sitting alongside sweaty, beery Brits sounded like less fun than going skinny dipping in Llandudno – at Christmas. On this basis two weeks in Magaluf wasn’t really going to cut it. We decided to go somewhere a tad more adventurous.

Together sitting around tables in our local The Queen Adelaide, we hashed together a rough shortlist of potential destinations:

• The Inca Trail
• Windsurfing in Margherita
• Trekking to Everest Base Camp
• Vietnam

Vietnam was finally chosen as a winner; less because of its incredible scenery, relevance to current US foreign policy or the incredible spring rolls on offer but because it was the only trip not to require any physical training beforehand. So with Lonely Planets in hand we organised a very rough schedule and organised visas, plane tickets and all the other dull crap needed to get to Vietnam these days.

The Start

On Friday, 11th September at the very impolite hour of 7:30am I strolled over to Matt’s with my 65 litre Osprey rucksack, drawing the rude glances of commuters as they headed off to their grey jobs in the City. On arrival I proceeded to pack and repack my rucksack all over Matt’s lounge floor, checking nothing had been left and pondering if I was taking too much – as I invariably was. 

Rule 1 of the novice’s guide to travelling – If you take nothing but a toothbrush, a towel and bar of soap you’ll probably have over packed. It’s possible to beg, steal and borrow (or even purchase) anything you’ve forgotten or thought about not bringing but decided you should “just in case”. If in doubt, don’t take it.

We zipped through Heathrow and after 16 hours of sleepless flight-time travelling via Hong Kong, Matt and I landed in Ho Chi Minh City (henceforth referred to as Saigon).

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Upon picking up luggage from the conveyor you’ll very quickly feel the warm clammy air of Saigon surround you in an over-familiar embrace. As the automatic doors of the airport open and close, little clouds of moisture move through the arrivals hall like the heavy breath of a drunk on the tube.

Once out into Saigon proper however it’s far more pleasant. Matt and I were by this stage totally underprepared and had our noses deep in our guidebooks trying to find out both where the sodding hotel was and also how much we should haggle for a taxi.

Our concentration was regularly broken by the daisy chain of cabbies surrounding us. We were evidently the ‘fresh meat’ and they took great pleasure in prodding us and trying to drag our luggage in a variety of directions whilst filling our hands with business cards and leaflets. They bloody love their business cards! 

Once we had found the relevant paragraphs in our guides and safe in the knowledge that a ride to central Saigon should cost no more than $10, we began the process of securing a lift. In the act of trying to get ourselves a reasonable fare we learnt the first rule of negotiation: don’t do it in public.

Normally when trying to barter you’ve got a little leverage because the seller’s competitors will drive costs down as they jockey for your money but in this case the taxi drivers seem to have some kind of union operating. Once our first port of call audibly named his price it became ‘the price’ and no one would be taken down below it. Matt and I, having been awake for 30 odd hours by this stage and weary of expending any extra effort did what would become an all too familiar action by the end of the trip, looked at each other muttered, “ah bugger it”, and paid double the recommended price for the journey. An auspicious start!

Luckily Matt had booked an absolute winner of a hotel, which was a little on the pricey side at $40 a night but the perfect place to grab a couple of uninterrupted hours as we lay on our double bed with a wall of pillows down the centre that made the Maginot Line look penetrable (perhaps a bad choice of simile there?).

To be honest the pillows were only deemed necessary after Matt mentioned that when he was in bed with someone he tends to act on habit. Intending to make sure that I wasn’t mistaken for Matt’s girlfriend fortifications were necessary, hence the pillows.

Anyway after a short nap, Matt and I untangled from one another and decided to go for a wander around the backpacker district where we were holed up. I was disappointed. Far from the hedonistic scene I had envisioned with open copulation on the streets and the inane giggling of pre-uni folk off their heads on substances, it was a really pleasant little grid of side streets with little cafés and bars dotted about. Even a few tourist shops selling tat in all its colours and shapes. A little like many of the nice streets just off Soho in London, just with fewer sex shops.

We settled for a quick beer and then headed off into Saigon proper and the thing that struck me first is that every street is a veritable boulevard, with four lane roads the norm and the motorists on each road showing a healthy disrespect for any kind of traffic regulation. Crossing points are widely ignored, as are traffic lights and speed limits. Horns sound out continuously, not in anger or annoyance but because when you’re about to undertake someone or run a red light you need to alert others to it or you’ll die. In amongst all of this chaos is a traffic system that works and one that has remarkably few accidents considering the congestion on the roads. 

With traffic refusing to slow or stop for anything or anyone how does anyone cross a road we pondered? Well, this is the beauty, you just start walking. Saigon natives pick a moment when, say, only 17 motorcyclists are bearing down on them and slowly step into the road. Then at a tortoise like crawl they slowly traverse the road. The motorcyclists don’t stop, or even attempt to, but knowing that there’s someone in the road and being able to judge where they’ll be when the bike is within crashing distance allows a last minute swerve around the pedestrian and an interrupted flow of traffic.

Matt and I were unconvinced that we’d survive our first crossing on our own and so chose to walk across using an ancient Vietnamese chap with a zimmer as our human body shield.

That first crossing was one of the most invigorating experiences of my life, as the breeze from passing traffic rushed by me, messing my hair and tickling the back of my throat I felt like a god. That last comment probably says more about my inflated ego than anything else, but it was a wonderful moment to feel that you were taking your life in your own hands. I trust all other visitors feel the same. After that initial rush of adrenaline I had an overwhelming temptation to spend all afternoon crossing back and forth at junctions. We couldn’t however as we had only two days in the city and so we went over to The War Remnants museum.

This place is legendary amongst tourists for its explicit portrayal of the atrocities committed against the Vietnamese by a long list of aggressors that includes the Japanese, Chinese, French and Americans. The photography from the Vietnam War of GIs shooting women and children, dismembered heads and re-countings of incidents is utterly stomach churning. Just in case visitors want to try to contextualise the images as something a long time resolved and now no longer of relevance, the museum has also curated a gallery of Agent Orange victims.

Agent Orange was the deforestation chemical dropped over the Vietnamese jungles to clear the hideouts of Viet Cong troops. It also had the side-effect of producing horrific birth defects. The gallery portrays children with huge tumours, Thalidomide type disabilities and all number of horrific injuries. This is of course in a country with no wealth for drugs and without a national health service. The impact of this one chemical, this one tactic, will be felt for generations, a disgusting and inexcusable legacy of an unnecessary conflict.

And yet, amongst all of this disgust that seemed to eke out of my every pore, waves of cynicism occasionally broke. I still can’t make up in my own mind how I feel about the museum. It undoubtedly raises awareness of the horrific and sickening impact of war, not least through use of the huge arsenal of US planes, tanks and cannons outside in the car park, but it’s also a huge propaganda machine. Either way I’m glad we went, it put into context so much of what we would see over the next 15 days.  

33 at the MIR Mixer - This is why I hide from video cameras

My Hotwire colleagues Alexis and Lauren and I, representing 33 Digital, all recently attended the great Mobile Industry Review Mixer thrown by Mr Ewan MacLeod.

It was after a few beers at a particularly vulnerable point in my evening that Alexis dragged me in front of Ewan's probing lens and suggested that I should represent 33 in a little piece on mobile PRs. Anyway I did my best - possibly not good enough - and the result is below and can also be found on another Ewan MacLeod publication, Mobile Developer TV.

Click play and get ready to cringe......

EMI beta (A short review)

iTunes, Spotify, Last.fm - The three horsemen of the apocalypse as far as music's concerned right?

Well no, not really. Let's face it if you're going to list out the portents of doom for this particularly industry the list would be longer than the receipt for my bi-monthly trip to Sainsburys. You can add to this list YouTube, Blip.fm and a few million file sharing networks. None of these have been quite so damaging to the established music industry however as the perceived anachronistic attitude of music labels by consumers.

In the minds of the media, labels have appeared rather protective over the old media fiefdoms and rather than embracing the revenue generating potential of new media have sought to crush its progress as a channel for unwanted competition.

Which is why it's so refereshing to see a thoroughly new media website owned by a traditional face in the music industry. Even the 'beta' in the title bar of EMI's site is like a bucket of cucumber-infused ice cold water to the face. An old media megalith producing something that's not quite finished? Unthinkable!

What I love most about this site however, beyond the volumes it speaks in terms of the reviewed position of EMI to digital, is the simplicity of the site. Too often brands playing around with digital media, stuff sites to the gills with shiny things and widgets but EMI's attempt is spot on - enough multimedia to add value without cluttering up the screen.

My favourite element of the whole site however is the largest head tip to Last.fm; the Discover section. I only hope that the algorithm improves with time and experience to become something to really shout home about.

I have to admit prior to this exercise, motivated by schwag and t-shirts on offer from fuelmyblog, I'd never really checked out the sites of music labels but I'll be going back for a return visit to EMI's. I do wish they had a phone number on the site, though.