This whole Experiment of Green*

Spring is nearly here. It can't come soon enough for me. This has been the longest, coldest, grottiest winter for thirty years, and I will be *so* glad to see the back of it.

But the days are getting that little bit longer, and the sun was shining this week. In a fortnight's time it will be the Vernal Equinox, and then a week later we'll be Springing Forward, and something approaching normal service will resume...

Mea culpa dear reader(s) - I've been pretty bad at keeping this blog up to date of late. Mainly because I've had zero energy and a severe shortage of time. But following a rather poignant plea from the Brighton Politics Blogger (shucks BPB, I never knew you cared), I'm going to try and correspond more regularly over coming weeks.

Time is an issue, as I'm (still) looking for some other gainful employment to sit alongside my Council duties, so job applications have to take priority if I find myself staring aimlessly at the laptop screen with a relatively empty Council inbox (ha ha ha - you can imagine how often this is the case). But I'll do my best.

Anyway, suffice to say things are mad busy here and hotting up to molten levels as we enter the final furlong before the general election. There are less than nine weeks to go now.

Plenty of other people have been blogging about our prospects of returning Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion as Westminster's first ever Green MP - there's still an epic amount of work to do, but the lighter evenings herald a major stepping up of a pace which has been fairly relentless even through the black nights of winter (massive props must go to Cllr Alex Phillips for her legendary efforts on the doorsteps in Withdean throughout the 'Snow Chaos' in January, and the general gloominess and chill of February).

So not wanting to repeat that which has been more than ably expressed elsewhere over the last few weeks, here are some other things which have been on my radar:

1. Very busy with Council work
Will post separately about this next week in order to do it full justice. Highlights: Phoenix will be putting in their planning application by the end of the month, and next Tuesday sees the launch of a new demonstration food growing garden in Preston Park. Lowlights: the recent Budget.

2. The Green Party slot on Channel Four was excellent


My inestimable mother phoned me to say how good she thought it was, so there you go. In fact she even offered to come down and help with the campaign (this is the woman who delivered around a thousand leaflets during my bid for election in 2007), but after some deliberation she has decided to assist instead in the Trafford marginals. Thanks anyway Mum!

3. Blogs I have been liking

• The Plural Progressive - I like your skillz and styles Luke - keep up the good work.
• Odd Cog - anyone who titles a post 'Political Apathy: Epic Fail' has got to be OK.
• Glum Councillors - this is just ace. Spot the B&H Green in the archives... ;) Speaking of which...
  

4. Jason Kitcat's Graphs
Every politics geek will enjoy this.

5. Blogging - I am still doing it wrong (probably)
Here's a handy Guide to Blogging & Facebook for Councillors - in fairness it's pretty sensible stuff. Good pointers for any elected bloggers out there.

6. Twitter
May the goddess forgive me, but I have finally bitten the bullet and joined Twitter. You can 'follow' me here [*messianic face* + lol]. I'm not promising I'll be any better at "tweeting" than I am at blogging as it is clearly extra cyber-mither, but at least I'll get to check out the #hash tags# now [eyes #mobmonday curiously...]

Happy Spring readers! Will check in again shortly - it's nice to be back :)

*After Emily Dickinson - A little madness in the Spring

Baking for Hanover Day

I love baking, and I don't get nearly enough time to indulge this passion. So when I found myself scheduled to help with the local party stall at this year's Hanover Day last Sunday, I knew there was only one way to spend Saturday night...*

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As Hanover Day didn't happen last year owing to funding problems, I felt it was only appropriate to salute the return of this much-loved community event (and to sustain my Hanover & Elm Grove colleagues and the revelling crowds) with something beyond my usual scope of Delia's victoria sponge buns. I decided to make (*drumroll*) chocolate and vanilla marble cupcakes.

Inspired by this recipe from bakebakebake, and this recipe from bakingbites, I prepared one batch of chocolate mixture, and one of vanilla (tinged with a verdant hue for fun).

Two things occurred to me as I regarded my bowlfuls of beaten batter: one, how runny it was (American baking recipes tend to use a lot of liquid compared to UK ones), and two, just how much of the ruddy stuff there was.

Undeterred, I prepared my cake cases and poured out my first batch, trying hard to create visible swirls between the two mixtures which would translate into beautiful patterns once baked:

Well, as you can see from the above pix, the intention didn't quite work: the mixture was too liquidy, so the colours merged somewhat, becoming indistinct and, erm, not very marble-like.

So I decided to scrap Plan A and plough on with making batches of single-flavour cakes. These looked a lot better both before they went in and once they were out of the oven:

Sixty (yes, sixty) of the little fellas later, I put them to cool in a safe place away from curious eyes and noses (ie Mr K & the pussycats), ready to be iced the following morning:

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Hanover Day was excellent as always (the weather was fab, the people were jolly, and as well as the Morris Men, I managed to see those Masters of Rock the Brown Stripes twice, which is a feat in itself), and I'm pleased to say that my cakes went down a treat on the stall.

Although in retrospect, I should have realised the pitfalls of scaling Muesli Mountain proffering cakes iced in an eye-poppingly vivid shade of green; hence the following exchange:

Child: Daddy, can I have a cake? Look, they're free!

Daddy: Free cakes, darling? Oh how lovely.

[Daddy looks at cakes. Then looks at me.]

Daddy: The icing's very, erm, green. What's in it?

[I look at cakes. I realise I cannot tell Daddy a lie.]

Me [sotto voce]: It's green food colouring.

Daddy: Sorry, what?

Me: It's green food colouring. But [positive voice] all the other ingredients are organic! I made them myself.

[Daddy looks at me, then back at cakes.]

Child: Daddeeee... can I have one?

[Daddy weighs up the evils of E Numbers ~vs~ the goodness of organic home-baking.]

Child: Daddeeee... pleeeeeease... they're freeeeee!

Daddy [giving up]: Oh, go on then. But don't tell Mummy.

Me: Here you go sweetheart! [hands child cake]

Me [optimistic voice]: Would you like a manifesto to go with the cake sir?

[Daddy backs away with cake-guzzling child, shaking head slowly and smiling...]

Me: Happy Hanover Day!

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Later on, as I related this tale, a friend said "Couldn't you have said it was spinach or seaweed extract or something?" Sadly no - nothing in nature is that green, apart from, erm, radioactive waste. Memo to self: do not try to have "fun" with jazzy-coloured baking next year ;)

But fun it was. Well done to the Hanover Community Association and all the publicans, traders, businesses, musicians and artists who made it happen once more this year. Here's a pic of Cllr Vicky Wakefield-Jarrett and me (plus cakes) on the Brighton & Hove Green Party stall, in the sunshine:


* Yes, I know, rock 'n' roll or what? (or "bake 'n' roll", if you will). C'mon guys, give me a break - I'm 36 fgs.

There's only so much dog poo readers can take

Readers may recall that last week I was angsting about doing it wrong in this blog. But lo, the Blogosphere has spoken! And it was good.

In response to my plea for feedback, I received four (yes FOUR) replies:

1. A Buddhist chant from casa da poesia (I took this to be encouraging);

2. "Do not be a Politics Robot. Please!!!" - this kind comment came from rekindled, along with an equally kind offer to have a look at my crappy coding for me (mate, you're going to be sorry you offered! - and thanks!);

3. A very encouraging comment from fellow Green Cllr Sue Luxton, who has been blogging a lot longer than I have, and therefore knows of which she speaks: "I have this dilemma too, but think you're striking a good balance so far. There's only so much info about rubbish collections, CPZs and dog poo that readers can take (ooh, how glamorous the life of a cllr can be!)";

4. An email from a regular reader who shall remain nameless, but the gist was (in the timeless words of Billy Joel) "don't go changing".

So there we have it - a 100% positive steer for me to keep blogging about incidental day-to-day happenings as well as the Big Stuff (or 75% if that Buddhist chant is a special one for hopeless cases - still not bad I think).

Thanks to everyone for their encouragement and kind words! And sorry to the Politics Geeks, but there'll be more to come on baking, pussycats, and street art, as well as elections and policies. All work and no play makes for a very dull girl, don't you think?

PS As always, the ever-hilarious Encyclopedia Dramatica's entry on the different types of "blogging" had me in stitches:

• Politics
  • Author Profile: Intense, angry, probably a virgin
  • Typical Talking Point: The government sucks!!!
  • Representative Public Reply: OMG!!! Noes u suck!

Votivation

Under the Local Government Public Involvement in Health Act (2007), local authorities and their elected councillors now have a duty to involve and engage with residents on matters of local importance.

The statutory “Duty to Involve” is one of several government initiatives designed to empower and involve local people. These initiatives aim to:

- involve local people in decision and policy making; and

- make councils and other public services more transparent and accountable to the electorate and tax payers.

In a bid to employ technology in the pursuit of better engagement with the community, I've signed up to the Votivation website. I must admit I'm still getting my head around how to use it properly, but participants can set up online polls and petitions, and submit (*ahem*) 'opinions'.

And Votivation called this afternoon to say they're upgrading my account as I'm an "early adopter" - woo-hoo!* You can view my Votivation page here.

*what this actually means, I couldn't say. I hope they call me back soon to talk me through it.

Blog Panic (or, Why I Never Became A Coder)

As with any recently acquired interest, this blog is often in my thoughts at the moment. I had a spare five minutes between meetings while I was in our office at King's House earlier today, and so I thought I'd log in to Blogger just to check on things (like you do).

Having spent a good few hours last weekend tweaking the layout and fiddling around with it until I was actually really quite pleased with how things were looking, you can imagine my dismay when I was confronted with a screen resembling the monstrosity below (only much worse):


Quelle horreur! What had happened to my beautiful blog in the time since I'd left the house and arrived at the council offices?

Then I realised: all the council PCs use Internet Explorer as the default web browser. Now, I've been using Firefox for all my interweb activities for years, and because I am not remotely l33t (aka Good At The Internet) it had never occurred to me to test my new blog layout in IE.

But clearly, this was a problem. Much as I find it hard to believe that anyone uses Internet Explorer any more when there are so many better browsers to be downloaded, I suspect that IE is still the browser of choice for the vast majority of web users.

So I started panicking that, erm, literally dozens of readers were not only being denied the opportunity to enjoy my blog in all its technicolour floral glory, they were also unable to even read the actual posts. Which entirely defeats the blog's fundamental purpose. And then I had to go into a Planning Committee meeting.

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I resumed panicking on the bus on the way home. All my poor readers having to squint at an inky screen with undecipherable posts! And even worse - how on earth was I going to rectify the layout situation? The current one had taken me ages to get to its present state (via some haphazard cutting and pasting, and a whole load of trial and error and F5-ing and guesswork) and I had absolutely no idea where to look in the lines and lines of coding in order to identify the problem. Or what to do even if I did locate the glitch.

Stuck in the rush hour rain and traffic on North Street, I did a bit of desperate Googling on my crackberry for '[layout name] blogger "internet explorer" fix', and bingo - the search returned the following phrase: Internet Explorer 6 and below cannot display PNG transparencies correctly.

"Aha!" I thought. "God only knows what 'PNG' means, but that rings a bell from all those wretched lines of XML (or whatever it is) burnt into my eyeballs after the weekend's tweaking."

So feeling a bit perkier, and before I finally resigned myself to having to go back to 'Thisaway (Green)' or some other unexciting standard template, I decided to give it one last go in IE when I got indoors.

Et voilà! It all works just fine in Internet Explorer 7 (the council PCs are evidently limping on with an older version than the one I've got at home). But I've posted a caveat over there > > > > > > at the top of the page, just in case anyone operating an inferior browser chances on my blog and is put off by its apparent illegibility.

And I still think you should all be using Firefox.

PS The IE6 situation clearly isn't down to my crappy coding (*phew!*), but there are still x-amount of bad things about the code for my blog layout (eg why no blog title on the 'Older Posts' page or on individual post pages?), so if there are any kind-hearted techies out there who'd like to assist me in my quest for layout functionality, please get in touch!

Argus Headline Generator

Ha ha, this is brilliant: your very own Argus headline generator.

No more need to spend endless hours slaving over a hot Photoshop!