No Longer In Use

If you want to continue to hear what I've to say, then please visit Brian O'Farrell.co.uk

I no longer post here, and will close the site down fully in due course when I've finished taking content off it onto my own site.

I want to own my own content fully, not worry about what Google or Facebook or anybody else might do with it. So I will only post photos & comments sparingly to Facebook, I will no longer post photos on Picassa.

Chess

I was asked what I was up to recently and this is my response.

not a lot. controlling how much I play these days. I log on and make moves in the games under 2 days, as well as team tournament & challenge games, sometimes some of the under 3 days.
This is giving me move time to think in each game. I am using database to study lines as well, and trying to stick to positive lines. Getting into quiet a few similar games and learning more intuitively what is the right move.
The rating is static at a low number for me, 1309, but that is more due to number of games being completed rather than quality of play (I hope). So I think I will see a big uplift in rating very soon, and contribution to team score and finally get back positive after my dismal time outs and form shift.

My stock white opening is now the English, and I'n still Sicilian for black against e4, and Nf6 against d4.

As you may have guessed that response was on a chess site hence the chess response. But I'm seriously enjoying my chess a lot more of late. Switched my white opening for the first time in well pratically ever.

Ryanair Communications Today

Email sent to people flying within a week of departure on Ryanair. And sent today amongst 2 other emails to my girlfriend ahead of a flight back to Shannon next Friday. Currently only London Shannon option.

You are shortly booked to travel on a Ryanair flight.

Please note the following important information regarding cabin baggage:

• Strictly one item of cabin baggage is permitted per passenger (excluding infants) weighing up to 10kg with maximum dimensions of 55cm x 40cm x 20cm (your handbag, briefcase, laptop, shop purchases, camera etc. must be carried in your 1 permitted piece of cabin baggage).

Click here for further information
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?sect=bag&quest=cabinbaggageallowance

• If you arrive at the boarding gate with more than one item of cabin baggage or if the item exceeds the maximum permitted dimensions or weight We reserve the right to cancel your reservation without refund and to deny you boarding


I always found it annoying that there were limits on hand luggage but duty free purchases were not. However, not including a ladies handbag in the allowance is downright wrong.

When this policy shift from Ryanair related to bags is taken in conjunction with their announcement that they are closing on airport check-in desks this is a dangerous concoction to screw the customer, and I for one will continue to avoid Ryanair like the plague. When I work out who to fly, I look at all the costs not just the ticket price, which usually means that Ryanair are not the cheapest, because I have train journey to make on the other side, as well as not being able to bring enough stuff without due to excessive baggage charges.

My real worry in all this, is that other airlines don't race Ryanair to the bottom, like Aer Lingus have at times, introducing hold luggage costs, and removing their complimentary food in-flight whilst they were competing with BA.

But for the meantime, I am proud to join the idiot blogger crew that is defined by Ryanair as anyone who disagrees with them.

And remember that this morning on BBC, O'Leary announced that they might start charging for the toilets on the planes. I would like to know his explanation for how this will reduce the airlines costs, rather than just be an ancillary revenue stream that annoys & alienates customers & potential customers alike.

Trimble Bashing Was Not Sexism

This has been one of the stories of the week.

And I completely disagree with both the lady in point and the line taken last night on This Week (BBC1).

I tried to email This Week during the show, but their email address was not the show name @ bbc.co.uk, so it bounced. So I will post it here and talk on this one a little more.

Watching the show currently I feel you're drawing the wrong conclusion
about Ms Trimble. If you look at Paxo's comment, it is the perceived
attitude of contempt, superiority that Ms Trimble showed as well as
regular annoying hand & hair movements during answers that drove a lot
of the ire aimed her way.

Nice short to the point email, shame it wasn't there to be read whilst discussing the topic.
I've seen Ms Trimble cite in the papers that she believes the negative attention she has received is purely because she is female. So explain why my girlfriend and female flatmate have been hating her since Round 1 of the competition, whilst it was in later rounds and in particular the Semi Final that got my back up?

Well the clue is in my email, and in the question asked to Jeremy Paxman. That she is condescending, yes that is right, that was what Paxo had to rebuke that she was condescending. The "quite"'s & patronising sounding "well done"'s to her team mates are the basis of the vitriol aimed at this very intelligent woman.

Oh that and the annoying hand gestures she does whilst answering questions. Hand over throat whilst thinking, and hair flick for victory. A previously unseen look of dismay for wrong answers was only seen first in the final.

Also her team struggled in the final until the final minutes when Ms Trimble came through and rattled off question & question to produce the win, and throughout the final until the closing questions, there were no hand gestures, hair flicks, smirking or quite's. Then late on and with a comfortably lead establish, the flick was back and I was reminded how much I wanted Manchester to win.

So no sexism here, I've no problem with smart women, I have a problem with condescension.

So what are you thoughts on this one? Am I completely wide of the mark, or do you share my thinking?

BBC Big Read

This is a follow up to the previous book meme.

The BBC conducted the Big Read in early 2003 to discover the nations favourite book, as well as promoting reading in conjunction with Education department (I think).

How it worked as the Top 21 was worked out after initial voting and then each got a half hour show with a "celebrity" endorsing the book and talking about it encouraging people to vote for it as best book.

When all were shown there was a public vote (not sure if the actual results were picked by someones kid in the Blue Peter studio) which resulted in a skewed result based on some blockbuster movie that was out at the time.

So I'm not sure what the list (my Uncle Tony has querying it amongst others) that is doing the rounds currently, which includes the Bible & no Prattchett or Dahl books which feature quite prominently in the final Top 100.

And interestingly I've 25 of the other list and 27 (found another just now, Uncle Tom) of this list which has 4 Potter books, and I've not read all the Prattchett ones on this list either, I own them, they are on my list to read. literally. I also own a few of the other titles on here that I've being meaning to read, like Catch 22. And I've only read some of these in the last year or two, like Brave New World & Nineteen Eighty Four.

100 Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
99 The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
98 Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
97 Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
96 Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
95 Katherine, Anya Seton
94 The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
93 The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett (read)
92 The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
91 The Godfather, Mario Puzo (read)
90 On The Road, Jack Kerouac
89 Magician, Raymond E Feist
88 Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
87 Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (read)
86 Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
85 The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
84 Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
83 Holes, Louis Sachar
82 I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
81 The Twits, Roald Dahl (read)
80 Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
79 Bleak House, Charles Dickens
78 Ulysses, James Joyce
77 The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
76 The Secret History, Donna Tartt
75 Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
74 Matilda, Roald Dahl (read)
73 Night Watch, Terry Pratchett (own, plan to read)
72 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
71 Perfume, Patrick Süskind
70 Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
69 Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett (own, plan to read)
68 Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (will buy, plan to read)
67 The Magus, John Fowles
66 The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
65 Mort, Terry Pratchett (read)
64 The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
63 A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (read)
62 Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
61 Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
60 Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
59 Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
58 Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (read)
57 Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
56 The BFG, Roald Dahl (read)
55 A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
54 Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
53 The Stand, Stephen King
52 Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck (read)
51 The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
50 The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
49 Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian (read)
48 Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
47 A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (read)
46 Animal Farm, George Orwell (read)
45 Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
44 The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
43 The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
42 Watership Down, Richard Adams (read)
41 Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
40 Emma, Jane Austen (read)
39 Dune, Frank Herbert
38 Persuasion, Jane Austen
37 A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
36 Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (read)
35 Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (read)
34 David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
33 The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
32 One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
31 The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
30 Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (read)
29 The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
28 A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
27 Middlemarch, George Eliot
26 Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
25 The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien (read)
24 Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
23 Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
22 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
21 Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
20 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
19 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
18 Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
17 Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
16 The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (read)
15 The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
14 Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
13 Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
12 Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
11 Catch-22, Joseph Heller
10 Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
9 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis (read)
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell (read)
7 Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
6 To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (read)
5 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
4 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (read)
3 His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (read)
2 Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (read)
1 The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien (read)

Books meme

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
This list comes from the BBC's Great British Reads series a few years back, now the voting was definitely influenced from the major blockbuster movie of the time.

Impressive 25 of the top 100 I've read, surprised myself with that, and I own a few of the others with the intention of reading them this year. Brave New World was only read last year & Catch 22 was bought at the same time.

the x's beside the lines are the books I've read. the +'s my loves whilst *'s are those I plan on reading.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen x
2 The Lord of the Rings x
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling [not a hope in hell]
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee x
6 The Bible x (most of it anyway)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell x+
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman x
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens *
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller * [own it next book to be read]
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare *
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien x
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger *
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald *
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy * [also on the bookshelf]
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky * [to be purchased, on the list]
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck x
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll x
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame x
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis x
34 Emma - Jane Austen x
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis x
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini *
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden *
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwel x+
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown [not a hope in hell]
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding *
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan *
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel *
52 Dune - Frank Herbert *
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen x
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon x
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck x+
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville *
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens x
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker x+
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens x
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks *
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams x
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole *
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare x+
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star '*' those you plan on reading.
4) Publish your list yourself and/or comment below

Travel Technology Show - Day 2

Yesterday I posted about my first days tweeting about Travel Technology Show as well as my thoughts on the event, here is further thoughts including some notes on one event and some tweets on another.

11:25;
wandering around #traveltechshow now. Got CIMTIG Social Media event @12.

11:39;
just talked to Snap surveys, customisable software, will investigate further #traveltechshow.

11:55;
catching the end the Q&A with exhibitors, place for feedback from clients and endusers, interesting #traveltechshow.

12:03;
useful tech advances that have helped, multiple comp screens, rss reader & net conferencing software #traveltechshow

12:49;
CIMTIG event was good plenty of food for thought, I need to put a full plan in place. Got seminar at 2 as well #traveltechshow

13:03;
chatted to Steve Dunne afterwards, exchanged cards. Interesting chap will get in touch. Good talk good event #traveltechshow

14:47;
two way conversation seminar starting #traveltechshow.

14:55;
even with social, it is important to be analytical. #traveltechshow.

15:02;
funny presentation with interesting slides. Blogs are still the best social media outlet for travel companies. #traveltechshow.

15:06;
important to have internal guidelines about what staff can talk about and what they shouldn't talk about online #traveltechshow.

15:08;
now showing clip from Friday Night with Ross talking to @stephenfry about twitter #traveltechshow.

15:10;
speaker is not convinced twitter can work for travel companies as it not being used well currently #traveltechshow.

15:13;
moving onto "traditional" social networks now. Again mixed feelings about travel companies being on there. #traveltechshow.

15:15;
importance of rich media not just words to really engage with audiences #traveltechshow.

15:18;
the important thing is getting others talking about you, but you need to engage and encourage it. So true this. #traveltechshow.

15:20;
opened up to the floor for company that doesn't really use social. And travelsupermarket is the volunteer #traveltechshow.

15:24;
advice from floor was to integrate customer review model into travelsupermarket like tripadvisor #traveltechshow.

15:40;
interesting point by @neilmaclean try ending blog posts with "do you agree?" to encourage engagement #traveltechshow.

16:05;
good presentation by @neilmaclean and nice guy too had a chat afterwards #traveltechshow.

Notes from CIMTIG Social Media event

social networks are not a phase.
They not designed for marketing.
There are different norms and rules about how you interact. Users have suspicions about why companies are there.
Though travel have advantages as people like talking about travel.

Facebook has had a 150% increase in the year to june 08. The internet as a whole grew by 11% to 860m users.
Facebook's market share in Uk has grown from 16 to 45%

What is your plan for social media? What are the objectives? Sales shouldn't be primary aim it won't work. Trust building one to one communications over the long term with your users.
Resource the project correctly. Don't do it half baked, don't expect all responses to be positive and be able to deal with them.

How to do it properly.
Social networking is evolving rapidly.
Seeing the growth of vertical social networks, that are special interest sites. B2B networks are there too, linkedin. There are also "Behind the Firewall social network" ibm & deloitte. Then there is corporate networks.

Step 2
Make sure you know your own brand culture. And be prepared to play the hand being social.

Step 3
Are you prepared to work at it and to nurture your presence.
Are you prepared to allow your brand to get personal.

Step 3
So where is your audiences network?

Step 4
Adhere to the social moses & traditions of the social networking world.
Know the social media guidelines.

Study the site and learn what turf of content prospers on the site.

Make friends
Add unique value
Don't self promote
Make sure information is correct.
Be transparent
Be patient (its viral it takes time, at least 6 months)
Don't spam

Step 5
Insight, information or entertainment.
Make wiifm

The Future
Integration between the different networks.

Discover the real fans of the brand
Recruit brand advocates
...

Q&A
First one twitter. Same Q and answer as yesterday.

Not much happening in Q&A today, which is a shame, I'll go to Steve Dunne afterwards.

Other notes.
Lastminute are on twitter and have over 1000 followers. Weekend breaks and theatre deals.

Top tips on crib sheet.

Even with social it is important to be analytical and know your return on investment.

Blog is the most valuable piece of social media for travel companies.
If only because of the benefit to ranking.

Think of the tail. Google say 24% of searches they've never seen before.

--

Okay that is it for me for Travel Technology Show, enjoyed the event and hopefully made some useful contacts and I've plenty to think about about where to go now for this project for work.