Bristol | Steve Woods

Bristol open data initiative launched

03/07/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Open Data, Tech

Bristol City Council is working with the Future Cities Catapult and the Connected Digital Economy Catapult on a new open data initiative that will help Bristolians improve their city with the help of local authority data.

The partners are working together to release Bristol civic data sets such as traffic management and land use databases to citizens. The collaboration will support developers to use the data to create new products and services to improve how the city of Bristol works, making it easier to get around, reduce waste, save energy or improve the city’s air quality.

Once the data sets are made available online in late summer, citizens and businesses will be invited to explore around one hundred data sets, supported by a series of Catapult-run events and competitions. Bristolians will be supported in testing, prototyping and commercialising their ideas.

Following a successful initial data release, the Catapults and the Council will then create a schedule to release further useful city data sets in consultation with the developer community. The programme’s outcomes will be shared with local authorities, developers and organisations in other UK cities to spread the benefits to the citizens of other cities.

This post originally appeared on Bristol Wireless.
Caption chaos

02/07/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities

Being sloppy is one thing at which the Bristol Post consistently excels and the situation only looks to get worse following the announcement by David Montgomery of Local World – the owners of the Bristol Post – on the future direction of its titles and the role of journalists.

Today’s most glaring howler features photographs with the wrong captions in this article, as illustrated below.

That’s the first locomotive I’ve seen with blonde hair! 😉

The chaos continues with subsequent photographs in the series too.

How anyone can confuse a girl with a locomotive is anyone’s guess.

Is the Post employing visually-impaired journalists?

We should be told.
Use Your Head

28/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Integrate Bristol is a local charity formed to help with the integration of young people and children who hail from other countries and cultures.

In addition, Integrate Bristol campaigns against all forms of violence and abuse against women and girls and promote gender equality; it aims to raise awareness of and promote education around these issues through its creative projects.

One of the forms of abuse Integrate Bristol campaigns against is the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Although strictly illegal in the UK, FGM still continues and laws set in place to protect children do not adequately ensure the protection of girls from practising cultures.

The most recent creative project organised by Integrate Bristol is the #useyourhead video. #useyourhead is the title of the song that launches the next part the campaign by Fahma Mohammed and the young people of Integrate Bristol against FGM. This had its première on Thursday 26th June at Bristol’s Counts Louse (otherwise known as City Hall by some. Ed.).

The video was filmed in many locations around Bristol and features some well-known Bristol personalities, such as the gentlemen from my local kebab shop. Also making it through to the final edit are a couple of dubious dance moves from a pair of Bristol’s minor political irritations, but don’t let that put you off enjoying the video. 🙂

If readers have any concerns regarding FGM, they can call the free 24-hour helpline on 0800 028 3550.

For more information about the work of Integrate Bristol, see http://integratebristol.org.uk/about/.

Update 04/07/2014: from @MsMottram on Twitter, news arrives that the video is now featured on the Cosmopolitan website, where it’s described as “our tune of the summer so far“.
Art up the Feeder

24/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities

In recent years, Bristol has hosted two very successful public arts trails.

Wow! Gorillas was a project sponsored by Bristol Zoo Gardens in 2011 that displayed 61 decorated life-sized fibreglass gorilla sculptures on the city’s streets. It coincided with the zoo’s 175th anniversary. At the end of the event the sculptures were auctioned off, raising £427,300 for gorilla conservation work and for local Bristol charity Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Appeal.

2013 saw Gromit Unleashed take to the streets of Bristol. This saw 1.18 million people visiting the Gromit Unleashed trail and associated exhibition over the 10 weeks of the event last summer. Church Road at Lawrence Hill was one of the sites chosen for a Gromit; it hosted one named Lodekka (posts passim) after the fondly remembered Bristol double-decker bus commonly in use when I first moved to the city in the 1970s.

After these events, the places where any remaining sculptures can be seen on public display can be counted on the fingers of one hand. One gorilla can be seen in North Street, Bedminster and one Gromit adorns the bows of one of the Bristol Ferry Boat Co.’s ferries plying the city docks.

However, there’s one place where both a gorilla and a Gromit can be seen together – Feeder Road alongside the Feeder Canal, historically an area associated with grime and industry, not art of public view.

If you look up a couple of hundred yards beyond the traffic lights, you see them.

Both were bought at the respective charity auctions by Manor Scrap. According to their website, Manor also acquired another gorilla, but this cannot be viewed from the road from what I could see.

Chatting to Pete, the boss of Manor Scrap recently, I understand that the next sculpture trail to be organised in the city will be based on another Aardman animated character – Sean the Sheep.

Will Shawn end up down the Feeder too?
Bristol Post: England invests £168 in roads

21/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities, Politics

According to yesterday’s online edition of the Bristol Post, the Department of Transport is to invest the princely sum of £168 – the largest amount it has spent on tarmac for four decades – in England’s road network.

Of this total, the amount earmarked for local authorities in the Bristol area swells magically to more than £2 mn., according to a this piece by an unidentified Post hack.

The second paragraph of the report reads as follows:

The handout from a £168 funding pot which will see more than £3 million potholes filled is part of what is being billed as “the biggest investment in roads since the 1970s”.

For those who prefer their information unmangled by the illiterates of the local media, the original Department of Transport press release is available here.
Photo captions: out of focus

16/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities

There’s a certain art to captions for photographs used to illustrate news pieces; photographs provide additional interest to what could otherwise be a dull bit of prose.

Today the Bristol Post features one story which seems to provide an element of unintentional comedy, as shown by the following pictures and their captions used in a slideshow in the piece in question.

Foxtrot Oscar?

Thank you for a lovely evening on the beat…

The International Journalists Network has published guidance on writing photo captions. Its first paragraph states:

Photo captions are often the first elements of a publication to be read. Writing photo captions is an essential part of the news photographer’s job. A photo caption should provide the reader basic information needed to understand a photograph and its relevance to the news. It should be written in a consistent, concise format that allows news organizations to move the photo to publication without delay.

I’ll note quote the rest of the photo captions advice, but would recommend it be read – and acted upon – by the residents of Bristol’s Temple Way Ministry of Truth. 🙂
Juvenile errors

10/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics

Today’s online version of the Bristol Post carried a piece with a real howler of a typo in its headline, as shown by the following screenshot.

After reading the headline, I was uncertain as to whether our councillors are below the minimum age or ‘earn’ less than the minimum wage for their services.

The typographical error in the headline has since been corrected.

By equating the councillor’s allowance with a wage or salary, the Post is making yet another juvenile error. Elected members of the City Council receive allowances in recognition of the time, work and costs involved in allegedly representing the people of Bristol; a wage is defined by Collins English Dictionary as a “payment in return for work or services, esp[ecially] that made to workmen on a daily, hourly, weekly, or piece-work basis.”

Furthermore, yesterday the Post lifted this story from The Guardian about probable nuclear targets in the UK in the 1970s and completely misinterpreted the map (PDF) produced by The Guardian to accompany the piece, which clearly shows Bristol as a probable nuclear target, one of 106 around the UK. Instead the Post confidently proclaimed in its story that “Bristol was not thought to be important enough to be a target for Soviet missiles, according to government papers made public yesterday”.

Fellow local blogger Stockwood Pete commented this was “Horribly inaccurate reporting even by the Post’s low standards.”

One has to wonder if quality control is beyond the abilities of the Bristol Post.
Under a week to St Werburgh’s Users Forum

04/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol

I’m very proud to be Chair of St Werburgh’s Community Association, a post which I’ve held for the past couple of years.

We’re an organisation that’s very much led by its users – both individuals and groups – and we hold a forum for users annually where we ask them what things should be going on at St Werburgh’s Community Centre, what could be improved and so on.

This year’s forum takes place on Tuesday next week from 3.30 pm and the customary invitation email has been circulated to users. It says:

Our Users Forum is an afternoon full of fun for everybody of all ages. It is a chance to see what goes on at the community centre, join in our free demonstration classes and talk to other users. It is also an opportunity to tell us what you love about us and what you’d like to see improved. We will have plenty of fun activities – including a Children’s Challenge activity with prizes, a bouncy castle, games, ‘Bear Grills’ BBQ and stalls. If you have never been, it is a great opportunity to have a look around the Centre and meet the staff, users and other visitors.

It will also be the last day at work for Centre Manager Goska Ong before she goes on maternity leave, so come along and wish her farewell.
Greenwash: Bristol City Council’s favourite paint

01/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

2015 sees the city of Bristol wearing the crown of European Green Capital.

This award of European Green Capital is allegedly bestowed in recognition of the important role that local authorities play in improving the environment and their high level of commitment to genuine progress.

However, is it deserved in the case of Bristol City Council?

I have my doubts.

Earlier today I discovered tree felling, thinning and scrub clearance had been going on within the last few days at Lawrence Hill roundabout.

This is the middle of the main bird nesting season in the British Isles.

As regards protecting breeding birds and mitigating harm during the breeding season, Natural England’s advice (PDF, p. 4) is as follows:

The main mitigation route to reduce the likelihood of harm to breeding birds is to undertake clearance or destruction of any vegetation or structure which may be used as a breeding site outside the bird breeding season when breeding birds are unlikely to be present (based upon habitat features) or where survey work has confirmed their absence. Avoidance of such features is best achieved through timing of work (see below) but may also be possible by temporarily preventing birds from using these features, before they start doing so. Examples include physical exclusion (preventing access to potential nest sites) or use of visual or audible deterrents. Such measures should only be undertaken following the advice of a suitably experienced ecologist, taking account of relevant legislation and welfare considerations.

The bird breeding season will be dependent upon weather conditions and will vary from year to year, but in general is the period between early March and late August.

Natural England is the government’s advisor on the natural environment, providing practical advice, grounded in science, on how best to safeguard England’s natural wealth for the benefit of everyone.

Furthermore, a quick search of the city council’s website for scrub clearance bird nesting season returns 29,400 hits, with the first page seeming to consist of the council pontificating that no such works should be undertaken when birds are on the nest.

However, it is clear from the pictures above that Bristol City Council’s clear modus operandi is “do as I say, not as I do“.

The English language has a term for such an attitude: hypocrisy.

There’s also a splendid fairly new English word specifically for a superficial or insincere display of concern for the environment shown by organisations: greenwash.

Next year, Bristolians can bet their city will be coated in greenwash, liberally applied with big brushes and rollers by the city council, given its apparent hypocrisy when it comes to nature conservation.
Avon (still) calling

31/05/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Politics
The Heath government’s Local Government Act of 1972 radically overhauled local government arrangements in England and Wales.

In particular, it redrew the map of the shire counties, some of which had been in existence in some form since medieval or Saxon times.

One of the Act’s results was the creation of the County of Avon, a non-metropolitan county, which survived from its creation on 1st April 1974 until its abolition on 31st March 1996, when it was succeeded by the present unitary authorities of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath & North East Somerset.

Despite its abolition and its failure to engage popular support during its existence (it was widely derided at the time as a “cardboard county”. Ed.), Avon is proving harder to eradicate than a vampire. Its legacy can be found all over the West of England and the defunct county’s former administrative area.

In organisational terms, its name crops up in the following public and private bodies:
In addition to the above, there’s still an Avon Coroner’s district, the Forest of Avon community forest project and one can by an Avonrider ticket on local bus services.

Although it ceased to exist nearly two decades ago, many bodies still insist that Avon forms part of the postal address of places like Bristol in spite of the fact that the Royal Mail long since indicated that it was not necessary to include Avon as part of any address as Royal Mail itself had abandoned the use of postal counties in 1996.

The inspiration for this post came from a conversation this morning on Twitter.

Any further instances of the survival of Avon can be posted in the comments below.

Posts navigation