Blottr: sophisticated citizen reporting

If ever there was a situation inflamed by social media, the London riots of August 2011 was it. There were YouTube videos of looting and hundreds of erroneous tweets that gained currency as other people took them at face value and retweeted them.

Sitting in my spare room half a mile from the larceny taking place in Lewisham high street and a stone's throw from Peckham, Eltham and other supposed hotspots, I was incredulous at the reporting taking place. We'd got off the train to a certain frosty frisson, but most people were uneasy and curious in equal measure and wanted to see for ourselves what was actually happening. That local news sites, Facebook posts and Twitter all seemed to suggest apocalyptic scenes of smashed up cars, forced entry and burning buses was no comfort. Nor did it tally with what we could see or hear for ourselves. Eventually, we stood out in the empty streets and called home to reassure family that the situation was very far from what TV reports suggested.

A year later, Twitter reactions and breaking stories on news sites based on digital hearsay continue to mislead. But a healthy dose of skepticism has crept in too. You can make the outrageous and the implausible ‘trend’, but it's just as likely the voice of dissent or counter-information will have its time in the spotlight too.

Sites such as the BBC's and The Guardian's allow commenters to agree with or not, report or simply refute what others say, making the blog commentaries more democratic and balanced too.

What Twitter and other instant reporting tools can't always do is substantiate what they claim within the 140 characters the short form posts allow. So you could be breaking an important story, but if you can't say all of what you need to to back it up, its impact may be lost and your message buried beneath an avalanche of trending posts about @1D's multi-million-pound Pepsi deal.

Adding photos, links to maps, audio quotes and a couple of explanatory lines can make all the difference – but only if you have somewhere to post it. UK citizen news site Blottr was set up for this very reason. Celebrating its second birthday and with the obligatory Android and iOS apps with which to report on the move, it allows 'ordinary' people to report extraordinary events.

At yesterday's event to mark its two years were posters showing that Blottr was the first site to break the news of Gaddafi's death, along with a photo. News agencies and the BBC trailed the word on the street – and the web. If such citizen sites can get the details right and not be derailed by partial reporting – there's every reason to expect citizen sites to gain currency and become established information outlets in their own right.

Just today, there were multiple reports about the identity of the British family shot dead in their car in France. Multiple sources – guests at the campsite, word from policemen at the scene and other people in the know – all gave the same name.

Traditional news sites were conflicted about how to proceed, with the BBC and Guardian electing to state that such reports existed but that they would wait for the official statement from the French authorities before naming the slain family.

Not everything that's instant about the internet is for the good, but the democratisation of information and our ability to have a stake in what's reported surely is.

Time to loosen up those hips

I've got to do something about my hips. They're causing me more and more pain and nothing I've done to date has managed to lessen it.

Hip openers are meant to help but they sound painful. My hips already crunch and grind and lock up. Opening them up to more abuse doesn't really sound desirable. What's being opened and extended is the range of motion your hips can cope with. It's one of the big benefits of yoga – and it’s something I’m sorely in need of.

It's National Yoga Month in the US. In honour of this, my friend and yoga fanatic Ann Chihak Poff, wrote on her GoFitGirl blog about how to get started with this stretching and strengthening discipline. She kindly credited me with prompting her to consider what a beginner needs to know about starting yoga practice. It's something I've toyed with, but I've never got beyond trying breathing exercises and the initial stretches recommended on yoga videos and online.

The Wii Fit convinced me that there's something in yoga for me (but I eventually tired of the Wii Fit itself), but I didn't really know where to begin. I was put off by terms such as ‘hot yoga’, ashtanga, bikram and hip openers and scared of what a random gym class might entail. The local yoga practitioners I'd approached for advice all seemed less than keen to take complete novices. But it's about time I took the plunge.

September's going to be my 'get back into getting fit' month and Ann's helpful blog post was a timely reminder of how many resources are out there when starting a new form of exercise.

Lengthy walks and back stabilisation exercises have done little to ease the ongoing hip pain I've been having, so I need a more aggressive approach to fixing my spine and joint issues. Armed with some passes to the local gym, I'm off to reacquaint myself with the cross-trainer, the fixed bike and, yes, some yoga classes to ensure I’m stretching properly and lengthening my contracting muscles. Yikes! But anything's better than sitting here in pain worrying about how much worse the pain might get and letting those joints get stiffer still.

A summer of TV like no other

(or how to become a couch potato in three easy steps)

Boris Johnson promised us Londoners a summer ‘like no other’. When it finally arrived, London 2012 didn’t disappoint. The Olympics has been a triumph that’s swept us all along in its wake.

Sellout events, kids and adults alike taking to the streets on their hastily dusted-off bikes, fish leaping out of streams in alarm as Brits discover the joys of open water swimming. The sun shone, public transport ran pretty much on time and almost everyone got behind the Games. A nation of moaners and apologists transformed itself into delighted, proud, welcoming, chatty, sports-obssessed patriots. Long may the momentum and the new-found enthusiasm for ourselves, our sportspeople and our nation continue.

Most of us experienced the Olympics and got caught its fervour through the internet and the TV. Though quite clearly slanted towards British hopes and rooting for any British interest when one was at stake, the BBC did everyone a service by its sheer infectious enthusiasm for the subject.

I can usually walk away from the screen and find some other distraction, but the Olympics coverage was simply essential viewing. My freelance writing productivity nosedived – I know of many other usually diligent office workers who spent the fortnight ‘shirking from home’ too. But my capacity for goggle-boxing increased beyond belief.

Midway through The Games, yet more temptation arrived. I’d been commissioned to review a new TV service called YouView. This doesn’t just serve up standard terrestrial channels plus endless repeats on Dave and US imports on Really. It gives you all the catch-up TV you could wish for too. Didn’t get your fill of the Opening Ceremony the first time round? No matter: it’s on iPlayer, along with the interminable Closing Ceremony and gems such as documentaries on Bradley Wiggins’ bid to win the Tour de France last month.

There’s plenty of fodder on ITV Player, Demand5 and 4OD too – and this cunning YouView service gives all of it to you on a plate, even suggesting extra morsels of related content. There’s an integrated programme guide, an on-demand film rental service courtesy of Sky Now and whatever you wish to watch is almost instantly available.

It may very well be my downfall and crush what vestigial willpower I had to leave the couch and head to the gym. I’m sure that’s not the Olympic legacy Lord Coe had in mind.

Defeating the elephants in the room

As my other half will attest – and my cupboards prove – I’m pretty good at starting projects and not so good at completion. Most of these projects are knitting-related, though there are also DIY must-dos on my personal nag list. Most faltered because I got into a pickle with the pattern.

There's not a single one I started and then abandoned because I didn’t like what I was knitting. So I've set myself the challenge of finishing several of my in-progress projects over the summer. I've just finished sewing up and pressing the basketweave jumper I’ve made for one of my little nephews. His twin will be getting a matching cardigan in the same pattern and yarn, but not before I finally finish a project with their names on from last year.

Cuddly elephant toys with matching Indian headdresses and backcloths seemed ideal when they were babies. Unfortunately, I had no idea quite how long each would take and how complex the apparently simple moss stitch design would prove. I’m a lot better at knitting now than I was a year ago and much quicker to spot and correct mistakes. The tens of hours I spent trying to get the decreases, cast-ons and overall pattern correct and the frustration at not understanding why the pattern wasn't coming out as I anticipated meant the elephants soon became a trial. That I spectacularly missed the deadline of when the gifts were expected didn’t help. And I still haven't worked out how to make their ears less ragged.

A couple of false starts on elephant two, a few months of ignoring the project completely and reasoning that the twins were now beyond needing soft toys and I almost let myself off the hook. But of course, I couldn’t.

A few weeks ago, we met up with Dhilan and Devan when we went en famille to the Olympic Torch event in Manchester. The boys were a delight, dancing along to the music and bashing their inflatable beaters together above the heads of their parents. I sensibly kept quiet about the jumpers I was busily knitting for them, but also instantly realised they’d still enjoy the elephants I’d long ago promised to make them. I’m still cursing the pattern and my gung-ho attitude to projects that are really beyond me, but I’ve since made lots of headway with knitting those elephants. And I’ve started enjoying the fact I’m getting somewhere with it.

By the time we next meet up with Dhilan, Devan, I'll have two lovely handmade elephant toys and two cute jumpers to present to them. Oh, and late last night I made a simple-as-can-be stocking stitch 'dude doll' from the latest Let's Knit magazine because I knew it would take barely any time at all.

Sure enough, I stuffed it and sewed it up this morning before work. It was fun and I love the fact it'll be ready to show off to my knitting friends at this week's Brockley Knits meet-up. But the satisfaction will be nothing compared to finishing those elephants and presenting them to the boys.

Ah well. As I found myself trilling in agreement with Morrissey this morning, "I started something, typical me, typical me, typical me".

Online is where money is to be made these days and I've spent a while trying to figure out the best mechanism for doing so. I've summarised some of the pros and cons of online sales setups in the introduction to Google Wallet that I recently wrote for PC Advisor.

Along the way I discovered that there isn't really a magically simple way of selling direct to your friends on Facebook, despite what plug-in pluggers Ecwid would have you believe (you end up having to create your stock list all over again, as far as I can work out). And there are far too many confusions associated with Google Wallet and Google Checkout for my liking. Google likes to change things up every now and again and tweak the tools it provides people, which here has resulted in an imperfectly integrated mash-up of the two mechanisms it offers online merchants for selling directly from their websites.

I'm beginning to see why portal sites such as Amazon Marketplace and Etsy are so attractive. You lose out because of the cut the site takes from your proceeds, but you also end up being able to get on with the all-important process of sourcing, packaging and designing your products in the first place - presumably what you got into your chosen business for in the first place.

Since I've spent a while creating stockists, seller accounts and items that people might conceivably want to buy from me - and since no matter what I do, the 'dummy' site I created in Wordpress to host my pseudo shop just won't accept my Google Buy Now buttons whichever mechanism I choose to generate the relevant code, I'm now tentatively opening shop here on my personal blog.

Should you want to indulge in some handmade socks, hats, scarves or toys for your very youngest, I'll be making them on a 'make to order' basis. But if you are happy to bear with me, I'll make you something unique for a decent price.

Email me at rosiehattersley@gmail.com to discuss what you'd like me to make - or press the Buy Now button to buy baby socks if you dare.

Thanks for your interest,

Rosie

I'd like to teach the world to knit

but I can't, because I'm left handed.

We've had two knitting events over the past two weeks (we being the Brockley Knits group I help run) and I've dismally failed to teach anyone to knit properly. Right-handed, that is.

The Brockley Knits knitting tent, complete with knitted bunting and pompoms

I first realised that showing someone how to knit when one of you is left-handed and the other right-handed is a problem at our Knit Night at the Brockley Max festival.

Having a camera and video camera in my face while I tried to show a complete beginner how to cast on didn't exactly help. But nor did trying to compensate for my left-handed ways by attempting to work out how a right-hander would wrap the yarn. It was a right mess and only got worse the more I tried. A good job other people were on hand to show newcomers how to get started and pass on their knitting skills.

It was a great night and we were really pleased with the attendance and got many compliments for the knitted bunting and 'paper' chains we'd strung around the venue. Mostly not our doing, but it was nice to decorate the place. We've even been asked to knit some for permanent display at Mr Lawrence Wine Bar, our fortnightly knitting night venue.

Last weekend, we took Brockley Knits properly public. We had a large open tent up on Hilly Fields and welcomed anyone who wished to to join us in knitting or making pompoms. Our was just one of many activities that people could join in with - face painting, making felt butterflies, creating a graphic novel, taking part in the Animal Magic Carnival Parade or simply hanging out, enjoying the live bands, dancers, craft stalls, farmers' market, bar and brand-new cafe. Brockley Max's final day is always a great day out.

Again, I had the left-handed issue when it came to teaching the basics of knitting. It transpires that my self-taught method of casting on is different from other people's too. Well, it works for me. Anyway, creating a slip knot, then a second loop that you then slip on to the same needle as the first loop shouldn't be as awkward as I manage to make it look. Once you've got the idea of what it is that you want to achieve, which hand you hold the yarn in and which direction you slip your stitches shouldn't matter all that much. A few people were happy to be shown how to knit lefthanded as they figured they were trying it out for size anyway. Ruth spent ages teaching people how to cast on and knit the more usual way and there were always pompoms for anyone who didn't fancy knitting at all.

Quite a few people came along, pulled up a chair and knitted circular chains or bunting, while many more came over and talked about the knitters in their family and expressed an interest in perhaps coming along to a daytime or evening knit sometime. The day was really about meeting knitters and generally getting our name out there, and it couldn't have gone better. We'll be knitting in Brockley again soon - and not just when it's officially World Wide Knit in Public Week.

Off-kilter pompoms

Pom poms don't have to be adornments for garments - they can be creations in their own right

We're putting on a workshop tomorrow to show kids the basics of knitting. We don't really know what age the kids will be since it's part of our local Brockley Max community arts festival and people can simply turn up and give it a go. 

Our own experience is that learning to knit doesn't necessarily come easily - but it's pretty addictive once you start. But with lots of things to do on the day and limited attention spans, we thought it a good plan to also offer pom pom making as as option. Pom poms are often used to finish off a hat, bag or scarf and are ideal as a project to take away and complete once your enthusiasm on the day wanes. 

I remember sitting in my bedroom when I was about 10 making pom poms. I haven't done much of it since. With a bagful of multicoloured scraps of yarn, I've experimented with two and three colour pompoms for my pre-event practice. Now I'm thinking of what I can use them for afterwards - ideally something that doesn't lead me back in to the danger zone of flipping through a knitting pattern book and starting a new knit so I've got something my pompom can make complete.

Pom poms can be objects in their own right. Make a few and you've got the makings of an animal body, cut out and glue on felt shapes and give yours a face or attach it to a length of elastic and taunt the cat. But there's one inescapable fact: pom poms always come out spherical. 

Since I like to do different, I'm now trying out asymmetric pom pom making for size. I've figured out that simply shifting the hole off-centre will have little effect on the finished object. So I'm trying elongated shapes instead - long animal bodies and lozenges for legs. I may even make pom pom veg.