BJK&E

It’s official – by next month mobile phone calls could be allowed on planes flying in European airspace. Under new European Commission rules mobiles could be used once a plane has reached an altitude of 3,000m or more.

The decision to offer the services will now fall to individual airlines, but there are some regulatory hurdles to overcome before the technology is fully approved. The European Aviation Safety Agency needs to approve the hardware that would be installed in the aircraft to ensure it didn’t interfere with other flight systems.

Air France is believed to be ready to deploy the technology while Ryanair is expected to submit an application. (Airlines to avoid, perhaps?)

I do think that allowing mobile-phone calls is a good thing, especially for people on important business. But we’ve all been stuck on a bus or train with a woman who just won’t (or seemingly can’t) stop gabbing away. Let’s hope they put in some decent restrictions so as not to annoy the majority of passengers!

Geeks. Is there an end to their abilities?  Some of the aforementioned persons of an academically inclined nature have created a MASSIVE robo-dog  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww). As we sat watching, mutterings such as the following were raised…..”That’s great. It’s freaky looking, But what does it do?”. Upon watching to the end all questions of this ilk are answered by statements such as……”oh!” and “ah, that’s what it does”. The future is now people. Scary stuff, huh?

Culture Club - F Comme Faim

The slightly reconfigured BJK&E Culture Club’s March activity was a visit to the British Museum to catch a film in the London International Documentary Festival (LIDF) series. The festival boasts 8 days, 8 venues, 80 conversations and as one venue is right on our doorstep it seemed a shame to miss out.

The documentary we were seeing (F Comme Faim / H for Hunger) was described as a passionate & creative exploration of the biology, history, politics and economics of hunger in the blurb so none of us were expecting a light comedy, however, I don’t think we were prepared for how shocking and harrowing it was. The subtitled French film worked as a 90 monologue, with a particularly agressive French narrator pointing the finger squarely in each and every one of our faces for the continuing famine that occurs in so many areas of the world. Throughout the film, he would draw different illustrations … an early one showed one jumbo jet carrying 300 people. The narrator asked you to consider the shock reaction in terms of media coverage etc that would occur if that plane crashed killing all on board… then revealed that the death rate through starvation is the equivalent of 30 jumbos every day, i.e. one person every second.

The film actually made very uncomfortable watching and I found myself squirming in my seat - as everyone from the Pope to people who feed their pets ahead of their fellow man were accused. It has certainly raised some interesting debate since. Without delving too far into the various personal views of famine that have arisen the problem is that this is not a black and white issue with a simple solution, indeed the film made no attempt to offer a solution as to how people can make things better other than eating and wasting less. This initially made me come away feeling frustrated and impotent. I guess there is no easy answer and it is rather encouraging you to think about others who suffer privately away from media coverage and consider how you can help.

Hard-hitting, thought-provoking and highly controversial. 

Culture Non Club - Carlos Acosta

On a lighter note, last night I had the opportunity to see Carlos Acosta at The Coliseum.

Carlos is a Cuban ballet dancer - one of 11 children his parents pushed him into it to keep him out of trouble and off the streets. He is now one of the leading names in ballet having performed as principal artist with all the leading ballet companies around the world. He even has his own website:

http://www.carlosacosta.com/

He is absolutely phenomenal, astonishing stage presence, very impressive physique & a fantastic dancer. The show was so good I could have cried. Critics are saying that, at the ripe old age of 35, his best days are probably behind him …  in which case catch him on stage while you can, it will definitely be an experience to remember.

Amazing what you can do with plenty of time on your hands, a good computer and an idea for trying to show off your creative talents. One such chap is Kobayashi a young animation director living in London who decided to have some fun with Sony. Quite how they feel about this ‘unofficial’ video is anyone’s guess, but if nothing else it’s impressive what has been done on probably a budget of nothing more than blood, sweat and tears.

click on the link to take a look

http://www.koba-yashi.co.uk/

As one of only two TV specialists at BJK+E (Andy ‘Benny’ Benningfield is TV Director) I’ve always felt slightly ‘unique’ in my role here at BJK+E. Although (hopefully!) admired and valued by my lovely colleagues, this time of year only serves to remind me of my uniqueness as the football season draws to a close with the sudden rush of FA Cup semi-finals, Champion’s League Quarter finals and play-off ‘run ins’. As a consequence of location of birth and a desire not to support one of the big four* during my formative years, I decided to support Charlton Athletic; a club that no-one really dislikes as we’re never going to threaten the Man U’s and Arsenal’s of this world.

Supporting a club which constantly flirts between Premiership and second division football (I make no apologies for being a traditionalist - Coca Cola Championship indeed!) creates its very own set of challenges. Banter over forthcoming fixtures takes place via e-mail as my fellow BJKE’ers enthusiastically debate the Arsenal versus Liverpool or Fenerbache versus Chelsea  in the Champion’s League (an away fixture at Gillingham is about a European as it gets at the Valley nowadays). I avoid the much vaunted media ‘water cooler moments’ as the conversation turns to Sky or Setanta’s coverage of the big game from the weekend. A colleague recently asked me to name my all-time Charlton XI.. I struggled ) though the front two of Derek Hales and Clive Mendonca looked a dream ticket in any team). An ex-colleague supported Wolves though having lost 3-2 at home to them at the weekend, I was relieved that it was Natalie who  greeted me on reception when I came to work on Monday.

Every cloud has a silver lining however…. it appears that several of my colleagues teams are dabbling with relegation this season. A trip to White Hart Lane next season would certainly guarantee goals and means that I could use my Oyster card. Whilst the journey to St James Park presents far more logistical and financial challenges, Newcastle is meant to be a good night out.

As the season draws to a close, we are sitting a lowly eleventh in the table, four points off a play-off place and a further eight points from automatic promotion. Worst still, Crystal Palace sit two places above us; another season in the second division is one thing, but to finish below the Eagles… please no.

Ah well, there’s always Kent in the cricket. At least they won something last season.
*(yep, that actually did include Spurs when I was a little ‘un. I remember the 1981 Cup Final replay with that Ricky Villa goal….)

The two most talked about April fool advertising jokes yesterday featured animals. BMW with their dog electrocuting technology (http://www.bmweducation.co.uk/coFacts/linkDocs/caninerepellent.asp) and the BBC iPlayer and their flying penguins (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23qDl1aH9l4).

The penguins win it for me. Bizarrely ‘uplifting’ piece.

Podcasts have been becoming more and more talked about over the past few years, largely due to Ricky Gervais producing some podcasts in a hiatus between the office and Extras. In fact, podcasts have been around for longer than some may think, and on Easter Monday BBC Radio Five Live had a 1 hour show discussing anything and everything about podcasts, and surprise surprise it’s available as a podcast now!

It is an interesting listen starting off with the basics for the uninitiated, then moves into some of the areas of how podcasts will develop and probably most importantly, how do you make them a commercially viable form of media which works from a platform where people expect content free.

The thing is in the vast majority of cases you can’t. Ricky Gervais had to give his podcasts away to build an audience before charging, and the BBC who have had success with podcasts for years can’t charge. The crux of the matter is having enough content that people can’t get anywhere else and are willing to pay for.

Or there is the adfunded model, but advertisers will need to be demonstrated that a significant number of downloads are taking place to warrant costs of up to circ £5k per podcast. Not the cheapest eh?

Interestingly in the show Channel 4 offer their views as part of 4 Radio, as do the Guardian, who drop the interesting nugget that they will be offering advertisers the chance to do spot advertising in some of their podcasts at the end of the year

If you want to learn more about pod’s and all their glory click on the link http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/pods/ and download For the Love of Pod from 24th March

PS My favourite podcasts at the moment are Fighting Talk (top notch sports banter from the BBC) & the now sadly defunct Baker & Kelly podcast (more comedy ramblings about football) which you will have to search high and low for on the internet but it’s well worth it.

You have been Rickrolled if you have come across a link expecting to find one thing, but actually ended up watching Rick Astley’s music video for his song “Never Gonna Give You Up”.

Rickrolling, apparently, began on 4chan’s imageboard the day of Grand Theft Auto 4’s official website premier. They received such heavy traffic, though, that it was impossible to watch the trailer for quite a while, so someone took it upon themselves to link everyone to a supposedly leaked trailer hosted on YouTube. What they got was Rick Astley.

And then came April Fools’ Day. There were lots of incidents of Rickrolling on April 1st. All the YouTube Featured Videos were hyperlinked to the Rickroll, and Livejournal also got involved by announcing that they would be adding a new member to their Advisory Board, and then linking members to the journal “rickastley”, which contained a Rickroll. Popular gaming sites also decided to Rickroll their users.

I haven’t yet been Rickrolled, but I wouldn’t mind if I was, because to be perfectly honest it is a song that makes me smile, and I’d probably listen to it all the way through too!

According to figures cited by Nielsen Online the social networking site, Facebook, had its first drop in UK users in January. It fell by 5% to 8.5 million from a previous 8.9 million. This has sparked a debate that social networking is in decline, but others argue that one month of falling audiences doesn’t mean the decline of Facebook nor of social networking.

The decrease may have reflected a lower level of fascination with the site but, with 8.5million unique users still active and a growth of 712% from January 2007, Facebook remains the most popular social networking website in the UK.

Myspace also recorded a 5% decrease in January and Bebo suffered a 2% decrease. This may show that the leading social networks are less popular in the UK than they were a year ago, but I would like to see the profile of the people who have left the sites before passing judgement. Nielsen Online measures website traffic based on a panel of UK users at home and work. It does not cover the usage in schools, universities and internet cafes, so the younger internet users are very much under-reported.

And just last week Hitwise cited that Facebook’s market share of UK Internet visits went back to its Christmas peak during the Easter week. Obviously the Easter holidays may have played a role, so we’ll just have to see how the figures change over the next few months, but I think Facebook is here to stay for a while yet!

Seems like things are bad down at terminal 5, wait sorry no it’s the sequel to the cadbury’s gorilla viral ad. Seems someone has spent far too long watching Pixar’s Cars, and has ditched Phil Collins for a spot of glam Queen instead.

No doubt it will spread like wildfire before being on TV, but if nothing else it’s great to see a great British brand doing some great creative advertising.

No idea what airport transport vehicles have to do with chocolate but’s it’s quirky and different and for that I quite like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRso3oR7Zi8