I found it interesting to look through old photos of how the profession used to work as well as old certificates and pictures of my Grandmother when she was much younger living in a village in Spain and this was how I got the idea to focus my project on her and her career as a hairdresser.

I constructed my project through a slideshow of a variety of photographs, some from when my Grandmother was much younger in her early salons in rural Northern Spain and others of photographs of the certificates she has attained through her career. Most of the pictures were ones I had taken of her at work in her current salon, including close-ups and cut away images as well as action shots. I recorded diegetic sound in her salon and played that over the slide-show of images as well as her talking about her career, her feelings towards it and how she feels about her customers.

I was inspired to create my slideshow by ‘One in 8 Million’ from the New York Times website. I liked how the photos were all in black and white and did consider doing that for my slideshow, but it didn’t seem to work as well; possibly because of the comparison made with the old black and white photos and the new (present tense) colour photos.

I understand my individual project has a limited appeal as realistically it would mainly, if not only appeal to members of my family or people who are interested in the history of hairdressing; and this is clearly a downfall. I’m not sure how I would improve this and make my project appeal to a wider audience, because to do this I would have to use a more general theme and I quite like the intimacy and niche aspects of my project.

The aim of each review was to tell the reader something unexpected about the pub as well as review the ambience, drink, price, food, staff and toilets of each pub as well as include photos. Also included was a rating out of 5, the address and nearest tube station. The pubs I reviewed were the Cask and Glass, The Morpeth Arms and the Olde Wine Shades. As a group we found historical pubs on a website called the Knowledge of London.

The target audience for our site was quite broad as it was anyone who was interested in going to pubs, mainly men and women aged between 20 and 40. We attempted to reach as many possible viewers to our site by using social media in the form of Twitter and Facebook. We created a page on Twitter and followed people who had similar interests to our group website. We also created a group page on Facebook and invited people to join and look at our website.

I think the website would have been better if we had more time to develop the blog, get more followers and build up popularity. It would have also been better if we had more time to do another pub crawl, perhaps make it a more regular occurrence on the blog. I think overall the blog was very successful and set out what it aimed to achieve.

On the second day I wrote about a story that I found on the Internet of an American CEO who went to Zimbabwe, shot an elephant, filmed it and uploaded it to his website as a holiday video. I originally wanted to add the entire video into my post, but after struggling to embed it and link it, I found out it could not be done. Instead I took screen shots of the video and uploaded them into a slide show in my post.

I found that personally I did not have much interaction with the broadcast team during both of the news days. It appeared that the broadcast team were much busier than the online team and they seemed to be under much more pressure and stress. I found the news day a relatively relaxing experience and did not find it as stressful as I initially though it might be.

I found that the only real difficulty was communicating with the broadcast team, as they were so busy it was hard to work in a cross- media way with them and produce cross-media journalism together. I also had some difficulties with working with the WNOL website concerning adding pictures in the right dimensions and uploading a video. I think the students subbing the work struggled slightly to know which work they were meant to sub, as some of the work on the website was from the students running WNOL, this lead to some confusion about what to sub and what to leave.

• In 1684, John Locke counselled that the best way to increase the strength of a newborn was to hold slices of steak to its bottom and pour warm wine over its head.
• William Cobbett, in 1829, proclaimed the importance of babies being given an hour-long, ice-cold bath every day, with the mother singing the whole way through “to overpower the voice of the child”.
• Pye Henry Chavasse was the author of the 19th century’s bestselling baby manual, The Young Wife’s and Mother’s Book, and said “If a child be suffering severely from wind, is there any objection to the addition of a very small quantity of gin to disperse it?”
• In 1861, meanwhile, Mrs Beeton instructed all breastfeeding mothers to down two pints of stout a day and to strictly avoid “that delusion called chicken-broth”.
• Mrs Frankenburg, in her 1922 book Common Sense in the Nursery, decreed “infants should hardly be indoors at all between 8 in the morning and 5 at night in the winter, and from 7am to 10pm in the summer.”

More recent, but just as confusing advice includes:

• “Children under the age of one do not need sun cream, as they do not get sun burnt”
• “Crushed beetles and iron fillings are good for a baby’s teeth”
• “Too many ice pops will give children worms”
• “Keep the baby off their feet for at least the first 12 months or they will get bow legs and weak bones”
• “Don’t tickle a baby’s feet as it will make them stammer”

So apparently, all you need for a healthy baby are some beetles, iron fillings, some steak and an amount of alcohol. Happy days…

So I’m driving my grandma home, the journey to her house was fine, (well as fine as fine can be when driving through the Old Kent Road and Elephant and Castle) a distinct lack of useless driver compared to usual. Until the journey home.

A cyclist wobbled precariously in front of me, causing me to drive around him, being very close to his bicycle as I did this. As anyone who has had the misfortune of driving through the Old Kent Road would know, there are quite a lot of cars and not a lot of space. This seemed to cause him some annoyance and he shouted what sounded like some sort of slurred expletives. Not content with roaring abuse at me for what was his fault. When I pulled up at traffic lights, he continued his drunk slurring (with saliva smeared over his face…nice).

Now if this was a car driver and they were seen by the police, they would (and deservedly so) receive a fine and a ban from driving. This ignoramus of a cyclist would simply receive a ban and would be able to carry on wit his reckless, almost accident-causing bike riding on london roads. I’m not arguing for a lesser conviction for car drivers, just a stronger one for cyclists. Surely this is a justified argument for cyclists to be forced to have insurance when riding on the roads. Most cyclists complain about the torrent of abuse they receive from drivers, but is it really any wonder when idiots like the aforementioned behave like this? They have less responsibility on the roads, but are just as likely (if not, more likely) to cause an accident.

View the video here

Bob Parsons, CEO of the Internet-hosting firm GoDaddy.com, recently posted a video of his trip to Zimbabwe, where he shot an elephant.

Parsons defended his actions in a blog post, in which he wrote:

“I stand by my decision to help African villagers. I believe elephant management is beneficial. I have the support of the people who really matter in this situation, the families of Zimbabwe — people who need help to survive. I have the support of tribal leaders and the government.”

I have every sympathy with the people of Zimbabwe. These are clearly desperate people who rely on their crops. I also understand their feelings towards elephants, especially if they are ruining their only form of food and income. Even if, the only reason elephants are ruining crops is because the land is being over farmed, reducing the size of the elephants natural habitat and forcing them to raid and destroy crops. What I absolutely do not understand is why an obviously rich American CEO who is clearly unaffected by the results of elephants ruining crops, feels it necessary to shoot and kill an elephant and pose proudly on top of it’s carcass.

Also, the exploitation of these people is sickening. Is it really appropriate to score a scene of hungry villagers tearing apart a dead elephant to the tune of ACDC’s ‘Hells Bells’, while advertising bright orange ‘Go Daddy’ caps. Along with the fact that this all took place in Zimbabwe, a broken country oppressed by the tyrannical Robert Mugabe, where 64% of the population lives under the poverty line.

The beauty of high heels is not often synonymous with the olde English world of the Middle Ages, pre-revolution France and Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome; but this is exactly where their turbulent history began. So the next time you pass a Jimme Choo, Kurt Geiger or Louboutin window and stare longingly at those painfully (literally) beautiful shoes, give a second thought to where they came from.

The history of the high-heel is a matter of contentious and heated discussion. No other shoe, has gestured toward leisure, sexuality, and sophistication as much as the high-heel. Fraught with contradiction, heels paradoxically inhibit movement, often cause the wearer pain and discomfort, yet are the favored shoe when it comes to expressing ones style, glamour and personality.

The earliest type of high heel dates back to Ancient Egypt. Figures on murals dating from 3500 B.C. depict an early version of high heels, worn by both upper-class males and females . It was also customary for Egyptian butchers to wear heels, in order to help them walk above the blood of dead animals, not quite something we would be used to seeing today!

Moving forward slightly to Ancient Greece and Rome, where platform sandals called Kothorni, later known as Buskins, were shoes with high wood or cork soles that were popular. In ancient Rome, sex trade was legal, and prostitutes could be identified by their high heels.

During the Middle-Ages both men and women would wear Pattens, similar to the Ancient Greek and Roman Buskins. Pattens would attach to shoes to keep them out of the mud and other street debris when walking outdoors. So like the Ancient Egyptian butchers, it appears that in the past the high heels that we now have a love-hate relationship with were worn for practical reasons only. A notable comparison to wearing them because they look nice, even with the excruciating pain they often cause the wearer.

During the 16th century, shoes were beginning to be made in two pieces with a flexible upper attached to a heavier, stiffer sole. This new two-part shoe led to the heel as an actual part of the shoe rather than just an attachable overshoe. European royalty started wearing high-heeled shoes to make them look taller.

Elizabeth Semmehack, curator at the Bata Shoe Museum traces the high heel to horse riders who used high heels for functionality, because they helped hold the rider’s foot in stirrups.The simple riding heel gave way to a more stylized heel. Beginning with the French, heel heights among men crept up, often becoming higher and thinner.

High-heeled shoes quickly caught on with the fashion-conscious men and both men and women continued wearing heels as a matter of noble fashion throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When the French Revolution drew near, in the late 18th century, the practice of wearing heels fell into decline in France due to its associations with wealth and aristocracy. The heel resurfaced in fashion during the late 19th century, almost exclusively among women.

Since the Second World War, high heels have fallen in and out of favor several times, most notably in the late 1990s, when lower heels and flats dominated the shoe market. Lower heels were preferred during the late 1960s and early 1970s as well, but higher heels returned in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

More recently high heels have seen significant controversy in the medical field, with many podiatrists seeing patients whose severe foot problems have been caused almost exclusively by high-heel wear.

So why are we continually driven to wear high heels? They cause significant pain in the ball of the foot, as well as blisters, bunions, corns and hammertoes (a condition causing toes to bend like a hammer and if left untreated, will remain this way); yet still we remain loyal to our six inch friends. A survey conducted by the American Podiatric Medical Association showed some 42% of women admitted that they would wear a shoe they liked even if it gave them discomfort.

We are all aware of the lengthening and toning of our legs and the all important gluteus maximus while wearing out favorite pair of sky scraping heels, but most wearers are not aware of the significant improvement to ones pelvic floor muscles while wearing a pair of red soled Louboutins.

In 2008, Dr. Maria Angela Cerruto of the Department of Biomedical and Surgical Sciences, Urology Clinic, University of Verona, conducted a study that suggests that wearing high heels may improve the muscle tone of a woman’s pelvic floor, thus having a potential effect on female stress urinary incontinence.

Despite their benefits to the pelvic floor and gluteus maximus, it is well accepted that high heels do more harm than good (and not just to the previously undented laminate or wooden flooring).

High-heeled shoes slant the foot forward and down while bending the toes up, causing the Achilles tendon to shorten. This may cause problems when the wearer chooses to wear flatter shoes (hence the pain when taking off those lovely Louboutins after an all-nighter). When the foot slants forward, a much greater weight is transferred to the ball of the foot and the toes, increasing the likelihood of damage to the underlying soft tissue that supports the foot. High heels also put pressure on the lower back by crushing the lower vertebrae and lower back muscles.

Despite the medical issues surrounding high-heel wear, few podiatrists recommend flat shoes for patients patients. A slight elevation of the heel improves the angle of contact between the metatarsals and the horizontal plane, thereby resulting in proper weight distribution of a medium-to-high-arched foot. Other foot specialists, however, argue that any heel causes unnecessary stresses on the various bones and joints of the foot.

So where do we stand? Apparently not in towering heels or minimalist flats, but somewhere in between seems to be the best place for our much abused metatarsals.

New additions include commonly used abbreviations, such as OMG (oh my God), LOL (laughing out loud), FYI (for your information), TMI (too much information) and BFF (best friends forever).

Although the above mentioned abbreviations would be considered modern by the majority of todays users, the Oxford English Dictionary, found some unexpected historical  perspectives. OMG was first used in 1917, LOL was originally used in 1960, denoting a ‘little old lady’ and FYI was first used in 1941.

Other additions include WAG, ‘Wives and Girlfriends’, first used in 2002 to describe partners of footballers. As well as the imaginative ‘muffin top’ used to describe a protuberance of flesh above the waistband of a pair of trousers. Commonly used slang phrases have also been added, including: on the lash (engaged in a bout of drinking) and cream-crackered (knackered, as in exhausted).

The increase of new initialisms is of course a reflection of the new world of informal digital communications, whether it be the longer-form style of emails or online forums, or character-limited media such as SMS texts and Twitter, where brevity is at a premium.

So, are additions such as ‘BFF’ and ‘wassup’ really a good thing for the English language? Clearly the representation in the dictionary have no affect on their usage within SMS texts, Social networking and informal language. But will their addition to a formal language representative mean their acceptance within formal terms? Lets hope not. I don’t think I’d be best pleased if while reading the newspaper, I might have to look up an abbreviation or word to find out what its slang term means.

Carmen Garcia started hairdressing at 16, by 18 she had her own hairdressers. She lived in a small village in Oviedo, northern Spain.  When she moved to a different village, at 21 she had another shop until she moved to England at 28. She worked in a hairdressers in London until 1986, until she moved to her own self titled hairdressers. She is now 72 and still doing the job she loves. She has kept the some of the same loyal customers for the 38 years that she has been hairdressing in Kennington, South London. Here she describes her life as a hairdresser, from early beginnings to present day.

This is her story.

A content farm is a company that employs large numbers of often freelance writers to generate large amounts of content which is specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval from search engines. Their main goal is to generate advertising revenue. Content farms are criticized for providing relatively low quality content as they maximize profit by producing good enough rather than best possible quality articles. Search engines see content farms as a problem, as they tend to bring the user to the less relevant and lower quality results of the search.

The articles in content farms often reproduced from other media sources, leading to disputes over copyright infringement. Supporters of the content farms claim that traditional journalism is inefficient, that stories are chosen by a small group of people that frequently have similar experiences and outlooks. Content farms often commission their writers’ work based on analysis of search engine queries that proponents represent as true market demand, a feature that traditional journalism lacks. A content farm writer usually gets only several dollars per article yet produces many articles per day and may earn enough for living.

Demand Media, Inc. is an online media company created in a content farm model. It was created in 2006 by a former private equity investor, Shawn Colo, and the former chairman of MySpace, Richard Rosenblatt. The company uses an algorithm that identifies topics with high advertising potential, based on search engine query data and bids on advertising auctions. These topics are typically in the advice and how-to field. It then commissions freelancers to produce corresponding text or video content. The content is posted on a variety of sites, including YouTube and the company’s own sites such as eHow, Trails.com and others.

Content farms contain huge number of articles. For instance, Demand Media will soon be publishing 1 million items a month, the equivalent of four English-language Wikipedias a year. Big content farms are expensive resources, sold for many millions.

Personally, I don’t think content farms will have a huge impact on quality online journalism. Several studies have already been conducted, suggesting that although the audience has been attracted to non-professional journalism, they will not abandon real journalism completely. I think that quality will always win over quantity, it just requires professional journalists to continue to produce superior material.