Just another dent in the damage…

The official ‘word’ is in about the ‘fire‘:

I think that the initial point would be to clarify the reason for the evacuation of the building.

There was a small but intense fire on the main stage half way through Propagandhi’s set. (They were scheduled to finish their main set just before 10.00pm).

The fire was centred stage right in one of six linked dimmer racks; equipment used to power the stage lights. Our Assistant Technical Manager extinguished the fire very promptly and it seemed that that was that. However, the heat around the equipment remained very intense and it was feared that there might be a more deep seated fire within the equipment, or that it might reignite. Consequently from a Health and Safety point of view the decision was taken to temporarily stop the concert and evacuate the building whilst the Fire and Rescue Services were called.

Once the band’s crew carried out the show stop and asked everyone to leave, a trouble free evacuation was initiated. The Fire and Rescue Services arrived and examined the seat of the extinguished fire and declared that they thought that it was safe and that we could proceed. The Smiths Indeed, who were playing in the second venue upstairs, had only 3 songs of their set to go when their show was also stopped and they and their audience were also evacuated.

This is the point at which things took an unfortunate turn. Whilst appreciating that everyone was growing increasingly frustrated having been outside for a good half an hour and didn’t know whether they would be re admitted or not, we also did not know the outcome until we’d been given the OK by the Fire Service. A small minority of the audience had also been causing issues by not moving round to the muster point when asked by Security, thus hampering the Fire Services access to the building. This minority became increasingly abusive to staff, which is why the Police stepped in to assist the Security. It was at this moment that some bright spark, in a blue checked shirt [Liam from Scunthorpe - I hereby out you], decided to karate kick and destroy one of the glass panels in the front door.

A few others then turned on members of the Security firm we hire and the Police. It was unfortunate that this incident occurred, as at about the same time it was happening, we had just finalised a plan to readmit and continue the show.

• The Band had agreed to carry on and were just coming off the tour bus to re enter the building
• We as a venue were prepared to continue.
• The Promoter who had hired the Academy to put on his show with Propagandhi had also already agreed to proceed with the show.

So the plan was to re admit and continue till the end of both bands scheduled sets and then prepare for the following club night which as a venue we had accepted would have to start later. Unfortunately, following the vandalism and disturbance outside the building, the Police refused to allow us to re admit, but to be perfectly honest whilst it was proportionally only a small amount of people that were causing the problem, it also made us think twice about re admitting.

The Venue’s stance is, however, to a certain degree, irrelevant because as soon as that guy put his foot through the front door he effectively put the decision in the Police’s hands.

Whilst I believe announcements were made by the Police and some Security concerning refunds, they weren’t authorised to announce this and it was never considered as an option on the night. This is because until the trouble kicked off we were going to allow re-entry and the band were willing to carry on.

The Promoter had to pay the band because they had / were willing to honour their contract. Consequently, there will not be any refunds in the traditional sense. However, as I realise that it was only a minority of people, as usual, who ’spoilt it for everybody else’, as a gesture of goodwill on the part of the O2 Academy Sheffield, I’d like to offer you the chance to go to one event of your choice, for free at the O2 Academy Sheffield . Obviously if you bought two tickets that would be two places etc. This offer is subject to providing proof of your booking details. I realise that a handful of people paid cash on the door and that will be taken into account. But to ensure that your are eligible I will need as much information re your booking details, although most people have already furnished this information.

• Everyone who contacts me before 23.59 Monday 27th April will be covered.
• This gesture of goodwill will expire on 30th April 2010.
• It will be subject to availability as there are only a limited number of free spaces I can offer for each event.
• Consequently this offer will be operated on a first come first served basis per event. But I hope that over a year there would more than one event that you would want to attend.

It sticks in my throat that some of the people who actually caused this situation will probably benefit from this gesture of goodwill. But this seems the fairest conclusion given the circumstances.

For anyone not in the know Propagandhi played Sheffield’s O2 Academy on April 17th and about two thirds in we all got kicked out due to a fire. fair enough. As for all the play-acting anarchists and their ridiculous behaviour which followed good god grow up. Thanks for ruining it for everyone you jerks.

The other day I was quietly working away when I overheard:

But I don’t want to use Twitter, I’m not interested in what people are having for their lunch.

Firstly, how can you not be interested in what people are having for lunch? I actually find this fascinating and often recommend good places for people to get their chips and falafel from. But I understand that there are people out there not as nosey as I am or generally interested in what people do.

So, instead of arguing about why I think Twitter is the best thing ever I thought I’d put my energy into thinking about things you can do with Twitter (other than telling people how good your falafel wrap was). I know there is already a wealth of information for the Twitter user out there but you know, I wanted to throw my two cents in as well.

Who do you follow?

Well, generally I follow people who match one of this criteria:

• people from real life – friends, family (although my Dad hasn’t discovered Twitter yet – shame it’s the perfect way to spy on me) and work colleagues;
• librarians or information specialists posting interesting links to current issues or discussing new technologies etc;
• news services – including The Guardian Tech, New Scientist, Hollyoaks and Heatworld (obviously);
• whale defenders and marine conservationists – because we’ve got to save the whale to save ourselves;
• vegans – I like stealing recipes and looking at pictures of cake;
• and crafters – it’s a good way of finding free patterns etc.

The problem I have then is keeping the personal and the professional separate, particularly as I worry about being too personal in the professional. For example I’m majorly opposed to whaling (as you probably know) but as this has no relevance to my work do colleagues really need to know it? And should I be telling people about long line fishing in the Galapagos whilst having a break from my book orders? Plus there are those examples of how not to use Twitter. Yet given I actually love my job, my boss is really cool (seriously) and I don’t moan about being bored (usually because when times are quiet I get on the look out for new blog material or ways to improve services for students) then I don’t really see this being an issue for me. I did bad mouth Bloglines once though after a frustrating morning and got caught out by their auto searching, but they were actually more helpful than anything else.

One way of overcoming these problems are to make your updates private, but seen as Googling ‘lex rigby’ fills out the first however many pages of my stuff (although I was never a Communist Student and have nothing to apologise for) then it seems odd to try and make my tweets private. I’m quite an easy person to find out information about. I’m a science and engineering librarian particularly interested in new technologies, I’m insanely fond of whales and cats, I craft, I read stuff about Iran (mainly involving women and human rights) and I’m vegan. Simple eh. And I guess that if people didn’t want to know what Bella’s up to they wouldn’t follow me anyway.

What do you use it for?

The most useful thing I have found to do with Twitter is to do with #tags or hashtags. Hashtags are assigned to subjects/people/categories/conferences/companies/hobbies/films or whatever and are a great way to find out what people are saying about them. In putting a hash sign in front of a word you’re essentially creating a link to a stream involving everyone talking about that particular subject. And the great thing is is that it’s all in real time! A real-time search engine, now that is amazing.

OK, so say I attended the 2009 Lilac conference (I didn’t but some of my colleagues did) and I wanted to say something about what I was hearing alls I need to do is say it (or rather type it) and put a #lilac09 tag in. Voi la. But then say I wanted to know what other people were saying alls I’d have to do is go to Twitter Search (or one of the other many search sites) and put in #lilac09 and start eavesdropping. It truly is a fantastic way of searching – built for the people, by the people.

I discovered this during the Mumbai attacks last year. I wanted to know what was happening before the news stories told me and stumbled upon Mumbai attacks coverage powered by a service called Monitter. Brilliant, now I was getting real time updates from the people there on location, as well as others reporting on events as the news unfolded.

But what could I use it for?

Well, other than using #tags to keep on top of your interests there are a vast number of other things to use Twitter for:

• Use Twitpic to share your photos;
• use Tiny URL to shorten links into your 140 character limit;
• use @ signs to reply to tweets and engage in conversation e.g. ‘@lexrigby that was really funny’ (or direct messages to make your responses private);
• use Tweetworks to start discussions or join groups;
• use Twittangle to filter your timeline by rating users and tagging favourites (very useful if you follow people like Stephen Fry and get sick of his updates);
• use Twtpoll to create a survey;
• use Trackthis to track a package from UPS, Fedex, USPS, DHL etc;
• use direct messages to update your LibraryThing book shelf;
• use Twittercal to update your Google calendar;
• use Tweetbeep for a bit of vanity searching;
• use Fuelfrog to track your gas mileage;
• use Botanicalls to get your plants to tweet you when it’s hungry;
• use a Greasemonkey user script (a Firefox add-on) to get Twitter updates in your Google results page;
• or use RFID chips, computers and cameras to keep track of your cats.

See, it’s not just good for finding out what people had for lunch! It’s so much more than that.

Attention all you cat lovers! Mental Floss has a short article on cats taking over the interwebs. There are loads of ways of getting your cat on the net other than a Facebook Catbook ya’know. check out my Fake Bella pages, dedicated to my furry little friend or read this Cat Blogging and Blogging Cats .

I wanna get one of these Twitter/cat flap things fixed up to monitor the feline as I’m positive she just sleeps in my bed all day. And, I’m really into this Cat Cam idea too but I worry that if I got her hooked up to all this she’d be too weighed down by her collar to even go off and explore anywhere anyway!

So until I create some miraculous technology to track her every move that is little more than a grain of rice I’ll leave you with this:

(a cute picture of Bella hugging a Henry Rollins doll I made).

Ahmad Batebi, the Economist’s face of the second revolution, was arrested shortly after July 17th 1999 following the world wide publication of his participation in the student protests. In his hands was the bloodied shirt of his fellow protester, a image used to sign Batebi’s death warrant following the accusation that he “defaced the face of the Islamic Republic that is a representative of God on earth” around the world.

After nine years he escaped from Iran, following a seizure leaving the right side of his body without feeling, smuggled by car then donkey through Iraq. On June 24th 2008 he arrived in America and later released his ordeal to CBS News:

Asked if he feels free now, he told Cooper, “No, I don’t feel free. I have a responsibility to the people imprisoned in Iran whose human rights are being violated. I have to get their message out. And it’s a big responsibility that doesn’t leave one free. But to an extent I do feel free. I live in a free country and I’ve left prison.”

But how does he feel about the image itself?

Looking at the picture that sparked his ordeal, he says that another man in his place might be angry, but he is not. Mr Batebi is a photographer himself. He says he understands what journalism involves. Had we not published the picture, he says, another paper might have. Looking at the same picture, his lawyer, interpreter and friend Lily Mazahery says she is close to tears: in it, the young Mr Batebi’s pale arms are as yet unscarred by torture.

How would you feel? Hmmmmmmmmmm.