Michael Carøe Andersen

Tag: bloggers

  • The Top London Travel Blogs

    The travel agency LastMinute.com has started publishing a monthly top 50 list of travel and lifestyle blogs in London/UK. To kick that off they organized an event they called Oh You Lucky Bloggers at Planet Hollywood. It’s not like Ann or I has made it into the list but it’s always fun to get out and meet other bloggers. The event was great, mingling with the cool crowd of London blogosphere.

    LastMinute.com: Oh You Lucky Bloggers!

    I’m not sure how the list is compiled but there are some really cool blogs on it – go have a look yourself.

    There is a couple of my favorite London blogs that hasn’t made the list so I figured I’d give them props here:

    • IanVisits – Ian is constantly on top of what’s going on under and over ground in London events.
    • London Cyclist – Andreas is really busy creating resources for the biking crowd in London
    • Ghost signs – Not exclusively a London site but very interesting nonetheless with old painted signs on house.
    • From The Upper Deck – Another quirky blog where Przemek drives around on the double deckers of London and takes pictures out the window as London life goes by below him.
    • Georgian London – excitingly writings about life in London in the 18th century
    • Scandinaivian Kitchen – for everything homely on London

  • Bloggers passing through and the story of the lost rugby tickets

    A couple of weeks ago David from Malta was at a conference in London and with phones running out of credit and communication through his wife back home we managed to meet up in central London one evening. David is a thoughtful guy – as you can tell from his blog – and I always enjoy talking to him about politics, life and anything in between.

    The week after we had another blogger passing through. This time it was Karen from Wisconsin. She had to leave Prague prematurely due to visa issues but was heading back to try again. On the way back to Prague she was making her way through Europe and London was the first stop. We had some entertaining days with Karen who was excited to be here. Here she is at Covent Garden with a Jack Sparrow look-a-like (and smell-a-like).

    Karen and Jack Sparrow

    This weekend we again should thank a blogger for the entertainment. At the Blogger Meetup in February there had been a competition for rugby tickets and although we didn’t win (Ann got really close). However Peter – one of the winners – wasn’t going to use his tickets and gave them to Ann. I was soo excited about the chance to see a rugby game and had been looking forward to it for weeks. But yesterday as we were starting to get ready to get out the door we couldn’t find the tickets… We looked everywhere and got the room cleared out but the tickets didn’t appear.

    I grumped about the lost tickets for a couple of hours but luckily enough we had an alternative event to go to. Instead we went to The Barbican for a show called the The Manganiyar Seduction where a group of 43 folk musicians from Muslim region of India was sitting in boxes as they played. A very impressive show as you can see in the clip below – but still a poor replacement for a rugby match.

    Anyways big thanks to Peter Marshall for the rugby tickets, that was a nice gesture. He blogs about photography at Re:Photo and writes about the many protests and walks he photographs in My London Diary. Peter has been walking around London taking pictures since the 70s and has some really interesting stories and observations.

  • How to pour an ale

    One of the things I love about being here in UK is the hand pumped beers or cask ales as they are also called. These are unfiltered and unpasteurised beer that are not drawn from the kegs or containers by carbon dioxide but instead by hand pump or gravity. In UK you just have to look for the Cask Marque sign and you know the pub serves some good, traditional cask ale.

    Greene King IPA Revolution

    If you go to the north of England you will get your pint like the one on the left, smooth and creamy. If you ask for a pint in the south you will get one like the one on the right, clean and crisp. The two pints shown are the same beer but poured in two different ways that produces slight differences in taste. There is more of an explanation here.

    Thursday Ann and I went to the February edition of London Bloggers Meetup. The meeting was sponsored by Greene King brewery who wanted to show of their new beer engine that could produce both Northern and Southern style pints. The head brewer John Bexon was there with another guy to tell about the beers and explained how to taste a beer.

    Greene King IPA Cask Revolution

    I enjoyed speaking to other bloggers and having a night out. The beer was very good I enjoyed both versions – and it was free which makes it even better. We had a great evening where we got away with goody bags filled with interesting beers from the brewery and tickets for a rugby game but more on that some other time.

  • Bloggers in London and Twitterers in West Hampstead

    When I move to a new city I try to find local bloggers – and this time round people on Twitter – as a way to explore my new hometown.

    In Copenhagen I joined a bloggers dinner and learned about BarCamp through bloggers and in Prague I made a couple of Danish friends that I found through their blogs. I also met Empty Nested Karen and Minnesotan Al in Prague.

    I’m trying to do the same in London but in London everything is so much bigger which is both good and bad. Good because you can find literally everything and all sorts of people, groups and activities. Bad because it easily becomes overwhelming and places and people are far apart. Nevertheless I’ve embarked on the London blogosphere and twittersphere.

    Ann and I went to the Christmas gathering of a group called London Bloggers Meetup (#LBM) that organizes a monthly event for people who blog to meetup and chat.

    London Blogger Meetup 003

    The group was started two years ago by Andy and has gone from having a handful participants to having upwards of 100 now with the events getting booked out days or weeks before they take place. Here Andy is presenting one of the nights three speakers.

    London Blogger Meetup Presentation

    First speaker was a security expert from Symantec (who sponsored the bar tab), then followed one of the girls of Domestic Sluttery (they brought cookies!) talked about tips for bloggers and last was Arvind talking about Kiva – a microfinance project.

    A great night and I got round to speak to a couple of bloggers like Jorgen, The Undercover Recruiter and Too Geeky Chris (and a couple I forgot, ups).

    A few weeks later I went to West Hampstead a neighborhood 30 min walk away from here. There is an active and growing online community in West Hampstead that mainly engage on Twitter. Jonathan is the man behind the blog West Hampstead Life and he is also very active on Twitter where he has been the anchorman for a lot of events. I went to a meetup called a #WHampGather at Alice House a very cool pub/restaurant.

    The Alice House

    There were loads of people who turned up for the event, our corner was completely packed and the group was very divers. Again I met a lot of interesting people and had a good evening.

    Crowded backroom at the #WHampGather

    At both events there were prizes and gifts so from the bloggers meetup I came away with a copy of Symantics new anti virus program and the day after I won a lampshade and from the twitter event I won a cool Dot To Date calendar.

  • 1 year in Prague

    Sunset over Belohorska
    I just realized that 1st of June it has been a year since I arrived in Prague. Time flies and I must say I have been positively surprised by many things about this city and the people I have met here. One thing that is very appalling is my Czech though. When I came I thought I would take language courses and learn some of the local lingo, but I must admit I gave up on that pretty quickly and have resorted to my English, German, a few Czech words and the international language of hand gestures and body language.

    Last week I met with a fellow blogger, Al from the family blog Tischlers in Prague. After having lived in Prague for almost two years the Tischlers are moving back to Minnesota. I have been following the blog and their trips in and around Prague (and around Europe) since before I arrived in Prague so it was great to meet the man behind the words. Al has been working for Radio Free Europe in Prague while they have been building their new headquarters. He had great stories of his time in Saudi Arabia their life in Prague and filled me in on the New Wave music in general after we went to a museum on the history of the rock music in Czechoslovakia in the 80ies.

    We met in a small beer garden very close to our apartment for a couple of beers. Al got photo documentation and posted it here. Its always a pleasure to meet other bloggers and Im glad I caught Al before they went back home. I wish the best for the three of them.


  • Danish bloggers in Prague

    Rasmus from the Danish BlogMagasinet asked in one of the recent podcasts, how we use blogs to meet people. So I figured I’d tell about how I’ve used it here in Prague.

    Before I moved down here I search on google.com, technorati.com, blogbot.dk or overskrift.dk for people blogging about Prague in either Danish or English and I found two Danes.

    Jazz at U Maleho Glena

    The first one is Laus Sørensen. Laus runs the vacation agency Prag Eksperten and has made a business from renting apartments and giving tours to Danes. He is blogging at prag.urbanblog.dk were he writes about the city, his business and his friends. As a newcomer in town there is definitely some good information about the city and his company site has the most comprehensive site about Prague in Danish.
    A couple of weeks ago I went to dinner with Laus at U Maleho Glena (picture above) a very cool jazz spot in Prague. We talked about the city, running businesses and realized that we both have parents in Jylland so maybe we can carpool to Denmark sometime.

    The second Dane is Holme but he is actually not in town yet. He is going to stay in Prague for a year with his Czech girl friend while studying. I think he is moving down here sometime in August so I’ll try and see if I can catch him over a pivo sometime.

    In my daily life I only speak English – apart from when I’m calling home – so it’s nice that there is a few Danes in town.

    There is of course also a number of English blogs about life in Prague. The ones that I am keeping a tap on these days are:

    [Update 18/9 ’07] Just came across another Dane in Prague called Pavel-Helge – he has a lot of updated info in Danish about what’s going on in Prague.

    [Update 14/1 ’08] Just came across another Danish blog about Prague called Prag HotSpots by Jens Gregersen.


  • Metablogging – Copenhagen bloggerdinner

    Yesterday I joined a group of bloggers in Copenhagen for dinner and socializing and it turned out to be really interesting.

    The dinner started out at a bar, moved on to a restaurant and ended in an apartment. I didnt know any of them personally and I doubt any knew who I was when I showed up. I knew who most of them were because they have been active in the Danish blogosphere in general and particular in the scene of corporate blogging and social software.

    It is very interesting whats going on around blogging right now, now that it seems to seriously hit mainstream in Denmark. Blogging is not exactly new anymore but a lot of people are starting to use it professionally – and the people that were here are some of the pioneers in Denmark that try to make a living providing services in social software.

    It was a really pleasant evening with some inspirational people and meeting people in person always adds an extra dimension when you only know them from their writtings.

    I didnt get around to talk to everybody but Copenhagen is pretty small so I will probably meet them again somewhere.

    A couple of pictures at flickr

    BTW – this post is my first attempt with Microsoft Live Writer and its suprisingly cool.