Maybe it was the long drive from Harrogate to Gatwick with a hangover, maybe it was the fact we got lost and only had iphone GPS to guide us out of the 9th circle of hell that is Bushey Heath, maybe it was getting lost in the Gatwick airport carparks and the half mile trek to find a ticket machine – whatever the reason, something was forgotten.

When checking into our flight Frog wanted to swap a bottle from hand luggage to hold luggage because, you know, if you have 101ml of liquid in your hand luggage you might be a terrorist. The suitcase of course was locked. The keys to the lock were on the house keys fob. Which was in the car. Which had been handed over to some men to look after for a week.

Oh noes!

“It’s okay” I said. “Don’t worry. We’ll sort something out, it’ll be fine”.

I actually thought things probably wouldn’t be fine but right then it was more important to not get stressed, just to get checked in and have some food/drink after spending 6 hours in the car.

After fielding some suggestions for opening the lock (“we could saw through it!” “what with?” “we could break off one of the zips” “how?” “we could cut open the suitcase” “we don’t have a knife or scissors” “we could pick the lock with some twee….oh they’re in the suitcase”) we decided to see if we could find a similar lock in the myriad of airport shops. After all, we had three hours to kill before the flight.

Although most of the shops sold locks and suitcases (which raises the question – do some people bring their luggage in plastic bags?) none of them were similar to ours.

“It’s okay” I said. “It’ll be fine – we’ll work something out when we get there”

When we got to Kuramathi and our room, we realised that palm fronds and seashells would not be enough to break open the suitcase. The Maldivian staff were equally unhelpful, when they finally understood what all the hand gestures meant. In fact, they greeted our predicament with enormous mirth and said it was an impossible problem.

It was time to get creative.

“What do we have that’s metal?” I asked. “Belt loop? Underwire from a bra? The zip on my bag?” None of them looked likely for picking a small but annoyingly solid lock.

Meanwhile, Frog picked up my jacket which had been discarded as soon as we stepped off the plane into the sweltering heat of Male. He removed the Northern SEM badge I’d been wearing for a month, which had even led to me being called “a loser” by someone who ridicules blogger meetups. He pulled off the pointy needle on the back of the badge and started niggling at the lock.

Over the next ten minutes the badge got twisted into a truly amazing shape, but the lock wouldn’t budge. Frog gave up, frowning, and we contemplated spending the next week wearing jeans, or just underwear, neither of which was an acceptable outcome.

Looking at the twisted sliver of metal, it really did resemble a key. In fact, it looked like it *should* work. In one last effort, I stuffed it into the lock as hard as I could and turned.

The lock opened.

Hooray!

“Oh my god we just picked a lock! We’re spies! Or ninjas! Ninjaspies!”

The suitcase burst open and bikinis, dresses, shorts and flip flops tumbled out in a torrent of colour and joy. The holiday was saved.

After the immensely enjoyable Think Visibility conference in March, I was flattered, surprised and somewhat horrified when Dom asked me to speak at Think Vis II. After all, my experience of public speaking amounts to a big fat zero and I’m just some girl from Leeds – not an SEO guru, a company owner or an affiliate superhero.

I do like cats though and I know a little bit about my job, which I imagine is why I’m on the speaker list.

I think Dom’s going to announce the schedule and the subjects soon so I won’t give away what I’ll be talking about. To be honest, speaking is massively outside my comfort zone so it’s not the content I’m worried about! I know people give talks all the time but it must take a huge amount of courage to get up on stage so if I get through it okay I’ll be over the moon

Think Vis II isn’t just about giving people like me the chance to embarrass themselves(!), there are some big name speakers like Judith Lewis and Joost de Valk, and completely awesome, successful local folk like Elaine Forth and Karyn Fleeting. Its sort of awe-inspiring to be in that sort of company so…erm…wish me luck!

The Leeds Shakespeare Festival has been an ongoing theme on this blog ever since it ran into some health and safety/funding issues last year and never took place. I’m glad to say that this year, Leeds City Council have decided to be sensible and the 14th (almost) annual festival is going ahead in July and August

Details about the performances and ticket prices can be found on the British Shakespeare Company website. You can buy tickets online via the Leeds Grand theatre – I’ve already got mine!

After blogging about my awesome trip to Warwick Castle, the lovely folk who represent them sent me a couple of two-for-one vouchers since I didn’t get to see the dungeon last time. I’d love to go again but it’s a long way to Warwick and the vouchers run out in August so chances are I won’t be able to use both.

If anyone wants the redundant voucher, leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll stick it in the post

I guess this is first-come first-served so I’ll update here when it’s gone.

It seems at the Techcrunch Geek n’ Rolla they’re talking about how to get more women into tech start-ups. One of the panellists has created a survey to take a look at the equalities (or otherwise) between women and men in tech.

With a question like this, what do you think the outcome of this survey will be?

I’d never actually heard of Silicon Stillettos before. It’s a social networking site for women in tech. Their tagline is: “It’s time to put your heels on!” I know, how about we have another site called “Developer Divas” or “Sexy SEOs”. I really don’t want to go into the argument again, but this is a great example of the faux-feminism that really gets my goat.

You can’t giggle over shoes and make-up one minute, then complain about the old boy’s club the next. It sort of undermines your credibility.

I did two awesome things this weekend in Stratford – the first was a visit to Warwick Castle and the second was a visit to the Falstaff Museum. It’s on Sheep Street which is one of the old streets of the town centre – easily found because of the big sign hanging outside and the unmistakably historic cobbled street leading up to it (apparently the only remaining cobbled street from Shakespeare’s time)

This area of Stratford is very atmospheric and the Falstaff Museum building embodies all the history of the town. The house next door is actually inhabited – both properties make up Shrieve’s House which used to be a tavern in Shakespeare’s time. There is also a cat which I took to be a good sign:

The Museum costs just under a fiver to get in and although it’s not that big, there’s enough history in the 8 or so rooms to make it worthwhile. I really wanted to go on the ghost tour however and luckily we were able to book a spot for Saturday night….

Derek Acorah Got Possessed Here

We went back to the museum at 9pm and met the tour guide – he was an undertaker in real life and said he dealt with dead bodies on a daily basis so wasn’t easily spooked, but he believed the ghost stories around Shrieve’s House and had seen a few weird things himself. I was sort of hoping to see a ghost until we got into the house, with all the lights off, and the tour guide started telling us about the bodies buried beneath the floorboards….then I was a bit freaked out….

Being in an old, creepy house in the pitch dark, being told about horrible tortures and deaths that had happened in that very room….it was fantastically scary.

Apparently Most Haunted visited the museum a few years ago and Derek Acorah was possessed by an evil spirit in one part of the house – this man murdered lots of women back in the day and Derek said it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him as a medium. Derek is a complete legend so it was good to follow in his footsteps.

I didn’t experience any paranormal craziness in Shrieve’s House, but I did have really weird dreams that night. Was it the stories? Maybe….all I know is, I want to go on another ghost walk, or do an overnight vigil! Are there any paranormal groups in Harrogate?

Frog and I went to Warwick Castle on Saturday along with what seemed like half of southern England – the castle car park was full and massively chaotic but we found a completely empty car park just down the road – hooray! The maximum time limit was 4 hours and I thought that’d be ages….until I saw the castle…

There was a queue to get in but Warwick Castle has loads of people in costume wandering round to entertain the kids so it didn’t feel like too long. We had a voucher from the hotel giving us two for one entry, only when we got to the desk the ticket guy said it wasn’t actually a voucher! We had to argue and eventually he gave us the discount but it was a big FAIL from the hotel (more on them later). We also couldn’t go in the Dungeon because it was booked up till 3pm by which time our parking ran out – I’d definitely recommend booking ahead so you get to see everything.

Since it was Easter there was loads on including falconry displays, trebuchet, cannon, archery, soldiers doing mock fights and all sorts. There was also a huge amount of castle to explore and you could go right up to the top of the big tower. To be honest after going up the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona I wasn’t worried about the height but it was still pretty cool All the public areas are clearly laid out so it doesn’t feel like exploring so much as a guided tour. Other castles I’ve been to are more open but I think Warwick is so big they have to do it that way.

One of the most interesting bits was the part of the castle that was lived in during relatively modern times. In the 19th/20th centuries Churchill amongst others lived in Warwick Castle and a mansion-sized part of it is kitted out with wood panelling, window-seats, four-poster beds and all the other trappings of an Edwardian country home. They must have been massively rich to maintain the rest of the castle too even if they just lived in one part of it.

There was so much to see I think we needed another couple of hours at least to fit it all in. We didn’t get to go in the Dungeon or see the trebuchet in action I think getting there really early would be a good idea to get a space in the car park – either that or go on a weekday when all the kids are at school. It’s an awesome place though and if I’m ever down near Warwick again I’ll definitely give it a visit

I was talking to my dad the other day – apparently the student loan company sent him a letter out of the blue asking for proof of his income for the year 2006-2007. Now, it turns out that if you have a child at university asking for a loan, they want you to estimate your income at the start of every year, and prove it at the end of every year.

When I left university almost two years ago, my dad never got round to sending them proof and forgot all about it.

Months passed. The seasons changed. Eventually, in some dusty corner of an office somewhere, someone got round to sending out another letter demanding proof of income or bad things would happen. Cue lots of searching round my parent’s house for old payslips, tax returns and the like to appease The Powers That Be who Forgot About It For Almost Two Years.

A couple of weeks later the student loan company sent me a letter – now, bear in mind I left university in 2007 and have been repaying my loan along with the extortionate interest ever since.

The letter says:

“We have reviewed your entitlement to student finance because…we have received advice that your circumstances have changed… You are entitled to receive an increased amount of tuition fee loan. If you would like to request the increased amount, please complete the enclosed Tuition Fee Loan Request Form…”

Now as far as I’m aware, people starting university when I did simply weren’t entitled to tuition fee loans. My parents paid my tuition fee up front – so it’s paid. Dealt with. Why are the student loan company offering me an extra £407 loan along with a £793 grant to cover the rest? Actually, I’m sure my parents would be happy to receive the grant – should they have got this three years ago instead of having to pay my £1200 tuition fee?

Interest

When I was at school talking about going to university, I remember teachers telling me that it’s okay, loans are fantastic, you don’t start paying interest on them until you leave university.

What a load of bollocks. You pay interest on your loan from the day you take it out.

I dug out my “annual statement” from September 2007 – just after I’d left university, so let’s take a look at my interest payments.

Sept 2006 – I owed £9834.97 – Interest payment = £19.86/month
Jan 2007 – I owed £11945.32 – Interest payment = £24.34/month
Apr 2007 – I owed £13856.12 – Interest payment = £28.45/month

Thanks to all that interest mounting up each month, when I left university I owed the princely sum of £14138.82

When I started working, my automatic repayments didn’t cover the interest.

Online Service

The student loan service, unlike other financial institutions like, for example, banks, only send you a statement once a year. This means, (to quote the direct.gov website):

No information regarding repayments, balances and collection will be passed between the Student Loans Company and HMRC, other than the repayment information transfers at the end of the tax year when HMRC tell the Student Loans Company how much you have paid.

This means that there may be times when you wish to contact the Student Loans Company or HMRC about your balance, but they can’t provide you with this information.

You can however try to use the student loan company’s online service to ‘estimate’ how much you owe. Unfortunately, my student ID number isn’t enough to log me in. It acknowledges this is my first time using the service and asks me to set a new password. Only it wants an old password…which I’m reasonably sure I never had in the first place.

I feel like I was sold this product when I was too young to really understand how crap it was, and although I don’t mind paying it – it’s a loan after all – I resent the high interest payments that make it impossible to pay off even though I have a job. I also think that I wouldn’t take this sort of awful service from a bank – statements once a year? The government admitting that they don’t really know how much anyone owes?

What a massive shambles! I’d love to hear your rants about student loans so feel free to comment below. Or if you’re from the student loan company could you let me know when the whole system is going to collapse? It’s just a matter of time, right?

Disgraceful Rider took Frog and I to see Othello last week at the Playhouse – she’s pretty into theatre and my brother volunteers at the Carriageworks in town, but I’m sad to say I don’t tend to go. I’m not sure if it’s money- tickets are usually well over £20 which is a lot – or if I just don’t know enough about theatre to make an informed choice. You know what you’re getting with Shakespeare though – tragic characters, bawdy jokes and language you barely understand.

Also, Lenny Henry was playing the eponymous role.

The house was full which was great – everyone sort of hushed when Lenny walked on stage. He’s huge in person, about twice the size of anyone else on stage and that allowed him to command the space without doing a lot. The other actors would gesticulate to emphasise the action (useful when you understand half of what they say) but one thing I noticed was that Lenny stood still. His voice and his stage presence actually did what the other actors had to make an effort to do – convey meaning and emotion to a modern audience through outdated and difficult language.

Iago, played by Conrad Nelson, was particularly good, as was Emilia played by Maeve Larkin. Both had a way of speaking that held your attention and a three hour play didn’t seem that long at all. Iago was thoroughly unlikeable, plotting and scheming to bring about Othello’s downfall whilst his young wife Desdemona innocently played the catalyst to her own murder and Othello’s fate. At least, that’s what I thought until I read the programme. It turns out that Desdemona only looked innocent – she’d deceived her father to marry Othello, flirted with his lieutenant and carelessly lost a gift from her husband that he thought meant everything to her. Iago only told Othello the truth.

I wondered when I was watching the play – Othello is a ‘Moor’ – did Shakespeare mean an Arab or an African (i.e. a black guy)? Europe was pretty racist back in the day (to put it mildly) but was this the case in Shakespeare’s time? When did the notion that white people were superior really take off?

Was Shakespeare more accepting of facts – that black people could, and did, have high status – at the expense of common sensibilities? After all, as a playwright he got to push boundaries – why not write a black role into a play, in a society where actors had to be white?

Yesterday on Twitter I saw the launch of the Women on the Web conference and, although I follow Liz on Twitter and find what she says valuable I have to say, I sighed a big, annoyed sigh when she mentioned this event. I left off writing about it so I could think of a measured statement, and Dom’s fantastic post today has made me think even more about what I want to say.

I have very strong opinions on the whole ‘women in technology’ thing, but I’m going to give you my own personal experiences of working in the industry so you can see where my conclusions come from.

Does Gender Matter?

I think the digital industry is one of the most equal forums you’re ever going to find. What you do online doesn’t have to reflect your education, wealth, race or gender – it’s a completely open forum and your success is what you make it. If there’s anywhere that women can compete on an equal footing, it’s on the web. That’s not to say that this isn’t a male-dominated industry – men gravitate towards programming but I can guarantee that you’ll find a hell of a lot more female ‘marketing managers’. That’s just the way it is. From an ability point of view, it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female – there’s no glass ceiling on the web.

Sexism in the Workplace

Having said that, any industry (that’s male dominated or not) has its fair share of…for a better word…asshats. Drawing from personal experience, men talk about women a hell of a lot and if it’s in the workplace well then, you’ll just have to listen to it. “Would you do her?” “She’s a complete Gremlin” etc etc…put ten men together and they’ll be looking at page 3 models before you can say “boobs”. This Is A Fact. Yes, if you’re working in that office you have to deal with it, but at the same time, a lot of men have enough common politeness to keep the porn at home. If you’re a girl in the web industry I think you have to grow a thick skin.

I’m not saying this to have a go at men – I’m saying it because from my experience, it happens. If you’ve got a personality that can deal with it you’ll go far. If you’re going to file a lawsuit for discrimination you probably shouldn’t work in a web company.

Feeling Like A Minority

Over on Dom’s post, Celine commented that women feel like a minority at industry events. I have to disagree – women are a minority at industry events, but feeling like a minority is a different matter. I have never, ever felt uncomfortable being a woman at an industry event. It may be because I have an older brother, or because I have a lot of male friends as well as female, but I’ve never even thought about being a girl! It’s simply not an issue and I’ve never experienced discrimination. In fact, most people see it as a positive thing if you’re a girl attending these things and they’re happy to see you. If anything, women in technology have an advantage because we’re rare and exotic creatures – people want to meet us.

Women-Only Events

I was at the York Press Awards last year when they handed out a ‘women in business’ award. I just thought, “why can’t women compete on an equal footing with men?”. Don’t give a woman an award because she’s the best woman, give her an award because she’s the best business person. As I said before, digital is a great leveller and I for one don’t want to compete unless it’s against everyone.

Why should I go to a women-only event when there are so many great ‘normal’ events out there? What am I going to get out of them that I wouldn’t get elsewhere? It seems that with a women-only event you’re excluding a lot of interesting people – why don’t you all just come to the inclusive events instead? Maybe the women-only events focus on women-only issues….like what? We’re all equal in the digital industry so what are these ‘issues’? You tell me.

Conclusion

Being a girl in the digital industry isn’t always easy – you’re working mostly with men and I’m being completely honest – Not All Men Respect Girls. So what? Get that chip off your shoulder and take any negativity for what it is – immaturity on the part of the men involved that has no bearing whatsoever on your job. The vast majority of blokes are fantastic and there are as many cretins amongst women as there are amongst men – you just don’t meet as many of them in this place! Any sexism you come across is banter – not work – and I think the web is one place where women really are respected.

I think anyone, female or not, that tries to create an unequal playing field by saying that women have special issues is doing women a disservice. If some women feel more comfortable attending a gender-specific conference then fair enough, but please don’t think you’ve got a mountain to climb to succeed in this industry.