social media | Steve Woods

Party political hypocrisy

06/02/2015 Steve WoodsPolitics, Social Media

Yesterday, 5th February, was National Voter Registration Day.

Many political parties, civil society organisations and others were yesterday encouraging the disenfranchised to register to vote for the forthcoming local council and general elections on 7th May.

One of those parties campaigning was UKIP, which doubtless was ignorant of the hypocrisy of its message in the tweet shown in the following screenshot.

That’s right! A party actively opposing immigration to the UK is actively encouraging UK citizens who’ve become immigrants in other countries to register to vote in elections in the old mother country.

You couldn’t make it up…
Je suis Charlie

07/01/2015 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media

Social media has responded quickly to the horrific attack on the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris today, which resulted in 12 deaths and 5 injured. Four of those killed were Charlie Hebdo cartoonists Charb, Cabu, Tignous and Georges Wolinski.

The press office of Amnesty International in France has described that attack as “A black day for press freedom”.

Many Twitter accounts changed their avatar to the Je suis Charlie image shown below, whilst many tweets were also tagged with the #JesuisCharlie hashtag.

Some of the harshest condemnations of the attack have come from the attackers’ co-religionists. The imam of Drancy, Hassen Chalghoumi, is reported to have said: “Their barbarism has nothing to do with Islam”.

My deepest condolences to the victims and their families.
Gaunt’s Ham Park supports TidyBS5

08/12/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media

This morning residents living around Gaunt’s Ham Park in Barton Hill became the latest to add their support for the TidyBS5 campaign to rid the streets of BS5 of litter and fly-tipping (posts passim).

The picture below was posted online earlier this morning by Up Our Street.

Picture courtesy of Stacy Yelland

The more support, the more chance there is that Bristol City Council will take the residents of East Bristol seriously when the raise their voices, something they have not always done in the past.
Thank You!

31/10/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Social Media

A week ago I was honoured to attend the annual Thank You awards organised by Easton & Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Management to provide coverage of the event via Twitter.

These awards are presented every year to people who make a difference in the part of East Bristol where I live. Nominations all come from the local community, i.e. friends and neighbours.

This year the awards were presented by local MP Stephen Williams, whilst the event was compèred by local broadcasting husband and wife team Pat Hart and Sherie Eugene Hart. Those honoured ranged in age from people still at school to pensioners.

The biggest cheer of the night was for Lil Stiddard, who received a standing ovation. Lili’s citation read:

It was 32 years ago that Lil and her husband became involved in setting up a club for older people in the community. Before Easton Community Centre was built, they met at the Chelsea Road Old Co-op. The floor collapsed with all the dancing the first time they used a temporary venue. At the age of 97, Lil is still active in the club, setting out the tables and chairs, bringing the tea and assisting the treasurer. “We are all human beings,” she says, “and need to learn to pull together.”

All the winners were photographed together at the end of the presentation.

Here’s a short film of vox pops shot at the awards.

I happened to be nominated too…
Jane Street, Bristol celebrates Zero Waste Week

01/09/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media
Zero Waste Week, now in its seventh year, is currently taking place in the United Kingdom between 1st and 7th September 2014.

The aim of Zero Waste Week is to “an opportunity to reduce landfill waste & save money“.

The theme of this year’s event is “One More Thing“.

Jane Street in Redfield, Bristol, shows in the picture below just what can be achieved with “One More Thing” in Zero Waste Week, in this case, one more instance of fly-tipping!

Image courtesy of Amy Harrison

As part of the campaign to clear up Easton and Lawrence Hill wards (under the #tidybs5 moniker. Ed.), I recently attended a meeting with Marg Hickman, my local councillor, and council officers (news passim). At that meeting I was informed by the officers that the problem of fly-tipping in Jane Street had disappeared since a local mafrish – a café used for chewing khat – had closed down following the UK’s outlawing of khat. Obviously the council officers concerned hadn’t bargained for the persistence of Bristol’s filthy fly-tipping community!

Besides alerting @BristolCouncil via Twitter, fly-tipping can be reported to the city council by:
- using the dedicated fly-tipping report form on the council website (which also has a mobile version that works on smartphones);
- a third party smartphone app, such as My Council (which is available for both Android and iOS; and
- telephoning 0117 922 2100.
The most direct reporting route is using the fly-tipping form as the report is sent directly to the department concerned, whereas the other methods require the report to be forwarded by its original recipient.
NL: PSV Eindhoven introduces wifi at stadium; fans protest

19/08/2014 Steve WoodsOddities, Social Media, Tech

PSV Eindhoven supporters launched a vehement protest against the introduction of wifi at the their Philips Stadion ground during their side’s 6-1 home victory over NAC Breda in their opening game of the season, according to yesterday’s Guardian.

Fans displayed one banner reading: “F*ck Wi-Fi, support the team”. Placards with crosses running through the wifi signal were also held aloft before the match. Supporters’ groups believe the introduction of wifi is just the latest of a series of decisions by the club intended to gentrify the crowd at home matches.

However, the club’s website has a slightly different take on the introduction of wifi. The game against NAC Breda marked the test phase of the ‘Connected Stadium’ project. All visitors had free access to the internet, social media and email via the ‘PSV’ network. This is the first time in the Netherlands that a stadium has been equipped with a wifi network. The club is also asking users for feedback.

First posted on Bristol Wireless.
Bristol Post Balls – bad punning and sexism

15/08/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

Regular readers will be aware that the Bristol Post is not renowned for the quality of its journalism.

However, the dreadful pun and sexism of today’s front page of the dead tree edition marked a new low in the paper’s already woeful standards.

Bad puns are annoying in headlines at the best of times and sexism is tolerated far less than when the fifty-something males in charge of producing Bristol’s daily work of fiction first started out in what was then called journalism.

There has been a steady stream of criticism of the Bristol Post on Twitter throughout the day.

However, the paper has not sought to respond to any of its critics, presumably because the person in charge of the Twitter account has yet to notice the ‘reply’ button.

In addition, some of Bristol’s Twitterati have also been alerting the national media to The Post’s disgraceful front page seeking to trivialise a sexual assault.

With front pages like the one above, is it any surprise that the Post’s circulation figures (as measured by ABC) are falling by nearly 11% per year? Not to me it isn’t!

Update 18/08/14: Bristol 24-7 is reporting today that Bristol City councillor Naomi Rylatt has written to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) over the above front page headline, describing it as a “disgusting attempt at humour“.
Social networking comment

29/07/2014 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Social Media, Tech

Seen on a wall in Paris.

“You are not a (Facebook) file”.

Hat tip: Glyn Moody
#tidyBS5 gains momentum

13/07/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media

After the last Easton & Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Forum meeting where I talked about fly-tipping in my area of Bristol (posts passim), it was suggested to me that I devise a hashtag for use on Twitter and elsewhere to help highlight the problem. My answer was #tidyBS5.

The hashtag and its use have now been given another boost by publicity in the fortnightly Easton & Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Management email bulletin.

There’s also a meeting with councillors and officers on fly-tipping and rubbish in just over a week’s time to which I’ve also been invited. Let’s hope it ends in some proper enforcement and action to make scenes like the one below a thing of the past.
Generational change: graffito

13/07/2014 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

“Punk is dead” is a phrase recalled from my early twenties and apparently dates from 1978. Furthermore, “Punk is Dead” is also the title of a song by the legendary anarchist punk band Crass.

This morning a variation on the phrase drifted into my Twitter feed, as shown by the photograph below.

For today’s younger people, about the age that I was when punk first emerged, the leading lights of punk rock such as The Clash, Sex Pistols and their contemporaries have probably been added to the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and other more typical exponents of “Dad Rock“.

Additional research has revealed that “Punk is Dad” is the title of a song by Berlin-based band Ohrbooten.

Could the graffito be cheap promotion for Ohrbooten’s offering – or is it just bad spelling? 🙂

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