The London Biker

The people who wrote in to the BBC Trust to complain about Top Gear showing an image of a frost bitten willy, and showing Jeremy Clarkson and James May enjoying a glass of rather nice booze as they drove to the North Pole (get that - they were driving to the North Pole - in a car - showing how comfortable it was to do so and that you didn’t in fact need to do it with a dog sled - which is hard) should be banned from watching TV.

We should be able to revoke peoples Sky Subscriptions, remove their freeview boxes and ask politely for the return of their TV License.

Seriously folks. It was funny, it wasn’t dangerous, and it was editorially justified. Get over yourselves.

Without a doubt my favourite hack (and music for that point) was Team Bob

BBC Dylan - News 24 Revisited (Full Version) from James Adam on Vimeo.

So cool. So clever.

There’s just over 100 people here at Mashed, about evenly split between those awake and doing stuff (mainly werewolf and Rock Band at this moment in time) and those grabbing a few precious moments of sleep.

Stace came up with a good idea early on, a night manager, someone to take over from a sensible time late on Saturday to give the core organisation team a good break. This year I’ve split the main on-site organisation into four roles - the Senior Producer and three Production Assistants - it’s worked really well and meant we’ve kept everything very well in hand - but for some reason the shift pattern for overnight isn’t resulting in as much sleep as I could do with!

Ian Forrester is in his element, this is the middle of the day for him! Next year he can run the night shift I think.

Thoughts on the event so far:

• Having dedicated staff rather than volunteers has made things much easier and smoother.
• I wonder if the smooth running has some-how taken the ‘edge’ off the event a little?
• We have about 100 more people here at most times than we did last year.
• The screen is amazing, we can’t get a smaller one next year.
• I’m very excited about tomorrow’s (today’s) presentations.
• Kingswood Warren guys are awesome, I wish I had more time to give them.
• Hotel in Muswell Hill has been dreadful, the concept of a 10 room block booking seems quite alien to them.
• Very happy to read the virtually totally positive twitter and blog posts coming out.

I’m really on my knee right now, I can’t see how I can see the day out, and there’s still so much to do - I had the horrible two hour stretch in the middle of the night so I’ve not managed to get more than two hours sleep. I need some tips on keeping focused and awake. I think I may find a quiet corner and try some simple meditation.

Well this is it, the last time before mashed when I’ll be able to sit at a desk and type properly - not balancing my eee PC on my knee hoping the wi-fi is still up.

It’s quite scary - 600 people have signed up now - there’s some more tickets available, but I just feel I’ve forgotten something.

The PR has started in earnest - I was on the Guardian Tech weekly podcast, and Pods and Blogs this week - it’s quite fun hearing myself on radio again - reminds me how much I miss it.

Right, bean bags need to be organised, and I need to deal with the hundreds of entries for Monster Mashed (read as ZERO entries to Monster Mashed).

Get your entries in now

http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2008/06/monster_mashed.html

This is sooo damn cool - I can’t announce it officially yet because I have to put it in proper BBC legal language - and that takes time… but get this… we’re going to run a competition for Mashed in a couple of weeks to build a BBC Sci-Fi Monster.

Not just any monster mind you, but a full size, fully functional, kick-ass monster.

Basically between now and next Thursday you email me with your ideas, and I select the best two - we’ll then fund you to the tune of up to £500 to build the monster (you’ll get the cash after Mashed not before). Then at Mashed itself you actually build the things over 24 hours and show them off on the Sunday with the other presentations - the audience votes on a winner - we give you some lame gift as a prize (the prize is actually the £500 to build the thing in the first place) and you get to keep the monster… how cool!

Anyway - more news on the official backstage blog when I’ve sorted out the legal stuff… also so AMAZINGLY COOl…. NASA are coming… I so damn excited right now.

Fucking ROCKETS!

Posting these here - after posting them here - didn’t work because the backstage templates are naff.

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Goodness me - I thought this year was going to be easy - I knew all the suppliers - I knew what we needed where - but trying to top last years event is proving tough work.

Top Gear has the cool wall - I have the planning wall. It contains everything we need to know to just make the day happen. There are a couple of blurred spots as I confirm them before announcment, but other than that it’s all coming into place.

We’ve released another 100 tickets this morning via Microsoft developer lists, and I think we’ll be releasing another 100 on Friday. The only other bit of news is that I’m planning on running buses from Newcastle, Manchester and Cardiff - I’ll be down in Cardiff next week at the geek meet to talk about backstage and mashed. Right now the plan is to release special bus tickets on the sign up page next week - http://mashed08.eventbrite.com

We’re using backnetwork again this year - http://mashed08.backnetwork.com - fantastic site - I’ll be processing those who’ve signed up via eventbrite later this week - you should get your invites automatically.

Only other cool thing is the website badges - they went down well last year - and I’m loving this years logo - they should be up on backstage before the weekend… in theory!

As I couldn’t go camping with Mrs Cashmore this weekend - I decided to take advantage of the hideous weather to give the swag a good wet test.

First of all I wanted to play around with configurations to keep as much of the water off the bag as possible - that resulted in this set up:

A simple rip-stop nylon basha combined with a ground sheet and a couple of poles. A simple solution that for about six hours in moderate winds kept 99% of the rain off the canvas.

However, I then left the swag, and having not tied the ropes down properly, the basha came lose and exposed the swag to the full fury of a coastal South Wales storm. Got up this morning to a small water problem. I’ve called this the second ‘test’, when in fact it was my stupidity forcing one.

The canvas inside was dry, as was my sleeping bag and mat. I got in and gave the canvas a good prodding. Nothing got through. Must admit I was surprised and very impressed.

I then rolled the swag up, and left it in the back of the car for about six hours for the journey home. Just unrolled it and the water has started to seep inside. Not a great result, but proof if I needed it that I have to ensure that the bag just doesn’t get this wet - either by avoiding camping in the worst weather on the road - or by ensuring I get the basha set up properly and securely.

On a more successful note…. the poncho works!

From the backstage blog…

Mashed - it’s Hack Day time again and this year we’ve got a corker of a weekend planned.

Arrive on the Saturday morning and listen to real people from the development world showing you how to build things and how to use the systems that will be available to you through-out the weekend - including a full broadcast TV station with the ability to build and hack your own interactive applications.

As the talks draw to a close the 24 hour hack begins - there’s plenty of food (no it’s not all pizza this year - think pie and mash) - distractions for when you need them and if all goes to plan a special event at midnight.

Sunday plods on to the live presentations at 2pm - hosted by a very very special guest star… if you thought last year was a great time - this year we’ll blow your socks off.

It’s all about you, if you want something let us know and we’ll organise it.

The first 100 tickets have gone live - you can sign up at -http://mashed08.eventbrite.com/ - I’d be quick though - last year the first 100 tickets went in a little over two hours… we’ll be releasing more tickets next week via the partners, but get in early if you want to guarantee your spot!