Archives for July 2010

When you've got an audience where there is a high likelihood that at least half are geeks and the rest 'cult' types - wearing a hat, filling the hat with sweets and then passing the sweet filled hat around the audience is not going to do you any harm.

That's just how Adam Buxton started his performance at the Jersey Arts Centre, which turned out to be the perfect venue for his informal 'come round my house and watch some films on the laptop' type of show.

The show, billed as an 'evening with Adam Buxton' was presented by Comedy Rocks who have been making use of the Jersey Opera House's attic space to bring comedians to the island on a regular basis.

Mr Buxton spent some time before the event making a video for Jersey to help promote the Arts Centre event.

You can watch the Adam Buxton video on YouTube.

But before we got to Adam we first had a performance by the Midnight Expresso with his own unique brand of pre-programmed keyboard inspired hip hop.

Running the spectrum of important subjects starting with mirrors, running through ham sandwiches and finishing up with a dinosaur treat.

It's great to see a Jersey act emerging who can hold his own in front of a full Arts Centre crowd and the Midnight Expresso did a stellar job.

So, enter the main act - after a brief musical tribute to Mr Buxton by the Midnight Expresso and after a look at his Macbook including funnily named folders and the handing out of the hat - the show gets going.

Adam introduced the evenings proceedings as being a bit like going around to his house for dinner, but the bit before dinner is ready where he shows off some cool things on YouTube.

We were treated to a few YouTube sing-a-longs and previews of short films he has made - including a music video for the brilliant 'Middle Class festival song'. You can see a live performance of this on YouTube.

The first half flew by amazingly fast, I felt like I'd sat in my seat, started laughing, carried on laughing, laughed some more and then stood up for the interval.

A real highlight was the YouTube comments, as Adam said himself "you need a thick skin to read your own YouTube comments."

Fortunately for us, not only does he have a thick skin but he also has Photoshop and an audience to share some of the better comments with.

After the interval the set had been changed, a sofa and chair were in the middle with a table containing a hat filled with questions and the Macbook.

Out comes BBC Jersey's Carrie Cooper with Adam Buxton for an 'intimate Q&A' that included a live demonstration of eating Jaffa Cakes, confirmation that the Adam & Joe show will return to BBC 6music in November, more YouTube fun and another comment trawl.

Carrie did a great job sitting on stage throughout the second half engaging with Adam and the audience, pushing comments forward and calling on people to embarrass themselves - many hid.

I even got the random question I posted to Facebook answered: "Why don't you dye your beard at Christmas and pretend to be a cool Santa Clause - Buckles Clause."

His response involved his beard going grey but other areas still very much not.

Then after the show Adam spent ten minutes signing an autograph for and talking to an old man with a funny accent who has spent most of his life collecting autographs as a memento of shows he has seen.

He is currently on book number 129 with that particular page including the signature of Carrie Cooper, The Midnight Expresso and Adam Buxton.

As with all things I posted an instant reaction to Facebook as they are usually the most honest - before you've had time to analyse.

"just back from seeing adam buxton at the arts centre and he was effortlessly brilliant. great support set from jersey's midnight expresso and Carrie cooper looked at home in the interviewers chair. "

It wasn't just me and Autograph man that had a good time though, the audience reaction was amazing and on Facebook Brobot II had shared his thoughts within an hour of the show ending.

"Brobot II: Adam Buxton is one funny human being. Thanks Comedy Rocks, that was awesome!"

I have three children so don't get out much, but every so often my job takes me into town on a Saturday night - although to be honest that hasn't happened for a while.

But on Saturday 17 July I ventured out to town for the 2010 Jersey Live Battle of the Bands competition at Havana.

The event was great fun but by the time it finished and I'd gone to work to.write a quick feature - it was about 1:30am.

I was too tired to walk and who really wants to walk home to St clement at that time anyway.

And obviously there were no busses as the last bus leaves Liberation Station at 23:20 (1 to Gorey and 15 to St Peter).

So that pretty much left me with the choice of joining the taxi rank queue - which was halfway towards Chambers.

After waiting almost two hours, surrounded by 'merry' people and police, I finally got into a cab and home at 3:45am.

When you get to a point where you're waiting to get home for almost as long as you've been out - it's time to take stock.

And I'm not the only one that's had similar problems - but is it a simple problem to solve? One way could be to introduce a night but service.

In keeping with my thoughts on socially solving problems in my last blog post, I thought I would put a call out on Facebook and Twitter for people to share their thoughts.

Rob thinks the island could handle a night bus service and people would pay more.

"I've oft maintained that Jersey could use a night bus. My personal thought would be that after 23:30 the fare could rise to £2.50 (still a fraction of a taxi fare) to cover the costs of security and over time.

"Possibly the night bus service could use older buses retrofitted with driver security - that way sluicing them off wouldn't be too much of a problem.

"The service could run a circular route ala the number 10 which will "eventually" pass through most places on the island."

So I sent a message to Transport and Technical Services, who are responsible for busses and taxis in the island for their thoughts on a late bus service.

Tristian Dodd is the Acting Director of Transport and he said in an e-mail that this is something the States are looking at with the new Sustainable Transport Policy.

The new policy is due to be debated in the Autumn but they are hoping people will share their thoughts ahead of the debate.

Mr Dodd said: "TTS would welcome any feedback or suggestions your listeners and readers might have on the subject of night-time transport in Jersey."

However, at the moment the policy would just commit to an investigation.

"The new policy will commit Transport and Technical Services to investigating the potential for the bus service to provide transport for the night-time economy to the more densely populated areas of the Island. "

And they also plan to look at taxi services and "whether there are opportunities to deliver more efficient and integrated services."

So, now we know it is going to be looked at, how do our social media commentators think it could work?

Chris suggested the current Explorer routes could be used to better serve the island.

He said: "An extended version of those throughout Friday and Saturday night would be great. I'm sure taxi drivers wouldn't like it, but they can sod off as it's an absolute rip-off to get a taxi over here."

And Julie has a novel idea for paying for any new service, also suggesting it would improve safety for people out late at night.

"Security is vital. If lone girls could feel safe they wouldn't have to put up with abuse for hours at taxi rank or risk the walk home alone. Shorter bus & taxi waits would cut down violence.

"What about the clubs/pub group (Liberation) sponsoring as goodwill PR gesture - get Minister to suggest possible levy & they might suddenly feel generous!"

And on Twitter the Jersey Climate Action Network suggested it should be a fairly comprehensive service at "chucking out times".

@jcan_org_je said: "Jersey certainly does need late night buses at the weekend: to/from all parts, at/after all main chucking-out times."

Personally I don't have a problem paying for a taxi home, it usually comes to about £7, but it would be nice not to have to wait THAT long for it to arrive.

It would also be nice to have an alternative sometimes.

If you are Stephen Fry, David Mitchell or even Jamie Oliver - you'll have a social media following at a level where you can ask people and question and be more or less guaranteed of a usable answer.

However, most people's social following is in the low hundreds at best. After the best part of a decade cultivating an online audience, I'm still only in the high hundreds of followers.

If you've recently moved to a new place, especially somewhere as 'different' as Jersey, It's nice to be able to put out a call and ask people questions.

It's great to know the best places to eat, go out, buy furniture or even get a take-out pizza.

But if you've only got a small band of followers, and none of them are in Jersey - that's not an easy task.

Which is why the Secret Jersey facebook group was launched. It lets people post a question to the 2,600 and growing fanbase - and usually get an answer.

It sets out its purpose:

To discover the hidden gems of Jersey in the Channel Islands. Share any lesser known great places to see in Jersey.

If you know where to find a decent pint or fantastic meal, post it here! The gigs, events, the wacky, wild and insane; tell us WHERE to find it!

It includes calls for diving gear, help finding child minders and information on events taking place that weekend.

There are even calls for help with gardening - including this one from Shell:

Has anyone else on the island had problems with their plants dying after the last lot of rain we've had? My tomatoes look positively sick and so do my neighbours.

Another friend says her plants are looking very limp and lifeless too..... any ideas? Acid rain maybe?

There was even a call for a set of stocks for use at fetes.

Over time the group has become an online community for people solving each others problems, a swap shop and a review site.

And on a more 'shopping specific' side, the Savvy Jersey Facebook Group and website help islanders find the best deals in Jersey.

If you've spent any time reading through one of the many online or in print what's on guides in Jersey over the last few weeks you'll have spotted one word repeated over and over again.

Festival.

So far this summer we've had the International Motoring festival, the June in Bloom Floral festival, the Bonne Nuit Harbour festival, the Brazilian Cultural Festival and many other smaller events.

Then there's also the West Show, the Fish Festival, the Jersey Seaside Festival, the Film Festival, Summer Flower Show, Jersey Live festival, Gorey Fete, Beer and Cider Festival, Branchage film festival, St Aubin's festival and Fete de Noue.

If you create a quick word cloud of the Jersey Tourism 'a-z events' page, you'll see the word 'festival' features prominently.

When I created the cloud 'festival' was the second most mentioned word after walk - that's after removing parish names and common words.

So why the explosion of festivals? What is it that makes a festival such an attractive proposition for event promoters?

Mike Tait from Jersey Tourism told me a festival is a great way to celebrate what we have as an island.

He said that a festival should be a: "celebration of bounty, when you are truly bountiful you have a festival."

But that it was important to make sure that the festival is part of the society running the event, that is isn't just about promotion.

He said: "The essence of a true festival has its route within the culture and heart of the islands psyche."

Mike believes we have so many festivals because we have so much in the island, we've cause to celebrate our seafood, gardens, music, flowers, agriculture and diverse culture.

He believes that any festival should be a "celebration of Jersey's culture, celebration of what we have."

But, the question I'm still asking myself is "when is a festival a festival and when is it just a long event?"

To become a festival does it need to cover more than one area - so two stages at an event, or a second thing for people to do on the day?

Does it have to be a certain length? Or, is it just a case of getting into the psyche of the island and capturing imagination?

It's always nice to be able to share your thoughts on big subjects of the day.

We get plenty of calls from people on the BBC Jersey phone-in and we regularly include a 'have your say' on the BBC Jersey website.

Even BBC Channel Island news invites your comments by e-mail on big stories.

And now the States of Jersey are stepping up their 'public opinion' act, with surveys, petitions, comments and discussions.

At the time of writing two of the top three stories on the States of Jersey website were reviews - asking for your opinion on postal services and the fiscal strategy.

That's before you get to the have your say box in the bottom right asking for your views on business tax.

The process of consultation takes many different forms - sometimes it's an online survey using 'Survey Monkey', a company that hosts surveys for business and government so they don't need to host it or build it on their own sites.

Other times it is more formal and requests an e-mail from people wanting to share their opinions that then gets compiled into a report.

And the least formal, but not necessarily the least successful, some departments, including Scrutiny, have started asking people for their thoughts through social media services like Facebook.

The States of Jersey even have a consultation section of their website. These include the island plan review, car and passenger ferry market, minimum wage and building bye-laws.

And now builders hoping to get a new project off the ground, especially more controversial projects, have started making use of the field of public opinion.

Le Masurier, a Jersey company that's been around for 175 years, have set up an all singing, all dancing website asking people for their thoughts on the companies proposal for Bath Street, including the Odeon building.

The question is, how much does all this consultation actually lead to a change of plans? A change to the decisions probably already made before the consultation started?

Why not have your say on all the people asking you to have your say on their projects.