Hallo Colman

Hallo

2.0 marathon

It's just occurred to me that I've followed this year's London marathon entirely via social media provided by those people running or watching the event.

I know the marathon was yesterday. I don't know who won and don't have any interest. I didn't hear a single piece of pr for it, didn't read a single report or preview, heard nothing on the radio (despite listening to fivelive more than the average person) and didn't watch any of it on the telly (and I missed the news last night)

But I know it was a beautiful day in London despite living miles away. I know several people went to watch and enjoyed beer, I know Paul Colman was looking for a fellow spectator, that Rick Lamb wore flip flops (I assume he wasn't running), that Simon Charlesworth ran in under 4 hours despite stopping 4 times and that Mike was raising money for guide dogs for the blind.

I know this entirely from emails, just giving links (having to write an email trying to rustle up money for yet another marathon run must be the toughest gig their is), from facebook status updates and from Twitter.

When I was about 12 I remember Mrs Hughes from school ran the marathon. It was amazing, we all watched on telly to see if we could spot her. But because she had a couple of days off afterwards we didn't know how she did until she came into school and gave an assembly on it (I remember being impressed by her mars branded tin foil wrap thing they give you afterwards which she came in wearing)

Now the complete opposite is true. You know how your mates got on instantly but don't really take any notice of the main event.

Not all of this is down to technology of course. I'm also at a slightly different lifestage I reckon (and you can argue that the marathon still being on tv helps give it the prestige it has that gets people wanting to run it or comment on it)

everything communicates...

costs nothing but says everything.

Lovely.

Daily Show - Brown & Obama

amusing daily show stuff highlighting Brown's trip to visit Obama.
Only posted here in case I forget it (and I've forgotten how to do delicious tags & don't want to bother people on twitter)

The agony of too much technology and digital etiquette.

"it's still there"

Without wanting to come over all John Major 1992 I've just discovered that this blog still exists and actually links to my twitter profile - I honestly thought I'd cancelled it. So for fun I might try to put the odd post up if I have anything to say. Just on the sly like.

Closing Down Sale

Well I've managed to fall into the trap I feared I would of suddenly not updating my blog very often - 6 weeks or so since my last update. Having reviewed what I've written so far I think this blog suffers from being neither a proper work blog (too much like hard work to keep up) and not really a personal blog either. So I'm closing it down at the end of the week. And launching a new one called "thoughts from the train" or something similar. The single rule being that I'm only allowed to update it on the train to work and back (so it will be written exclusively from my blackberry probably) but that's it. New year, new blog. This one has been a valuable learning experience for me (linking to other sites etc) and a bit of fun but time to try something new I think.

girl power

I'm writing this up simply because I think it's a lovely bit of data and I'm sure I can find a use for it somewhere.

Since the late 1960s men have improved their record marathon times by 3 minutes - but women have improved theirs by 31 minutes.

Ok so it's off a much lower base but still.