Cardiff Catastrophe

Continuing an unplanned mini-series (well two, so far) of media headline bloopers, Wales Online Editorial staff will be ruing the day they let this headline go live on its news site.








Good spot by Tim Montgomerie.

Another fine example sourced by Trym Tales can be found here.

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Still Telling Tales

Oh my days!

Has it really been six weeks since the last posting from everybody's favourite Westbury-on-Trym blog? Six weeks!

Historically, July and August have always been quiet times for Trym Tales. Since this is also the silly season in traditional print-based media, I take comfort from this similarity - evidence that BS9's leading independent online media outlet is truly rolling with the big boys.

Having said that, I was shocked, horrified and amused at one recent faux pas from a leading media competitor. I refer, of course, to a recent edition of the mid-Bedfordshire Times and Citizen.

As the picture reveals, June 3rd was clearly not the sub-editor's finest day, professionally speaking.






Closer to home, recent low output from Trym Tales cannot be explained away simply by lack of local news.

Post-election, we have had Charlotte Leslie's maiden speech in the House of Commons, the on-off story of St Ursula's transition to an academy (exit Merchant Venturers, enter Oasis Education Trust, with a possible transition date of September 2011) and the strange tale of the council's decision to dig up the magnificent playing field at Elmlea Infants School so that they can move the school building 100 metres north. As if that were not enough, Southdown and Hillsdon Road have had their long-awaited street party on the day England began their short-lived world cup campaign.

All of which augers well for a resurgence of local news and views from the newly resurrected Trym Tales for all loyal readers. I thank both of you for your patience.

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Hairstyles and Smiles as Leaflet Campaign Hots up in Bristol North West

A rain forest of campaign leaflets have been falling through my letterbox this week, proving, in case we were in any doubt, that BS9 is indeed the key location in the UK that will decide this election.

If only I had had the presence of mind to save these leaflets from the beginning, I could have established myself at a later date as an expert in the field, created an online brand and monetized the experience through an in-depth blog, an e-book and a carefully targeted affiliate marketing campaign.

Who knows, I may have even made it onto Mastermind:

"You have two minutes on Electoral Campaign Leaflets from Bristol North West, 2010, starting ...now."

In the absence of such marketable knowledge, I am reduced to sharing with all nine subscribers of Westbury on Trym's leading independent online media outlet my two favourite leaflets from the recent crop.

Firstly, the ever-photogenic Charlotte Leslie demonstrates her commitment to supporting local hairdressers by modeling the mature buffon style so loved of Westbury on Trym's female voters.



Secondly, Sam Townend reveals that it's not all doom and gloom in politics and that there's plenty of room for a smiley face in Westminster.





Speaking of Labour, I was interested to spot my first Labour placard outside a house yesterday, located on Pen Park Road in Southmead.

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Nicole Jackson on Parenting

Was I the only person in Bristol who was sad to listen to local singer Nicole Jackson talking on X Factor about her non-relationship with her father?

As the camera zoomed in on the Bristol teenager's trembling lip and tears, we learned that having not spoken with her father for two years, she hopes that if she does well in the televised talent show, perhaps she will be able to have a conversation with her dad.

Now, obviously, I don't know any of the history of this relationship and am in no way passing judgement on any member of the family. However, I do notice that there seem to be a lot of kids out there who appear to think that fame, or "success" is a necessary ingredient for enjoying a loving relationship with other human beings. I also notice that some adults seem to be of the same opinion.

I'm glad that view is incorrect. Otherwise the 99.9% of us of all ages whose lives will always be characterised by obscurity will be doomed to unhappy relationships.

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What a Difference a Post Makes

What a month.

Barely had I finished my earlier post highlighting the emergence of new media in the area - notably the Westbury on Trym People site - when I found myself caught up in the phonomenon and offered a paid writing job with the neighbouring site, Redland People.

The ad for the post specified that the Community Publisher for the new local community news site should be (I paraphrase) used to running a local blog or news site (thank you) and, ideally, be comfortable with the so-called new social media.

Rarely having heard my skill set described so perfectly, I was down to the Evening Post building in a flash and, after a testing interview, was offered the post.

Inevitably, the new role, which I am continuing part time alongside running my Kumon Study Centre in Redland, has taken up quie a bit of time and has resulted in a brief lull in proceedings here at Trym Tales.

This is shame as there has been so much going on locally to comment on.

One brief item will have to suffice: the eco-festival in Westbury High Street ten days ago was, in my opinion, a really important event. Not only was it well attended, but I think it has put the Sustainable Westbury group on the map in a big way. The message of low carbon communities has, I think, taken a significant step forward.

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Westbury's Dead Centre

Keith Floyd's cremation at Canford Cemetary tomorrow (Wednesday 30th) will no doubt have the net curtains of Westbury twitching as residents hope for a glimpse of the coffin or, even, a minor still-living celebrity.

Our behaviour around funerals of people we've never met is really strange.

The coffin, apparently, is hand woven from banana leaves. An interesting option for a cremation.

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New Feed Added

Chronicles of Bristolia is the latest local media site to be added to the feed roll on the right hand column of Trym Tales.

As Jules Hynam, the blog owner, says about himself: "I am a photographer."

A rather good one, in my opinion.

His Flickr stream can be followed here.

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Local Media: Sleep at Your Peril

Reports of the death of Trym Tales have, like those of Mark Twain's alleged demise in 1897, been greatly exaggerated. A combination of busyness and a family holiday to the English Riviera's spotty cousin (Exmouth) have resulted in the longest publishing gap in the history of Trym Tales since its inception in August 2006.

Barely had Westbury on Trym's leading online independent media outlet started its brief summer lull when, somnambulant on the beach under a Kagool, it found itself facing the launch of a rival local media site serving the news-hungry residents of BS9.

Westbury on Trym People is the local expression of a major initiative in locally-driven media by Northcliffe Media, who bring us the Evening Post and Western Daily News as well as the This is Bristol site. Building on their history of delivering local media (Northcliffe currently publish over 150 separate local papers and magazines in the UK in addition to several hundred web sites), Northcliffe have gone "hyper-local" in a big way through their creation of 23 (soon to be 33) local sites with "People" in the title across the west of England and South Wales.

This is Bristol journalist Marc Cooper, one of the key contributors to the new local sites, explains via his blog that "the most striking thing about hyper local websites is that the usual top down delivery of news ... is gone. What appears top of hyper local websites is whatever the people who use them are talking about. " Northcliffe describes the sites - which are being piloted in the southwest - as "combining news writing with social networking", as all stories on the site are generated by local users rather than traditional journalists. Let's throw the word wiki in as well, to make the description complete.

The arrival of Westbury on Trym People and its sister sites is a local outworking of a global revolution currently underway in traditional print-based media previously noted in this blog. Locally, this revolution, largely influenced by the Internet, has seen 45 journalism jobs cut at the Evening Post this year.

One of those made redundant in the recent cuts is Chris Brown who has responded by launching in June his own Bristol-wide news site Bristol 24-7, a site which more obviously compares with This is Bristol than with a hyper-local site such as Westbury on Trym People, or indeed with Trym Tales.

While we're on the subject of local media, Guide2Bristol has also been quietly establishing itself as an additional source of local news and features. I have also been known to contribute the occasional blog post to the site.

Wired Bristol is yet another new media source for the city. Can't really say much about it except that it looks a little bare at present and that the link to its RSS feed does not work.

In summary, the future of online media is up in the air, Bristol has some new news sites and Trym Tales (which will seek to actively participate in Westbury on Trym People) will continue to produce regular news and views from north Bristol's urban village, without taking itself too seriously.

Thank you very much and best wishes to all newcomers.

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Twitter Power Takes on the Daily Mail

Am sitting in my office chuckling to myself as I watch a conspiracy take place in the Twittersphere.

Tweets have been appearing all afternoon inviting participants to vote in a Daily Mail online poll which asks one of the more obnoxious questions I have seen in a national newspaper for some time: Should the NHS allow gipsies to jump the queue?

The poll follows a rather unpleasant article from man-of-the-people Richard Littlejohn in which he reports on and then criticises an apparent NHS policy to allow members of the "mobile community" (caravans, not phones) to receive priority appointments at GP clinics.

Tweeters have been seeking to skew the results of the poll by exhorting each other to vote "yes" to the question in large numbers, thereby pouring scorn on the Mail's perceived populist fear-mongering.

The original tweet seems to track back as far as the enigmatic Infobunny, a London-based law librarian who keeps her tweets private, and the campaign has gathered momentum throughout the day as twitter-ers have encouraged each other to use different browsers in order to cast more votes.

By 3 pm, 92% of the pollsters had voted "yes", that they did in fact want gypsies to be allowed to jump the queue in doctor's surgeries, a result that may come as something of a surprise to the Daily Mail editorial board.

Although it is comforting to know that it is not only Iranians who can influence politics through twitter, this very British piece of jolly good fun should also be a rebuke to the Mail about the dangers of stirring up communal jealousies - especially in a week which has seen 100 Roma forcibly removed from their homes in a wave of xenophobia in Belfast.

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Trading Places

So, the former Intoto Kitchens on the corner of Westbury Hill and Cambridge Crescent (map here) has ceased to be a franchise and has become an owner-operated business Kitchens by Design.

As I was busy recovering from the exertions of changing a light bulb at the time (and fusing the entire upstairs lighting ring in the process), I missed the grand opening of the new business which took place yesterday afternoon and which was attended by ITV presenter Peter Rowell (pictured).

Inspired by the fact that the above local media personality (Trym Tales has learned) charges between £1,000 and £3,000 for his services, I've decided to enter the world of after dinner speaking and opening of village fetes.

Trym Tales can therefore exclusively reveal that Westbury on Tyrm's leading independent online media outlet would like to offer the services of yours truely to cut ribbons, present oversize cheques and smile at the camera for your local community or business event.

£50 per event (plus a pie and chips) is all I charge to add that unique combination of transatlantic charm and sophistication to your event.

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Bristol's Got Talent

The fact that not one but two of the finalists of the BBC show The Speaker attend the same Bristol secondary school is a credit to the school and the city.

Series winner Duncan Harrison and runner-up Irene Carter both attend St Mary Redcliffe School, the Church of England secondary currently undergoing a major rebuild on its small city centre campus.

The prestigious national competition, which ran over eight episodes and saw thousands of initial applicants whittled down to a final three, was judged by entertainer Jo Brand, speaker and broadcaster John Amaechi and actor/director Jeremy Stockwell. The series of challenges competitors went through were designed to test their verbal communication and improvisation skills across a range of disciplines.

Sucess in the competition has resulted in a series of interviews and media opportunities for 15-year old Duncan, including, it is rumoured, the offer of his own radio show on Star FM. Duncan's brother Angus, a student at the North Bristol Post-16 Centre, is a part-time actor and appears in a major role alongside Mel Smith in the British film Halo Boy.

Runner-up Irene Carter, meanwhile, was mentored over part of the series by news broadcaster Kate Silverton who, Trym Tales understands, took quite a shine to the 17-year old and has urged the Bristol sixth former to stay in touch in order to develop her career as a news reporter.

BS9 is already the sector the the city which sends the largest number of students to St Mary Redcliffe School and there is every possibility that The Speaker will have increased interest in what the specialist humanities school has to offer.

As a voluntary-aided Church of England School, Redcliffe, is permitted to set its own faith-based admissions criteria which gives priority to familes who are regular and long-term committed members of a Christian church. The policy also provides for a specific number of places to be allocated to children of other faiths and to children in the immediate parish of St Mary Redcliffe. In a typical year, the school receives three times as many applications as it has places.

The Redcliffe Sixth Form centre has no faith-based admission requirement.

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Just Can't Get Enough?

Loyal readers of this blog, currently forced to wait up to three days between postings, will be relieved to learn that an additional source of erudite local comment is at last available, created by the team (uhmm) that brings you Trym Tales.

As guest writer for the local portal Guide2Bristol, I will be posting intellectually stimulating items of local interest every week on the site, which can be viewed here.

Recent pieces include a post about the current round of allocation of places for secondary schools in Bristol (with more than a passing glance at the new Oasis Academy Brightstowe) as well as an item on the pressure to build new houses in Bristol's greenbelt in the coming years.

Guide2Bristol contains a news section, an accommodation section, information on Bristol's diverse neighbourhoods, a jobs section and a free classified section. That's just part of it, of course, as it also includes its own blog written (as outlined above) by yours truly.

Thank you.

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Local Food Takes Root

Evidence of the growing interest in local food in the city is found in two diverse sources this week.

The publication of the Bristol Local Food Newsletter. Email claire.milne@bristol.gov.uk to get on the mailing list. For once, the claim that a publication is "packed" is true in this case, There's a lot of interesting info in it.

A new local farm shop has opened at Ashton Court.

Meanwhile, Bristol Streets is a wiki map highlighting local green initiatives. I think.

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Twitter on Trym Tales

Have just set up a Twit feed consisting entirely of tweets from people located within a 5 mile radius of Bristol.

Check it out on the right hand side of the page below the labels and above the feeds.

Let me know what you think. Does it give a snapshot of Bristol life (from a Twitter perspective) or is just white noise?

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Local Media Unearthed in Kings Weston

Imagine that.

Despite living in Westbury on Trym for twelve years, yesterday was the first time I had come across Shirehampton's community newspaper.

The reassuringly-named "Shire" has, according to the front page of its February edition, been in continuous publication for 37 years. This has lead to BS11's leading newspaper claiming that "We think we might be the longest running amateur local free community paper." That's a lot of adjectives in front of the word "paper", but congratulations nonetheless.

Shire runs to 5,000 copies monthly and I picked up my free copy for the first time yesterday from King's Weston House cafe after a pleasant stroll round the extensive grounds, which if I'm not mistaken have had some of their undergrowth cut back to reveal paths and vistas that were new to me.

The community paper is run by volunteers and gives the Shiehampton Library as its official address along with a range of phone numbers. I was impressed to see one number designated as "Requests for Shire by Post", which reveals a level of community spirit rarely found in better-funded corporate publications.

Breaking news in February's edition (number 445) includes:

• a review of the Ralph Vaughan Williams exibition at the Shirehampton library (no, I didn't know of his Bristol links either, nor of the fact that he was great nephew of Charles Darwin)
• Photos of an unknown WW2 soldier found in a local skip
  
• an article on the links to local people in street names
• news from the Avon Wildlife Trust
• an extensive letters page
• a report on Carols on the Green (a long-standing Christmas Eve tradition in the village)

Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways also have a piece in the paper along with a network map which includes hoped-for new or re-opened stations in Hallen, Henbury, North Filton as well as Horfield and Ashley Hill. The top right hand corner of the map shows an arrow to "Swindon, Reading, London Paddington and Europe".

Although one might have prefered the word "Continent", I won't quibble with the Friends. I'm all for the possibility of taking a continuous train journey from Henbury to Istanbul. Bring it on!

The Shire also has its own web site here, with what struck me as a surprisingly active message board, mostly from former residents of the Shire now living acrosss the world.

Although Trym Tales (which I think might be the longest-running amateur free online blog in Westbury on Trym) cannot claim a print edition, let alone one posted on request, readers will be glad to know that they can obtain their favourite blog in Tabloid form free of charge and ad-free, as explained on a former post here.

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All Bristol's Independent Media in One Place

Bristol's growing number of independent media producers - writers, bloggers, vloggers, photographers and podcasters - have until now relied on diverse methods for letting others know they exist.

Due to the wonders of modern technology, the latest content from all of Bristol's independent media producers can now be accessed in real time here at Trym Tales.

The feeds on the right hand column are the latest offerings from the many blogs and web sites producing local content by local people. This is not a blog roll. It's a feed roll.

To qualify for inclusion in this diverse list, the site has to fulfill a few criteria. First. it must be written or produced by Bristolians and/or contain a significant amount of material with a Bristol theme. Second, it needs to be updated regularly. Sites with no postings since July, for instance, did not make it the cut. Thirdly, the sites need an RSS feed. Any such feed will do, but unfortuantely, there are a few good sites out there which I cannot include because they have no accessible feeds. For some reason, a few of the party political sites fall into this category, otherwise they would be included. Finally, I have tried to restrict the list to non-corporate sites. The Cabot Circus blog, if there is one, will not be included, for instance, nor those by the large institutional media organisations. The aim, instead, is to give a platform for genuinely small-scale sites written by local people about local issues.

I hope you find the sites of interest. Even a glance down the titles of these sites reveals a very diverse and creative independent media scene covering a huge range of issues, perspectives and neighbourhoods within Bristol.

I've no doubt missed many out that I don't yet know about. So, please get in touch and tell me about any that should be included.

Happy reading.

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Trym Tales Goes Tabloid!

Thanks to the good people over at Hewlett Packard, Trym Tales readers can now receive their favourite local blog in newspaper version - free of charge!

With two clicks of the mouse, readers can ask Tabloid.com to generate a daily or weekly newspaper for them based on the RSS feed of their chosen website.

So, to receive Trym tales as an ad-free PDF document which will print into tabloid format, just do the following:

1. Click on Tabloid.com
2. Copy and paste the following feed URL into the big white box called "feed URL" http://trymtales.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
3. Type in your email address where shown
4. State whether you want to receive Trym Tales daily, weekly or (even!) hourly

Once completed, you will receive Westbury's leading blog (thank you) free of charge, without ads and ready to print and take on the bus with you to supplement your daily intake of the Metro.

The wonders of modern technology!

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What Next for Trym Tales?

As Westbury on Trym's leading independent online media provider (I know, the competition isn't huge), Trym Tales is committed to producing engaging and interesting micro reporting focused on events in the urban village itself, with occasional forrays into the wider Bristol scene.

In pursuit of that aim, I was intereted to drop in at the Bellingham Herald earlier - a local news site in Washington State USA which, if I've understood correctly, is completely user-generated (in the true spirit of Web 2.0).

This got me thinking about how Trym Tales could develop if its content were increasingly generated by a team of local reporters and writers, bloggers and vloggers rather than just by one person.

Quite a few things would need to change if that were to happen, but with the high number of free wiki sites available to use now, collaborative mutli-user-generated blogs and independent media outlets are increasingly easy to create and sustain - if the producers are out there and are up for it.

To that end, and to get the ball rolling, I wondered whether, among the massed ranks of regular readers, feeders and subscibers, there were any who wanted to write a one-off post on any aspect of life in north west Bristol.

Send it to me with your contact details and let's get some new voices into Trym Tales. Who knows where this may lead? You can make contact initially via the contact form on the right hand column.

Not that I haven't got plenty to say myself, of course.....

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Evening Post Video Progress

Interested to see how the Evening Post has started to include videos in its local news reports on the web site.

The practice has been common in the US for a few years but has taken a while to catch on over here.

The lamppost story is interesting in its own right as well.

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The Orpheus Experience

Given half a chance, I always prefer the Orpheus Cinema to any of the larger multiplexes.

Laying aside for a moment the romanticism of attending an older and smaller cinema, the simple fact is that it's a lot cheaper to view films at the Henleaze cinema than it is at one of its larger competitors.

Compare my visit on Saturday night, for instance, with the equivalent experience up the road at Vue Cribbs Causeway where I would have paid £27.70 compared with £18 at Orpheus to take my family of five. That's before buying the popcorn. On Mondays, single tickets at Orpheus are a mere £2.80.

The possibility of walking to the Orpheus is another attraction, though one which I must confess, I rarely take. Then there is the simple charm of turning up at the front desk, buying your ticket from one person, stepping one pace to the left to be relieved of your change by the person behind the sweet counter and then, also one step away, handing over your recently-purchased ticket to be torn in two by the usher as you step into the auditorium itself. I would bet that the Orpheus Cinema tickets hold a record for shortest distance traveled from point of sale to point of destruction - about six feet.

The cinema has what Prince Charles might call "a sense of proportion", nestled as it is above Waitrose on Northumbria Drive and containing only three smaller-than-average screens. It also has a reasonable selection of up to date films at affordable prices. In fact, I would describe it as the cinemagraphic equivalent of the Westbury farmers' market - local, seasonal and direct.

Boom, boom.

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