Personal

On naming

ACB, DHB, JCB, JSB, PAB, RGB.

Ever wondered how your name was selected? I've just noticed that when sorted alphabetically, the initials of each member of my immediate family also put us all in age order. I'd like to think this was an accident, but I suspect there was at least a little smile involved in the naming.

PAB, ELB, ... ?

So now I'm thinking, if Emma and I ever have children what hidden pattern will they find in our initials?

Tech

The future of social networks

Back in February Esther Dyson wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the changing advertising landscape. She suggested that even new highly personalised advertising technologies are only a temporary fad, and that social networks are the future for promotion.

So it's interesting to read that a user account in a social network is up for sale. The account holder has a set of "followers" who will automatically receive any message he sends. And therein lies the value.

Is this the future for social networks? A world of fake (but compelling) accounts which are then sold to the highest bidder for whatever use they like? If it was email we'd call it spam.

Tech

Ban this word: "monetize"

Remember the "dot-com bubble" of the late 90s? The word I associate with the time is "eyeballs". As a slightly jealous techie I saw stacks of companies build up their paper worth on the currency of eyeballs - the number of people visiting a site. That worth then tumbled as the eyeball-to-cash exchange rate fell through the floor. I thought it'd be some time before we again saw so many web businesses built around the sole income stream of advertising.

I was wrong. It's happening again. The difference is that this time there's a word for it. In order to pretend they're doing something clever, people who like to use the phrase "web 2.0" call this "monetizing". I cringe every time I hear it. (What's wrong with "make money from"?)

I still fear reliance on the advertising model. One obvious alternative is to charge for access. Perhaps the reason that's rarely done is because it results in lower audiences, and deeply embedded in the egotistical heart of many website owners is the classic dot-com falsehood: that a good website is a popular one.

The financial bubble burst, but we still seem to hold onto the emotional one.

Personal , Website

I resolve

The first of January is a terrible time to make resolutions. The pressure's on not to break them, but there's the understanding that inevitably they won't last the year. (And besides, that way you can make the same resolutions year in, year out.)

So I'm making my resolutions today. Here are a few.

I will:

1. eat less chocolate
2. tell more stories
3. blog more frequently

Starting on the first of April I reckon I've got a better chance of success. But if I fail, I can always claim it was just a hoax.

Comment

The F-word

Jim Duell's daughter was murdered. You may have seen the news. Her name was Tania Nicol. She was one of five women killed in Suffolk in the month before Christmas 2006.

Most media outlets covered the victims' families' reaction to the life sentence handed down to Steve Wright - calling for the death penalty to be reinstated. But I've only found one that's covered Jim Duell's thoughts:

"I forgive him. If I didn't, I would be consumed with anger and hatred. I'm not going to visit him in prison and make friends, but I made a decision to forgive him. It wasn't easy but it has helped me."

It would seem the F-word remains out of bounds for most newspapers.

(Unless of course, Duell's been misquoted!)

Coastwalk

Mevagissey → Par

Distance: 12.4 miles
Ascent: 811 metres
Duration: 5 hours 52 minutes

View from the ferry
« Not walked | Fowey »

The ideal lunch-spot is somewhere deserted. It's up high, with a good view of where you've come from and where you're going to. A place to linger and breathe slowly. If you're walking from Mevagissey to Par, that spot is Black Head - a small promontory fort separated from the mainland by a narrow isthmus.

We saw the headland from the ferry that took us to the start of the walk this morning and as we ate the ferry passed again on its return trip to Fowey.

About half a mile further west we saw a beautifully isolated house. The path approached the grounds beside a recently felled tree whose stump had been carved to form the image of "Morwenna".

I'd certainly recommend this walk to anyone. Better still - if you're up for a longer distance - tack on the Par to Fowey leg. Start the day at Mevagissey and review the walk from the sea on the way home on the Fowey to Mevagissey ferry.

Coastwalk

Swanage → Sandbanks

Distance: 7.93 miles
Ascent: 212 metres
Duration: 3 hours 24 minutes

The end
« Chapman's Pool | Christchurch »

The South West Coast Path is 630 miles long and it ends here.

Unlike most long-distance walkers reaching the Poole Ferry we're not in a position to celebrate. At 193 miles we've walked just one quarter of the National Trail but for the first time I realised we'd definitely complete the whole thing one day.

The high cliffs of Old Harry Rocks and the long sandy beach at Studland represent the path in miniature. Today's walk would make a good final chapter.

But our eyes are set beyond the south-west. The length of the entire British coast is harder to track down. Most measurements put it between six and seven thousand miles and by coincidence I've walked about a quarter of that too. I'm less sure about whether I'll ever complete it.

Still, there's no point leaving a job undone. There's plenty more rock and sand to see yet.

Coastwalk

Chapman's Pool → Swanage

Distance: 9.60 miles
Ascent: 459 metres
Duration: 3 hours 48 minutes

Endure
« Kimmeridge Bay | Sandbanks »

"How's the Great Walk going?" was a question I heard more than once at Greenbelt this year. It's an odd term to hear. This Coastwalk is just what I do, not some special endurance test.

John may be feeling the same way about his M62 walk so as an act of solidarity on his first day we're using the post-Greenbelt weekend to pick up again in Dorset.

From Chapman's Pool the walk immediately climbs 120 metres to the cliff-top before plunging to near sea level and rising steeply again on a seemingly never-ending staircase to St Alban's Head. It's a tough warm-up (did someone deny endurance?) with the remainder of the day being a far easier stroll on grass-topped cliffs.

Highlights included the twelfth century chapel of St Adhelm on that first headland, its thick walls deftly separating the sound of the sea from the silence of the vaulted room.

Further one curious sight followed another: the tidal swimming pool cut by quarrymen at Dancing Ledge; the quarries turned Victorian tourist attraction at Tilly Whim Caves; the stone signs at Durlston Country Park banning "hunting dogs and guns" followed finally by a huge concrete globe dedicated to all of God's creation. All hundreds of years old. All endured.