Tag Archives: Wales

Another year – running and walking, changing roles and new books

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Yesterday I completed the Tiree Ultramarathon, I think my sixth since they began in 2014. As always a wonderful day and a little easier than last year. This is always a high spot in the year for me, and also corresponds to the academic year change, so a good point to reflect on the year past and year ahead.  Lots of things including changing job role, books published and in preparation, conferences coming to Wales … and another short walk …

Tiree Ultra and Tech Wave

Next week there will be a Tiree Tech Wave, the first since Covid struck. Really exciting to be doing this again, with a big group coming from Edinburgh University, who are particularly interested in co-design with communities.

Aside: I nearly wrote “the first post-Covid Tiree Tech Wave”, but I am very aware that for many the impact of Covid is not past: those with long Covid, immunocompromised people who are in almost as much risk now as at the peak of the pandemic, and patients in hospital where Covid adds considerably to mortality.

Albrecht Schmidt from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München was here again for the Ultra. He’s been several times after first coming the year of 40 mile an hour winds and rain all day … he is built of stern stuff.  Happily, yesterday was a little more mixed, wind and driving rain in the morning and glorious sunshine from noon onwards … a typical Tiree day 😊

We have hatched a plan to have Tiree Tech Wave next year immediately after the Ultra. There are a number of people in the CHI research community interested in technology related to outdoors, exercise and well-being, so hoping to have that as a theme and perhaps attract a few of the CHI folk to the Ultra too.

Changing roles

My job roles have changed over the summer.

I’ve further reduced my hours as Director of the Computational Foundry to 50%. University reorganisation at Swansea over the last couple of years has created a School of Mathematics and Computer Science, which means that some of my activities helping to foster research collaboration between CS and Maths falls more within the School role. So, this seemed a good point to scale back and focus more on cross-University digital themes.

However, I will not be idle! I’ve also started a new PT role as Professorial Fellow at Cardiff Metropolitan University. I have been a visiting professor at the Cardiff School of Art and Design for nearly 10 years, so this is partly building on many of the existing contacts I have there. However, my new role is cross-university, seeking to encourage and grow research across all subject areas. I’ve always struggled to fit within traditional disciplinary boundaries, so very much looking forward to this.

Books and writing

This summer has also seen the publication of “TouchIT: Understanding Design in a Physical-Digital World“. Steve, Devina, Jo and I first conceived this when we were working together on the DePTH project, which ran from 2007 to 2009 as part of the AHRC/EPSRC funded Designing for the 21st Century Initiative. The first parts were written in 2008 and 2009 during my sabbatical year when I first moved to Tiree and Steve was our first visitor. But then busyness of life took over until another spurt in 2017 and then much finishing off and updating. However now it is at long last in print!

Hopefully not so long in the process, three more books are due to be published in this coming year, all around an AI theme. The first is a second edition of the “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” textbook that Janet Finlay and I wrote way back in 1996. This has stayed in print and even been translated into Japanese. For many years the fundamentals of AI only changed slowly – the long ‘AI winter’. However, over recent years things have changed rapidly, not least driven by massive increases in computational capacity and availability of data; so it seemed like a suitable time to revisit this. Janet’s world is now all about dogs, so I’ve taken up the baton. Writing the new chapters has been easy. The editing making this flow as a single volume has been far more challenging, but after a focused writing week in August, it feels as though I’ve broken the back of it.

In addition, there are two smaller volumes in preparation as part of the Routledge and CRC AI for Everything series. One is with Clara Crivellaro on “AI for Social Justice“, the other a sole-authored “AI for Human–Computer Interaction”.

All of these were promised in 2020 early in the first Covid lockdown, when I was (rather guiltily) finding the time tremendously productive. However, when the patterns of meetings started to return to normal (albeit via Zoom), things slowed down somewhat … but now I think (hope!) all on track 😊

Welcoming you to Wales

In 2023 I’m chairing and co-chairing two conferences in Swansea. In June, ACM Engineering Interactive Computer Systems (EICS 2023) and in September the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics (web site to come, but here is ECCE 2022). We also plan to have a Techwave Cymru in March. So I’m looking forward to seeing lots of people in Wales.

As part of the preparation to EICS I’m planning to do a series of regular blog posts on more technical aspects of user interface development … watch this space …

Alan’s on the road again

Nearly ten years ago, in 2013, I walked around Wales, a personal journey and research expedition. I always assumed I would do ‘something else’, but time and life took over. Now, the tenth anniversary is upon me and it feels time do something to mark it.

I’ve always meant to edit the day-by-day blogs into a book, but that certainly won’t happen next year. I will do some work on the dataset of biodata, GPS, text and images that has been used in a few projects and is still a unique data set, including, I believe, still the largest single ECG trace in the public domain.

However, I will do ‘something else’.

When walking around the land and ocean boundaries of Wales, I was always aware that while in some sense this ‘encompassed’ the country, it was also the edge, the outside. To be a walker is to be a voyeur, catching glimpses, but never part of what you see.  I started then to think of a different journey, to the heart of Wales, which for me, being born and brought up in Cardiff, is the coal valleys stretching northwards and outwards. The images of coal blackened miners faces and the white crosses on the green hillside after Aberfan are etched into my own conception of Wales.

So, there will be an expedition, or rather as series of expeditions, walking up and down the valleys, meeting communities, businesses, schools and individuals.

Do you know places or people I should meet?

Do you want to join me to show me places you know or to explore new places?

Busy September – talks, tutorials and an ultra-marathon

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September has been a full month!

During the last two weeks things have started to kick back into action, with the normal rounds of meetings and induction week for new students.  For the latter I’d pre-recorded a video welcome, so my involvement during the week was negligible.  However, in addition I delivered a “Statistics for HCI” day course organised by the BCS Interaction Group with PhD students from across the globe and also a talk “Designing User Interactions with AI: Servant, Master or Symbiosis” at the AI Summit London.  I was also very pleased to be part of the “60 faces of IFIP” campaign by the International Federation for Information Processing.

It was the first two weeks that stood out though, as I was back on Tiree for two whole weeks.  Not 100% holiday as during the stay I gave two virtual keynotes: “Qualitative–Quantitative Reasoning: thinking informally about formal things” at the International Colloquium on Theoretical Aspects of Computing (ICTAC) in Kazakhstan and “Acting out of the Box” at the University of Wales Trinity St David (UWTSD) Postgraduate Summer School.  I also gave a couple of lectures on “Modelling interactions: digital and physical” at the ICTAC School which ran just before the conference and presented a paper on “Interface Engineering for UX Professionals” in the Workshop on HCI Engineering Education (HCI-E2) at INTERACT 2021 in Bari.  Amazing how easy it is to tour the world from a little glamping pod on a remote Scottish Island.

Of course the high point was not the talks and meetings, but the annual Tiree Ultra-marathon.  I’d missed last year, so especially wonderful to be back: thirty five miles of coastline, fourteen beaches, not to mention so many friendly faces, old friends and new.  Odd of course with Covid zero-contact and social distancing – the usual excited press of bodies at the pre-race briefing in An Talla, the Tiree community hall, replaced with a video webinar and all a little more widely spaced for the start on the beach too.

The course was slightly different too, anti-clockwise and starting half way along Gott Bay, the longest beach.  Gott Bay is usually towards the end of the race, about 28 miles in, so the long run, often into the wind is one of the challenges of the race.  I recall in 2017 running the beach with 40 mile an hour head wind and stinging rain – I knew I’d be faster walking, but was determined to run every yard of beach..  Another runner came up behind me and walked in my shelter.  However, this year had its own sting in the tail with Ben Hynish, the highest point, at 26 miles in.

The first person was across the line in about four-and-a-quarter hours, the fastest time yet.  I was about five hours later!

This was my fifth time doing the ultra, but the hardest yet, maybe in part due to lockdown couch-potato-ness!  My normal training pattern is that about a month before the ultra I think, “yikes, I’ve not run for a year” and then rapidly build up the miles – not the recommended training regime!  This year I knew I wasn’t as fit as usual, so I did start in May … but then got a knee injury, then had to self-isolate … and then it was into the second-half of July; so about a month again.

Next year it will be different, I will keep running through the winter … hmm … well, time will tell!

The different September things all sound very disparate – and they are, but there are some threads and connections.

The first thread is largely motivational.

The UWTSD keynote was about the way we are not defined by the “kind of people” we think of ourselves as being, but by the things we do.  The talk used my walk around Wales in 2013 as the central example, but the ultra would have been just as pertinent.  Someone with my waistline is not who one would naturally think as being an ultramarathon runner – not that kind of person, but I did it.

However, I was not alone.  The ‘winners’ of the ultra are typically the rangy build one would expect of a long-distance runner, but beyond the front runners, there is something about the long distance that attracts a vast range of people of all ages, and all body shapes imaginable.  For many there are physical or mental health stories: relationship breakdowns, illnesses, that led them to running and through it they have found ways to believe in themselves again.  Post Covid this was even more marked: Will, who organises the ultra, said that many people burst into tears as they crossed the finish line, something he’d never seen before.

The other thread is about the mental tools we need to be a 21st century citizen.

The ICTAC keynote was about “Qualitative–Quantitative Reasoning”, which is my term for the largely informal understanding of numbers that is so important for both day-to-day and professional life, but is not part of formal education.  The big issues of our lives from Covid to Brexit to climate change need us to make sense of large-scale numerical or data-rich phenomena.  These often seem too complex to make sense of, yet are ones where we need to make appropriate choices in both our individual lives and political voices.  It is essential that we find ways to aid understanding in the public, press and politicians – including both educational resources and support tools.

The statistics course and my “Statistics for HCI” book are about precisely this issue – offering ways to make sense of often complex results of statistical analysis and obtain some of the ‘gut’ understanding that professional statisticians develop over many years.

My 60 faces of IFIP statement also follows this broad thread:

“Digital techology is now essential to being a citizen. The future of information processing is the future of everyone; so needs to be understood and shaped by all. Often ICT simply reinforces existing patterns, but technology is only useful if we can use it to radically reimagine a better world.”

More information on different events

Tiree Ultra

Tiree Ultramarathon web page and Facebook Group

Paper: Interface Engineering for UX Professionals

HCI-E2: Workshop on HCI Engineering Education – for developers, designers and more, INTERACT 2021, Bari, Italy – August 31st, 2021. See more – paper and links

Summer School Lecturea: Modelling interactions: digital and physical

Lecture at ICTAC School 2021: 18th International Colloquium on Theoretical Aspects of Computing, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, 1st September 2021. See more – abstract and links

Talk: Designing User Interactions with AI: Servant, Master or Symbiosis

The AI Summit London, 22nd Sept. 2021. See more – abstract and links

Day Course: Statistics for HCI

BCS Interaction Group One Day Course for PhD Students, 21st Sept. 2021.
See my Statistics for HCI Micro-site.

Keynote: Acting out of the Box

Rhaglen Ysgol Haf 2021 PCYDDS / UWTSD Postgraduate Summer School 2021, 10th Sept. 2021. See more – abstract and links

Keynote: Qualitative–Quantitative Reasoning: thinking informally about formal things

18th International Colloquium on Theoretical Aspects of Computing, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, 10th Sept. 2021. See more – full paper and links

Induction week greeting

 

How much does herd immunity help?

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I was asked in a recent email about the potential contribution of (partial) herd immunity to controlling Covid-19.  This seemed a question that many may be asking, so here is the original question and my reply (expanded slightly).

We know that the virus burns itself out if R remains < 1.

There are 2 processes that reduce R, both operating simultaneously:

1) Containment which limits the spread of the virus.

2) Inoculation due to infection which builds herd immunity.

Why do we never hear of the second process, even though we know that both processes act together? What would your estimate be of the relative contribution of each process to reduction of R at the current state of the pandemic in Wales?

One of the UK government’s early options was (2) developing herd immunity1.  That is you let the disease play out until enough people have had it.
For Covid the natural (raw) R number is about 3 without additional voluntary or mandated measures (depends on lots of factors).   However, over time as people build immunity, some of those 3 people who would have been infected already have been.  Once about 2/3 of the community are immune the effective R number drops below 1.  That corresponds to a herd immunity level (in the UK) of about 60-70% of the population having been infected.  Of course, we do not yet know how long this immunity will last, but let’s be optimistic and assume it does.
The reason this policy was (happily) dropped in the UK was the realisation that this would need about 40 million people to catch the virus, with about 4% of these needing intensive care.  That is many, many times the normal ICU capacity, leading to (on the optimistic side) around half a million deaths, but if the health service broke under the strain many times that number!
In Spain (with one of the larger per capita outbreaks) they ran an extensive antibody testing study (that is randomly testing a large number of people whether or not they had had any clear symptoms), and found only about 5% of people showed signs of having had the virus overall, with Madrid closer to 10%.  In the UK estimates are of a similar average level (but without as good data), rising to maybe as high as 17% in London.
Nationally these figures (~5%) do make it slightly easier to control, but this is far below the reduction needed for relatively unrestricted living (as possible in New Zealand, which chose a near eradication strategy)   In London the higher level may help a little more (if it proves to offer long-term protection).  However, it is still well away from the levels needed for normal day-to-day life without still being very careful (masks, social distancing, limited social gatherings), however it does offer just a little ‘headroom’ for flexibility.  In Wales the average level is not far from the UK average, albeit higher in the hardest hit areas, so again well away from anything that would make a substantial difference.
So, as you see it is not that (2) is ignored, but, until we have an artificial vaccine to boost immunity levels, relying on herd immunity is a very high risk or high cost strategy.  Even as part of a mixed strategy, it is a fairly small effect as yet.
In the UK and Wales, to obtain even partial herd immunity we would need an outbreak ten times as large as we saw in the Spring, not a scenario I would like to contemplate 🙁
This said there are two caveats that could make things (a little) easier going forward:
1)  The figures above are largely averages, so there could be sub-communities that do get to a higher level.  By definition, the communities that have been hardest hit are those with factors (crowded accommodation, high-risk jobs, etc.) that amplify spread, so it could be that these sub-groups, whilst not getting to full herd-immunity levels, do see closer to population spread rates in future hence contributing to a lower average spread rate across society as a whole.  We would still be a long way from herd immunity, but slower spread makes test, track and trace easier, reduces local demand on health service, etc.
2)  The (relatively) low rates of spread in Africa have led to speculation (still very tentative) that there may be some levels of natural immunity from those exposed to high levels of similar viruses in the past.  However, this is still very speculative and does not seem to accord with experience from other areas of the world (e.g. Brazilian favelas), so it looks as though this is at most part of a more complex picture.
I wouldn’t hold my breath for (1) or (2), but it may be that as things develop we do see different strategies in different parts of the world depending on local conditions of housing, climate, social relationships, etc.

Update

Having written the above, I’ve just heard about the following that came out end of last week in BMJ, which suggests that there could be a significant number of mild cases that are not
detected on standard blood test as having been infected.
Burgess Stephen, Ponsford Mark J, Gill Dipender. Are we underestimating seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2? BMJ 2020; 370 :m3364  https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3364
  1. I should say the UK government now say that herd immunity was never part of their planning, but for a while they kept using the term! Here’s a BBC article about the way herd immunity influenced early UK decisions, a Guardian report that summarises some of the government documents that reveal this strategy, and a Politco article that reports on the Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance ‘s statement that he never really meant this was part of government planning.  His actual words on 12th March were “Our aim is not to stop everyone getting it, you can’t do that. And it’s not desirable, because you want to get some immunity in the population. We need to have immunity to protect ourselves from this in the future.”  Feel free to decide for yourself what ‘desirable‘ might have meant.[back]

Alan’s Guide to Winter Foot Care

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My feet are quite wide and so I prefer to wear sandals.  I wore sandals for over 700 miles of my round Wales walk back in 2013, and wear them throughout the winter.

When the temperature drops below zero, or snow gathers on the ground, I am often asked, “don’t your feet get cold?“.

Having been asked so many times, I have decided to put down in writing my observations about healthy winter feet in the hope it will help others.

Basically, the thing to remember is that it is all about colours, and follows a roughly linear series of stages.  However, do note I am a sallow-skinned Caucasian, so all reference to skin colour should be read in that context.

Look at your toes.

What colour are they?

Stage1.  White

Press the side of your toe with your finger.  Does it change colour?

1.1   Yes, it goes a bit pink and then fades rapidly back to white.

That is normal and healthy, you clearly aren’t taking this whole extreme winter walking thing seriously.

1.2  Yes, it goes deep red and only very slowly back to white.

You have an infection, maybe due to stage 2.2a on a previous walk.  Visit the doctor to avoid stage 3.

1.3 No, it stays white.

Bad news, you are a zombie.

Stage 2. Red

Are your toes painful?

2.1 Yes.

Well at least they are still alive.

2.2. No.

Well at least they don’t hurt.  However numbness means does cause certain dangers.

2.2a – You might prick your toe on a thorns, or rusty wire and not notice, leading to infection.

2.2b – You might step on broken glass and bleed to death.

2.2c – You might step in a fire and burn yourself.

Stage 3.  Yellow

Blood poisoning, you missed warning 2.2a

Stage 4.  Blue.

Your circulation has stopped entirely.  This will lead ultimately to limb death, but at least you won’t bleed to death (warning 2.2b).

Stage 5. Black.

Is that charcoal black?

5.1.  Yes

You forgot warning 2.2c didn’t you?

5.2  no, more dull grey/black.

Frostbite, get to the hospital quick and they may save some of your toes.

Stage 6. Green

Gangrene, no time for the hospital, find a saw or large breadknife.

Stage 7.  What toes?

You missed stages 5 and 6.

Download and print the Quick Reference Card so that you can conveniently check your foot health at any time.

Quick Reference Card

Last word … on a serious note

My feet are still (despite misuse!) healthy.  However, for many this is a serious issue, not least for those with diabetes.  When I was child my dad, who was diabetic, dropped a table on his foot and had to be constantly monitored to make sure it didn’t develop into gangrene.  Diabetes UK have their own foot care page, and a list of diabetes charities you can support.

 

the year that was 2014

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While 2013 was full of momentous events (Miriam getting married, online HCI course and walking 1000 years around Wales), 2014 seems to have relatively little to report.

A major reason for that is the REF panel and the time taken, inter alia, to read and assess 1000 papers.  I am not at all convinced by the entire research assessment process – however, if it is to happen it is needs to be done as well as possible, hence while still reeling from the walk (indeed asked whilst on the walk) I agreed to be on the panel at a relatively late stage late in 2013.

At the end of the year with the results out I guess the other members of the REF panels and I are either loved hated deepening on how different institutions fared … maybe it is good that I live on an island so far from anyone :-/

I guess I am no more convinced at the end of the process than I was at the beginning.  It was good to read so much over such a wide range of topics, I feel I have an overview of UK computing that I have never had before.  This was often depressing (so many niche areas that clearly will never affect anything else in computer science, let alone the world), but also lifted by the occasional piece of work that was theoretically deep, well reported and practically useful.

Beyond the many many hours of reading for REF, the world has moved on:

  • Fiona has begun to sell more textile art online and at events, including a stall at Fasanta where the Tiree Tapestry was also exhibited.
  • Miriam passed her driving test and has a car.
  • Esther has had a number of performances including a short film (although sadly I’ve not managed to attend any this year :-()

Personally and work-wise (the boundary is always hard to draw):

  • I eventually managed to fill in the remaining day blogs for Alan Walks Wales in time for 1st anniversary!
  • I’m gradually managing to spread the word about the unique data I collected at various talks including at events in Bangelore and Athens.
  • The OnSupply project about awareness of renewable energy production was wonderfully successful with several workshops in Tiree, a best paper nomination at ICT4S and an accepted CHI paper.
  • Work with Rachel on Musicology data, which has been slowly ticking along informally, has now been funded as the InConcert project and we ran an exciting symposium on concert-related data in November.
  • At Talis I am looking at the benefits of learning analytics and published my first journal paper in the area, as well as using it practically in teaching.
  • Tiree Tech Wave has gone from strength to strength with capacity attendance and digital fabrication workshops for the Tiree community in the autumn.
  • … and not least competed in the 35 mile round Tiree Ultra-marathon in September 🙂

… and in 2015

who knows, but I’ve already entered for next year’s ultra – why not join me 🙂

 

being British? always a second class citizen

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The most important reason for a ‘Yes’ vote in the upcoming Scottish independence referendum is the potential for a new nation that is a beacon of a fairer, greener and more inclusive society.  This would ultimately be to the good of the whole of the UK.

However, I’ve also noted a general lack of comprehension by many south of the border who struggle to understand the desire for Scottish Independence.

This was voiced a few days ago in a Facebook thread and this was my response as a Welshman living north of the border.:

As a Welshman I have always had a romantic nationalist edge, but also felt a strong British patriotism.

However events over the years, and not least the referendum campaign have hardened this.  Again and again Westminster politicians tell us that Scotland is better with England, as if Wales and Northern Ireland did not exist.

I have heard this language all my life: in the 50th anniversary celebrations of the second World War, in numerous debates in immigration, in company registration (registered in Cardiff, a company in England and Wales, but subject to *English* law), … and has been noted several times the Bank of England.

The difference in this campaign is that this is when politicians are supposed to be being careful of their language.  We even had the government lawyer explaining that the separated rUK and Scotland would not be equally parts of a previous single nation when looking towards external international bodies, not based on measures such as the population (reasonable), but because really and legally Scotland was never a partner country in a union, but was always amalgamated unto England.

There have been hundreds of years to sort out these things, but it has not happened yet, what chance for the next 100 years?

As a  child I was pedalled a lie.

There never was, and never will be a Britain.

As a Welshman, I am as British as Indians were in the ‘British Empire’.

Within the UK I always have been, and always will be, a second class citizen.

In contrast to this Scotland (despite sectarian tensions that erupt occasionally in Celtic-Rangers crowds) accepts incomers as was amply demonstrated in the difference between the spitting bigotry of the Westminster leaders’ debates at the last General Election compared with the far more civilised, cultured,and above all inclusive Scottish leaders’ debate, with all parties, including the Scottish Conservative leader, praising the richness through diversity and immigration.

Whether it is a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’, the shape of the UK will change fundamentally tomorrow.

If it is ‘No’, I hope the UK will eventually wake up to the fact that it is a nation of nations.

If it is ‘Yes’, then I know, that even as a Welshman far from my birthplace, I will be in a country where I can feel at home.

wonder women

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As I started to prepare for the Wales walk I learnt about Anne-Marie “Arry” Beresford-Webb, who in her DragonRun1027 was first to traverse the new Wales Coast Path and existing Offa’s Dyke long distance path all around Wales.  Only Arry was not content to walk around Wales, as I will do in a few weeks, but she ran it, 39 days, a marathon distance every day, all in support of Velindre Cancer Centre.  I thought Arry was Wonder Woman – just absolutely amazed, in a year of amazing Olympic successes, still my hero of the year if not the decade.

I thought this must be the summit of achievement, what could equal that.

Then Rob Styles (@mmmmmrob) shared a link on Twitter to One MIllion Lovely Letters.

Since she was eleven, Jodi Ann Bickley (@jodiannbickley) has been leaving notes “between text books, on buses, in libraries and as I got older in pubs, restaurants … anywhere I thought that maybe someone might need a little bit of cheering up, reassurance or just a reminder that actually they are pretty lovely” because “everyone deserves to know that they are thought of and they are loved. Even if it is by a complete stranger.“.  And now she is offering to write to anyone, beautiful hand written letters, full of love, to anyone, any of the seven billion strangers we all have in this world.

This would all be marvellous enough on its own, yet when she describes her lifelong project of lovely note leaving she goes on to say “… and as I got a little older in doctors surgeries and hospital beds“.  It turns out that the new turn to letter writing is because she has been recently “blessed with a lot of time“, and this blessing, not a lottery win leaving her a lady of leisure, or retirement at the end of her years, but a debilitating illness at the age of 24.

I am sure Arry’s ultra-marathon running is based on years of physical practice starting with small runs and building up to her epic achievement, gradually exercising muscles and joints so that when called upon to work in extremes they are ready.  Not that the work was not hard and painful, not that feet did not bleed and muscles ache, but a body prepared through small things for the great things demanded of it.

It sounds to me that in spirit and personalty,  Jodi has had just such exercise, creating a habit of joy-giving in small things so that when the big challenge came, while no less painful in the body and soul, she is ready, not just to endure, but to make it a blessing for others.

I am amazed and awed.

I myself have been blessed to know many wonderful women, not least my wife and lovely daughters.  And I can only thank God that in days of cynicism and depression, hardship and crisis, there are those who in different ways rise as heroes to inspire us all.

Walking Wales

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As some of you already know, next year I will be walking all around Wales: from May to July covering just over 1000 miles in total.

Earlier this year the Welsh Government announced the opening of the Wales Coastal Path a new long distance footpath around the whole coast of Wales. There were several existing long distance paths covering parts of the coastline, as well as numerous stretches of public footpaths at or near the coast. However, these have now been linked, mapped and waymarked creating for the first time, a continuous single route. In addition, the existing Offa’s Dyke long distance path cuts very closely along the Welsh–English border, so that it is possible to make a complete circuit of Wales on the two paths combined.

As soon as I heard the announcement, I knew it was something I had to do, and gradually, as I discussed it with more and more people, the idea has become solid.

This will not be the first complete periplus along these paths; this summer there have been at least two sponsored walkers taking on the route. However, I will be doing the walk with a technology focus, which will, I believe, be unique.

The walk has four main aspects:

personal — I am Welsh, was born and brought up in Cardiff, but have not lived in Wales for over 30 years. The walk will be a form of homecoming, reconnecting with the land and its people that I have been away from for so long. The act of encircling can symbolically ‘encompass’ a thing, as if knowing the periphery one knows the whole. Of course life is not like this, the edge is just that, not the core, not the heart. As a long term ex-pat, a foreigner in my own land, maybe all I can hope to do is scratch the surface, nibble at the edges. However, also I always feel most comfortable as an outsider, as one at the margins, so in some ways I am going to the places where I most feel at home. I will blog, audio blog, tweet and generally share this experience to the extent the tenuous mobile signal allows, but also looking forward to periods of solitude between sea and mountain.

practical — As I walk I will be looking at the IT experience of the walker and also discuss with local communities the IT needs and problems for those at the edges, at the margins. Not least will be issues due to the paucity of network access both patchy mobile signal whilst walking and low-capacity ‘broadband’ at the limits of wind-beaten copper telephone wires — none of the mega-capacity fibre optic of the cities. This will not simply be fact-finding, but actively building prototypes and solutions, both myself (in evenings and ‘days off’) and with others who are part of the project remotely or joining me for legs of the journey1. Geolocation and mobile based applications will be a core part of this, particularly for the walkers experience, but local community needs likely to be far more diverse.

philosophical — Mixed with personal reflections will be an exploration of the meanings of place, of path, of walking, of nomadicity and of locality. Aristotle’s school of philosophy was called the Peripatetic School because discussion took place while walking; over two thousand years later Wordsworth’s poetry was nearly all composed while walking; and for time immemorial routes of pilgrimage have been a focus of both spiritual service and personal enlightenment. This will build on some of my own previous writings in particular past keynotes2 on human understanding of space, and also wider literature such as Rebecca Solnit’s wonderful “Wanderlust“.  This reflection will inform the personal blogging, and after I finish I will edit this into a book or account of the journey.

research3 — the practical outcomes will intersect with various personal research interests including social empowerment, interaction design and algorithmics4.  For the walker’s experience, I will be effectively doing a form of action research!.  This will certainly include how to incorporate local maps (such as tourists town plans) effectively into more large-scale experiences, how ‘crowdsourced’ route knowledge can augment more formal digital and paper resources, data synchonisation to deal with disconnection, and data integration between diverse sources.  In addition I am offering myself as a living lab so that others can use my trip as a place to try out their own sensors and instrumentation5, information systems, content authoring, ethnographic practices, community workshops, etc.  This may involve simply asking me to use things, coming for a single meeting or day, or joining me for parts of the walk.

If any of this interests you, do get in touch.  As well as research collaborations (living lab or supporting direct IT goals) any help in managing logistics, PR, or finding sources of funding/sponsorship for basic costs, most welcome.

I’ll get a dedicated website, Facebook page, twitter account, and charity sponsorship set up soon … watch this space!

  1. Coding whilst walking is something I have thought about (but not done!) for many years, but definitely inspired more recently by Nick the amazing cycling programmer who came to the Spring Tiree Tech Wave.[back]
  2. “Welsh Mathematician Walks in Cyberspace“, and “Paths and Patches: patterns of geognosy and gnosis“.[back]
  3. I tried to think of a word beginning with ‘p’ for research, but failed![back]
  4. As I tagged this post I found I was using nearly all my my most common tags — I hadn’t realised quite how much this project cuts across so many areas of interest.[back]
  5. But with the “no blood rule”: if I get sensor sores, the sensors go in the bin 😉 [back]

book: How Green Was My Valley

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After too many years I eventually read Richard Llewellyn’s “How Green Was My Valley“, which tells the story of growing up in a South Wales valley at the end of the 19th century.  I vaguely recall seeing the film of the book on the TV one Sunday afternoon as a small child.

You can read the book as a social commentary of a time past, or as a coming of age novel set around with stories of strikes and singing, madness and joy, requited and unrequited loves.   But above all it is a book of poetry, not in the sense of verse, but that form of prose that raises goosebumps down your back:

“… and I raised my arms and drew tight the muscles of my body, and as the blood within me thudded through my singing veins, a goldness opened wide before me and I knew I had become of Men, a Man.” (Chap. 24)

“My Valley, O my Valley, within me, I will live in you eternally … for part of me is the memory of you in your greens and browns, with everything of life happy in your deeps and shades, when you gave sweet scents to us, and sent for spices for the pot, and flowers, and birds sang out for pleasure to be with you.” (Chap. 18)

A recurrent theme through the novels is the gradual covering of that green, the burying of the valley sides and trees beneath the encroaching blackness of the slag, the coal tips, which as a child I recall still covering the valley sides north of Cardiff.  Indeed the novel is narrated by an old man thinking back over his childhood as he leaves his family home for the last time, a home itself now half buried as the slag spreads ever down the valley.

In the early days of coal mining the slag, the pieces of coal that were too small to burn, was left below the ground, rammed hard into the sides of the tunnels, strengthening and supporting them. But in the time of the book, and on throughout the 20th century, it proved cheaper and quicker to bring everything to the surface and separate there, the remains being spread upon the mountain sides in dark hills of their own, like welts upon a diseased landscape eaten underground by men.

“There is a patience in the Earth to allow us to go into her, and dig, and hurt with tunnels and shafts, and if we put back the flesh we have torn from her and so make good what we have weakened, she is content to let us bleed her. But when we take, and leave her weak where we have taken, she has a soreness, and an anger that we should be so cruel to her and thoughtless of her comfort. So she waits for us, and finding us, bears down, and bearing down, makes us a part of her, flesh of our flesh, with our clay in place of the clap we thoughtlessly have shovelled away.” (Chap. 42)

These are the thoughts of the elderly Huw looking back at the moment when he sat with his father part buried and dying after a roof fall.  Prescient today when we are at last beginning to realise how much we have taken from the earth and how little given back.

But, while the narrator is thinking of the toll taken on the miners underground by the thoughtless drive for profit and cheap coal, those brooding slag heaps remind me more of the dark repayment taken above.

One of the defining moments of my own childhood, was when, a few months after the Aberfan disaster, we drove up to Brecon along the valley road, and looked across the valley to a field of white crosses, like the images of Flanders on Armistice day, only no red poppies among the white graves, just white against green a ghastly mirror of the black upon green of the coal tip that rolled down the valley-side burying the school of Aberfan and taking the lives of  whole generation of children.

morning newspaper: MPs and Elgin Marbles

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I usually only read the newspaper when travelling and either do the ‘free mineral water with newspaper’ deal (usually the Telegraph, maybe the only way they can sell newspapers), or whatever they have in the hotel or plane.

The front-page news today is the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid convoy, which needs no further comment.

of MPs

However, I also got yesterday’s Independent when I arrived at the Holiday Inn near midnight.  One of the main stories then was still the ‘outing’ and resignation of David Laws.  The key issue here (at least in principle) was not that nature of his personal relationships, but that he had not disclosed that the flat on which he was claiming rent belonged to his partner.

I was glad to see Mark Pack’s commentary in today’s Independent take a robust view of this, noting that while Laws may have broken rules (still to be determined), there had been no financial gain involved, and indeed the arrangement had saved the taxpayer money.  Pack’s contempt of the Telegraph was perhaps not unexpected in a column in a rival newspaper, but echoed my own feelings.

I was happily abroad during the height of the MPs expense ‘scandal’ last year, but was appalled at the coverage, not least because my travels take me to countries in Europe which would give anything to have the high standards of public office we take for granted in the UK.  In the end a handful of MPs may (still sub judice) have abused the system, but the vast majority were simply trying to do their job.

A short while ago I happened on the web on a page detailing the expenses of a Cardiff (now ex) MP Julie Morgan, when MPs expenses came under the spotlight, she rechecked her previous claims and indeed, with more careful checking, it turned out that the claims she had made on her mortgage did not match the actual expenditure.  Over the five years of the last parliament she had accidentally over-claimed in two years to the total of £800 … but in the other three years had under-claimed to the tune of £1900.  The rules meant she could not retrospectively be paid for the under-claimed years, but did pay back the £800 for the over-claims.  Despite being £1100 out of pocket, one of the lowest claiming MPs and indeed paying significant amount of her own salary to help maintain her constituency office, on the books she will part of the statistics of the large number of MPs who repaid expenses and so appear to have been doing wrong.  Crazy!

and of Marbles

Back to today’s newspaper and deeper into the Independent a very old story that is entering a new phase: the fight for the return of treasures from around the world displayed in British Museums.  The most well know is of course the Elgin Marbles (maybe Germany may claim them as security for Greece’s Euro-bailout), but others include African treasures taken during punitive raids by British soldiers in the 19th Century.

The issues seem clear-cut for a Liberal-minded Independent reader, but maybe things are more complicated; certainly some of the items, including the bronze ‘Birmingham Buddha’ would not have survived to the present day if they had not been removed – if only the Victorian adventurers had also removed some of the giant Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban in the 1990s.

I wonder how far repatriation should go, what is the statute of limitations for national treasure?  Maybe as the Birmingham Buddha travels back to India, several hundred shiploads of railtrack and steam trains will be repatriated to the UK, offloaded at Felixstowe docks and moved overland to form a mountainous sculpture of piled steel in the centre of Birmingham.

Having just been in Italy, I am sure there are many Italian artefacts in British museums, but then in Rome there are a number of Egyptian obelisk’s removed by the Romans 2000 years ago.  However, I would be surprised if, in turn, the Egyptians had not taken artefacts from other parts of the ancient world.  For that matter, what about the work done by the Israelites in Egypt before the Exodus?  If not for the fear it might be taken seriously I might suggest Israel could claim this.

In fact, these treasures are often more symbolic of the greater rape of natural resources and human labour that still continues today in many parts of the world today.  Indeed being brought up in the shadow of the South Wales coal valleys, I am well aware that the benefits of natural resources rarely go to the countries where they are found nor the labourers who mine them.

One of the key arguments against repatriation of ancient artefacts is that the curatorial standards are higher where they are presently.  Indeed the pillage of Iraqi sites after the fall of Saddam could be seen as overwhelming evidence that institutions such as the British Museum do the whole world a service.  Repatriation of artefacts to less secure countries would put at risk our shared global heritage; after all who knows what civilisation the UK and US will decide to decimate next.