Riots | The new social consciousness

It’s amazing that as a society we have the potential to actually reduce ourselves to rubble in both the metaphorical sense and the literal one. What’s remarkable though is how much of a fantastic tool Twitter turned out to be as a result of all of the nonsense that went on.

I’ve been a sporadic user of Twitter myself. I went through periods of tweeting my every action to long spells of nothing. One thing I never really did was actually LOOK at the twitter feed for any length of time. Now, I know that sounds like watching paint dry, but after looking long and hard it became clear that this is the closest we have ever gotten to a tangible, realistic social stream of consciousness, bar eventually plugging ourselves into our computers.

As I watched the feed I was alerted to so much violence and disruption happening all around me. I wouldn’t have had any idea unless I’d actually been in the zone, but Twitter provided an ‘on the ground’ perspective from those people actually experiencing the riots.

I could join in with the chorus of damnation coming from everyone discussing how awful it all was, but to be honest we all know that and there isn’t much point spelling it out again. I mean I am a born and bred Londoner. London is and has been my home for the last twenty six (almost twenty seven) years. I have lived in most of the areas which were pulled down by these idiots, however look at something positive that came out of what happened; modern technology was proved to be a social boon.

You can also say that Twitter allowed these people to plan the event but nothing was done on Twitter that couldn’t be achieved via email, Blackberry Messenger, SMS or actual phone calls whereas the stream of news and updates about the riots were much more beneficial.

Of course the main thing that came out of the mess was that fantastic hashtag which really showed what Londoners and the British really represent; #RiotCleanUp

Recess | Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated

So here we are again. It’s been several months since I posted a blog and it probably seems to the world that I’ve either disappeared, become a recluse or died (perhaps all of the above). Although I guess when you die you become a recluse by default, and then disappear into obscurity. Isn’t that a cheery thought? No? OK, we’ll move on…

So my hiatus hasn’t been for no good reason; I’ve been a busy little bee completing a myriad of production and writing work which had snowballed over the months leading up to my disappearance. I know it’s rude to leave without saying goodbye, and that I did promise that I’d be around a bit more, but hey, what’s a boy to do? I’ll definitely be here from now on, although maybe a little less frequently. Like a lover that’s got

Wiki defines a ‘recess’ as ‘a general term for a period of time in which a group of people is temporarily dismissed from its duties’ which is a damn fine definition of what I did, so I’ll stick with that for the time being. It also seems rather fitting that it’s all occurred during a recession, little things like that tickle me. I don’t know why.

Needless to say I have much to tell everyone about the many things I’m working on (and will be working on) over the rest of the year (which is getting alarmingly short isn’t it!? What the…) and I’ll be posting my thoughts, aspirations, goings on and movements as and when they happen.

So here’s to the rest of 2011… may I be a better man at the end of it!