Three Thursdays in May ( play about #HeavitreeWhipton set in May 2024 )

 Guardian Story 

This story confirms mt impression that the discussion around low traffic areas has gone beyond facts. It assumes the opposition to Low Traffic experiments is all contrived as part of a culture war. There is no space for considering if the issues raised are real. I may try to continue in some ways but more likely I will work on a play, a drama set in May next year. Premise is an independent candidate with a single issue - reversing the traffic experiment in #HeavitreeWhipton . It is a general election as the UK economy not doing well enough for PM to hold on much longer. Fiction maybe, just a device to speed up the action. The drama tension will either be how they are elected or what they do next , talking to Devon County Council. Voters all over #Exeter so cyclists included in the discussion. The candidate will have a panel for academic advice. I am aware of academic comments and claims but they would be easier to respond to as part of fiction. For example traffic studies seems to have no concern with business trading. So if reduced traffic is a challenge for shops this is ignored. Apparently Exeter Council only get involved as planning if there is a change of use. So newsagent and print shop for example would have to cease trading before there was any attention. An election could widen the scope. I will start with episodes of a situation around a bus stop. It is a voice interface bus stop with AI and broadcast. Started as a version of the talking bus stops in the bus station. Now in fiction very advanced and a bit of a gossip. Overhears things.

Below is a bit of background, tweets by Peter Walker. South London Press may be misleading or maybe just covers some reader views as they are experienced. Academics have opinions. Then I get tweets suggesting I have to get an academic to confirm there is extra traffic in North Street as my own observation is quite unlike any other story from lots of other places, apparently according to studies.

By the way, going back to Jeff Jarvis and Guardian Unlimited Talk this is a rare example of a Guardian journalist responding to a reader comment. My concerns are not significant. But maybe in a play some of this can be the basis for dialogue.

Gutenberg Parenthesis update

I have been reading some of the Jeff Jarvis book on the Gutenberg Parenthesis but cannot read it page at a time in the right order as intended. I think most of the history is in the first hundred pages or so then there is a lot of opinion.

Using the index I found Postscript but not Adobe or PDF. Maybe over 500 years ot so the last 50 cannot get much space. As it happens the news today is that John Warnock has died. Frank Romano writes in whattheythink - 

John and his partner, Charles Geschke, were a great pair. The “standardization” that PDF brought to the printing industry engendered computer-to-plate and digital printing. As well as digital publishing.

But my main problem is thinking back just a couple of decades to when the Guardian had a media section and Jeff Jarvis often contributed. There is a recent talk on YouTube hosted by Alan Rusbridger. I had hoped they could discuss Guardian Unlimited Talk and why it was discontinued one Friday afternoon. I think this decision was contrary to everything Jeff Jarvis was trying to explain. In 2023 we may be closer to the end of the Gutenberg parenthesis but the culture is still very strong. Newspaper print circulation trends to zero but BBC Today on radio still reading them out.

I think the earlier take on the parenthesis as "story telling" makes more sense. I have just watched the MIT video on YouTube and looked at a few papers. Twitter and most social media seem to have gone beyond facts anyway. Maybe the same for some "newspapers". I will first try out forms of fiction / drama and think about journalism some time later when I can concentrate on the book in sequence.