First Flush: San Francisco Trial Day

With a much larger crowd than expected (16 people!!!)  the Trial San Francisco Loo Tour kicked off last Saturday. The tour wound it's way from a green street toilet by the Ferry Building to Union Square.

My victims guests were a great lot. Based on feedback I've had so far, doing the trial tour really served to confirm what I already suspected: There is some interesting content that needs a tighter narrative, more fleshing out, and a shorter walk.

At this point it is looking like the tour will naturally divide into two routes. One along the piers, focusing on toilets, water politics, sewage and plumbing. The second in the inner city focusing on politics of space, gentrification, public toilet facilities, and what it means to have (or be denied) the right to a safe clean toilet.

More on both these journeys anon. In the mean time, here are some shots of the tour in action.

The kick-off: Embarcadero Centre

A complete list of publicly available toilets in the city actually exits!
Showed here next to a "restrooms for customers only" sign. 

An innovative plan. Discovered by accident on the tour.

Rears and Fears: Basic toilet seat logic

The click-bait video of the week ("First I thought it was a normal toilet... but when he flushes it I was left speechless") is this self cleaning invention:




This speaks to the thing I find most fascinating in the world of sanitation: how people (often misguidedly) choose where to focus their innovation energy based on societal perception.

This is not the first product to champion the idea of a sterile toilet seat. Any woman who grew up in North America will be familiar with the waxy toilet seat protectors available in most public rest rooms. Some are so in the habit of using these that if they aren't available, miles of toilet paper will be sacrificed to the cause of covering the seat to prevent any skin contact.** Chicago International Airport takes the cover a step further by providing a rotating plastic cover that goes round with each flush.

To give the public due respect, it's not hard to see how a path of logic lead to the need for these things. The average person might go through the following list of assumptions:

1) I've been told that Pee/poo/things that go in toilets are dirty.*
2) Therefore my bottom is dirty.
3) I don't want my dirty bottom sharing the same spot as other people's dirty bottoms. 

But let's look at this logic for a moment.

Your bottom and your thighs spend most of their time shielded by clothing. At risk of getting too graphic, the bodily fluids and solids that go into the loo come out of very specific orifices, and aren't going to get all over you (You're not two years old and you can aim!) So the only thing coming into contact with the actual seat should, in fact, be one of the cleanest parts of your body. WebMD says: "Many disease-causing organisms can survive for only a short time on the surface of the seat, and for an infection to occur, the germs would have to be transferred from the toilet seat to your urethral or genital tract, or through a cut or sore on the buttocks or thighs, which is possible but very unlikely."

In other words, if you're going to catch (or spread) anything via the toilet seat, you are sitting on it very wrongly!* People love to play the "eww" factor by telling you that your cell phone, your keyboard, your tooth brush, money ... and plenty of other things "have more bacteria than a toilet seat!" Actually, it's in all probability the seat cleanest thing in the bathroom, so that shouldn't be a surprising claim at all.

What is  far more likely to spread germs are your hands. Aside from the fact you've just wiped yourself, your hands are everywhere, touching things all the time.

Now, let's note one ironic thing about the video: The flush button still has to be pressed by hand! So whatever horrible fate the cleansing seat was going to spare you has almost certainly been re-introduced on the flush button. Studies differ, but somewhere between 1-in-3 and 1-in-5 people won't wash their hands after using the toilet. Yet we rarely see technology aimed at getting people to wash up. We don't handle money and cell phones with plastic gloves. In fact, just this past February, Republican Senator Thom Tillis stated publicly that he thought the requirement for food-service workers to wash their hands should be optional.

We're not the first generation to leap to conclusions. The toilet revolution in London in the mid-1800's was spurred on by a medical belief in miasma... the idea that disease was spread through bad air. Germ Theory was still considered something of a quack science until the 1870's. So they got one piece of the puzzle... installing a toilet got the smells (and consequentially the hazardous waste) out of the dwelling places. But they hadn't yet worked out that putting raw sewage into their water sources was still going to be a problem. It took a long and gradual development.

It will be interesting to see what toilet concerns the next generation of users brings to the table. Perhaps with California's water shortage we will be heading towards an age of waterless, low flow and re-use... one can hope! But for the moment it is hard to see such radical new solutions being compatible with the paranoia around toilet seats.

* This is a simplistic view of a rather complicated topic for another blog post.
** So deeply rooted is this fear that many women opt to hover, actually worsening the chance of making a mess! See A Brief Disquisitation on the Existence of Butt Cooties.

On getting off the ground

I have a new year's tradition of doing a class in something terrifying that I'm no good at. Last year it was stand-up comedy. This year it's vertical dance class. In harnesses bouncing off walls sideways and upside down. Well done it looks something like this:

The reality as an out-of-shape beginner is something of a different story.

I'm like an aspirational chicken trying to blend in with a group of swans.

When I get the rest of my 15 classmates are warming up. One is doing handstands and splits in all directions seemingly effortlessly. I can sometimes sort of stay upright if I'm against a wall. And splits don't happen, right side up or upside down.

The class is mixed level, which is actually quite nice. We started with warm-ups and safety talks. The most important thing really is not to fall on your head and die. In order to make sure of this your harness gets triple checked by you, your climbing buddy and an instructor before you leave the ground.

There are four of us newbies, and we started out by working on ropes in the middle of the room. Once I'm up I'm pretty happy. I may look like a sack of potatoes, but I enjoy playing, flipping upside down and spinning. There's a wonderful freedom to being in the air, knowing your triple checked harness has you safe. The least dignified part of the whole ordeal is getting up there. We have an 'ascender' which grips the rope above us, and lets us pull ourselves up a bit at a time. At least, it lets people with coordination and upper body strength do that. I think my biggest mark of improvement is going to be whether I can manage it myself in 8 weeks, instead of having an instructor helping hoist.

I read an article the other day on how excessive praise can be bad for children. Or more specifically certain types of praise. Studies have shown that when children are praised for talent ("you did great, you must be good at this!") rather than effort ("you did great, you must have worked hard!") they tend to develop a fear of failure... and in their attempt not to be seen as anything less than perfect they'll hold back, and try only things they know they can safely accomplish.

I catch myself doing this sometimes, both personally and professionally. If I'm worried about not performing well I'll lurk on the sidelines watching. "I could do that any time I want... I just don't feel like it at the moment."

Part of my new year's ritual is to do with reminding myself I don't have to be the best. The stakes are, in many ways, lower, because I'm not working at something I'm ever likely to be a professional in. I'm just there to see how far I can get (though I'd by lying if I said I didn't wish I could just naturally be amazing at it. Life isn't fair sometimes.)

I don't expect to be asked to join the dance company any time soon. At best I'll become more fit, learn a lot and make it up the rope by myself. At worst it's at least a good exercise in humility.

I like this message even if I'm not exactly sure what I'm hoping to become a master of.

My two cents on a successful Crowdfunding Campaign

I work in the arts... which means I'm around lots of people looking for money a lot of the time. 

After years of supporting or being involved in Kickstarter campaigns and seeing countless more posted on FB and in e-mails (some of which did well, and some of which flopped miserably) I finally launched one of my own. I learned a lot in the process, and it ended up being quite successful and raising nearly 500% of the initial goal (you can still check it out here)

Since then I have been approached a few times about advice for other campaigns. So here are some of the things I think are most important. 

Rule 1: You already know your backers!!!

This is the most important thing which a lot of people fail to realize.  

Crowdfunding platforms are not magical money making machines to which eager investors flock to poor money into your idea. Most of it will come from people who already know your work... friends and family, previous audience members, your mailing lists and facebook fans.

My project got 77 backers and with two exceptions I had already had some form of contact with all of them before the kickstarter had launched. The first on board were family and friends who have followed my work (willingly or by force) for a long time, and I know will always be behind me (and would probably back the campaign even if it was a bit shit.) Others were former tour guests who had enjoyed the tour and who I had kept in touch with either over social media or through my mailing list. A select few people I'd never met but corresponded with quite a lot on either e-mail or twitter where we had bonded over shared interests.

So before you start your campaign it's important to think who your backers will be, how much they're likely to donate, and whether that will be enough to reach your goal. If you don't already have a network of fans outside that 'will donate anyway' circle of friends and family then Crowdfunding may not be the best way forward (you'll spend a lot of time creating it, and pay around 10% comission fees, when a direct ask might give a better return for less work.) 

The upside to this is that since you know who your backers are, you can plan to make the most of your opportunity to talk to them. You've got a target market.

Rule 2: Prepare the way...

Some people think the campaign begins the day you hit the launch button. But if you wait until then to tell people about it you've missed your prime opportunity to raise money. 

You need to start well in advance, talking up the project, letting people know what you're doing. You don't have to smack them over the head with the fact that you're raising money, but get them excited about it, so when it comes they want to be on board from the beginning. 

An interesting lesson learned: I had several friends with experience look at my kickstarter before I launched to get feedback. I asked them to point out the strengths and weaknesses and anything that would lose or confuse them as a potential investor. Was it clear? Was it interesting? Did it look realistic? Quite a lot changed thanks to their feedback. Revise and revise again. A cool and unplanned consequence was all of them pledged very early on. The point here is not to trick your friends into pledging, but to point out that when people feel they have investment in something they are more likely to support it financially.

Sometimes it even helps to rally people who you know are going to donate to be there for the first few hours. Campaigns that have a strong kick-off will gather momentum, because others want to be part of something successful. A campaign that reaches 50% of it's goal in the first day is going to be a lot more exciting than one that's still hovering at 40% 15 days in. 

in order to build momentum...

Rule 3: Dream big, start small. 

It's counterintuitive but in crowdfunding modesty is rewarded. 

You should really have three budgets in mind:

• First, there's your ideal budget... how much you need to comfortably achieve your vision, pay everyone involved as the professionals they are, any travel and material expenses and cover kickstarter costs. 
• Then create a scaled back version. What's the bare minimum you could still make your project happen with? How many expenses could you cover personally if you had to? What are others in the project willing to pitch in or give you mates rates on. If you could realise only part of the project how would you do it (and remember: achieving that part could help for future pitches to make it bigger. 
• Third, there's the daydream... If you could go above and beyond your project to a new phase what would that be? 

The smallest number becomes your target- that's the point at which your campain has achieved its goal and you will get money (don't forget to account for kickstarter fees!) The middle number (the amount of money you're actually hoping for) is your first stretch goal, and the last is an additional stretch goal. You can add more stretch goals in between. Be specific where you can with what cool thing will be added at each step. 

There are 2 very good reasons for aiming low: 

1. Many crowdfunding sites are all-or-nothing platforms. With the amount of work you're investing into getting the thing up there in the first place you really don't want to walk away empty handed.
   
2. People like to be part of something successful. When you hit your first goal people aren't going to look at it and think "they've got all the money they need, so I'll fund someone else." They'll think "gosh, a lot of people like this... I want a piece of it too!" Again, reaching your goal (even if it's not the real goal) early looks good. 

Here's a snapshot of my campaign (£500 at which level I would have put in a significant amount of personal funds. £1,200 was the actual goal.) 

Rule 4: Reach far and wide

Don't depend on your crowdfunding page to do all the work for you. You need to not only share links, but embed widgets in everything you've got (your website, facebook, blog...)

As you can see from this graph only 10% of my backers actually found the project by going straight to the kickstarter. The rest "pledged via external referrers" which means all the places I stuck those links and widgets where I knew they'd be looking anyway. 

You also have to be prepared to harass people gently for the duration. Ideally you want to still have your friends at the end of it, so do it nicely and keep it creative and entertaining. But don't feel bad about it... if it's a good project they'll want to know about it!

Rule 5: Make rewards desirable and fun

You've got to be brutally honest about your own star power.

No matter how amazing you are crowdfunding is a business transaction. Ideally all your rewards will be a direct result of whatever you're doing anyway (e.g. I was making an audio tour, so my main thing was downloads... essentially advance sales.) but don't be afraid to get creative within that (e.g. the artist doing my cover art designed bespoke prints, available digitally, as prints or framed prints for different levels.) 

Your best hope of attracting that elusive pool of people you don't know is to have things that are so cool and compelling that they would want to buy anyway. 

Signed items are nice, but be realistic about the value of them... it's great if you're a celebrity who gets asked to sign things a lot, but if not then the main people to whom that signature will have meaning are your family (who as stated will probably pledge no matter what... and hopefully already have lots of birthday cards and letters signed by you anyway and don't have to buy your signature!) If you're charging £50 for your signature you have to be able to justify it. 

Likewise shout-outs on social media. It's a noisy space. 

On the back of this:

Include lots of levels!

Don't jump straight form £10 to £50 donations. My average donation was around £39.5 and most people donated £15-30. Leave options for all price ranges (and think about what kind of thing might encourage people to up a pledge from £15 to £20)

A Note on Budgeting:

When you're initially budgeting your campaign you've got to remember two important things: Kickstarter (or other platform) fees and the cost of reward delivery (production and postage.) You can see from the breakdown here that this ended up being about 1/3 of my final expenses. A lot of my rewards were delivered electronically which helped massively (it meant I was posting things to about 25 people instead of 77.)

Once you have the money...

You thought that last bit was work... but it's just beginning. Now you have to make that amazing vision a reality. Don't forget to keep the backers updated!

Good luck!

Credit where credit is due: lot of the things I got right I learned from two other great friends, who say a lot of the things I've said here (with arguably a lot more eloquence) plus more, so do have a read One Weird Trick for a Successful Kickstarter Project  by the Double Clicks (especially if you're in the music biz) and Please Stop Crowdfunding by the awesome Sean Brian (the fact that in spite of everything he backed my project was truly one of the proudest moments!)

Closing Night

It is my last night in the room that has been mine for three years. It's emptier than it has ever been... even the day I moved in, when it was still full of books and possessions from the previous resident.

People have been asking me all day how I feel about going tomorrow. 

The answer is I don't really feel much. It still doesn't seem real. 

An excessive amount of baggage is coming back with me.

Even though my bags are packed, closets and drawers emptied and boarding pass printed I don't believe it... and probably won't until I'm actually on the way... until I land, spend days then weeks then months in California, forget the familiarity of riding across the river on the bus, Tuesday night Morris Dancing, and last minute theatre tickets. 

I hate endings. I always have. When I was little I used to throw tantrums when it was time to leave friends houses. I'd hide behind the sofa, throw myself on the floor, beg for just ten minutes more. But they always got me in the end. No play date lasts forever. 

As I've gotten older things have changed. Not the hatred of endings... that's still solidly there. But I can't hide from them anymore... there's no one to come drag me out from under the bed and cary me kicking and screaming to the car. So I have to do it myself. It might be slightly more dignified, but I do sometimes hate being a grown up. 

I wonder if the shutting the ending out is part of that coping mechanism. If I don't realize I'm going until I'm gone then it's not so painful... and once I'm in the new place I'll adjust quickly enough.

There's plenty to be excited about in the new place. I have the feeling 2015 is going to be a very different and good year... but then again aren't they all?

To all my California friends, I can't wait to see you! And to London friends, not goodbye but à bientôt!

T'estimo Caga-Barcelona!

I am in love with Barcelona. For many reasons, actually, but the biggest is that this country seems obsessed with poo. At least when it comes to Christmas traditions.

Tió

In my friend's apartment there is a log with a happy face on it and some stubby little legs. She explaned to me that this is a Caga Tió (Literally "A Shitting Log.") Starting on December 8 (The Feast of Immaculate Conception) children put out food for him which the parents must secretly take a way bit by bit... because the Tió is eating. On Christmas the children hit the Tió with a stick and order it to defecate while singing special songs. Then they have to go to another part of the house and pray for gifts... while they are doing this the parents put presents under the Tió's blanket. They do this over and over again with increasingly smaller presents until the Tió has nothing left. She said "traditionally it used to be nuts and fruit, but these days it's more likely to be xboxes.

We went to the Christmas market where Caga Tiós of all sizes were on sale, from massive ones the size of a small puppy to teeny tiny ones an inch or two long. 

Caganer

The other popular poop related tradition is the Caganer (The Shitter), a figurine in the nativity scene. Traditionally dressed as a Catalonian peasant, but can take all sorts of forms. The market stalls included pop figures, politicians, footballers, and a variety of characters from Yoda to Shakespeare.

We spent a long time looking and giggling over them. I bought myself a small traditional one, but am tempted to go back and get more.

The origins of the figure are disputed, but he seems to date back to the baroque period at least. It could just be for the humorous element or to take the piss (especially with the newer political figures), but there is quite a lot of scholarly writing around the symbolism of fertility. Ethnographer Joan Amades says: 

"[Caganers were] customary figure in pessebres [nativity scenes] in the 19th century, because people believed that this deposit [symbolically] fertilized the ground of the pessebre, which became fertile and ensured the pessebre for the following year, and with it, the health of body and peace of mind required to make the pessebre, with the joy and happiness brought by Christmas near the hearth. Placing this figurine in the pessebre brought good luck and joy and not doing so brought adversity."

Even the City's official Nativity display had one. He traditionally hides round the back, so it's not as though he takes front and center, or upstages anyone, but you still know he's there.

Apparently there was a row in 2005 because the city chose not to include a Caganer in their display... reportedly due to the city's new bylaws which made public urination and defecation illegal (though the city later denied this.) The Caganer was restored the following year.

The non-poo-related highlight of the day was a visit to the Museu de la Xocolata... but even there there were white and dark chocolate Caganers to be had. There may not be a lot of public toilets, but Barcelona is otherwise a city after my own heart!

Attitudes On Immigration

One thing that a lot of people have said to me (and indeed I've been guilty of saying it myself) is that it's unfair that while someone from the EU can come over and claim benefits and while people like me who start businesses and pay taxes are sent home.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that this in itself is a destructive attitude. It panders to the media bias that the majority of immigrants are benefits seeking scroungers, and perpetuates the negativity around it. It places me in the 'exception rather than the rule' category. Though I appreciate people's empathy the truth is I am no more or less worthy than most other immigrants.

The thing that actually prompted me to write this post (which has been in the works for awhile) was an article in the Guardian Blog: Does Britain Really Want to be the Country Nobody Would Migrate To? She says more or less what I feel. If the country is going down hill it needs to look internally and not blame immigrants. One statement rang particularly true for me:

"The only thing maintaining the flow of migrants is that nobody reads the Daily Mail until they arrive, and only then do they realise how coarse and brutal our politics have become, how pessimistic."

The truth, though I don't always like to admit it, is that I might have fought harder if the overall attitude here were better. I don't mind not having access to benefits. I don't mind the fact that as long as I live in London I'll probably be in shared rented accommodation while my peers back home are starting to buy houses and cars. I don't even mind that it isn't easy to get a visa... I'd do the paperwork and pay the fees. Those are sacrifices I was willing to make to live the London dream: 24/7 access to culture, all of Europe on the doorstep, the stunning English Country side less than an hour's train journey away, the occasional brush with celebrity and fame. But when on top of all the struggles the national attitude towards immigration is so negative it makes me want to throw it all back in their face and say "fine. I don't want to live in your stupid country anyway." Which of course I don't mean... because I do.

I had an interesting experience coming back into the UK recently after my visa had run out. When you are Tier 1 they don't put your visa in your passport like they do for students. Instead you are issued with an ID card called a Biometric Residence Permit.

The woman thumbing through my passport at boarder control noted that my last student visa had run out in 2012.

"Yes, I know. I've been here on a Tier 1 Graduate Entrepreneur Visa. Do you need to see my biometric residence permit?"  

"Yes." 

I gave it to her. A quick glance and she told me curtly:

"This is expired you shouldn't have it anymore."  

"Yes, I know it's expired. That's why I left the country." 

"Well, you need to send it back to the UKBA" 

First I'd heard of that. Plus, she asked to see it! What would she have said to me if I didn't have it? After being grilled on the length of my stay, why I was coming back in, my financial situation, my plans for employment back in the US, and showing her my ticket for my return flight home I was let through.

Welcome to Britain. Now go back to where you came from.


What can you do? 

A lot of kind and lovely people have asked me over the past months whether there's anything they can do. Here are two:

1) Think before you speak... be aware of your accidental prejudices. Keep a critical eye on articles about benefits scroungers and the things that come out of your own mouth (even if they're intended to be well meaning and comforting to a friend.) It takes a fair bit of bravery for anyone to immigrate and start a new life... doubly so if English is a second language.

2) Do write letters! Let politicians know that these pervasive attitudes are not okay... celebrate the positive aspects of immigration. I don't expect you to single handedly fix the country, but writing a letter will take 5 minutes and a stamp, and at best it will potentially benefit thousands of others like me (not to mention thousands of others like you who won't lose friends to deportation.)


For a bit of light reading I also recommend Schrodinger's Immigrant who exists simultaneously in a state of stealing jobs and claiming benefits.