Gary Andrews

Last year, this post almost certainly wouldn’t have got written. I’d have probably been busy running around, bottle of beer in hand peering at people’s nametags and having mutually agreeable conversations that what we were doing was the future. Today, this post nearly didn’t get written because I got distracted by The Big Lebowski on TV.

Somewhere along the line, I’ve morphed from Riggs into Murtaugh.

It’s not that I didn’t want to go to Twestival tonight. I even had a ticket and had every intention of going. But it clashed with podcast recording night, and we were running a bit late, and the studios were across the other side of London, and I had lots to do and didn’t want to be tired at work, and home is back the other side of town, and so on and so on. And so the sensible, but boring, decision was taken to head home rather than party into the night.

(And in many respects I’m rather gutted I didn’t make it. The Twestival team have done a fantastic job from turning it into a small one-off in a bar near Trafalgar Square into a global phenomenon. I’m always slightly humbled whenever I see what they’ve achieved).

Gone are the days where I’d run across London, make three social media parties in a night, and still come in bright and cheerful the next morning.

But it’s also interesting as I don’t think I’m the only one. When it comes to partying or cracking on and doing something, the latter is often the default setting.

Perhaps its because social media has been around for long enough that it’s no longer new, it’s not a phenomenon, any people have stopped going “Ooh, isn’t this cool,” and moved towards “Right, how can we use this better.” Or, put more crudely, “How can I make money from this?” [1]

It’s not that in social media that people have now met all the useful people. But we’ve got a better idea of who we need to contact and how to get hold of them. And while partying was, you know, fun, websites don’t just built themselves, and Twitter doesn’t update itself, and money doesn’t just magically appear in your bank account, and willyalookatthateverybodysdoingsocialmediathesedaysholyshitwebetterupourgame.

And the thing is, we generally get it now. Not all of it. That implies there’s no more to get. But now social media is more commonplace and even if not everybody in any given is immersed in social media, they know it’s important and they’re prepared to create new jobs for people to show them how to do social media and these people have stopped going “Well, there’s a lot to learn<’ and instead are saying “It’s not that hard. Look, I’ll show you. And, actually, we can do something VERY cool with this.”

So, yes, doing things. That’s what we’re largely doing now. Burying ourselves in work – and this isn’t necessary dull, because a lot of it is putting the VERY cool things into practice rather than just talking about them. There’s less of a need to jump around and drink lots and generally tell people how cool the projects are you’re doing. We know. We’re probably working on something similar.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t party from time to time, right? And every last person at Twestival well deserves every drop of beer drunk tonight because they’re all contributing to something amazing and making a huge difference to people’s lives in places where debates over Foursquare are, frankly, insignificant. And this wouldn’t have been possible without social media.

And tomorrow we’ll get our heads down to working again, either with hangovers or tinges of regret about not being able to make it. And we’ll enjoy it.

I’m getting old. I’m also working hard with VERY cool things. And while I’m careering slowly towards not being able to name the majority of artists in the Top 40, I’m still loving every minute of it. Social media isn’t the future any more, it’s part of the future, and I’m bloody glad I’m part of that part.

PS The podcast tonight was so much fun, I’d happily have missed most things to record it. It’ll be up at the usual places tomorrow and should be sounding fantastic.

[1] Not that I necessary subscribe to the latter viewpoint. It may surprise people, but I make precisely zero from the podcast. It’s currently done solely for the love of podcasting and football.

written by Gary \\ tags: digital evolution, social media, Twestival

Earlier today I got the phone call I’d been hoping for. Even though it was fairly likely S would be on one of the first airlifts out of Machu Picchu today, it wasn’t until she called and I heard it from her voice that I could start to relax. It has, it’s fair to say, been one of the more worrying weeks I’ve had.

Yesterday was one of those days of hope but not knowing. S started off the day being told to head for a briefing with her tour company and being told that they would get flown out. Probably. Possibly.

The 29-and-under group, including S, were told they would be last out. But still they queued up, not knowing if they’d get out. S had already paid for a hotel room for another night but it was soon clear that heading back to the hotel would see her lose her place in the queue. The wait went on. At 10am they started queuing. At about 3.30pm, they got to the holding pen for the flights, a train carriage.

At least things were moving. As S told the Living In Peru website: ” Today was good but yesterday was chaotic.” After confusion of not knowing who or when anybody would be flown out, at least there was progress.

But there was still frustrating. As S and her group made their way to the front of the queue, and then to the landing area, they were told that, due to adverse weather, there were to be no more flights out for the day. Having stood and seen the helicopter land, they weren’t allowed to be on it when it took off. The military took names and said they would be first out the next day.

So frustration as they trudged back to the train carriage. Having been so near, S would have to spend another night. She couldn’t head back to the hotel because she would lose her place in the queue. Frustrated and upset, I got a call around half ten, UK time. But it was so good to hear her voice (punctuated by random shouts of Argentine tourists playing football to keep occupied). And while it was frustrating, the end was in sight.

What followed was, I can only imagine, a very uncomfortable night in an old train carriage. Morning came, and there were still more problems. As the army began processing the tourists again, there was a rush forward to get to the front of the queue. The list counted for nothing – the army had lost it overnight.

But S and her group stood their ground and, after a brief discussion, were herded onto the helicopter and away from the now-isolated tourist town. It had taken six days but they were finally out.

The phone call from S when she arrived in Cusco was one of the most relieving conversations I’ve ever had. I knew she would be evacuated but I just wanted to hear it from her voice. Two days earlier I’d nearly broken down in tears when she text to say the electricity had gone and she’d have to switch off her phone, meaning no further contact. Today, I nearly cried again, but for completely different reasons.

After contacting me and her parents, S had, I’d imagine, a very long shower. It was the first time she’d had access to hot water in six days.

At the time of writing, S is currently in Lima trying to secure a flight to Rio. She was due to fly out earlier today to start a second tour, taking in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. She’s not been put off by her experiences and wants to see the rest of South America. She’s a tough cookie inside, and I love her for that.

She had originally tried to change her flight but TMA Airlines refused to do refunds and wanted to charge her £800 for changing. She, understandably, baulked at this. She’s currently searching around for another flight. Thankfully Isabel and Nathan from Living In Peru have been able to help – they have been utterly fantastic as reporters and for help and advice. Peru should be proud to have journalists like them.

Still, these are logistical issues and hopefully will be sorted soon. The main thing to me is S is safe and no longer stranded. She won’t be home for a while, but I’ll be waiting, ready to give her a big hug when she returns. I am just so thankful she is safe.

But she leaves behind an area devastated by floods and mudslides, and one that will take much help and rebuilding. If you want to get a picture of what the Cusco region is like, Andrew Dare has written a moving piece on the situation.

I’ll blog more about Peru, some further thoughts on the situation in general, and a consideration of the social media aspects. In the meantime, I can head to bed at a decent hour tonight without worrying about whether S will be stuck for another day without any knowledge of when she’ll escape. For that, I’m thankful.

Thanks to everybody who has offered kind words of support and helped at various point. It has been appreciated more than you could possibly imagine.

UPDATE: S has just rung me – after several phone calls she has managed to secure a flight to Rio. She’ll arrive a few hours after she planned to, but her holiday is back on track. She has memories and stories that will last a lifetime (apparently people were sleeping on the luggage racks on the train carriage last night).

Thanks once more to Isabel and Nathan. I can now head to sleep for tonight and sleep easier than I have done all week. I’ll continue to blog about Peru though. S may be out, but I don’t want the rebuilding effort to be forgotten.

written by Gary \\ tags: Cusco, Cuzco, floods in Peru, Living In Peru, Machu Picchu, natural disasters, Peru, Peruvian floods, TMA airlines

It’s a good job this blog post wasn’t written an hour earlier. About six hours ago, I got a text from S saying the power had gone down in her area and there had been no sign of helicopters. There had been no news and nobody had told S or her group anything. With water and food supplies starting to run down even further, the situation was looking grim.

With no power to charge her phone, S turned it off to save the batteries for emergencies. I left work a worried man, not knowing when I would hear from her again or what she was going through. Needless to say, the big drama of tonight’s Carling Cup game passed me by – I just wasn’t interested in anything other than scouring the net for news.

Then, about 20 minutes ago, I sent her a text telling her to stay strong, how much I loved her, and the rest. She replied almost immediately. The power had returned and, even more relieving, helicopters were arriving. I was so happy, I nearly hugged my housemate. He was just coming out of the shower at the time, so it was probably for the best that this didn’t happen.

S isn’t out of Machu Picchu yet, but at least help has arrived and it can only be a matter of time before she’s airlifted out of the stricken region. In the meantime, there are fresh supplies. Out of all the problems, I was most concerned about the lack of water. At least that has been eased for the time being.

So, it looks like, for S at least, it’s the start of the end of her Machu Picchu adventure and I’ll be so relieved when she finally makes it out and to safety.

But I’m also painfully aware that S, for all her distress and discomfort, and for all the worrying I’ve done, has had it easy compared to others. She has had a hotel room, food and, ultimately, a home to come back to. Many aren’t so lucky and have lost their homes and, with crops destroyed, their livelihoods too.

These videos demonstrate that. Apologies, I’m having trouble embedding them, but they need to be seen.

To that end, I was prepared to put my money where my mouth was and donate to a disaster relief fund for Peru. I know it won’t be much, but at least it can help repair infrastructure and homes.

However, this has been slightly complicated by the fact that Peru doesn’t have seemed to ask for aid, so there are no direct charity appeals. Even the Peruvian Red Cross don’t seem to have been approached. Which kind of makes donations a little tricky.

If, after a few days, there’s still nothing, I’ll be donating to the Red Cross Disaster Fund. It’s not exactly Peru, I know, but at least the money will go towards somebody, somewhere, who needs it more than I do. If you feel so inclined, please feel free to do the same.

I’d also like to say a huge thanks to everybody who has emailed, text or Facebooked words of support and kindness to both myself and S over the last couple of days. It has been hugely appreciated and very comforting. Also, huge thanks to those who’ve been able to help in some form or another, and also to the journalists who’ve covered this story and have contacted either myself or S.

Granted, in the UK this may not have received huge amounts of coverage, but the articles have been well written and have tallied closely to what S has been telling me from the ground.

At the very least, it has raised awareness of this situation. From S’s point of view, I think it’s been comforting to know the situation hasn’t been forgotten or ignored and she can get the message out about what’s happening in Machu Picchu and the surrounding area.

I’ll update again in the next couple of days when, hopefully, S will have been airlifted out of the area and will be safely heading towards Lima. But I’ll also try and revisit the topic from time to time to keep awareness of the rebuilding effort in Peru. It’s the least I can do. I’ll also try and get a few more academic thoughts down on social media, disaster reporting and the like. Understandably, I’d like to wait until S is safe and sound until I do this.

In the meantime, I’d like to point you in the direct of the excellent Living In Peru website, who have been continually updating news on the disaster. Their coverage has been excellent and helped me no end when it comes to understanding Peru. I’ve also been in contact with Isabel and Nathan from the site, who’ve updated me on the general situation. Please do pay them a visit and spread the word.

written by Gary \\ tags: Cusco, Cuzco, disaster relief, flooding in Peru, Machu Picchu, Peru, Peru landslides, Peru mudslies, Peruvian floods, Red Cross

Yesterday I was concerned for my girlfriend, trapped in Machu Picchu after heavy rains and mudslides, but optimistic from what she was saying, and news reports, that she would soon be out. Today, I’m a lot more worried and have no idea when she’ll escape from the village, cut off from the rest of the country.

I spoke to S again earlier this evening, and things are both better and worse. Mainly worse.

Yesterday they were told the evacuation, using planes and helicopters, would start today. They have seen and heard nothing about this. A US plane, intended for American citizens arrive, but was commandeered by the locals. The Americans, like S, remain [1].

S is one of the lucky ones, insofar as she has a hotel room. Most others don’t. There are lots of tourists sleeping wherever they can get a space. But in Machu Picchu at this time, nothing is certain. “I’m going back to my hotel,” she told me earlier. “That is, if somebody hasn’t paid more money for it while I’ve been out.”

Like almost everything else in the village, any form of comfort comes at a premium. Hotel rooms are exchanging hands for ever-increasing sums of money, as is food. Supplies are dwindling and nobody knows how much is left. Anything that remains on the shelf is being marked up to double, sometimes triple the price.

Not everybody can afford the food at the original price. Many tourists arrived with minimal money, expecting only to spend a day or two. Now their cash has run out and the ATMs are not dispensing. A small amount of food and water made it through on the US plane and has been distributed out.

Even if you get your hands on some food, there’s no guarantee it’ll be edible. The gas supply is down in Machu Picchu, so nobody can cook anything.

So, everybody waits. After three days, S finally found six other British tourists, staying in a tent, which has raised her spirits somewhat. The Australians, of which there are many, have headed mainly for the bar and there’s even a slight party atmosphere. As S said, they can either sit around and be miserable or try to make the best out of a bad situation.

But, for all the new friendships made, there is genuine concern about what will happen the longer the village remains cut off and no help arrives. What will happen when supplies get lower and people are fighting over the food? S is concerned that the jovial atmosphere could turn nasty quickly. There already appears to be tension with the locals.

And still people wait for news. Some Australian papers have reported the evacuation is underway in earnest and many people are safely out. Not so, says S. Apart from the US plane, there has been no sign of any airlift and no communication from the Peruvian government. Nobody appears to be in charge. News reports suggest helicopters were launched but only a few dozen were evacuated due to bad weather.

At the station, many elderly Peruvians mill around the platform. They, and everybody else, are continually told the train will soon be running, perhaps even tomorrow, but tomorrow arrives and the tracks are still not fixed. In all honesty, I wouldn’t want S travelling on a makeshift track when there’s more risk of mudslides.

So, that is the situation S finds herself in. She’s reasonably high up, so probably not at risk from further flooding or landslides, and people are coping, but everybody is aware that the situation cannot remain as it is for much longer.

In the meantime, the Guardian have spoken to her, in possible the most accurate report (going by what she’s told me) I’ve seen so far on the topic [2].

On my end, it’s the frustration and worry of waiting and not knowing that does it for me. It’s been fantastic to hear her voice two days in a row and to reassure each other everything will be ok. And I’m sure it will be, but I’ll only feel that way until she’s safely out of Machu Picchu.

In the meantime, I find myself combing news sites and watching 24 news channels waiting, hoping, for any further news and doing what I can to help from this end, which turns out to be not a lot, although S is grateful for any outside news (I should update her on the latest Corrie storylines, really) and is quick to point out errors in any reports.

I’ve also rung the foreign office, as has her dad. They’ve been very helpful and calming, and know where she is. They’re hoping rescuers will be with her in the next couple of days. Ok, it’s still two days, but it’s helpful to hear that. I certainly feel a bit more at ease after speaking to them.

And then there’s Twitter, where I’ve been relaying news from her and the general situation in Machu Picchu. I figure if I don’t keep the word and the news going, nobody will.

It’s also been a great comfort to receive well wishes from friends, followers and people who’ve just seen the Tweets and passed on their support. Again, it’s helped ease the burden. Particular thanks to Geordie, for translation, Hayley, Sian and Jon who’ve been more help and support than they can possible know.

In the meantime, all S and I can do is wait and see if tomorrow brings helicopters, and know that no matter how uncomfortable and worrying this situation is, it could be a lot worse.

[1] Weirdly, a scene from the Camino Real pops into my head while writing this, but now is not the time nor the place for Tennessee Williams.

[2] I wasn’t originally going to pass on her details to the press, partly because yesterday it seemed as if the situation was under control, but also because I wasn’t sure if she’d spoken to her mum. I don’t know her family that well, and I didn’t want them to find out via News At Ten rather than S herself. “Yeah, hi S’s mum. Yep, you know that near heart-attack you had after seeing her on the news? Yeah, that may have been my fault.” Not the best way to introduce yourself to them.

written by Gary \\ tags: Cusco, Cuzco, flooding in Peru, Machu Picchu, Peru, Peru floods, Peruvian floods, trapped tourists

There are certain moments when your stomach lurches. One of them is when your girlfriend, a seasoned traveller, sends a text saying she’s had to be evacuated from her hotel and she’s scared. This from somebody who has been halfway around the globe and takes most things in her stride.

I rarely put any kind of personal stuff on this blog because, well, I just choose not to. But, equally, I’ve decided to blog about the flooding and mudslides in the Cusco area of Peru (home to Machu Picchu) in case, like me, you’re one of the friends, family, or relatives of the 2000 or so tourists stranded in the area and are just looking for information and happen to stumble across this. Not knowing is one of the worst feelings ever

I don’t speak Spanish, so have a bit of a job following what’s going on over there, but I managed to get ten minutes on the phone with my girlfriend earlier and have a slightly better idea of what’s going on (and please bear in mind my knowledge of Peruvian geography is next to abysmal so I may get some things wrong here).

Cusco has had heavy rain over the past few days, leading to swollen rivers and flooding. These, in turn, have caused landslides. Between the floods and the landslides, they’ve managed to take out the train line into Machu Picchu and surrounding roads. The only way in or out of the area is currently via the Inca Trail, which I’m told takes six days to walk.

The group of tourists S was with were due to leave at 4pm local time on Sunday, only to be told there was no train due to landslides, and were sent back to the village and given hotel rooms for the night.

S’s room was close to the river and she could hear the water rushing outside all night. At 5am the group was told to leave the hotel and move to a new one, and to ring their friends and family to let them know they were all right, in case they’d seen reports on the news.

The group were moved to a hotel higher up and away from the river. They were lucky enough to get rooms. Other tourists are still arriving, via the Inca trail, only to find there is no way out. People are sleeping in inns, train stations, and wherever they can get a space.

Later in the day, S went down to look at the hotel they’d been evacuated from. There was a large crack in the road outside, due to the flood water.

If this all sounds very dramatic, things have calmed down as people wait to find a way out of Machu Picchu. Ironically, the weather is currently gorgeous. If it weren’t for the floods and the damage, you’d never have known there was a problem with the area.

At the moment it seems as if everybody is safe, albeit a little frustrated at being stuck and perhaps a little uncomfortable if they’re sleeping in the train station. But safe, nonetheless. The question is how long they’ll be stuck there for.

The government has declared a state of emergency in Cusco and is making plans to send in helicopters and airlift the 2,000 or so stuck near the Inca citadel out of the area, although S says it’s not clear how long this will take and when it will start.

For the meantime, all the stranded can do is sit and wait, but at least they’re safe. Which is the main thing.

Judging by other reports, the floods have devastated the crops and agriculture of the surrounding area and around 300 families have been displaced. It’s probable Cusco will be declared a disaster zone. The tourist groups will get out sooner rather than later, but the clean up will take some time, while the impact will be felt for even longer.

[There's another perspective from somebody caught up the other side here. Thanks also to everybody who hunted down links to what was going on after I initially Tweeted about it. There are more images of the floods here.]

UPDATE:  Haven’t heard from S yet, but, judging by Twitter and other reports, the evacuation operation is underway and it’ll take about 20 hours to get everybody out via helicopter (or, I suspect, long, if what S told me last night). My Spanish isn’t good, but huge thanks to Chris White, who has been translating for me today.

Also, there’s a very good first-person blog from a CBS reporter, which gives you another idea of what things are like on the ground.

written by Gary \\ tags: Cusco, Cuzco, floods in Peru, Machu Picchu, Peru, Peruvian floods

There’s reporting that you disagree with and then there’s an occasional point of journalism that’s just wrong. Not just wrong, but dangerously misleading to a degree that goes beyond scary.

Case in point – the Sunday Express’ front page from yesterday: “JAB AS DEADLY AS THE CANCER”

Now, with the death of Natalie Morton, hours after she’d received the cervical cancer vaccine jab [1] was always going to lead to some interesting reporting. Some has been good, some has been bad and some has been scaremongering. Especially after the point where it was established that she died from a tumour and not the jab.

The story itself is largely built around the fears of an expert, Dr Diane Harper. In many respects, this is nothing unusual. Most journalists have built stories around experts. I’ve done it myself, although they’ve usually be economic stories rather than science.

And there’s nothing wrong with this, per se. Often an expert provides a new, different angle and also helps with one of the first rules of good journalism: tell the audience something they don’t already know. I’ve learned a lot from chatting to them and the stories are usually interesting.

But a lot depends on the expert themselves, who they are and what they are saying. And that, rather than the story they’re talking about, is the important part. Because there are a lot of interesting experts out there.

Let’s take AIDS as an example. It’s not stretching things too far to say Africa has a serious problem with the disease, and that antiretroviral drugs stop Aids becoming a death sentence for sufferers. Yet there are people, who have lots of expert-looking expert credentials, who will use arguments such as population growth in South Africa as a reason why the numbers of being dying from Aids is too high. Or that vitamins can cure the disease.

In short, they can sell themselves as experts but their claims aren’t necessarily the kind you’d put on the front page of a newspaper, and strongly suggest this outsider view is worth listening to.

But back to the Express and the cancer jab story, which, by the time the Express ran the interview, was fast becoming old news.

Reporting on just about any kind of issue is always going to ensure somebody shakes their head and disagrees with it. The more high-profile and emotive the story, the more likely this is.

I don’t often agree with the Sun or the Mail’s take on current affairs, but there are plenty of others who’ll be in tune with this line of thinking. There are tabloid scares – some justified, and some not – but usually there’s some basis to start from.

Not here. Virtually every bit of the Express article is just plain wrong. I dislike hyperbole, but there’s a very real chance that parents could read the story, refuse to allow their daughters the jab, only for their daughter to catch the virus, and contract cancer. This isn’t politics, or food scares, or the like, this is the health, life and potentially death of the next generation of the female population. Is it really worth getting blood on the hands to sell a few extra papers in this manner?

I’m not hugely fond of jumping up and down and crying bad journalism at the tabloids (or the broadsheets) – stones and glass houses and all that. There’s a lot of good journalism in all of them, and I’m continually amazed in the best possible way at how good some of the journalists I know one these papers are.

But just because we’re in a profession, doesn’t mean we can’t hold it to account and call it out when publications get it badly, dangerously wrong. There’s a line between reporting potential health problems and dangerous scaremongering that could cost lives. On this occasion, the Express have crossed it [2]. I posted a link to the piece on Twitter earlier. One response from a journalist said: “That makes me want to disown my profession.”

In fact, this story has got me so upset at the reporting that I’m going to do something I’ve never even come remotely close to ever wanting to do before: complain to the Press Complaints Commission.

Frankly, I don’t expect it to have much effect. The organisation is somewhat toothless at the best of time. And writing to it feels like grassing up somebody at school.

But if nobody says anything, it means there will be more bad science, more panic and, potentially, more lives lost. I’m not trying to set myself as an arbiter of what’s good or bad journalism; I’m just beyond appalled at this one article.

If you feel the same, then I’d urge you to also complain.To help, my old colleague Chris White has already written a letter (about 3 minutes after reading the story). He sent me the text of his complaint and I’ve reprinted it below. Feel free to adapt it for your own use:

“The front page of the issue of the Sunday Express published on 4 October 2009 leads with the headline “Jab ‘as deadly as the cancer’.”

The “jab” in question is the Cervarix vaccination against the two strains of human papillomavirus shown to trigger up to 70% of cases of cervical cancer.

The story follows the death of 14-year-old schoolgirl Natalie Morton, who died shortly after receiving the vacciation – but whose postmortem found her cause of death to have been a previously undiagnosed tumour.

The claim that the vaccination is as deadly as the cancer is manifestly untrue. At the time of this solitary death, around 1.5 million girls had received the vaccination. Cervical cancer affects an estimated 16 women per 100,000 per year, and is fatal for around 9 women per 100,000 per year. Even if the vaccination had been responsible for the death of Natalie Morton, then the cancer is clearly almost 150 times more dangerous than the vaccination.

That this is based on the opinion of “expert” Diane Harper is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what her opinion is: it only matters what the data show. (This is why academics are subject to a process of peer review for publishing their work: despite their supposed expertise, papers must be approved of by their peers before publication. The mere opinions even of experts count for little within their own communities and should not carry any greater weight with the public, nor with journalists.) There are no data suggesting that the vaccination is dangerous.

Furthermore, the quote from one Richard Halvorsen questioning the postmortem finding that Natalie Morton died from cancer, “If you have cancer you have symptoms”, is, essentially, a lie. Many cases of cancer can be asymptomatic — including, in a tragic piece of irony, most cases of cervical cancer.

This is little more than ill-founded scaremongering and irresponsible journalism of the worst kind. Its only effect is bound to be — as was the case with the coverage the MMR “controversy” — to reduce take-up of the vaccine, in which case the Sunday Express will share responsibility for further deaths.”

EDIT: Malcolm Coles has flagged up his campaign to get Google’s results to show better advice and information for parents concerned about the jab, so I’m more than happy to include links to cervical cancer jab information, cervical cancer vaccination, and a Q&A about the cervical cancer vaccine.

[1] Ok, I’m taking liberties here as well. I know it’s jab about the virus that can lead to cervical cancer rather than the cancer itself.

[2] Ironically, a story from the Express was held us as a good example of science reporting at the debate between Lord Drayson and Ben Goldacre, and I’d go along with the Science Minster to a point when he says that sensationalist reporting can be good for science. The Express’ article goes long beyond that point.

written by Gary \\ tags: bad journalism, bad science reporting, cervical cancer jab, scaremongering, science reporting, Sunday Express, vaccines

“Yah?”

“Yah. And Clementine knows somebody who can get us on the Mahiki guest list.”

“Yah?”

“Yah.”

Welcome to the neighbourhood.

I have moved. Or, rather, a couple of months ago I moved. This was the first conversation I heard in my new area, spoken by a couple of 17-year-olds on a bus. It is, I think it is safe to say, sufficiently more upmarket than the delights of Tooting, where I was previously residing.

There, I walked to the tube station and looked smart. Here, I wear the same clothes and look like a hobo. I walk past two schools on my way to the station. I’m sure anxious mothers are already ringing the police about the scruffy looking man who walks past at a set time every day [1]. As opposed to scruffy men driving by in their 4x4s. That’s quite alright.

I quite like it around here.

This isn’t to do with any kind of aspirational stuff about moving to a better area and polishing my driveway every day in the hope of getting an invite to the country club. And if, in the unlikely event I have a daughter any time soon, I’m certainly not bloody well naming her Clementine.

No, this is more to do with the general niceness of the area and the house, which I’ve managed to find myself renting through good fortune and I love to bits the people who’ve made this possible.

The area has a lot of green bits and pieces. This is important to me. I grew up in Devon. I’m used to see cows outside my bedroom window. Trees were a given, not an optional extra. Tooting wasn’t big on trees, although we did have some fox cubs living in our back garden, which were cute. A pain, but cute.

So, the new place has trees. And also grass. Never underestimate the importance of grass. Just as a rug ties a room together, so grass ties a neighbourhood together. So, yes, trees and grass and plenty of wildlife roaming around.

There are also rather quaint churches and long bits of grass and trees for people to walk on, all of which seems somewhat of a novelty in London. There’s even a village green where the local pub team play cricket every Sunday. Cricket! On a village green! That’s probably even better than my Devon village has managed for a while.

Then there’s the house itself, which is lovely and has a garden, which also has grass and is big enough to plant things around the side of the grass. For a while now, I’ve been wanting a garden to plant stuff in. Ok, so the house at Tooting had one, but you had to negotiate the fox piss and the garden itself was a little, well, untended.

So, now I have a garden, and I’ve planted stuff in this garden (in addition to the other stuff already planted), and I’ve now found I’ve become one of those people who actually welcome rain in the summer because it’ll do the garden good.

Not that my attempts at becoming the next Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are overly spectacular. I think the birds ate my lettuces. I’ve managed to kill half the beans. I’m not sure if my parsnips are alive or not. But the onions are very happy, and the leeks are coming on nicely, and I think I should get a decent amount of potatoes. If nothing else, I should be able to make a nice stock come the autumn.

I’m also planning on getting more adventurous. There’s already parsley and chives, so I may well create a herb section. And I have squash seeds ready to bring on. I quite like the idea of being able to pick my meal out of the garden.

Oh, bugger it. I clearly am moving towards the aspirational end. I’m still not calling my bloody daughter Clementine though.

I quite like it here. In fact, scratch that. Despite not having a 4×4, a posh accent, or snappy Paul Smith suits, I really like it here. Even if all the 17-year-olds can get onto the Mahiki guest list. They can have their minor royals. I’m quite happy with my vegetable patch.

[1] There are a lot of young families in the area and the mothers are, well, a tad overprotected. The other day, while walking to work, I hear a scream a little way in front of me, as a mother caught up with her errant child who had wandered off ahead of her. “Don’t you ever go off out of my sight like that again,” she admonished. “You saw what happened to that little girl on the news [I presume this was Madeline McCann]. Anybody could take you, that man over there could take you.”

Thanks for that. I just happen to wear jeans and T-shirts or the like each day rather than suits, and now I’m a child-snatcher. I appreciate the mother’s point, I’d rather she picked somebody else to make it with.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: cricket, girls called Clementine, moving house, onions, trees, vegetables, village greens