DialaGeek part sponsored the Bristol Bike Polo Tourney alongside Chunk Clothing, Taylored Cycles and Crumpler.  Our very own Richard Miller is very involved with the sport and they required some extra funding to cover the costs of the Jersey Barriers to make up the ends of the court.

The tournament was held in Dean Lane Skate Park on the 12th Sep 2010 with teams from Sheffield, London, Cardiff, Oxford, Bristol and various other places competing.

The final involved The Whisperers Vs London Pride (in Black)

The thing I really like about Bike Polo is it has a great DIY spirit to the sport, the bikes are made up from old racer or mountain bike frames then adapted to suit. The spoke protecting discs are usually made from old estate agents signs, single speed gears are the norm, though not all fixed wheel. The mallets are also home made.

And numerous variations on this theme

What on earth is Bike Polo Anyway?

Bike Polo is a fast growing sport played on basketball and football courts.

2 Teams of 3 Players per team.

The Rules:

Score with the end of your mallet – Hitting with the side of you mallet is called a shuffle

Don’t put your foot down – If you do you must ‘Tap Out’ on the side of the court

Any contact should be “Like for Like’ - Mallet to Mallet, Bike To Bike etc.

First to five points wins - Or the team with the most points at the end of the game (15 min game)

If you want to get involved in Bristol visit the BS3 Bristol Bike Polo site

We all know you’re not supposed to swear, be obscene, break the law, or give out personal information. But what about everything else? Whether it’s a Bristol City fan site, Mumsnet, or DIY advice group, chat forums have plenty of informal, invisible rules alongside the formal ones.

Here are some chat forum dos and don’ts from one who’s been there and got the cyberslap marks to prove it.

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1. DO make your initial ‘introductory’ message low-key and to-the-point. Kind of: “Hi, I’m new here. Just wondered…. if anyone knows about supporter coaches for the Millwall game/if my husband’s having an affair/why my combi boiler keeps spewing black smoke. Ta.” Because if you’re too friendly and full-on, too “whoo hoo, I’m heeeerrre, someone put the virtual kettle on!” you’ll come across sad and desperate.

And if there’s one thing chat forum users – with all that free time unencumbered by friends, lovers, jobs etc that they spend typing unpunctuated ‘sentences’ into a computer for total strangers to skimread – they are definitely not sad or desperate. Got that?

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2. DO pop up a few times in the first few days to reinforce your presence. It’ll take approximately seven posts before you’re one of Them.

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3. DO be careful when pm-ing (private messaging). Sometimes posts go through the moderator before they go to the person you want. Avoid embarrassment by check the forum’s system before you hit send.

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4. DO have a interesting avatar. Get your face on the cover of Vogue or Esquire here: www.photofunia.com. Turn yourself into a cool Mad Men character here: www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/madmenyourself. And if you’re 12 and say “lush” a lot go to: www.planetcreation.co.uk/createpic/

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5. DON’T Get in a huff – or double post – because no one has replied to your comment in the two hours since you posted it or because an impassioned thread seems to be racing ahead and paying no heed to the brilliant point you made thirteen posts ago. You may not have earned oratorial rights yet – while acceptance can be quick, it can take months before people actually sit up and listen to you. Or you may just be dull. Either way, whatever. They’re only ‘virtual’ friends, remember?

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6. DON’T let personal stuff get in the way of the forum’s chief purpose. In fact it’s probably best to resist any temptation to take things offline – Christmas cards, fortieths, becoming godparent to someone’s child – harmless though it may seem at first. Nothing kills an online community faster than two members meeting face-to-face and realizing they don’t like the cut of each other’s jib. What may start as an online debate about the best way to bleed a radiator then becomes a flame war about how NancyDrew241 wasn’t supportive enough of AngryFromMansfield in the Homebase/B&Q debate. NB: experience suggests this may be more prevalent in heavily female forums.

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7. DON’T use the forum to promote your small homeopathy practice, Dordogne holiday let or hilarious new iPhone App. Talk about vulgar! There might be a special classifieds section where you can do that. Ask the moderator – or expect to find yourself locked out.

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8. DON’T forget to thank people for their time and advice. You could even use a smiley. They’re not as annoying as people say. [note to self: check this is true]

Chic Geek – Guest Blogger

Ten years since the height of the dotcom bubble. Wow. Remember that? Suddenly, you were a loser for having a proper job.  You know, a job where you did real work and sold real stuff to real people. Every geek and their granny had some amazing ruse for becoming an internet squillionaire. But they couldn’t risk telling you what in case you nicked it. But then they did anyway, and nine times out of ten it was something so spectacularly lame you vowed to shoot Tim Berners-Lee himself if it would prevent said ruse getting off the ground.

I scoff now, but ten years ago I left a good ‘proper’ job to go and work at a dotcom startup. They threw more money at me than I’d ever hoped of earning before and I did absolutely nothing for the entire period I was there, except tinker with the background colour of my powerless PowerPoint presentation and drink the office fridge dry of Minute Maid. There wasn’t anything else to do. Because, at the head of my list of memories of the dotcom bubble is:

1. No one could really understand what it was they were doing. Let alone convey that to others. So mostly they did nothing. Also….
2. Everyone was about 19. It was like Bugsy Malone with laptops.
3. Everyone was a vice-president or director. Even the guy who delivered the Minute Maid.
4. The offices looked like those fake ones in ‘The Real Hustle’ – cheap, quick-to-assemble, no distinguishing features, full of con artists.
5. Roughly three new members of staff would start each morning. Subsequently the hours between 9 and 12 would be spent unpacking swivel chairs and disposing of the cardboard. Then it was lunchtime. Yay!
6. All the boys fancied Martha Lane-Fox.
7. No iPods, Spotify or lastfm in them days – so you had to listen to your colleagues CDs through the tiny speakers of their ‘puters. As they were all geeks this was inevitably ‘Come On Over’ by Shania Twain or, if they were really edgy, Macy Gray ‘On How Life Is’.

I tried to say goodbye and I choked. Tried to walk away but I crumbled. How could I turn my back on the glorious internet goldrush? Loser! But somehow in the end I managed it. Six months after joining I ran away. Proper jobs had never seemed so attractive. And the dotcom? Ten years on it still lingers in the search engines like a ghost in the machine but every page is dead. I hope they kept the receipts for those swivel chairs.

Chic Geek – Guest Blogger

I think I may have a Google problem. Like all addictions, it began harmlessly enough. A handy tool for essential research conducted via the careful inputting of Boolean logic (“restaurants” + “Bristol” NOT “Nandos”).

But before too long I was Googling morning noon and night. You name it. Because the first time I realised I could type, word for word, whatever dimwitted query was buzzing in my head that day and get pages of precise answers it was opening time for those floodgates. Boolean shmoolean! Google instinctively knew whatever it was my heart desired.

When it introduced that drop-down menu of other’s people’s search terms, Google became even more fun. Finding out you’re not the only person in the world ever to wonder if Fleet Foxes really are singing “Lay me down donkey man” in ‘Quiet Houses’ (apparently they aren’t), where the season’s best jumpsuit can be found (TopShop)  or how to say cheers in Chinese (“Nien nien nu e”) is really heart-warming. Again: I don’t need to know this stuff. I’m finding it out because I can.

It’s got silly now. Google has come to represent something it can never live up to: a combination of mother, deity and Stephen Fry. Several times this month I’ve assured myself “I’ll Google it!” in response to such questions as “Where is my phone?” or “What’s the name of Finlay’s mum again?” And, scariest of all, I am slightly pissed off when I realize I can’t.

Maybe one day I’ll Google myself to death, like Nicolas Cage with the liquor in ‘Leaving Las Vegas’. You’ll find me slumped over the keyboard while above, on the screen, in that little horizontal box of dreams flicker the words: “Who should I leave my jumpsuit to?”

Chic Geek – Guest Blogger

VW Debadged

This stopped around 1988 I thought, but no it makes a return, you gotta fight for the right….

If you’ve been a victim of a retro crime call RetroCrimestoppers on 01 811 8055