I love reading peoples comments, not only are they often interesting, but they also serve to swell my ego.  This is a good thing.

This seems to be a popular blog, which is a good thing, but with that popularity comes a price.

Comment and Trackback spam.

I’ve been coming back from work and finding 20–30 bits of comment spam, and often half a dozen bits of Trackback spam.  After twelve hours of work, the last thing that I want to do is sit down and clear out the clutter.

As one of those people who hates registering for anything, especially reading/commenting on blogs I’ve always left open the possibility to comment anonymously without having to sign in.

Unfortunately I think that this is going to have to change.

So in the next couple of days, unless I receive another idea on how to stop the spam, I’ll be turning off anonymous commenting.  The problem is that I’m kind of tied to the Blogware commenting system, so switching to a slightly less spam-friendly is as far as I’m concerned out of the question.

Obviously I’d like everyone to register a commenting identity, as it makes it easier to follow what people are saying to me, but if you want to remain anonymous then you can use the following details.

Username: guest

Password: guest

Comments?

Right, I give up…

Moving house and then a week away from internet connectivity has meant that I have no chance of catching up on all the blogs I subscribe to on Bloglines.

I’ve just spent the past six and a half hours trying to make a dent in the unread articles.

So I just hit the “Mark all as read”.

Sorry.

I’ll try to do better in future.

To whoever it main concern,

The feeling on the 'shopfloor' of the LAS is that morale is suffering.

I think that part of the reason that morale is so low is because of the lack of communication within the service. While we do get bulletins every so often, I would suggest that this isn't enough.

When there isn't effective internal communication there is opportunity for rumours to breed. So for the past two years the whole Agenda for Change process has been subject to some astoundingly inaccurate speculation.

As a consequence of of this rumour-mongering people are unsure of the future, and this does not keep a workforce happy.

So I would like to suggest how the internal communication within the LAS could be improved in a way that would cost next to nothing.

We are all aware of the banned unofficial forum, yet it has become one of the ways in which news is spread quickly throughout the service. While some of the reports on the forum are true, it has also become a breeding ground for false information through incorrect interpretation of official bulletins, and via 'friend of a friend' information.

A recent example of this is the rumour, or truth, as there has been no official word, of cameras being fitted in the back of new ambulances in a bid to stop violence against crews.

My suggestion is that there should be one place on the service intranet where selected people (station and sector reps, team leaders, DSO's and a person from each meeting group) can publish exactly what is happening.

Perhaps it could even allow comments from people on station.

In essence, internal blogging.

I understand that we have the internal website "The Pulse", but there are sections on that which haven't been updated since 2003, and while there is some good information on it, the focus is too broad, and it reads as if it has been written by a committee more used to making press releases.

A blog is extremely cheap and easy to set up, even easier to maintain, and can have multiple authors.

You can set up a way to post to it via email, so minutes of meetings could be published as quickly as they are typed up.

Imagine a situation where a crew can come on station, click on the link to the internal blog and instantly find out what is happening in their area, in the service as a whole and what was decided at the vehicle steering group.

If the blog allows comments (perhaps moderated), then when Team Leader 'X' mentions that they are having the stations on that complex repainted, then roadcrews could make suggestions about the colour of the paint.

This internal blog would not replace the traditional bulletin system but, for a miniscule outlay would actually enhance it.

I am, of course available for consultancy.

The usual disclaimers apply

I’m mentioned in the Observer today, along with some other great blogs.

Others mentioned are Mental Nurse (Which I never knew of, but after reading the first post has gone onto my bloglines subscription)

Brian’s Brief encounters, a police blog that I mentioned last week.

Tales From The Chalk-face, from a teacher (I keep telling my brother, a teacher, to blog, but he is too worried about losing his job).

And my mate Suw Charman who is our home grown genius of blogging.¹

 Also mentioned is Joe Gordon who is probably the first UK person sacking for blogging about work.

 

So if you are coming over from the Observer, welcome,  and pleas enjoy browsing the archives.

—

^1.Disclaimer: I only recently gave up trying to snog her.

There is another excellent policeman's blog that I read regularly. He is quite unlike any of the other police bloggers out there in that he has a very distinctive style of writing.

Sunday's post however was excellent as, while I have written about the same subject before, "Brian" has written the post I always dreamed of writing.

Go, read, enjoy.

And if you are lucky, I'll have a 'nice' job to write about tonight.

Now this is what you call moblogging.

For those who aren’t interested, it’s a photo story taken and uploaded by an Ethiopian teenager.

There is much more on Ethiopia Lives.

And this is the power of the internet.

The first rule of Book Club is not to talk about Book Club.

Person #207 to use this ‘joke’ according to Google.

Some time ago I was asked by the strangely named, but very lovely, Giskin Day to come and have a chat with her medical humanities book club about Safelight by Shannon Burke.  So I read it yesterday (and finished it in the bath today) and found myself in West London in University College London with a glass of wine and some depressingly young looking medical students.

Everyone was really nice, even though I wasn’t too impressed with the book itself.  Partly technical – Eyes ‘bulging out’ after hanging for three weeks in a fly filled room when there wouldn’t be any eyes left.  And partly because of the style of the writing – lots of short vignettes written in a very detached way, nothing flowing very well, and one of the cheesiest end lines of any book I’ve read.

And I know I’m not a great writer myself, glass houses, stones, and all that notwithstanding.

So I had a nice little chat, and discovered that the department has a blog!  It’s an interesting one, I’d describe it as the ‘Boing Boing’ of medical humanities.

Go there now, and look at the comic a post or two down, for UK readers it’ll ring a few bells.

Asked what advice to give to the medical students, my reply was to find a good nurse, and listen to them, as they are the ones who have been working the job day in and day out for years.

One of them mentioned that the vignettes in the book are a bit like blog posts, and was I going to write a book?  I did a bit of hand waving on the subject…maybe if some publishing houses started knocking on my door I’d do it, otherwise it’s a lot of work for something that no one would want to publish.

So, this week I’ve spoken at OpenTech, been on the BBC website, and been a guest at a Book Club.  On Friday it all settles back to normal when I start the first of four nightshifts, and it’ll give my ego a chance to deflate as I wade through the vomit and blood of East London.

Joy.

Although there is the Great Britain Beer Festival coming up soon, and I do have that Wednesday off…

UPDATE: Actually I was at Imperial College London not UCL. At least I didn't confuse it with UCLH.