Printing from websites has always been a miserable experience. I usually do quite a lot of pre-emptive tinkering on the print preview page before I press 'send'.
I've noticed that quite often the preview version bears little relation to the on-screen view. I presume this is due to the use of style sheets (CSS). These are part of the underlying code (as is html and things like that) which determines what the page will look like on the screen.
I don't want to print the underlying code, but the final page. Unfortunately what I get is the underlying code.
To see what I mean compare the Print Preview option for your own Gmail inbox (looks the same) and your Twitter feed (looks hideous).
When faced with this sort of thing the quickest solution, for me, has been to forego any efforts to print it as real text and just take screencaptures, knit those together in Paint, paste into Word document and print. This works well but is fiddly and I've shown quite a few people how to do it as they'd not found a solution either.
Surely EVERYONE has this problem. How do you get round it and is there a better way?
There are some customisable options in the Print Preview options menu (Windows 7) but none make the page look as pretty as it might.
(And no, copying and pasting the text doesn't entirely solve the problem - it solves a different problem in that I can format the text any way I like, but it doesn't let the web page look like the web page).
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Pretty much everyone I've complained to the ASA about (records permitting)
Someone asked me the other day on Twitter about all the other people and organisations whose advertising material I'd complained about to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
To be honest I'd been meaning to write it for a while in response to a certain live blood microscopist's recent claims (well, since October 2012) that I'm a racist, along with Josephine Jones, because I complained about his sites and because I'm white and he's not.
However I've also been reluctant to write it as I didn't particularly want to name the names of all the companies because that would also include those who've had their claims informally resolved after they made the relevant changes on their website. So I will link to stuff that should help you find out what organisation it was, without mentioning them, or the others, on this particular post.
Hopefully it will be clear from the information below that any sites or organisations whose advertising / marketing material I've complained about have been the subject of a complaint because of their claims, and not because of anything personal about them.
I can't be sure I have every item here, I'm on a course this week so am not doing a big trawl of my various repositories but will add to it as I remember stuff or people remind me of stuff I've forgotten.
The reason that I don't automatically have a record is because I don't use my email system's sent mailbox as the store of sent messages (that would make it easy) - information about the complaints is in disparate places.
Instead I've used two main methods to communicate with the ASA:
(1) filling in their form online
(2) filling in their form via use of the Fishbarrel tool which lets you fill in comments on a single page and then parses it into the form for you.
In both cases it is my responsibility to keep a record as once it's sent you don't get an automatic email with a complaint. I'm inconsistent in where I store these, though it doesn't really matter.
What happens to the complaint?
As I understand it... please correct me if I am wrong...
(1) The ASA thinks there's no case to answer because the advert didn't break their advertising code, they let you know and that's the end of it
(2) The ASA thinks there is a case to answer and proposes to investigate the matter, taking it up with the advertiser
>>(2a) The advertiser agrees to amend their claims and the matter is resolved informally - there is no formal adjudication but the advertiser is listed on the 'informally resolved' pages
>>(2b) The advertiser provides evidence that satisfies the ASA and the matter is adjudicated and the complaint is NOT upheld
>>(2c) The advertiser provides evidence that DOES NOT satisfy the ASA (or they do not provide evidence), the matter is adjudicated and the complaint is upheld
(3) The ASA has already adjudicated on a similar case, thinks there is no benefit in re-running the process (having seen all the evidence they need) and passes the complaint to the compliance team who liaise with the advertiser. If the advertiser amends their claims that's the end of the matter and it is informally resolved, if not the advertiser is listed on the ASA's list of non-compliant online advertisers.
Thus far my complaints have led to one company being added to the list of non-compliant advertisers - a live blood analyst (however it is not the one who has recently made inexplicable assertions about me or Josephine).
If stage (2c) occurs the ASA writes to you asking that you don't report on the contents of the draft adjudication until the Board has met and considered it (after all, they may reject it), which is fair enough. After an adjudication has been upheld it is in the public domain and journalists and indeed anyone can write about it. In fact, I think it's good practice - if someone has made misleading claims then it is not a bad idea to write better information in the hope that people searching for the topic will find your information.
Here are the names of the companies or people that I have complained about. As I come across various bit of information about their status I'll add it.
Quite a lot of these relate to diabetes. I used to work at Diabetes UK and received a lot of information from the public who'd come across adverts and wanted to know more. I never complained to the ASA as part of my job (ie I didn't complain as an employee) but certainly made clear that I worked there, had an interest in diabetes and had the relevant medical knowledge to spot a misleading claim when I saw it.
Organisations I've complained about
- some I've blogged about, not all
Cosmetics (parent) company - I complained about a ridiculous advert for an anti-ageing cream. It was monumentally unsubtle with a close-up of someone's eye smiling (which makes the skin around the eyes wrinkle on pretty much everyone) versus an slightly less smiling eye. For the life of me I can't find it on the ASA's website but I think it was upheld and the ad was not to be shown in the current format again. I can't imagine this troubles the parent company one bit to be honest.
Adjudication upheld, advert not to be shown again, advert not shown again.
Live blood analyst - the leaflet of a London-based live blood analyst. At the time of making this complaint (2010) the ASA was not accepting complaints about website content. This changed in 2011.
Adjudication upheld, leaflets not to be promoted again, leaflets not promoted again, however website claims remain.
Vitamin pill company - made misleading claims about products for people relating to diabetes. They promptly amended their website so the ASA didn't pursue it formally (no point, job done).
Website amended, informally resolved.
Holiday / retreat offering treatment for diabetes & cancer - claims about diabetes and cancer. Because the company operates beyond UK soil the adjudication was made in a different country, but upheld.
Adjudication upheld, website changed. I did blog about this but later removed it (more details below).
Live blood analyst - website of same live blood analyst as above. Funnily enough the adjudication isn't actually mine, although I did complain about the website at the same time as someone else (I don't know who it is, it's not Josephine). I received a letter from the ASA saying that they were already acting on an earlier complaint however I confess I misunderstood this somewhat and when I received an adjucation note from them later I thought it was mine. Doesn't matter - the content's pretty much the same.
Adjudication upheld, website not amended, blogged.
Live blood analyst - website of a different live blood analyst in London. This followed a complaint about their website after there was an article about their services in a newspaper.
No adjudication because complaint passed straight to compliance. The compliance team doesn't alert you if an organisation is posted on their non-compliant list so I found out about this quite a bit later. Website not amended, added to non-compliant online advertiser list. Blogged, once I found out about it.
Homeopaths (general) - several. When the ASA's remit changed in 2011 the ASA received an influx of complaints about homeopathy from everyone who'd ever been annoyed at the claims they were making without good evidence. The ASA realised it couldn't manage things under their normal way of working so instead of handling individual cases they decided to work on guidelines for the entire homeopathy industry and work with individuals to help their advertising comply with that. This is still ongoing.
Not taken forward for individual complaints.
Some more companies to add here which include, from memory something to do with a fish spa and an energy drink, also another herbal drink that is heavily promoted to people with all manner of illnesses. More later....
Companies or products I've written about
- not made a complaint to ASA though
Vitamin pill company- I was highly amused that the company used the results of a miniscule trialette showing that people with diabetes taking their vitamin pill preferred it to the placebo one, therefore (it seemed to me) it was marketed as a well-being tablet. I'm sure I'm not doing it justice but I wrote about it and wasn't all that surprised to see that someone else had complained about it - I don't think it was me, but it could have been, it was ages ago.
Adjudication (don't think it was mine) upheld, haven't seen the products in the pharmacist but I think you can still buy them online.
Herbal products company - an American company and so therefore its activities have nothing to do with the ASA - I was very surprised to see a post on someone else's blog which seemed to be giving them a free advert. I wasn't overly wowed by their evidence, however they did write to me and ask for a right of reply on my blog which I was happy to give them.
Holiday / retreat offering treatment for diabetes & cancer - I had previously complained about them, the adjudication was upheld and I blogged about it but removed the post following a very polite request and assurance that misleading claims had been amended.
Adjudication (not mine) upheld and published on World Diabetes Day on 14 November.
Glucosamine and chondroitin - use in people with diabetes. Not a complaint but my reading of the state of evidence back in 2010 (it may have changed since then, I'm not up to speed with it, but pretty sure it's of no use).
Cleaning product - this company claimed that their cleaning product killed more germs, and more exciting types of germs that I found hard to believe I'd find on my surfaces. I blogged, but didn't complain. However I never saw the ad after that so maybe they pulled it or there was a complaint by someone else.
Affiliate marketers- the umbrella company works with individual companies selling products for which I've never been overly taken with the evidence. I've written about several aspects of this but I don't think I've put in complaints myself, it looks like others have though. The linked blog relates to the umbrella organisation's work with the Office of Fair Trading to develop guidance for all affiliate marketers. The end product from that is a website disclaimer on each affiliate's site(s) so that consumers understand that the websites on which they're reading 'product reviews' are actually sites designed to refer consumers to the online shop, for which the affiliate gets a cut.
It goes: Umbrella organisation >> Company >> Product - advertised by Affiliate marketer - sold to Consumer
Ear candling (general) - I can't remember if I've ever had an adjudication on ear candling. I think this post was just me learning about the topic as background so that information is collected together in one place if I ever decide to act and complain. My blog is often a learning tool for me - I post some stuff up and add to it as I learn more or people correct me if they spot something wrong. It's pretty useful.
Cancer clinic in the US - strong claims, unclear evidence. Many, many blog posts by science and skeptic bloggers.
Other complaints, but not to the ASA
Company selling bleach, to be drunk (!) for the benefit of one's health - I didn't complain to the ASA but I did write to Google asking them to consider removing the paid-for adverts for this from their search engine. At the time it was being heavily promoted and... people probably shouldn't be drinking it. Google acknowledged my letter but sadly the paid-for ads are still there.
To be honest I'd been meaning to write it for a while in response to a certain live blood microscopist's recent claims (well, since October 2012) that I'm a racist, along with Josephine Jones, because I complained about his sites and because I'm white and he's not.
However I've also been reluctant to write it as I didn't particularly want to name the names of all the companies because that would also include those who've had their claims informally resolved after they made the relevant changes on their website. So I will link to stuff that should help you find out what organisation it was, without mentioning them, or the others, on this particular post.
Hopefully it will be clear from the information below that any sites or organisations whose advertising / marketing material I've complained about have been the subject of a complaint because of their claims, and not because of anything personal about them.
I can't be sure I have every item here, I'm on a course this week so am not doing a big trawl of my various repositories but will add to it as I remember stuff or people remind me of stuff I've forgotten.
The reason that I don't automatically have a record is because I don't use my email system's sent mailbox as the store of sent messages (that would make it easy) - information about the complaints is in disparate places.
Instead I've used two main methods to communicate with the ASA:
(1) filling in their form online
(2) filling in their form via use of the Fishbarrel tool which lets you fill in comments on a single page and then parses it into the form for you.
In both cases it is my responsibility to keep a record as once it's sent you don't get an automatic email with a complaint. I'm inconsistent in where I store these, though it doesn't really matter.
What happens to the complaint?
As I understand it... please correct me if I am wrong...
(1) The ASA thinks there's no case to answer because the advert didn't break their advertising code, they let you know and that's the end of it
(2) The ASA thinks there is a case to answer and proposes to investigate the matter, taking it up with the advertiser
>>(2a) The advertiser agrees to amend their claims and the matter is resolved informally - there is no formal adjudication but the advertiser is listed on the 'informally resolved' pages
>>(2b) The advertiser provides evidence that satisfies the ASA and the matter is adjudicated and the complaint is NOT upheld
>>(2c) The advertiser provides evidence that DOES NOT satisfy the ASA (or they do not provide evidence), the matter is adjudicated and the complaint is upheld
(3) The ASA has already adjudicated on a similar case, thinks there is no benefit in re-running the process (having seen all the evidence they need) and passes the complaint to the compliance team who liaise with the advertiser. If the advertiser amends their claims that's the end of the matter and it is informally resolved, if not the advertiser is listed on the ASA's list of non-compliant online advertisers.
Thus far my complaints have led to one company being added to the list of non-compliant advertisers - a live blood analyst (however it is not the one who has recently made inexplicable assertions about me or Josephine).
If stage (2c) occurs the ASA writes to you asking that you don't report on the contents of the draft adjudication until the Board has met and considered it (after all, they may reject it), which is fair enough. After an adjudication has been upheld it is in the public domain and journalists and indeed anyone can write about it. In fact, I think it's good practice - if someone has made misleading claims then it is not a bad idea to write better information in the hope that people searching for the topic will find your information.
Here are the names of the companies or people that I have complained about. As I come across various bit of information about their status I'll add it.
Quite a lot of these relate to diabetes. I used to work at Diabetes UK and received a lot of information from the public who'd come across adverts and wanted to know more. I never complained to the ASA as part of my job (ie I didn't complain as an employee) but certainly made clear that I worked there, had an interest in diabetes and had the relevant medical knowledge to spot a misleading claim when I saw it.
Organisations I've complained about
- some I've blogged about, not all
Cosmetics (parent) company - I complained about a ridiculous advert for an anti-ageing cream. It was monumentally unsubtle with a close-up of someone's eye smiling (which makes the skin around the eyes wrinkle on pretty much everyone) versus an slightly less smiling eye. For the life of me I can't find it on the ASA's website but I think it was upheld and the ad was not to be shown in the current format again. I can't imagine this troubles the parent company one bit to be honest.
Adjudication upheld, advert not to be shown again, advert not shown again.
Live blood analyst - the leaflet of a London-based live blood analyst. At the time of making this complaint (2010) the ASA was not accepting complaints about website content. This changed in 2011.
Adjudication upheld, leaflets not to be promoted again, leaflets not promoted again, however website claims remain.
Vitamin pill company - made misleading claims about products for people relating to diabetes. They promptly amended their website so the ASA didn't pursue it formally (no point, job done).
Website amended, informally resolved.
Holiday / retreat offering treatment for diabetes & cancer - claims about diabetes and cancer. Because the company operates beyond UK soil the adjudication was made in a different country, but upheld.
Adjudication upheld, website changed. I did blog about this but later removed it (more details below).
Live blood analyst - website of same live blood analyst as above. Funnily enough the adjudication isn't actually mine, although I did complain about the website at the same time as someone else (I don't know who it is, it's not Josephine). I received a letter from the ASA saying that they were already acting on an earlier complaint however I confess I misunderstood this somewhat and when I received an adjucation note from them later I thought it was mine. Doesn't matter - the content's pretty much the same.
Adjudication upheld, website not amended, blogged.
Live blood analyst - website of a different live blood analyst in London. This followed a complaint about their website after there was an article about their services in a newspaper.
No adjudication because complaint passed straight to compliance. The compliance team doesn't alert you if an organisation is posted on their non-compliant list so I found out about this quite a bit later. Website not amended, added to non-compliant online advertiser list. Blogged, once I found out about it.
Homeopaths (general) - several. When the ASA's remit changed in 2011 the ASA received an influx of complaints about homeopathy from everyone who'd ever been annoyed at the claims they were making without good evidence. The ASA realised it couldn't manage things under their normal way of working so instead of handling individual cases they decided to work on guidelines for the entire homeopathy industry and work with individuals to help their advertising comply with that. This is still ongoing.
Not taken forward for individual complaints.
Some more companies to add here which include, from memory something to do with a fish spa and an energy drink, also another herbal drink that is heavily promoted to people with all manner of illnesses. More later....
Companies or products I've written about
- not made a complaint to ASA though
Vitamin pill company- I was highly amused that the company used the results of a miniscule trialette showing that people with diabetes taking their vitamin pill preferred it to the placebo one, therefore (it seemed to me) it was marketed as a well-being tablet. I'm sure I'm not doing it justice but I wrote about it and wasn't all that surprised to see that someone else had complained about it - I don't think it was me, but it could have been, it was ages ago.
Adjudication (don't think it was mine) upheld, haven't seen the products in the pharmacist but I think you can still buy them online.
Herbal products company - an American company and so therefore its activities have nothing to do with the ASA - I was very surprised to see a post on someone else's blog which seemed to be giving them a free advert. I wasn't overly wowed by their evidence, however they did write to me and ask for a right of reply on my blog which I was happy to give them.
Holiday / retreat offering treatment for diabetes & cancer - I had previously complained about them, the adjudication was upheld and I blogged about it but removed the post following a very polite request and assurance that misleading claims had been amended.
Adjudication (not mine) upheld and published on World Diabetes Day on 14 November.
About a year ago I complained about a non-UK company (but based in the EU) to the ASA, they took it up with the relevant authority in the company's host country... who adjudicated in my favour (this is mentioned in the ASA list above but you'll see in a moment why it's not linked to anything). I wrote this up as I was rather appalled by some of the claims that had been made and the frankly poor approach to evidence (relying on testimonial).
Then an unusual thing happened. The proprietor of the company wrote me a sweet email explaining that they had not intended to mislead anyone, had now made the changes on their website and had noticed that my blog was coming up on the first page of results, potentially harming their business reputation. Would I mind taking down my post? Not at all said I, and took it down a day or so later (I didn't take it down immediately as someone had just left a snarky comment and I'd be quick enough to post a positive comment, so fair's fair). That page is no longer on my blog (it is reverted to 'draft'). The same company had a separate adjudication upheld against them by the ASA - to be honest I'm not exactly sure how given that they're not in the UK - and I wrote about it obliquely (linked above) without mentioning the organisation's name.
Glucosamine and chondroitin - use in people with diabetes. Not a complaint but my reading of the state of evidence back in 2010 (it may have changed since then, I'm not up to speed with it, but pretty sure it's of no use).
Cleaning product - this company claimed that their cleaning product killed more germs, and more exciting types of germs that I found hard to believe I'd find on my surfaces. I blogged, but didn't complain. However I never saw the ad after that so maybe they pulled it or there was a complaint by someone else.
Affiliate marketers- the umbrella company works with individual companies selling products for which I've never been overly taken with the evidence. I've written about several aspects of this but I don't think I've put in complaints myself, it looks like others have though. The linked blog relates to the umbrella organisation's work with the Office of Fair Trading to develop guidance for all affiliate marketers. The end product from that is a website disclaimer on each affiliate's site(s) so that consumers understand that the websites on which they're reading 'product reviews' are actually sites designed to refer consumers to the online shop, for which the affiliate gets a cut.
It goes: Umbrella organisation >> Company >> Product - advertised by Affiliate marketer - sold to Consumer
- Company - added to the ASA's non-compliant list (though not by me)
- Company - I blogged about an imminent burst of festive PR which then played out predictably.
- Product - to be honest I was a bit fascinated by the strategies used on 'review' sites, which are nothing of the sort really.
- Product - formulaic newspaper advertising of herbal weight loss product.
- Product - a patch that you wear that helps you lose weight. Having read around the topic of skin patches as a drug-delivery system for people with diabetes it seemed pretty clear that this was going to be quite a challenge.
Ear candling (general) - I can't remember if I've ever had an adjudication on ear candling. I think this post was just me learning about the topic as background so that information is collected together in one place if I ever decide to act and complain. My blog is often a learning tool for me - I post some stuff up and add to it as I learn more or people correct me if they spot something wrong. It's pretty useful.
Cancer clinic in the US - strong claims, unclear evidence. Many, many blog posts by science and skeptic bloggers.
Other complaints, but not to the ASA
Company selling bleach, to be drunk (!) for the benefit of one's health - I didn't complain to the ASA but I did write to Google asking them to consider removing the paid-for adverts for this from their search engine. At the time it was being heavily promoted and... people probably shouldn't be drinking it. Google acknowledged my letter but sadly the paid-for ads are still there.
Saturday, 19 January 2013
Errol Denton racist accusations and live blood testing
Update 20 March 2014: Today the subject of this post was fined £9,000 for nine counts of the Cancer Act of 1939 at Westminster Magistrates Court and handed a total bill (including costs) of over £19,000. He did not attend this final court hearing and did not represent himself.
This might take a wee while to load. It's a long Storify story which captures some of the tweets by an account going under the name of @FightRacism2. The stated aim of this account is to fight racism, as the name suggests, however it seems that the actual purpose is more to hamper attempts at reducing racism by spamming people with a link to an ineffective petition thereby distracting them and wasting their time.
The account appears to be using a bait-and-switch tactic by posting two links in most of the tweets - the first is to some unambiguously repugnant example of racism, the second is to his petition which is effectively cuckoo-egged or trojan-horsed into the tweet. This is unfortunate.
It's also a bit annoying, in that the petition is calling one of my blogger friends, and me, racist simply for pointing out some misleading claims made on Errol Denton's websites about Live Blood Analysis (LBA). We're nothing of the kind and we (and loads of other people too) have reported several people to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) without paying any attention to their ethnicity, or indeed anything about them personally beyond the fact that they've made claims for which we don't think they have evidence.
I don't know for certain that whoever runs the @FightRacism2 account is the same person that runs the @ErrolDenton account (nor do I know that either of them are actually Mr Errol Denton, the nutritional microscopist with rooms in Harley Street whose business is Fitalifestyle Ltd and who runs the SeeMyCells.co.uk and LiveBloodTest.com websites).
Whoever writes the posts that appear on Mr Denton's blogs often writes in the third person so it is entirely possible that there are teams of people responsible for this output - after all he, or someone else, is well-used to using crowdsourcing tools such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk and ShortTask to pay people to sign misleading petitions (around 930 of the current signatures seem to have been paid-for according to screenshot timestamps), and curiously to pay people to send tweets to the Errol Denton Twitter account with the following keywords:
I presume this keyword business is some sort of Search Engine Optimisation strategy - I struggle to see how it would work on Twitter which isn't fully indexed by Google but perhaps I'm missing something here).
All very strange. Although not as strange as catching up with fellow blogger Josephine Jones' Twitter feed yesterday and learning that the BBC's latest episode of the medical drama Doctors features the following storyline: "Jimmi is caught between medical ethics and legal boundaries when he tries to expose a live blood testing consultation" - it even features the live blood analyst falsely accusing a GP of racism (quickly disproven by the fact that the GP had recorded the conversation) - has the BBC been reading our blogs?! Watch it on BBC iPlayer.
Here's the Storify. I'm putting it here on my blog because I want to give Google something else to index, the embed code is available at the original Storify page, if you click the icon marked < / >
I can't help noticing that by linking Errol Denton so strongly with the word racist both account holders (whoever's running @ErrolDenton and / or @FightRacism) might have inadvertently damaged Mr Denton's reputation somewhat, at least according to Google:
I am aware that Google personalises results, but several friends have confirmed that they see the same thing.
This might take a wee while to load. It's a long Storify story which captures some of the tweets by an account going under the name of @FightRacism2. The stated aim of this account is to fight racism, as the name suggests, however it seems that the actual purpose is more to hamper attempts at reducing racism by spamming people with a link to an ineffective petition thereby distracting them and wasting their time.
The account appears to be using a bait-and-switch tactic by posting two links in most of the tweets - the first is to some unambiguously repugnant example of racism, the second is to his petition which is effectively cuckoo-egged or trojan-horsed into the tweet. This is unfortunate.
It's also a bit annoying, in that the petition is calling one of my blogger friends, and me, racist simply for pointing out some misleading claims made on Errol Denton's websites about Live Blood Analysis (LBA). We're nothing of the kind and we (and loads of other people too) have reported several people to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) without paying any attention to their ethnicity, or indeed anything about them personally beyond the fact that they've made claims for which we don't think they have evidence.
I don't know for certain that whoever runs the @FightRacism2 account is the same person that runs the @ErrolDenton account (nor do I know that either of them are actually Mr Errol Denton, the nutritional microscopist with rooms in Harley Street whose business is Fitalifestyle Ltd and who runs the SeeMyCells.co.uk and LiveBloodTest.com websites).
Whoever writes the posts that appear on Mr Denton's blogs often writes in the third person so it is entirely possible that there are teams of people responsible for this output - after all he, or someone else, is well-used to using crowdsourcing tools such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk and ShortTask to pay people to sign misleading petitions (around 930 of the current signatures seem to have been paid-for according to screenshot timestamps), and curiously to pay people to send tweets to the Errol Denton Twitter account with the following keywords:
- Errol Denton
- Live Blood test
- www.livebloodtest.com
- Errol Denton Live Blood Test
- Errol Denton Harley Street
- Errol Denton live blood analysis
I presume this keyword business is some sort of Search Engine Optimisation strategy - I struggle to see how it would work on Twitter which isn't fully indexed by Google but perhaps I'm missing something here).
All very strange. Although not as strange as catching up with fellow blogger Josephine Jones' Twitter feed yesterday and learning that the BBC's latest episode of the medical drama Doctors features the following storyline: "Jimmi is caught between medical ethics and legal boundaries when he tries to expose a live blood testing consultation" - it even features the live blood analyst falsely accusing a GP of racism (quickly disproven by the fact that the GP had recorded the conversation) - has the BBC been reading our blogs?! Watch it on BBC iPlayer.
Here's the Storify. I'm putting it here on my blog because I want to give Google something else to index, the embed code is available at the original Storify page, if you click the icon marked < / >
I can't help noticing that by linking Errol Denton so strongly with the word racist both account holders (whoever's running @ErrolDenton and / or @FightRacism) might have inadvertently damaged Mr Denton's reputation somewhat, at least according to Google:
I am aware that Google personalises results, but several friends have confirmed that they see the same thing.
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Twitter archives available: what I tweeted about in September 2008 - and how to get the original URL
Edit 18 Jan 2013: I am sheepishly updating this post after having now read the README.TXT file that comes bundled in the Twitter archive zip. All of the text below is perfectly correct and true but what I hadn't realised from looking at the files themselves is that Twitter's actually made available a pretty decent in-browser way to read and interact with your tweets and get hold of a tweet's web address etc.
So you can download your archive, browse old tweets by month and search for old tweets. For each tweet you can get hold of its web address (URL) so that you can share its link, or visit its page and collect the embed code. You can even favourite the tweet. Everything (OK except Direct Messages). Thanks Twitter :)
When you download the .zip file and once you've unpacked it (for me this has always happened automatically by simply double clicking on the zipped folder) the following folders and files are available:
In the panel on the left hand side you can see grey links saying "View on Twitter" - you can collect the URL from that or open the tweet in a new window and collect the embed code there. If you hover over the tweet then buttons appear (not shown) that will let you reply to the tweet or favourite it.
On the right hand side, should be explanatory, click on the blue rectangle to visit the tweets of that month and you can scroll through to your heart's content. And I'm sure you can see the search box at the top meaning that you can search through all your old tweets - I've tried it, it's fantastic.
I will leave the post below as a lesson to us all to RTFM first ;)
This post will also tell you
a) how to download your Twitter archive
b) how to link to (or embed) an archived tweet
The content of this post isn't very earth-shattering but today's the day I got my link that allows me to (first request, then receive a link by email and finally) download all of my old tweets. Everything is there :)
Twitter advises that your data can contain sensitive information (who you've talked to, links you've shared) so some caution is wise when bandying stuff about I suppose. Much of this information is pretty much hidden on the web now - Google doesn't index much stuff that's more than a year or two old, Topsy.com does go back further and there are other tools that help (see link in Useful posts, on the right), so this new archive is a bit of a goldmine.
See if you've got the option to request a download link here
https://twitter.com/settings/account
Here's what I said in September 2008. The names of the people I tweeted are redacted for now. I've not linked to the individual tweets but it's pretty simple to get the URL.
The Twitter ID that accompanies each tweet in the csv (comma separated variable file, which is openable with Excel and things of that ilk) can be appended to the web address that takes you to your account name - this lets you bolt together a new URL to bring up the original tweet.
For example here's the URL of one tweet https://twitter.com/JoBrodie/status/291939707607207937
- the bit in pink is the Twitter ID, the bit in bold is MY url, you'll need to use your own.
The Twitter ID for my September 2008 tweet below in which I mention that I'm "watching a lovely 90s programme on computers..." is 936308704 so its URL becomes https://twitter.com/JoBrodie/status/936308704 - you can see if the link and embedding of the tweet worked below...
I look forward to seeing what the cool kids were tweeting about back in 2006 before I'd even heard of Twitter. I joined in June 2008, my first tweet is below.
So you can download your archive, browse old tweets by month and search for old tweets. For each tweet you can get hold of its web address (URL) so that you can share its link, or visit its page and collect the embed code. You can even favourite the tweet. Everything (OK except Direct Messages). Thanks Twitter :)
When you download the .zip file and once you've unpacked it (for me this has always happened automatically by simply double clicking on the zipped folder) the following folders and files are available:
- css
- data
- img
- index.html
- js
- lib
- README.txt
In the panel on the left hand side you can see grey links saying "View on Twitter" - you can collect the URL from that or open the tweet in a new window and collect the embed code there. If you hover over the tweet then buttons appear (not shown) that will let you reply to the tweet or favourite it.
On the right hand side, should be explanatory, click on the blue rectangle to visit the tweets of that month and you can scroll through to your heart's content. And I'm sure you can see the search box at the top meaning that you can search through all your old tweets - I've tried it, it's fantastic.
I will leave the post below as a lesson to us all to RTFM first ;)
This post will also tell you
a) how to download your Twitter archive
b) how to link to (or embed) an archived tweet
The content of this post isn't very earth-shattering but today's the day I got my link that allows me to (first request, then receive a link by email and finally) download all of my old tweets. Everything is there :)
Twitter advises that your data can contain sensitive information (who you've talked to, links you've shared) so some caution is wise when bandying stuff about I suppose. Much of this information is pretty much hidden on the web now - Google doesn't index much stuff that's more than a year or two old, Topsy.com does go back further and there are other tools that help (see link in Useful posts, on the right), so this new archive is a bit of a goldmine.
See if you've got the option to request a download link here
https://twitter.com/settings/account
Here's what I said in September 2008. The names of the people I tweeted are redacted for now. I've not linked to the individual tweets but it's pretty simple to get the URL.
The Twitter ID that accompanies each tweet in the csv (comma separated variable file, which is openable with Excel and things of that ilk) can be appended to the web address that takes you to your account name - this lets you bolt together a new URL to bring up the original tweet.
For example here's the URL of one tweet https://twitter.com/JoBrodie/status/291939707607207937
- the bit in pink is the Twitter ID, the bit in bold is MY url, you'll need to use your own.
The Twitter ID for my September 2008 tweet below in which I mention that I'm "watching a lovely 90s programme on computers..." is 936308704 so its URL becomes https://twitter.com/JoBrodie/status/936308704 - you can see if the link and embedding of the tweet worked below...
- is getting her tweets, bleats and facebook updates out all in one go, having been netless for a couple of days. Normality restored.
- , when she was very small, thought that the past was black and white and that something Wizard of Oz-ish happened shortly before her birth
- has got the internet back and is depressingly elated by this simple thing
- is hooraying the return of Wispa bars which have just appeared in my local newsagents.
- is also impressed with the video positioning slide on which people have added their annotations - first time I've seen that :)
- is watching a lovely 90s programme on computers http://tinyurl.com/4htbdz
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/aerialjourneys/index.shtml - aerial journeys archive - Tomorrow's World, Britain from the air - BBC goes flying
- [@ pal] Recommending "speechification" in case I've not already done so, they are on twitter but googling is also effective :)
- is hoping that new facebook will soon become old facebook
- is watching Countryfile and hoping the upstairs neighbours spontaneously turn down their slightly overloud music... then farmers' market-ing
- [@ pal] I might have to try this camera :) http://tinyurl.com/3k5qet"
- is listening to Jonny Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver - scary! http://tinyurl.com/2wewer [edit - this opens up a .ram file]
- is impressed at how twitter seems to be automatically converting URLs to tinyurls...
- http://tinyurl.com/6l7awl - someone at work did this for young ppl
- is multitasking Radiolab and Coconut cupcake creation - http://tinyurl.com/63fctx
- is practically designed for twitter having been text messaging for 13 years now with barely a message above 160chars.
- is looking at Nature Network to pick some London events to go to with my colleagues as the Autumn talks season is definitely underway woohoo
- [@ pal] tweeting one, two, one, two, tweet ends... just seeing if this works or if I have to follow you to tweet at you ;-)
is watching a lovely 90s programme on computers http://tinyurl.com/4htbdzI'm interested to see that I'm using the 'is doing' style of tweet. Incidentally, at that same time Facebook updates had to be written in the style of what you were doing, so your prompt was 'Jo Brodie is' - there was a bit of a campaign to get Facebook to get rid of the 'is', obviously successful. Presumably the 'X is doing' format is common to other comms, that's how we talked on IRC in the '90s :)
— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) September 26, 2008
I look forward to seeing what the cool kids were tweeting about back in 2006 before I'd even heard of Twitter. I joined in June 2008, my first tweet is below.
Joining Twitter to see what it's all about
— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) June 23, 2008
Monday, 14 January 2013
Whole Lotta Sole / Stand Off - my friend's film is available soon :D
**Watch the film / On-demand (US)**
Whole Lotta Sole / Stand Off by Terry George is now available on demand in the US (as of 22 Jan)
As is often the way with films the one my friend Amanda H is in (Whole Lotta Sole) is now going under the name Stand Off in North America. It's even got a groovy new poster (the one in the middle) which I've pinched off the web, oops. The one on the right is for New Zealand.
In the poster on the left Amanda's below Colm Meaney, with a crossbow - she means business.
It's great fun and I went to see the European premiere in June last year in Belfast (where it was filmed) and the Waterfront was packed with an enthusiastic crowd, most of whom seemed to know someone involved in the film's production. There's a clever story with lots of subplots woven together and although the posters don't give the game away really it's a comedy, and hilarious.
Since then it's shown in a few film festivals in the US including the Hamptons Film Festival. It's shortly to be shown at the Mostly British Film Festival in San Francisco (as Stand Off) on 22 Jan and the Rialto Cinema in Tauranga, New Zealand is showing it for a week, starting this Thursday 17th (as Whole Lotta Sole - dates and timings below).
It's also scheduled to be available on video-on-demand, have a theatre release in the US (not sure about international yet) and also have the DVD / Blu-Ray released on 26 March (US version).
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that (a) it shows in cinemas in London or if it doesn't that (b) a UK region DVD becomes available and then I can try and see if I can hire a cinema screen in London (people do it all the time!) and get permission to show it and get Amanda to give a speech or something, or we can all just drink lots of wine and eat canapes :)
Anyway, lots going on, which is rather exciting.
Timeline
- 17 Jan (Thur): Whole Lotta Sole showing at Rialto Cinemas in Tauranga, NZ
Thursday 17 - Friday 18
11:15am, 1.20pm, 6pm and 8pm
Saturday 19 - Sunday 20
11.15am, 3.45pm, 6pm and 8pm
Monday 21 - Wednesday 23 Jan - as before
11.15am, 1.20pm, 6pm and 8pm - 22 Jan (Tue): Stand Off showing at San Francisco's Mostly British Film Festival, 7pm, Vogue Theatre
- 22 Jan (Tue): "Stand Off will be available via VOD on January 22nd..."
- 22 Feb (Fri): "...followed by a theatrical release on February 22nd"
- 26 Mar (Tue): Stand Off available from Amazon.com, can order now.
Related posts
Actor Brendan Fraser introduces Gods and Monsters - he talked about working with Bill Condon (the director) Ian McKellen (who plays James Whale) and Lynn Redgrave (who plays Hanna the housekeeper). It was a lovely event, a last-minute addition to the Belfast Film Festival programme and I was very lucky to hear about it in time and bag a ticket :)
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