Essentially the data provides 1.7 million UK postcodes, with their British National Grid Reference, local authority and ward listed for each. The most interesting data is the grid reference, supplied as a full Northing and Easting value. These can be used to calculate distances between postcodes, as well as being able to convert them into Latitude and Longitude data for displaying on maps such as Google’s offering.

The data does lack Northern Ireland and the Channel Island data at present, which can be a problem if you wish to use the data to cover the whole of the UK. The Northern Ireland grid system has a different origin and projection, so care must be taken if those postcodes and data are merged in from other sources. See here for details of The Irish Grid system.

There is a wiki that covers this data, but it is incomplete and has not been updated in nearly half a year, which is a bit strange. I suspect updates are being lost somewhere, because I cannot believe nobody wants to update it (there are technical inaccuracies in the description of the data that someone should have noticed by now). I have made a few additions to the wiki page, so we will see what happens next. If it sticks, I would encourage others to go in and add what you know and discover in the data.

So, what does this data look like? In short, taking into account the areas it does not cover, pretty much complete. I have loaded the current dataset into MySQL, then plotted each postcode as a pixel in an image. Some pixels contain more than one closely positioned postcodes, and a more sophisticated plot would show this, but a simple plot of pixels gives us an idea of what it looks like.

OpenData Postcodes - Great Britain - Click for larger image

Click the image to look at a much larger version with lots of detail. I particularly love how you can see the valleys in South Wales.

This simple PHP script generated the above image. All the table needs to contain are the Eastings and Northings from the Ordnance Survey data. It is surprising how it manages to get through 1.7 million postcodes in about ten seconds:

<?php
$width = 3200;
$height = $width * 1.5;

$db_name = 'opendata_postcodes';
$db_user = 'username';
$db_pass = 'password';

$easting_max = 655448;
$northing_max = 1213660;

$max_points = 2000000;

$db = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname='.$db_name.';charset=UTF-8', $db_user, $db_pass);

$sql = 'SELECT easting, northing FROM postcode LIMIT :limit';

$stmt = $db->prepare($sql);
$stmt->bindParam(':limit', $max_points, PDO::PARAM_INT);
$stmt->execute();

$img = imagecreate($width, $height);
$background = imagecolorallocate($img, 230, 230, 255);

while ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC, PDO::FETCH_ORI_NEXT)) {
  $x = round(($width*$row['easting'])/$easting_max);
  $y = $height - round(($height*$row['northing'])/$northing_max);
  imagesetpixel($img, $x, $y, 300);
}

header("Content-type: image/png");
imagepng($img);
imagedestroy($img);

Here is the same image with some crude colours introduced to show the density of postcodes.

Colours to show the density of postcodes

As usual, we start with the basic recipe, then try a few alterations each year. The idea is not for any single ingredient to be a prominent part of the taste, but for all to work together to create something new. This time the tweaks are:

• Add orange and lemon. I usually try one or the other, but I think putting half an orange and half a lemon into the pan with a bottle of wine kind of widens the spectrum of the flavours.
• Vanilla – a short length of vanilla pod. This adds a little something to the aroma.
• Juniper berries and allspice – just a couple of each.
• A couple of green cardamom pods, broken open.

A shot of vodka also adds a bit of warmth. We really must not let this become too much of a habit, but it’s cold outside, and it’s Christmas, so we can be forgiven.

Well done Helen!

This MP3 is just a couple of minutes long, and contains a mix of scary Hallowe’en sounds. We used it on an iPod set on auto-repeat, with a small speaker by the front door, just to add a bit of spooky atmosphere.

The sounds came from various Creative Commons sources, and was put together using the excellent Open Source Audacity application. It is not broadcast quality (not that Audacity is not capable of that) but did the job.

halloween-background.mp3 (5Mbyte)

This is the power of Open Source tools and Creative Commons source: the important thing is not that the stuff is essentially free, it is the fact you are given the opportunity to be creative with the tools and media and to customise it without restriction. The right to do so, given to you through the licensing terms, is where the real power lies.

Headlines in ‘the environmentalist’ are the subject of both merriment and frustration here at Consilience. Obviously they have a job to do; getting the reader’s attention and compelling him or her to read on. A headline also has to work with the standfirst (that paragraph above the main body of copy that should give you a two- second digest of the piece plus the authors’ names). Both the headline and the standfirst also have to work with the photo. Getting all three to tie in is both a pleasure and a pain!

But where do you start with the headline/ photo/ standfirst relationship? Does one automatically lead and the others follow? Not always. Usually the standfirst is the first to be written; its job is to tell the reader who wrote the piece and (very briefly) what it is about. The headline usually follows and the combination of the two give the designer an idea of what sort of photo to look for to illustrate the piece.

“The dark side” (issue 79) is a good case in point where the piece is about consultancy involvement with the public sector. Here the consultancies are seen as “going over to the dark side” taken from Star Wars, hence the headline and eventual use of the moon, snatched from Pink Floyd’s album in both light and dark. One idea feeds another.

So what works and what doesn’t? I think there are three main approaches:

The ‘does what it says on the tin’ headline

Useful for technical or complicated features. This sort of headline tells you exactly what the feature is about. “Smart metering – the next generation” ( issue 83) or “Environmental law- carrot and stick” (issue 103). The key here is to know when the reader will not appreciate a reference to Abba or indeed anything else that you might think funny. Here you simply get on with describing the feature as clearly as you can.

Some sort of play on words

This can work well when you have a more generic piece  or a broad topic with no obvious photo. Here it’s useful to think about words related to the piece such as flow, gush or drip for a piece on water or link or chain for a piece on procurement. You can also borow from well known sayings or zeitgeisty catchphrases. “It’s the ecology – stupid!” ( issue 88) illustrated a profile about a an evanagelical ecologist (We originally wanted to use “Green Giant” of frozen vegetable fame , but he wouldn’t let us.. boo hisss!). It was borrowed from “It’s the economy stupid!” a phrase in American politics widely used during Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign. “Clean or no clean” ( issue 99) was another one. It described a piece on groundwater remediation but plays on the UK TV programme “Deal or no deal”. We also used Marks and Spencers’ own advertising tagline in a piece we ran on its Plan A sustainability policy. “Not just any sustainability plan..” ran the headline and how we all laughed!

Song /book titles

My personal favourite and subject of much laughter in the office as well as much time wasting as we all try to think of our favourite songs and how to best apply them if we ever get a particularly dry piece! We’ve had “Food Glorious Food” (issue 97) about the WWF One Planet Food programme, “Money Money Money” (issue 81) dealing with the Mayor of London’s new green procurement strategy, “Through the looking glass” ( issue 100), borrowed from Alice in Wonderland and refering to a piece on Botany. “Not OK computer” (issue 101) was lifted from Radiohead’s iconic album and applied to something on how much energy datacentres use. But care is needed. The readers need to ‘get’ the headline and so you need to steer clear of anything too esoteric.

What do you think makes a good headline?

The induction took an hour, but it was really thorough. This is ok I thought – then I had to climb up the first ladder – eek! I remembered Phill’s face on his New Zealand canyon swing as I clung to the rope and didn’t want to let go for the Tarzan swing. There’s a much bigger Tarzan swing at the end of the course – you basically have to step out into the air and trust the harness will take your weight – but you can opt to avoid this and go an easier route. Birthday girl Liz was brave and went for the swing; Cath and I opted out – we’d had enough challenges for the day.

The course is really well structured; just as you’re getting to the point where you think ‘right I need to be on the ground now’ there’s another huge zip slide and you can relax and enjoy the ride back to earth!

It was good to complete the course – and good to get to the pub afterwards…

Siteroom was originally conceived as a way to offer high quality websites at reasonable prices, for small businesses and startups. In the last 18 months there has been a revolution in the way in which WordPress (a popular web platform) is used to create websites. Developers can create powerful sites in a fraction of the time, using web templates. There are thousands available, but the quality varies widely. We’ve cherry-picked the best, and entered into agreements with the template authors, so we can show you their designs in Siteroom. Unlike other website developers, we decided to make the process transparent – and our clients can pick their designs, and decide if they want any custom features and add-ons. And unlike other website template sites – you don’ty have to spend days and weeks trying to put your site together – we build it for you. But that’s just the start …

When we got our heads together we realised that SMEs often need more than just websites to grow and promote themselves online. Some of our clients would be ready to go live with their new website, then a delay would occur because they didn’t have the text (web copy) ready. Others needed branding or marketing advice. So, we decided to also offer the key supporting services that small businesses needed to make their websites work, and, more importantly their business grow, online. Take that a step further and Siteroom is a one-stop-shop for small businesses; marketing, branding, copywriting, design, websites, SEO and free business advice, all ‘under one roof’. A key difference with Siteroom is that we try to remove the hassles – and let our clients get on with their core business, not tasks such as website development or copywriting!

We have lots of exciting plans, new additions and ideas in the pipeline. We’ve also got happy customers already. But enough blather from me; take a look at Siteroom, version 1 and let us know what you think – we value your feedback!

Visit Siteroom

p.s. sign up for our free advice for small business, including tips and insights from leading business authors

Yellow Water, Kakadu

It’s been 16 years since I first went to Kakadu in the Northern Territory.  Last time I was there it was late October, the end of the dry season and the ‘build up’ to the wet, so – as might be expected – the park was very dry.

This year, the wet didn’t finish until the end of May, which is very late, so consequently there was a lot of water around this time, which made it look really beautiful – all very green and the wetlands were plentiful.

One highlight was watching the sunset from Ubirr Rock – looking out across Arnhem Land – the view goes on for miles.

Crocodile on Yellow Water, Kakadu

The other highlight was the crocs – saw plenty of those (some a little too close for comfort). We took a cruise on Yellow Water and saw some really ugly bruisers.  Yuck. Nathan was the only one on the boat who thought we weren’t close enough to the big salty.

The week before we went out to the Great Barrier Reef for a spot of snorkelling and a trip on the glass bottomed boat – the boys were particularly keen to see the coral and all the fish.  We got to swim with a turtle as well as a stingray, but did think the coral looked in a lot poorer state compared with 1994 when we last visited that section.

We’re leaving the southern Australian winter for 2 weeks, heading north to Cairns, checking out the Barrier Reef.  Yesterday we visited 5 wineries in the Barrossa Valley, so we’ll have to declare our purchases when we land back in the UK.  I had tasted so many different wines through the afternoon, that I turned down wine with my evening meal – one of the wines I tasted (at Wolf Blass) sells for $169 a bottle, which is just over 100 pounds (there’s no pound sign on this Aussie laptop!).