Best email of the day…..

Thursday, 12 June, 2014

Best email of the year actually… after some (slightly) slow customer service from Fast Lane couriers, they sorted my problem (well done!) and end by saying:

We hope we have resolved this matter to your satisfaction, and we look forward to welcoming you back in the future.

If I can be of any further assistance please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Heroic regards!

Dan McGeoghan
Fast Lane Support


Top one Dan - heroic email!!

Brancaster Staithe Gigapan

Monday, 2 June, 2014

A vista of the coastline at Brancaster Staithe looking north across Scolt Head Island….. the students we took on fieldwork won’t recognise this view as there is no rain…..

Kiev in the news

Monday, 31 March, 2014

The video is just great!

Louisville Timelapse

Friday, 28 March, 2014

Stunning timelapse from Eric Stemen shooting in Louisville. Great explanatory article over at DPS. Sit back and enjoy!

Louisville In Motion. A timelapse tour of Louisville Kentucky. from Eric Stemen on Vimeo.

The best part of life is…

Saturday, 22 March, 2014

….failing. Failing is absolutely vital to success and this is a nice piece picked up by Garr Reynold’s in a recent blog (yes he of Presentation Zen fame… anyone interesting in presentation should buy this book, but more on that another time).

Bounce by Matthew SyedThis reminded me that one of the most inspiring books I’ve read about success is Bounce by Matthew Syed - its inspiring because it effectively debunks the idea of “talent”. There is no such thing - it comes down to practice and, in particular, “purposeful practice”. That is the willingness to go to the edge of your ability try, try and keep trying, not being content with simply being able to do. This ties in very neatly with Malcolm Gladwell’s reporting of 10,000 hours practice - that’s what it takes to become insanely good at something. And if you think that you can average about 1000 hours per year, then that’s 10 years. And, within whatever physical constraints to your activity, this can occur at any age - he uses the example of Beethoven to illustrate this.

This is an incredibly powerful message - how often do you hear, and particularly within the context of children, that “they are incredibly talented”. They aren’t - they have worked hard to get to that point. And to get there earlier than your contemporaries it means having family that are prepared to sacrifice in order to facilitate this and/or a combination of circumstances that enable it (and Matthew Syed illustrates this with his own story). But tell children that its not talent, its hard work and that anyone can achieve it - WOW - what a motivator. It’s a message that should, and must, be repeated - it’s enabling, it changes life chances.

So… “failing”? That’s what success is built upon and life is a precious and inspiring place to inhabit when you realise that. Find your passion, do it until it consumes you and not only will you love life, but you will be amazingly good at it.

Toilet Humour 2

Friday, 7 February, 2014

And a second and final….. great to see that there is both a sense of humour in companies and a great way to communicate a message. It grabs your attention (because its long), makes you laugh and makes you remember.

Toilet Humour 1

Thursday, 6 February, 2014

Can’t resist a little toilet humour every so often…. yes this is a real sign….

Night skies….

Thursday, 7 November, 2013

Night skies by Mark Gee…. stunning.

Make it wide screen, pump up the volume, get lost in the universe….

Back after the hiatus…..

Wednesday, 2 October, 2013

Long summer and very busy start to the term…..but back with some posts!

Train Time: changing times

Wednesday, 28 August, 2013

Love this side-by-side-by-side of the London-to-Brighton line shot by the BBC….. its a great social take on the trip and the article provides some interesting comments on the changes. Well worth a view

Danny MacAskill 1

Monday, 8 July, 2013

And for those of you that missed his first episode way back in 2009……

Bike world speed record……

Wednesday, 3 July, 2013

186 kph on a bike?? Astonish video clip below and nice write up over at road.cc…… and yes 186 kph, 48 year old frenchman, 1961 and a 130 tooth chainring!!

Danny MacAskill - Imaginate

Thursday, 20 June, 2013

A second stunning video from Danny MacAskill with a big budget to match…… amazing stuff.

1926 London

Monday, 20 May, 2013

Fabulous COLOUR film of 1926 London from the BFI….. what’s startling (for me) about this is how little has changed in a lot of London, yet notice that there is no highrise and the streets are so clean.

London in 1927 from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.

Word for the Day: Pareidolia

Tuesday, 7 May, 2013

I came across the word Pareidolia at 500px yesterday which I didn’t know, so looked it up on Wikipedia. This is what it had to say:

a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant…. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records when played in reverse.

Perhaps one of the most famous remote sensing examples (below) is the face on Mars….. we’ve all seen them and the WIkipedia page has some great examples.



<img src=”https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Martian_face_viking_cropped.jpg” width=300 align=center”>

CONFIRMED: CBC council officially provide no educational leadership

Friday, 3 May, 2013

Well this week saw Central Bedfordshire Council organise an open meeting to “discuss changes to schools and academies in Dunstable and Houghton Regis” (something I’ve blogged about before) I think they got the feeling it was going to be popular early on and changed venues to a 200-seater hall, but the 400 who turned up, in the long queue snaking around All Saints Academy, perhaps took them by surprise.

The panel consisted of Cllr Mark Versallion (Education Portfolio), Pete Dudley (Assistant Director Children’s Services), Rob Parsons (Head of School Organisation, Admissions & Capital Planning), Andrew Selous (MP for SW Beds) and Cllr Richard Stay. Thought it was strange the Director of Children’s Services wasn’t there - does that highlight the concern?

Anyway, the first four provided brief commentary to the context of school provision (and planning) in Dunstanble and Houghton Regis before moving on to an extended Q&A session. To give you a flavour here is Mark Versallion’s talk…..

What’s the take away from this?? CBC is in charge of planning for maintained schools but that ALL the proposals currently on the table have come from the schools themselves and that they have no control over Academies that are run by central government. This was again clarified in a response to a question - listen here - and goes on to be a bit more explicit. The council didn’t want to make firm decision (no decision is better!) and drew the comparison with Suffolk which he felt was wrong because:

(1) the council shouldn’t make decisions
(2) the council still isn’t sure whether 2 or 3 tier is better
(3) central government has stopped this with Academies
(4) we can’t afford it
(5) Suffolk KS2 results have gone down

And the catch phrase of the night was to let “local solutions emerge” as there wasn’t a “one size fits all”. There was, of course, plenty of emotion in the evening and Des Tinch provides a nice example of that - the comment “Pontius Pilot couldn’t have done it so well” was well timed!

So, to sum up:

-Cllr Mark Versallion believes that CBC shouldn’t make decisions about school planning
-he didn’t want to lead this when he got elected (presumably because it would affect his chances of re-election)
-it’s not his fault anyway because the local schools have proposed it
-it’s not his fault because the ConDem central government have this nasty little Academies programme
-it’s not his fault that Bedfordshire didn’t make its mind up 5 years ago
-and anyway, 3-tier is probably just as good as 2-tier anyway
-and it’s all a moot point because even if we wanted to do this properly we can’t afford it

It’s sad to see this local council having created the implosion of education in Dunstable and Houghton Regis. They are elected on the mandate to lead but have washed their hands of all and any responsibility (bar statutory) to deliver high educational standards for the current and future generations of children in this area. And at this point in time it seems quite easy for them to target schools for making the decisions, central government and a lack of money.

All of that is, of course, their right to do so as elected members and if we want want good governance then we should exercise that right in the ballot box. What we don’t have time for are those that want to play politics at the expense of the lives of the people in their care.

What should be happening is a local authority reviewing in detail metrics for performance and planning and leading the brokering of change within the area. If there is a decision to make on 2 or 3-tier then make it. If you don’t have the money to see through that change, be honest and pragmatic. But LEAD.

As a final point, exam results have the potential to implode in the area following the change to schools. Bear in mind that Lower Schools oversee teacher assessments for KS1 - Middle Schools KS2 - Upper Schools KS4. There has been long debate that KS1 grading does not map on to KS2 with the possibility of inflated grades at KS1 (for whatever reason). If this is the case, then it leads to poor progress at KS2. With Primary Schools now being responsible for KS1 and KS2 there is a possible implosion of one or both sets of grades as they come to terms with responsibility for both key stages.

Clear explanation of changes to education in Central Bedfordshire……

Wednesday, 20 March, 2013

Watch…listen….learn….

Did you understand that?? No, neither did I. As a follow-up to my blog on educational leadership in Central Bedfordshire, I wondered where we had got to in informing stakeholders of the (not) clear direction and structured approach to change that we have in Central Bedfordshire…. there is of course the classic flow chart which highlights the lunacy of the current situation (helpfully removed by CBC; perhaps not the best example of corporate communication).

So how does the corporate video stack up - besides the obvious lack of script and over-use of “err” and “umm” - there is virtually no content in the presentation at all, other than repeated reference to the changes in school structure that have been personally allowed by Mark Versallion.

I’m a big believer in clear communication - you have a message, make the communication simple so that it is effective and let the viewer go away knowing what that is. I’m baffled to know quite what this is aiming to achieve and my take home message is

Central Bedfordshire’s policy on education is to sit back and watch

Burren in TimeLapse

Wednesday, 13 March, 2013

A simply stunning set of time lapse photos taken with a Canon M5D Mk2/3 using a DIY rig to move the camera with a rising/falling rail. Make it full screen watch and be inspired.

Light Painting Photos

Tuesday, 18 December, 2012

A great series of photos for the Christmas season

Benugo Waterloo: great location, good product, service…..utter FAIL

Wednesday, 12 December, 2012

What can I say, Benugo have a fantastic location at Waterloo for a coffee bar. For a station, its relaxing and peaceful, however can they get their act together to deliver their core product? No. Last week, one person ahead of me to pay for coffee, three people ahead of me waiting for coffee…. how long did it take? Ten minutes and in the process serving two people behind me in the queue. This isn’t a one off and clearly they haven’t got a clue how to deliver a rapid service in such a location. Maybe their restaurants are better, but at this location they are a complete failure. Go downstairs to Costa where they know their product, clientele and service.