Greenbelt

Survived

For the first time in many years, I wasn't the only ex-Tonbridge person to make it through to Tuesday morning at Greenbelt. Here are the majority of the known survivors.

It's rather shocking to realise that somewhere there are similar photographs of us all (minus the small ones) taken twenty years ago.

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Lumia

The best light show at Greenbelt this year wasn't on a stage. In a small ante-room, half a dozen perspex turntables rotated as lights and laser pointers shone through the abandoned kitsch glassware that sat atop them throwing complex, colourful patterns of light dancing onto the walls.

Willie Williams' Lumia Domestica finally made it to Greenbelt. It's just a shame he didn't find anywhere to put a mirrorball.

On Saturday, Martin Wroe discussed Willie's varied career with him; today Willie talked in more depth about the Lumia show itself. All three were festival highlights for me.

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Tent

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Eden

Just behind the Abide venue are half a dozen tents decked out according to Greenbelt's theme this year Dreams of Home.

This garden was the best by far.

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Home

We're here once again, this time sharing Dreams of Home with folk like Billy Bragg. It's a little damp, but should be a wonderful weekend.

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Featured in Wired

Well this was a surprise: a short article in Wired about the Greenbelt apps.

Andy Robertson absolutely nails it when he describes the complexity of navigating the festival which I had a hunch could be simplified with an iPhone app back in 2008:

This ever expanding programme had become one of their problems -- navigating the printed program was an exercise in cross referencing and note taking. My wife had sometimes taken to creating a spreadsheet of the things she wanted to see.

Pleased as I was to read that, I was delighted to read the review: "In actual fact [the app] was really rather good ... It's made the festival experience for my family much better."

Andy's two bug bears: lack of social network integration and inability to share favourites between devices are features I already had in mind for next year's app.

I'm monitoring Twitter for other ideas too, so do share them there or drop me an email.

Personal

Cufflinks

I seem to be wearing my Isle of Mull quite a bit of late. Perhaps this means I'm climbing the sartorial ladder. Alternatively it may be that I'm having a fair few "dress up" meetings.

Either way, it's lovely to sport another momento of my wedding.

Personal

Enchanting numbers

This evening I have been studying maths. I've learnt about Apollonius Circles, the Radical Centre and Trilinear Coordinates.

There's a joy and a sadness to this. I love exploring numbers and playing with algorithms, but I miss being able to talk about them with my mentor. I remember when at college I was struggling with some trigonometry, one quick call to Dad reminded me that matrix multiplication and linear algebra would deftly slice through my problems.

On Saturday evening this week, Dad's sister Liz told how their mother's enthusiasm for numbers rubbed off on him. So it's not just Dad I have to thank, but Grandma too. I wish I'd known this sooner.

For now, I'll just get back to my circles and triangles, and dream of one day passing this same love on to another.

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All talked out

Just in time for this year's festival, I've finally finished listening to all the talks from last year's Greenbelt.

By listening to them all I got to make some discoveries that I ordinarily would have missed:

• Keith Skene speaking with humour and passion about science and faith
• A deeply personal interview with Mandi Hewitt
• Clare Short's Westminster insights

Of course there were one or two best avoided as well. I was deeply disappointed in the mumbo jumbo and lack of scientific rigour in Janey Lee Grace's flawed tour of living a more "natural" life.

Still, the good talks far outnumbered the duds.

Coastwalk

Conwy Morfa → Llanfairfechan

Distance: 6.55 miles
Ascent: 113 metres
Duration: 2 hours 3 minutes

Smile more
« Colwyn Bay | Bangor »

Our intent today was to walk to Bangor. However, as we reached The halfway point at Llanfairfechan we'd felt a few spots of rain and the clouds ahead of us looked full to bursting.

On this stretch the mountains of Snowdonia reach right up to the coastline, causing the railway and road to tunnel through the rock. The oldest road was built by Telford, with diversions added in the 1930s.

This is the route we followed, which included walking through two short tunnels at Pen-y-Clip. Exactly halfway through the eastern tunnel a long forgotten plaque is fixed to the tunnel wall commemorating its opening in 1935. The Welsh language equivalent plaque is in a more prominent location, affixed to the sea wall between the tunnels, but neither are particularly noticeable to the thousands of passing motorists.

Elsewhere someone has been busy brightening up the concrete of the A55. Uplifting quotations were stencilled onto the road parapets, but our favourite was on the tarmac of the cycle path: "smile more".

Coastwalk

Colwyn Bay → Conwy Morfa

Distance: 17.4 miles
Ascent: 316 metres
Duration: 5 hours 58 minutes

St Trillo
« Prestatyn | Llanfairfechan »

Hooray for generous relatives who live near the sea! We're in North Wales for another weekend, being spoilt rotten by my uncle and aunt from whose house opens up a lovely view of Conwy with its tremendous castle.

It would be easy to write about the obvious features on today's walk: the Little and Great Orme, the walled town of Conwy, its castle and bridges. However, sometimes on a walk the most memorable sight is the one you weren't expecting.

In Rhôs-on-Sea, tucked just out of the way of the prom is St Trillo's Chapel, said to be the smallest church in the United Kingdom. Despite the great antiquity of the site - St Trillo is said to have built his cell here in the 6th century after arriving from Brittany - it was hard to get a real sense of the history of the place.

The marshland, or 'rhos', has long since been drained, and the monk's original wattle-and-daub cell with its stone enclosure has been replaced by a later building; maybe it was this that meant that the chapel had a strange lack of presence. The one original remaining feature is a small, rough-cut well in the floor in front of the altar, still flowing with fresh water, and somehow at odds with the Victorian artifice of the whitewash and stained glass.

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Criminal Justice

Talk at work all week has been about the criminal justice system. I'm sure this trend is being observed right across the UK right now.

Jumping to conclusions and being an armchair expert is the norm, but the questions raised by the response to the disturbances ten days ago seem too thorny for simple answers.

• Is six months' custody appropriate sentence for what seems to have been a petty theft?
• Do MPs appear to have undue influence over the legal system?
• Are we failing to rehabilitate offenders?
• Is a "moral collapse" really to blame?
• Who will take the lead?

What a perfect time for Greenbelt to be shifting its campaigning focus towards the criminal justice system. The next few years should prove interesting.

Greenbelt , Tech

Then there were four

This year's Greenbelt iPhone/iPad/iPod touch app has just been published.

New this year:

• Live news from the Greenbelt blog and Twitter
• Share events with friends by email or SMS
• Step forward/back through time on the Now & Next tab
• A few usability and stability changes

See you there in two weeks time?