Arrived just after this update from the West Sussex Fire and Rescue service:

“ 13 year old boy at top of fir tree – approx 15 feet up – unable to find own way down”

Shoreham, now home.

When I was younger, I was interested in local politics and who did what in the area in which I grew up. Like most people, though, I’ve since moved around a lot over the years and been focussed on issues and news from around the world, which has distracted me from what’s going on right on my doorstep. As a tech journalist, what happens in Silicon Valley or Taipai is more relevant to my work than whether or not the council is paying over the odds to have the bins emptied every week.

That’s changing. Inspired by several things – the CIJ summer course last month, the growth of hyperlocal blogs, a new government, meeting Paul and the team from helpmeinvestigate.com and the fact that I plan on staying around Shoreham for a while (unless that dream job of African correspondent comes up…) – I’ve started trying to find out a bit more about this place.

The CIJ course had several sessions about investigating local government and politicians which I went along to and have been trying to put into practice locally (including an excellent one by Orchard News Bureau). What’s amazing is that even though this part of the country is a Mecca for journalists, the response from the councils has been complete and utter surprise. No-one takes advantage of the fact that you can walk into your council offices and examine the expense reports of candidates at local and national elections to make sure they’re playing fair. Likewise a request to take part in the public audit of the local accounts has proved painfully protracted, and no-one seems really sure where records are held or how to get them.

After three weeks (out of the four that council accounts are open to the public) I’ve finally got an appointment to view the expenses of the executive – the dozen or so members whose personal salaries account for almost 5% of the total budget of Adur district council, and therefore deserve a little bit of public scrutiny.

As I say, it’s a learning curve for me and next year I’ll be armed with experience as well as curiosity. Which will be interesting – because even my relatively clumsy approach has turned up a few very unusual facts I’m following up for further investigation…

Local artist, Dan Thompson, asked followers to look for 13-year-old Aaron, who’d been missing since yesterday evening. He posted a description and a photograph from Twitpic.

Dan’s a popular character, with hundreds of followers in the area, and asked Worthing residents to “have one last check of alleyways, back gardens, nearby parks” for Aaron as the sun went down around 9pm. Over the next couple of hours, people updated him with sightings of Aaron, narrowing down his location to Vale Road in Portslade, near where he was found by Dan’s wife.

The police had known that Aaron was missing for 24 hours, but two beat bobbies questioned weren’t aware of any search or circulated description. Unlike the police, Tweeters were actively seeking Aaron, walking, driving and cycling the streets to help find him.

Makes me think there’s an opening for a Foursquare/Ushahidi type app specifcally tailored for this kind of appeal.

Playing around with the retro creative colour options on the GF1

This weekend I managed to spend the best part of £100 on door hooks. Lots of doors needed hooks, and one wall needed special fixings. It was essential, but I feel vaguely sick. Still, at least our coats aren’t hanging over the stair rail anymore.

I did manage to play with the GF1 quite a bit, though. Still trying to find a reliable RAW tool which can easily fix the lens distortion in Linux, in the meantime the JPGs are pretty good. As far as Windows tools go, the software came with it is awfule. Love the fun colour settings, though.

After a week of unpacking the wall of boxes is finally shrinking, having gone from this:

The kitchen after the removal men left. Unexpected finds = a hole in the bottom of the oven, and general skank in the fridge.

To this:

See, almost habitable. And cooking is now possible. Wasn't expecting all the shelving to have been removed though.

There is still this though:

It's only one wall of many, but at least it's almost clear.

Although that wall was covered two boxes deep when we first started.

We also now own a dishwasher, oven and fridge we didn’t think we’d need to.

Things have been slow because Tamsin fell down the stairs on our first night here and dislocated her arm, and I’m unable to actually work in my office yet as there’s no internet connection over there. Still, the flat is finally starting to feel like home, and I’m getting over the buyer’s remorse (it’s too small/dangerous/expensive/falling apart to have been a good idea).

Being by the sea is as ace as expected. Even if I’ve only been down to the beach once. Poor Tabby is having a bit of a hard time, all the things we promised her (like flying kites on the beach) have had to be postponed while we struggle to get on top of things.

I’m working on a proper valedictory post for Bath coming soon, along with a full and exciting explanation of the new office. Hopefully before too long I’ll be able to focus back on the developmental journalism and creative writing that have been put on hold for a while.