Tag Archives: London

Bromptons in Museums and Art Galleries

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Every time I visit London, with my Brompton bicycle of course, I try to find time to take in a museum or art gallery. Some are very accommodating and will cheerfully look after a folded Brompton in a cloakroom (e.g. Tate Modern, Science Museum) or, more informally, in an office or behind the security desk (Bank of England Museum, Petrie Museum, Geffrye Museum; thanks folks).


Brompton bicycle folded

When folded, Brompton bikes take up very little space

Others, without a cloakroom, have lockers for bags and coats, but these are too small for a Brompton (e.g. Imperial War Museum, Museum of London) or they simply refuse to accept one (V&A, British Museum).

A Brompton bike is not something you want to chain up in the street, and carrying a hefty bike-lock would defeat the purpose of the bike’s portability.


Jack Wills, New Street (geograph 4944811)

This Brompton bike hire unit, in Birmingham, can store ten folded bikes each side. The design could be repurposed for use at venues like museums or galleries.

I have an idea. Brompton could work with museums — in London, where Brompton bikes are ubiquitous, and elsewhere, though my Brompton and I have never been turned away from a museum outside London — to install lockers which can take a folded Brompton. These could be inside with the bag lockers (preferred) or outside, using the same units as their bike hire scheme (pictured above).

Where has your Brompton had a good, or bad, reception?

Update

Less than two hours after I posted this, Will Butler-Adams, MD of Brompton, >replied to me on Twitter:

so now I’m reaching out to museums, in London to start with, to see who’s interested.

Bullet points from UK Govcamp 2012

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I spent Friday and Saturday at UKGovCamp2012, a splendid unconference, in London, for people interested in the use of digital technologies in local and national government. Or “Glasto for Geeks” as it has famously been described. My friend and fellow attendee Dan Slee has suggested that we all blog a list of 20 thoughts we brought away from the event. I’m happy to oblige.

Steph Gray planning sessions at UKGovCamp 2012. Picture by David J Pearson; some rights reserved.

  1. Our national and London rail systems are overpriced, and the former’s ticketing is ridiculously over-complicated.
  2. It’s a good idea to walk (or cycle) through London, rather then getting the tube. You’ll see great architecture and public art, and get a better impression of how the various districts are laid out. But wear sensible shoes.
  3. Geeks do have great senses of humour. Especially those at our generous hosts and butt of jokes, Microsoft.
  4. There is still a lot of uncertainty about Open Data — what’s it for, what do we want, how should we use it. This is good, because — despite some valid concerns about the centralisation of innovation more generally — there is still room for us to innovate with Open Data.
  5. There are a lot of Brompton bikes in London. I’m determined to take mine on a future trip.
  6. We need better systems in place for using social media in responding to emergency situations. Expect some exciting news about a new project I and some fellow attendees are planning, soon.
  7. Anke Holst does not appear old enough to have a teenage child.
  8. When beta.gov.uk comes out of beta, and current .go.uk domains are “retired”, it’s really, really important that existing links to them, from external sites, still work. And by work, I mean go to relevant content, not a home page. As a very wise man once said, “Cool URIs don’t change“.
  9. It’s possible to spend one or two days at an event with good friends, and still fail to manage to say hello to them. Apologies if that’s you.
  10. Open Data and Freedom of Information are the two are opposite sides of the same coin. If an organisation has people responsible for Open Data and FoI and those people are not either the same, or closely linked, then that organisation has a problem.
  11. Terence Eden is not only (with ) a generous host, but also an impressively entertaining speaker. If his day job fails (it won’t) he has a viable alternative career in stand-up observational comedy. I went to his QR code session not only to learn, but to enjoy.
  12. If you ask them, people who share will kindly change their settings, so others can tag them.
  13. If you put three expert™ Wikipedia editors together in a room you will get at least four interpretations of the Conflict of Interest policy.
  14. Twitter still rocks. Its so ubiquitous (to us) that we forget that; and that some people still don’t get it.
  15. There are — contrary to popular perception — people working in Government who are keen to and do, make the images they produce available under open licences, so that others may reuse them. OpenAttribute may be useful to them.
  16. I want a Scottevest!
  17. People like having the #ukgc12 bookmarks curated on Pinboard.
  18. People recently turned, or thinking of becoming, freelance need more advice and help, and perhaps a support network.
  19. If our wonderful organisers Dave Briggs and Steph Gray are “the Lennon and McCartney of gov digital people”, who is going to be The Frog Chorus?
  20. Beer tastes even better when it’s free. Thank you, kind sponsors.

See you there next year!

Response to consultation on an open data standard for information about public toilets

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This is my response to The London Assembly Health and Public Services Committee‘s consultation on an open data standard for information about public toilets [Googe Docs link]. Try not to giggle at the back — this is good stuff, and of great usefulness: imagine a mobile app which can tell you where the nearest open public toilet is, in the evening; or the nearest with ease of access, if you’re a wheelchair user; or the nearest which is free, if you have no change. And no, I don’t live in London, but this standard should be usable everywhere, in the UK or overseas.

I propose using the , noting the forthcoming v4 revisions. For example:

Name of building / park / location

Use vCard properties (“street-address”, “locality”, “region”, “country-name”) .
Postcode

Use vCard “postal-code” property. Do not restirct to the 8-character UK standard, without checking that this will work for overseas postcodes.
Unique identifier

Should be a URI; or at least be capable of being resolved to one.
Latitude/ Longitude

Specify that these are in WGS84, as used by vCard and common mapping services (other, incompatible, coordinate schema exists).
Easting/ Northing

Redundant (or computable) if coordinates used. Not available in vCard. If both are allowed, need to specify which has precedence in case of inconsistency.
Owner

Use vCard “agent” property, including postal address properties. Alternatively, have a singe URI to a separate vCard record for the owner.
Gender, children, RADAR, other multi-choice properties

Use the vCard “category” property, which is plural, with an agreed vocabulary, where absence means no; alternatively have the vocabulary include negative values, and assume absence to mean “not known”.
Is it inside a shop / café / pub?

Use the vCard “category” property, with an agreed vocabulary, applied to the owner.
Opening hours

Use the proposed model, inside the vCard “note” property. Watch for emerging “opening hours” schema elsewhere.

And move all free-text options to the vCard “note” property, which is plural, using a prefix to distinguish them.

If the use of vCard is not possible, I would still mirror vCard properties and property-names as closely as possible, especially for addresses, in order to ensure ease of interoperability.

I am happy to elaborate on these points if that would be helpful.

Disclosure: I’m a contributor to the v4 vCard revisions.

Update: At the request of staff from The London Assembly, I’ve updated their Google Doc (linked above), mapping fields to the vCard standard.