idleformat

storytelling

2012-02-04T19:32:00.002Z

On Thursday night we met some friends at Clifton's Lansdown pub for an evening of stories, song, laughter, surprise, sadness and alchohol. It was time for the annual Bristol Storytelling Slam, part of the city's Storytelling Festival 2012. This was my first Slam and I'll make sure it's not my last - it was a shame to have to go home, for this was one of the most enjoyable evenings I've spent in Bristol since moving here over three years ago.

Ten brave souls had put themselves forward to tell a tale of no longer than ten minutes. The cosy upstairs room, with its wooden chairs and sofas, was packed by the time proceedings kicked off just after 8pm.

The host, Martin, was brilliant. He kicked things off with a historic tale of his own about Bristol and a one-armed ghost said to haunt the upstairs rooms of local pubs. Then, the first of the competitors began the Slam proper. I didn't think to take down the details of the ten storytellers and wouldn't want to praise one over another (even though this was a competition and the audience would later vote for a winner) because I was full of admiration for anybody getting up and having a go. But over the course of the next three hours or so we listened intently to stories involving mice, snakes, heaven, hell, the velcro-effect of a bald stubbly head, princes, princesses, rolling pins, curry, a dragon residing in a matchbox, a Newcastle Brown Ale-drinking talking dog and a tent-invading hedgehog. Every story was enthusiastically received. It was superb.

The winner was the lovely chap pictured above who was in the UK from Sierra Leone where he promotes storytelling in communities. Wearing traditional African dress he was a worthy winner of the 'ball of string on a stand', otherwise known as the winner's trophy (a 'spinning yarn' I guess). The whole audience fell in love with him - I'm sorry I didn't get his name.

As we left, stumbling into the freezing cold Clifton night air I felt dizzy from too much cider and giddy from an evening of fantastic tales that were still spinning around my head. And I also felt rather sad that there won't be another Slam for a whole year...

Sunset

2012-01-20T18:32:00.000Z

Super nice sunset this evening.

Friday x10

2012-01-15T15:01:00.000Z

At work on Fridays I've occasionally been emailed a random mp3 or two from a couple of colleagues. This gave me the idea to publish a short 10 track playlist each Friday afternoon. There have been two so far this year, the aim being to keep it going throughout 2012...

Friday x10 - 06/01/2012 on Spotify

Friday x10 - 13/01/2012 on Spotify

In terms of tracks I'm going to try to keep my choices as wide as possible, influenced by the superb French radio station FIP which was famously available to us Brighton folk on our FM radios a few years ago. That said, the emphasis will probably err on the side of cheesey-listening and the slightly odd - that's just the way my musical tastes go I'm afraid, so these probably aren't playlists to impress a potential boy/girlfriend with.

Have a listen and see what you think.

And if it's not your bag and you like the idea of listening to a stunningly beautiful album then check out King Creosote & Jon Hopkins' Diamond Mine - my ears have been glued to it for the past three days...

unplug at 8

2012-01-03T19:59:00.000Z

During the winter I find it's so easy to come home from work, where I stare at screens all day, make tea, wash up and then spend the rest of the evening staring at more screens until it's time to sleep.

This year that's all changing. Inspired by GOOD's 'Unplug at 8' challenge, all my screen-staring activity stops at 8pm from now on.

No email, no blogging, no Facebook, no Twitter. The internet gets switched off at 8pm every evening.

Instead, maybe I will read all the books that have been taking up space on my shelves for so long. Maybe I'll start writing. Or drawing. Or playing board games with M (unless she's staring at one of her own screens). Maybe I will use the time to organise myself and get my bag ready for the following morning, or by making tomorrow's lunch...

The possibilities are endless. It's time to unshackle myself from the chains of the internet, to seize the evening, to -

- time's up, it's 8pm.

Time to unplug.

Bullitt revisited

2012-01-02T12:15:00.000Z

I have this little tradition where I try to watch the movie Bullitt during the limbo period between Christmas and New Year. It started in the late 90s when I watched it on DVD for the first time and I've revisited it almost every year since. But lately, in my Bristol years, that tradition seems to have fallen by the wayside. So this year (that'll be last year now I guess), as soon as our last Christmas guest had been dropped off at the station, I was rooting around our cupboard for the box of DVDs we'd retired earlier in the year. Outside it was cold and grim, but indoors was nice and toasty - perfect conditions for my Bullitt reacquaintance. I can't get enough of those late 1960s sunny San Francisco streets and the gutteral roar of the Ford Mustang engines during that incredible chase scene through the hilly streets. Even the opening title sequence with Lalo Schifrin's classic score puts hairs on the back of my neck.

When we visited San Francisco in 2010 I was eager to locate Frank Bullitt's (played by Steve McQueen) apartment in the film. We found it easily, thanks to this excellent in-depth tour of filming locations. The apartment is on the corner of Taylor and Clay Streets. In the film the building was painted a dark blue but has apparently had a few colour changes since then and a garage has been added too.

In the film, Bullitt visits a grocery store opposite his apartment and it was nice to see that the store is still there today. In fact, such was the range of city locations used in the film, it was difficult to avoid running into others as we walked around.

This was the first time I'd seen the film since visiting San Francisco. I can now appreciate how that 10 minute chase leaps back and forth across the city, from North Beach and Russian Hill to Potrero Hill and back again. But this in no way detracted from my enjoyment. Bullitt is a terrific film and watching it again helps to reconnect with that tiny little piece of me that I left behind back in 2010...

rainy afternoon at the seaside

2012-01-01T18:26:00.001Z

This afternoon we made the short trip west to the seaside town of Clevedon. Despite the rain we took a walk along the pier, one of two Grade I listed in the country (the other is what's left of Brighton's West Pier).

Being by the sea, with the salty air, rain coming down and dark clouds hovering above was a real shot in the arm for me. I really miss living by the coast. There's definitely something different about us folk who grow up beside the sea, I'm pretty sure of that: landlocked towns and cities make me feel slightly oppressed and claustrophobic; I lose my bearings, not having the sea to tell me what direction I'm facing.

The space, the air, the sound of the water, the ability to stand and stare into the distance with only the ocean separating you from all the other amazing coastal places in the world; people just like you doing the same thing thousands of miles away...

Here's to a great 2012 and more trips to the seaside! Happy new year!

wake up and fight

2011-12-31T20:58:00.000Z

A list to end the year with. Woody Guthrie's new year's resolutions for 1942...

1. Work more and better

2. Work by a schedule

3. Wash teeth if any

4. Shave

5. Take bath

6. Eat good — fruit — vegetables — milk

7. Drink very scant if any

8. Write a song a day

9. Wear clean clothes — look good

10. Shine shoes

11. Change socks

12. Change bed cloths often

13. Read lots good books

14. Listen to radio a lot

15. Learn people better

16. Keep rancho clean

17. Dont get lonesome

18. Stay glad

19. Keep hoping machine running

20. Dream good

21. Bank all extra money

22. Save dough

23. Have company but dont waste time

24. Send Mary and kids money

25. Play and sing good

26. Dance better

27. Help win war — beat fascism

28. Love mama

29. Love papa

30. Love Pete

31. Love everybody

32. Make up your mind

33. Wake up and fight

via Brain Pickings

Cretan sky

2011-12-17T20:43:00.001Z

More Camera+ post-production.

Bristol's harbourside and M-Shed

2011-12-05T11:16:00.001Z

Old cargo cranes on the harbourside outside M-Shed

M and I recently made our first visit to Bristol's new-ish museum of all things local, M-Shed to see the Martin Parr exhibition. I'm a huge Parr fan - I find many of his images excruciating and hilarious at the same time and, sure enough, this collection (in his adopted home city) didn't disappoint.

M-Shed has been beautifully redeveloped from the old Industrial Museum and a nice little touch is allowing you out on the top floor balcony to take in the views of Bristol's floating harbour. Before I lived here I'd never heard of a floating harbour - apparently it means the water level is always constant and isn't affected by the tides. I couldn't resist taking a few shots from the balcony - these were shot on an iPhone and pimped out using the superb Camera+ app.

surprise

2011-11-15T15:00:00.000Z

This very pleasant surprise turned up today, courtesy of Hart's Bakery in Bristol. A birthday present from last week had been a place on one of their breadmaking courses. But then a few days ago they informed us they're having to vacate their current premises next week - meaning there'll be no courses running until they find a new home for the business. So Laura from the bakery delivered this early this morning - an incredibly generous gesture. I hope the bakery is up and running again soon (and preferably not too far away from us!) - it's a gem of a place tucked away behind Whiteladies Road and, take it from me, the bread and pastries are superb!

Mock Turtle

2011-11-14T12:00:00.000Z

The Mock Turtle tea rooms, near the rather unwelcoming coach station at Pool Valley, is probably my favourite place in Brighton to spend a cold and gloomy autumnal afternoon. For a start, the tea is perfect, served in a pot with extra hot water. And while I can recommend the teacakes too, on our visit earlier this month, we both decided to try the welsh rarebit since we'd missed lunch earlier in the day.

The Mock Turtle, like Brighton itself, has a lovely lived-in appeal: there are the odd chips in the crockery and the odd tea stain but I love it and I'm glad it hasn't disappeared in the three years I've been away.

the other side

2011-11-13T12:00:00.002Z

Last weekend I turned 40. Thanks to my wonderful, caring, generous girlfriend we enjoyed a long weekend back in Brighton. She organised and paid for our stay at the Oriental, and then arranged a superb evening meal at Tookta's Cafe with a lovely bunch of folks I am proud to call my friends. Three years I have been away from Sussex yet they always welcome me back whenever I return - which isn't very often these days. I had an absolutely fantastic time; a perfect birthday weekend. As always, it was great to be back in Brighton, albeit feeling a bit like a tourist. The place is on its own. It just buzzes.

Unfortunately, life since has been marred by a pretty severe man cold, augmented the past couple of days by a rather painful bout of sinusitis. So while I wanted to hit my middle-age running, I feel instead like the pistol's gone off but I'm still on the starting blocks. Life has either just begun or I'm on the slippery slope and it's downhill all the way from here. At the moment it's too early to tell!

thanks for all the fonts

2011-11-12T13:59:00.000Z

Image designed by Jonathan Mak (jmak.tumblr.com)

It can't have escaped your attention that Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, passed away last month. I've been reading the Walter Isaacson biography over the past few weeks and when I reached the part about how Jobs revolutionised digital print and desktop publishing with the Macintosh, I found myself thinking back to my childhood and teenage years and the huge influence it has had on my own life. More than anything else Steve Jobs did, like providing me with some very nice gadgets, this is probably the one thing I most have to thank him for.

I became interested in typography as soon as I could hold a pen without making a crazy mess on the page. At the age of five I was completely enchanted with the imagery around Star Wars, to the extent that I would draw and re-draw the logo constantly, always trying to perfect it. A few years later I would watch the American Space Shuttle return to earth on TV and be enthralled more by the way 'United States' was printed in beautiful sans-serif on the body of the craft beside a tiny American Stars and Stripes at Caps height than of the shuttle and spaceflight itself. As I got older I would design magazine front covers and newspaper mastheads, carefully drawing all the type by hand. Initially, I would make up the typeface but eventually a Letraset catalogue came into my possession. Oh wow! It became my bible! I was suddenly able to copy real typefaces. I spent hours and hours designing mastheads and front pages on the living room table, copying from the catalogue, first using pencil and then inking each letter in when I was satisfied I had got it right.

Without Steve Jobs, typefaces on computers would likely have remained unimportant and uninspiring. It was during the development of the Macintosh, the computer that first brought the graphical user interface to the masses, that Jobs remembered his time at Reed College, Oregon, back in the early 1970s. He'd only stayed one semester before dropping out but had continued attending classes. At his 2005 Stanford Commencement address, he told the following story:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

The ZX Spectrum's default font in lowercase

Around 1984, the year the Macintosh became available, I shared a Sinclair ZX Spectrum with my brother. While many hours were lost to game playing, I also spent a lot of time designing my own fonts and assigning individual characters to each key as a graphic: I had no idea how to modify the pixellated default font that I hated. Unfortunately, there were not enough graphics characters to cover the entire character set, so certain letters had to be avoided completely (no words with the letter 'Z'!) while 'U' and 'V' shared the same character. It wasn't ideal but it was my first introduction to text layout on a screen. I began to notice print advertisements for the Macintosh around this time: I would dearly have loved to own one but I was a teenager at school with no income...

Because of the Macintosh's graphical user interface, an endless array of fonts could be rendered pixel by pixel on the screen. But Jobs faced some scepticism from other members of the team, summed up by Mike Markkula in Isaacson's biography:

I kept saying, 'Fonts?!? Don't we have more important things to do?

As Isaacson points out, Jobs' insistence would launch the desktop publishing industry.

It also introduced all sorts of regular folks, ranging from high school journalists to moms who edited PTA newsletters, to the quirky joy of knowing about fonts, which was once reserved for printers, grizzled editors, and other ink-stained wretches.

Despite not owning a Macintosh, I became one of the 'regular folks'. Shortly after leaving college in 1990 I bought a Commodore Amiga which offered a handful of different fonts. I hooked it up to a huge, noisy dot matrix printer. For me, this was revolution and revelation all at once: overnight I could produce my own printed materials. By far the most-used software I used over the next few years was Page Setter, a simple desktop publishing program. With nothing to actually use this setup for, I'd make up my own projects and design posters, magazines and newspapers. I was in my element. There were only a few fonts to choose from but I quickly learned to use only one or two in any one project. Particular inspiration at the time were the [then] beautiful Independent newspaper (the design of which has never improved on the original) and David Hillman's influential redesign of The Guardian.

Over the course of the next few years I would produce printed work using this simple setup: from laying out the matchday programmes for a local football team, to producing stoolball score sheets to numerous posters and invitations. Then in the early-90s, I began using Windows PCs and was encouraged to produce a newsletter and various printed projects while volunteering in Surrey. In 1999 my brother donated his old PC and I managed to get hold of another huge printer - this time a laserjet. Coupled with Photoshop and a scanner, my life of desktop publishing had never had it so good. It was like having my own studio! Indeed, over subsequent years, I would find myself being paid for design work and get to see the fruits of my labour available to buy in shops.

Until just over a year ago I hadn't owned an Apple computer. But where they blazed a trail, others followed. So beautiful typefaces ended up on every home computer. And that's how I ended up being able to spend countless hours producing posters, flyers, annual reports, CD inserts, book covers and calendars - and all the other stuff I've designed over the years. Who knows, without Steve Jobs, I might still be copying lettering by hand from that Letraset catalogue...

Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson is published by Little, Brown

I'm a film producer!

2011-09-10T11:32:00.003+01:00

It's taken nearly 40 years but earlier this week I finally became a film producer.

Not that I can say I've really tried to become a film producer. Actually, I'd never given it any thought. Not, that was, until I was pointed to the microfunding site for Lemonade Detroit, a documentary about people creating opportunity from despair in one of America's most ravaged cities:

"Lemonade: Detroit" is a film about the disarming resilience of a city that can no longer rely on a single industry for its livelihood, and the entrepreneurial strengths of those who are reinventing themselves and their communities.

Instead of sensationalizing blight, “Lemonade, Detroit” will sensationalize hope, told through the intensely personal stories of those who are turning the city into what it will become.

I have a interest in certain cities and have been fascinated by Detroit for a number of years, having first blogged about it here several years ago. So when I saw that I could help fund the production of this film, simply by paying $1 per frame, I decided to buy 0.4 seconds' ($10 or 10 frames) worth and become an IMBb-credited producer in the process.

As with other crowd-funded projects, there's no guarantee that the documentary will be fully-funded, and therefore completed. But fingers crossed. At the time of writing 1955 producers have funded 51919 frames - that's around 36 minutes of film. Obviously, there's a long way to go before the whole project is paid-for but Lemonade Detroit already broken one Guinness World Record - for the number of producers on one film.

Limbo

2011-09-08T21:32:00.005+01:00

Earlier this week I completed Limbo, one of the most eerie, immersive, beautiful and unforgettable gaming experiences I've ever had.

I began by downloading the demo from the PlayStation Network after being rather unmoved by the demos of both Driver: San Francisco and the latest instalment of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. I had no idea what was in store; the description said simply, 'Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters LIMBO'.

The screen faded in from black, gradually revealing a grassy floor in silhouette against a beautiful grainy monotone forest. Nothing happened for a moment or two, but then two tiny bright eyes sparked into life and I realised they belonged to a little boy, laying on the floor, clearly having just awoken.

With the PlayStation controller I made him stand, albeit a little groggily. As with the foreground, he was depicted in 2D silhouette with those two little eyes blinking. I moved the controller to the right and he began running along the forest floor, the screen scrolling as he did so. He reached a tree trunk, ran over it and slid down a steep slope and was immediately and gruesomely impaled on a bunch of spikes in a pit at the bottom. Blood squirted, squelching at the point of impact. The two little eyes faded out. My love affair with Limbo had begun.

Horrific deaths, I soon discovered, happen frequently and without warning in this game: mantraps, giant spiders, huge boulders, great heights, electric shock, circular saw blades, drowning... there are seemingly no end to the different ways the little boy can be snuffed out within the game's 40 chapters. It's all relentlessly grim; consistently unnerving: boys lay motionless in cages while others hang from man-made wooden structures; other boys appear but are not friendly; limbs must be torn from oversized insects and used to solve the game's, at times, devilishly difficult puzzles. All this is set against a sparse, atmospheric soundtrack (available as a download in it's own right from iTunes).

It took a few days of playing to reach the game's conclusion - itself a moment of pure beauty that left me yearning for more - but that's because I wanted to prolong my experience through the brief 4 or so hours of gameplay. Several days later Limbo is still hanging around in my mind like a menacing black cloud.

The narrow variety of videogames on offer these days leaves me pretty unmoved. I grew up in those early, heady days of the ZX Spectrum, where gameplay and imagination made up for lack of graphics capability. For a while there, Limbo took me back to my childhood, back to a time when I was excited by videogames. Sadly, for me, the vast majority of games these days are derivative and lack imagination (but then, I suppose I am getting old). Fortunately, games like Limbo - and the equally beautiful Machinarium - have restored a degree of faith and an eagerness to know what's around the corner.

Limbo is available for PS3, XBOX360 and Steam (Windows only).

perfection!

2011-09-02T21:16:00.000+01:00

A perfect Boston Tea Party Iced Coffee earlier today

Order an iced latte from most coffee shops and you'll get a rather lame watery coffee with a bunch of ice cubes floating in it. That or the Starbucks Frappuccino type thing where there's so much ice you get an instant icepick headache as soon as your lips touch the straw.

If this sounds as if I know what I'm talking about it's because I do! I've tried them all and been rather unimpressed each time. BUT, I am pleased to say there is a champion iced coffee drink out there.

Yep, the idleformat award goes to Bristol's very own Boston Tea Party chain of cafes for their amazing Iced Coffee. Smooth, creamy, with a strong enough taste of coffee, a nice frothy head (but not too much) and, crucially, with a small amount of sugar added to avoid bitterness. We're talking absolute perfection here. If you're passing a branch of BTP (they're all over the west country these days) check one out while the weather's still warm. You won't regret it.

Mission murals

2011-09-01T20:23:00.000+01:00

Almost a year has passed since our trip to San Francisco, but I've only just got around to processing and uploading my final batch of photos to Flickr.

These were all taken during a guided tour of the murals in the Mission District organised by Precita Eyes Mural Arts Association.

Early on a Saturday morning we caught the Muni from North Beach, where we were staying, down to the Mission. There were a handful of people hanging around obviously waiting for the guide to show up, including, it turned out, a young woman from Bristol who had uprooted to Canada.

The tour began at Precita Park, next to the Elementary School, moved on to Garfield Square and then Balmy Alley (Street) in which almost every surface contains a mural. Artwork has been painted here since the 70s and has served to reflect social, community and political concerns.

For more information be sure to check out Precita Arts Mural Arts and Visitors Center

My Flickr set of images is here: Mission murals and streetart

back to Blogger

2011-08-31T20:25:00.002+01:00

My little Tumblr experiment has come to an end.

To be honest it all felt a bit lazy and I missed writing about stuff.

So idleformat.com is back on Blogger!

Stay tuned...

RIP idleformat.com. Long live idleformat.com!

2011-03-07T21:00:00.001Z

One of the things I wanted to do this year was to use this blog more as a kind of scrapbook for things I've found interesting - more short posts, more often, rather than the emphasis on diary-like posts that are largely only of interest to me as a record of where I've been or what I've done.

My failure to summon any energy to write about our fantastic trip to San Francisco last year proved to me that this style of blog has had its day as far my purposes require. Things have moved on since I began writing this in 2007: these days I can publish photos and other content instantly via my phone to microblogging sites such as Tumblr and Posterous. Blogging needn't take place sat at a desktop or at home on a laptop - with a smartphone I can publish anywhere at anytime. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't really lend itself to this kind of blogging (there's no Blogger app for example).

Therefore, I'm putting this blog to bed. In the next few days it will revert back to its original Blogger address - idleformat.blogspot.com. The idleformat.com domain name will move to Tumblr where I have begun work on the new idleformat.com which will, to an extent, be less personal but will better serve the kind of stuff I find interesting these days.

For readers subscribing to the RSS feed this will be the last post - but it will be great if you can subscribe to the new feed on the new blog.

Finally, a big thank you to everybody who stopped by over the years to read my posts and special thanks to those who took time to comment. Hope to see you at the new blog soon.

http://idlfmt.tumblr.com/

UPDATE: move was quicker than expected - new blog is up at idleformat.com

burrito!

2011-02-26T19:48:00.003Z

Check this bad boy out - San Franciscan Mission-style burritos in Bristol!

Mission Burrito has been open in Park Street for a few weeks and we finally got around to checking it out today.

I had the Fajita Burrito with carnitas (slow-cooked pork), guacamole, cheese, rice, peppers, sour cream and a hot spicy salsa.

Having sampled an actual Mission District burrito I can report that taste-wise this hit all the spots; though, to be fair, nothing could match our Mexican-dining experience in San Francisco: that was perfect!

But much as I'd love to go back across the Atlantic for more I'll happily settle for our own version again soon.

removed

2011-02-25T10:40:00.000Z

At the request of a [albeit anonymous] commenter, I have removed yesterday's Big Picture post from the blog. In it I referred to a distressing image I'd seen on The Big Picture site.

While I didn't reproduce the image referred to in the post I did link to the series of photographs in which it appeared. The comment requested the post be removed out of respect for the family depicted and, on reflection, I asked myself if the photograph had been of me or members of my own family, would I want it published and blogged and tweeted about? No, I wouldn't. I don't know the people in the photograph; neither do I know whether they consented to the image being published. Moreover, I don't know who the anonymous commenter is - conceivably they could be a member of the family involved. Therefore, I've removed the post.

While I'd prefer it if readers would identify themselves when commenting on blog posts I'm not writing to upset anybody here. There's no agenda - it's just me reporting on stuff I've done, places I've been or things I've found interesting. In the main I tend to refrain from commenting on news stories or anything too political. I must admit in this case the post was written on the spur of the moment. With that in mind, and all the while acknowledging that some people would argue there are reasons not to delete the post, I thank 'Anonymous' for their comment and for making me stop to think about whether or not it was a good call to publish in the first instance.

Original post removed.

a week back home

2011-02-24T20:57:00.000Z

Last week M and me travelled down to Eastbourne to spend the week with my folks. We'd felt a little bad at only spending a measly couple of days down there over Christmas so sought to remedy those feelings by returning soon and for a little longer.

The trouble is, by the time you've factored in the travelling (we went by train this time) we still only had three days to do anything. Tuesday was lost to rain, though we managed a lightning-quick trip to the Towner to see the Tomoaki Suzuki exhibition - a series of lifelike figures placed at floor level around the exhibition space. Well worth a visit if you're in the area.

On Wednesday the weather was back on track and we headed over to Brighton for the day. M fancied a spot of shopping and we enjoyed a sunny morning wandering around town before meeting up with Sarah in Bill's for lunch. Sadly, time wasn't on our side: after an all-too-brief grandad visit in Woodingdean we rushed back to the station, caught the train back to Eastbourne and spent a lovely evening in the company of Rowan and Ant - newly settled into a wonderful house in the Old Town (it's great to have some other people to visit there!).

My folks had taken Thursday off so we piled into the car, along with the three Border Collies, and drove east to Camber Sands. I have fond memories of paddling in the sea there as a child but unsurprisingly, on a cold and cloudy February day, the choppy sea was slightly on the uninviting side. But these days I'm happy to visit the sea wherever and whenever it is. And there's nothing like a bracing walk along a beach.

The week had whizzed by but I was encouraged by the fact that we almost halved the normal train fare by booking early and travelling via Paddington and Victoria, rather than the expensive and laborious trip via Salisbury that I've traditionally used... so hopefully I can fit in a few more trips before the end of the year.

Jason's

2011-02-02T18:00:00.002Z

I was sad to hear Jason's pie and sandwich shop on Brighton's North Street has closed down.

I was an enthusiastic customer of that great little place back when I worked at Waterstone's in the late 90s/early 00s.

Some lovely baguettes were consumed from there over the years. But my favourite was their Spicy Jamaican Patty. When I was last in town back in October I was walking down North Street and, despite having eaten lunch, decided to treat myself to one just before they shut for the day. Just for old time's sake.

Now I'm glad I did.

shrimpy little white chick

2011-01-29T20:18:00.001Z

We went to see Kristin Hersh speak and perform at the Arnolfini on Wednesday - another event in the superb, and ongoing, Bristol Festival of Ideas.

I've been a fan of hers ever since managing to buying a copy of her first solo album, Hips and Makers during its week of release back in 1994. At the time I was working as a volunteer teaching assistant in the Surrey commuter belt. I'd read a review in one of the weekend papers - it must have been good because I made a special train journey down to East Grinstead just to track it down. Amazingly, they had a copy in Woolworths and over the next few months it became my soundtrack over one of the most interesting periods of my life.

At the Arnolfini Hersh answered questions from [Eastbourne-born]* author Rupert Thomson (the two apparently met at an airport and shared a taxi to an event in Amsterdam several years ago). These were interspersed with performances of several songs and readings from her recently-published teenage memoir, Paradoxical Undressing. The conversation centred on her late teenage years, around 1983/84 (when the memoir is set) - a particularly traumatic period that saw her diagnosed with schizophrenia, tackle depression, land her first record deal and fall pregnant. She spoke about her unusual upbringing in a hippy commune, a "bad apartment" that seemed to feed her songs during the early Throwing Muses days, an horrific road accident and an ex-Hollywood star friend who once partnered Fred Astaire and offered advice for Hersh's early performances.

It all amounted to a fascinating and hugely enjoyable evening. Hersh spoke eloquently and with good humour. I found myself absolutely transfixed. Her songs were intensely powerful but beautiful - and amazing to hear in an intimate venue while sitting only a few feet away. Sooner or later, after some questions from the audience, the evening had to come to an end. It was a real shame: 90 minutes had whizzed by.

(The title of this post came from Hersh's own description of herself during the evening).

Review of Paradoxical Undressing from the Guardian.

*I only mention his birthplace as I grew up in Eastbourne myself

2011-01-21T11:33:00.003Z

One of my resolutions this year is to read more books. These days, it seems, I tend to spend too much time reading from screens - usually stuff on the web and increasingly content on my iPhone. Despite becoming a lazy book reader over recent years I've continued to be a book buyer. So at the turn of the new year I decided it's high time I began reading them.

And thankfully there's an app for that...

I downloaded Read More over Christmas. It's perfect for charting your progress through a book - especially when, like me, you need a bit of a nudge to read each day and keep the habit going. The interface is really nice - you get to create your own virtual stack of books that are waiting to be read, then you enter the start and end page numbers and you're ready to go: just tap the timer when you start reading and tap it again when you stop. The app works out how far you have to go and when you're likely to finish the book. Upon completion you're given a full record of your progress through the book - number of reading sessions, time taken etc.

For dedicated readers this is all probably unnecessary but for me Read More has succeeded in making me read more often: Dave Eggers' Zeitoun was finished during the second week of January and I'm now enjoying Kem Nunn's Tapping the Source. More on these later.

Gill Sans

2011-01-14T20:19:00.001Z

I found this nice little 'business card' late last year in the cafe at work. It features the alphabet printed in Gill Sans, while on the reverse is a quote from the typeface's designer, Eric Gill:

"Typography as it so often does reflects the spirit of the time."

Gill was born in Brighton in 1882. I watched a very memorable documentary about him a few years ago. As well as designing typefaces he was a sculptor, stonecutter and printmaker. He produced the sculptures of Prospero and Ariel for the BBC's Broadcasting House and, as I remember, there was controversy over the size of a certain part of anatomy that Gill was forced to modify.

As well as a Brighton link, there's a Bristol one too: the original design for Gill Sans was first-used in a fascia for a Bristol bookshop, Cleverdons, which was located in Great George Street, off Park Street.

Gill's private life was very colourful. In this respect, Fiona McCarthy's biography, Eric Gill (first published in 1989), is well worth a read if you can find a copy. In it she brings to life Gill's diaries, revealing sexual relations with his own children, sister... and pet dog.

machinima

2011-01-11T15:40:00.001Z

Screengrab from Mathieu Weschler's The Trashmaster

One cold winter's afternoon about five years ago I came up with the idea to shoot some footage of Grand Theft Auto III on my camcorder and edit it into a kind of action-packed film trailer.

I pulled the curtains, set the camcorder up on a tripod, booted up the game on my PlayStation 2 and began filming some live action. Using the controller, I made Claude (the game's protagonist) run around the Liberty City streets causing various degrees of mayhem: shooting, blowing things up, jacking cars, trying to escape the cops on four wheels - that kind of thing. Then I used a firewire cable to download the footage onto my PC and began editing it together in Movie Maker.

The resulting edited sequence wasn't bad. It only lasted a minute or so but it had been fun putting it together. These were the days before I was in the habit of uploading videos (YouTube was in its infancy) so it stayed on my computer. Hardly anybody saw it.

I was reminded of this little project today after reading about The Trashmaster, a feature length film made using the 3D engine of Grand Theft Auto IV. French filmmaker Mathieu Weschler spent two years on the project, working to an original script. When you watch the film you see Liberty City (based on New York City) and the game's protagonist, Nico Bellic, just as they are in the game.

The trashmaster (nouvelle version nouvelle voix-off !) Uploaded by murakawa

This process, of using real-time videogame graphics to create animation is called machinima. The technique dates back to the 1980s and 90s but the first real machinima movie to use narrative (as opposed to simply recording gameplay) emerged from the videogame Quake. Diary of a Camper was only 1 minute 36 seconds in length but is acknowledged as establishing videogames as a medium for filmmaking, as well as inspiring more 'Quake movies'.

Nowadays, machinima has become more mainstream; for instance, the BBC's Time Commanders series on TV used the engine behind the strategy videogame Rome: Total War. That said, the genre is still mainly the preserve of dedicated fans.

Little did I know, back on that afternoon half a decade ago, that I was engaging in a crude form of machinima. To tell the truth, I didn't even know what the term meant until I read this post on Rockstar Newswire today. I'm pretty certain the short video I made no longer exists - no doubt the victim of several computer upgrades over the years. I think that's probably for the best.

undercity

2011-01-10T15:43:00.002Z

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo.

This extraordinary film of urban exploration under - and above - the streets of New York City is well worth 28 minutes of your time.

Make yourself a cup of tea, settle down and enjoy.

Sussex by the Sea

2011-01-08T09:56:00.003Z

Maybe it's because Brighton and Hove Albion are playing in the FA Cup today, but as I tucked into my Ready Brek this morning I got to thinking about Sussex by the Sea, the anthem played as the team runs onto the pitch. I was wondering if they would still play the music at the new Amex stadium at Falmer when it begins hosting matches in August.

If you're not familiar with the tune you can listen to it here, courtesy of the East Sussex Concert Band.

It's a rousing, spirited anthem that instills pride in anybody born or raised in the county of Sussex; and still today it's played in all of the county's schools each morning before lessons begin. Okay, I made all this up. But as someone who frequently saw the Albion run onto the Goldstone pitch with Sussex by the Sea piped from the tinny Goldstone tannoy I can't help but feel a sense of belonging whenever I hear it. Just as generations of my Albion-supporting family will have heard it on home game Saturday afternoons or cold weekday evenings gone by, I would hate for that to end when the club moves into the new stadium and a new era later in the year.

The Argus' football writer Andy Naylor has already been shot down by a vocal majority for having the audacity to suggest something more modern and uplifting be used at the new stadium. Too right: the move to the Amex will be the dawn of a new era in Albion's history, a far cry from the Goldstone terraces my grandad, uncle and dad stood on. Having the team run out to the club's traditional anthem will keep the spirit of those times alive.

piracy

2011-01-05T22:29:00.000Z

Help fight digital piracy. Don't retweet.

@ceoSteveJobs

what's in your cookbooks?

2011-01-04T21:56:00.001Z

We do our best to plan our meals and shop accordingly. But each weekend, when it comes to deciding what to cook for the week ahead, it can be a painful experience, akin to pulling teeth.

Over the years I've tried various systems to remind myself of all the nice things we've cooked in the past - things that seem to evade my memory when confronted with one of the blank weekly meal plan sheets I designed. Consequently, we tend to repeat the same old staples week after week. We do try new recipes quite regularly, but when inspiration is lacking we get a bit lazy and boring.

No plan to remember different meals we've prepared has ever really succeeded: a spreadsheet I set up involved typing out long lists of ingredients which became boring after a while so I gave up. Recently I began photographing recipes from books using my iPhone and Awesome Note but until I began writing this post I'd actually forgotten about that...

So I'm quite relieved to announce that things are going to change! No longer will we be stuck for ideas! Why? Because whatsinmycookbooks.com has arrived...

Once you've registered you add any recipe books that you actually own to your virtual bookshelf on the site. Then you can search by entering up to five ingredients. Matching recipes are displayed telling you which book they feature in as well as the page numbers - so you just find the book on your shelf at home and away you go. Brilliant!

The site was only launched today and the list of books you can add to your virtual shelf are rather limited at the moment - plans are afoot to substantially improve this over the next year.

For me, whatsinmycookbooks.com is already the answer to my prayers. For once I'm actually looking forward to some easier meal planning this weekend... as well as some more interesting dinners from now on...

parental tech support

2011-01-02T20:43:00.000Z

Parental tech support.

One of the most stressful things a computer-savvy son or daughter can undertake.

If there's one thing I'd like explained to me before I die it's how most simple, basic, remedial processes are rendered time-devouring, frustrating, annoying, tear-inducing problems when you're dealing with a parents' computer?

I always look forward to going home to see my folks, but as soon as I've hung up my coat the inevitable, "Oh, I need you to sort something out for me on the computer," sends shivers and waves of panic down my spine.

Because I know that the most basic of tasks are nowhere near basic when you're logged on to a computer at your parents' house.

Even worse is attempting parental tech support over the phone. That's a whole new ball-game.

Suddenly, the mouse doesn't work... I can't see a Search box... the password's been rejected... the screen's gone blank... which one's the Enter key?... it says the driver wasn't found... I'm clicking but nothing's happening... the page isn't loading... the webcam's stopped working...

Completely, totally, utterly inexplicable and annoying.

So on a similar note I thought I'd point you in the direction of this, from McSweeney's. Sums up the sheer frustration much better than I could hope to...

you know you're in Somerset...

2011-01-01T22:00:00.002Z

...when the train driver comes over the tannoy just outside Taunton to say there are four bullocks blocking the track up ahead.

@idleformat

brief guide to life

2011-01-01T20:00:00.046Z

I've been using Instapaper a lot recently.

It just so happened that yesterday evening I was going through a list of saved Google Reader posts when I came across this, entitled A Brief Guide to Life, from the blog zenhabits.net.

I'm a sucker for all those lifehacking/self-improvement type blogs. But M will tell you it never got me anywhere ;)

2011's looking like it could be quite a ride. So I decided that this guide would make a nice little manifesto for the year ahead...

less TV, more reading
less shopping, more outdoors
less clutter, more space
less rush, more slowness
less consuming, more creating
less junk, more real food
less busywork, more impact
less driving, more walking
less noise, more solitude
less focus on the future, more on the present
less work, more play
less worry, more smiles
breathe

blogging like it's 2008

2011-01-01T18:25:00.005Z

Hey! We're back!

Things have been a bit quiet round here lately but the new year brings a fresh start, new resolutions and a new impetus.

It's going to be a little different from now on. The plan is to blog more frequently and blog more about things I find interesting. I guess the idea is to try to use this as a kind of online scrapbook, but we'll see how that goes.

Blogging has become a bit unfashionable since Twitter and Facebook became the norm but there have been sparks of a resurgence in recent months (see here, here, here and here). That hasn't quite rubbed off on this blog though: posts here hit a peak in 2008 (110) but were less than half that in 2009 (45). 2010 saw a slight improvement (well, hardly) at 47.

So the aim for this year is to beat 2008's number of posts...

That means plenty of scraping the bottom of various barrels but if you're a previous visitor to this site you'll be used to that. So, let's get cracking... second post of 2011 coming up shortly...

Happy New Year folks!

washer downer

2010-11-19T15:22:00.005Z

And after a hefty fish finger sandwich, what better way to wash it down than with a nice pot of tea...

retro, with a modern twist

2010-11-19T15:07:00.001Z

Fish Finger sandwich on Flickr

On the bus journey home at lunchtime I was overcome with the urge for a fish finger sandwich. But not just any old fish finger sandwich. The folks down at Bill's have perfected it: thick slices of white bread, the best fish fingers you can get hold of, tartare sauce, a healthy pile of rocket and finished off with classic tomato ketchup. An amazing combination. You know you want one...

Instagram

2010-11-16T08:40:00.002Z

Birthday breakfast on Flickr

Following in the slightly-eroded footsteps of all the trendy geeky designer types, I've been using this fun little app for a couple of weeks now. You snap a photo, choose a lo-fi effect and it's immediately posted to your stream and to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr if you wish. There are loads of apps around that replicate the toy camera look and, if I'm honest, the sheer effortlessness of it all makes me feel slightly guilty each time I shoot something. But it's great fun to use. And it also serves to jazz up photos taken by the rather basic iPhone camera...

old love affair

2010-10-09T20:38:00.001+01:00

Growing up I'd have a can of Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup every Saturday lunchtime. My nan would heat it up in her old saucepan with the missing handle, always leaving it until it started bubbling away (thereby impairing the flavour according to the label) which led to the routine of tearing up the two slices of accompanying white bread, dipping the chunks into the soup at the [cooler] edge of the bowl and eating those before using a spoon to enjoy the rest when it had cooled to a temperature that wouldn't boil the roof of my mouth. In my adult years I've gone through long phases without Heinz Tomato Soup but in recent months the old love affair has been rekindled. These days, the thicker the bread the better. And it has to be white bread: brown or anything else just doesn't cut it. Also, despite the warning, I heat it on the hob for far too long until it's almost boiling just like my nan used to back in those lovely old days. Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup is 100 years old this year and, along with our reacquaintance, I've been digging the retro-style cans almost as much as the soup itself...

gone?

2010-10-05T16:44:00.004+01:00

Woke up to hear that Hastings Pier was severely damaged by fire during the night. According to reports 95% of the superstructure has been lost. Just hope they can manage to rebuild it as they have in Weston-super-Mare, though having said that, at least Weston's was functional when it burned down; Hastings Pier has been closed to the public since 2006...

play. stop. rewind. repeat.

2010-10-04T18:06:00.001+01:00

"Scroll back up..."

"Okay."

[Pointing] "Does that mean you've listened to that track ELEVEN times this week?"

"Er... yeah."

That's M looking at my Last.fm history last night. To her, listening to the same track over and over again is unusual, a bit weird. To me it's normal and always has been.

Music for me is definitely tied in with my mood. But, more specifically, over the past year I've worked out that it is actually more a source of comfort. Since I was very young music has provided a necessary soundtrack to my life, to the extent that when it isn't going in through my ears it'll almost certainly be going round inside my head. As a result I often feel a compulsion to listen to a particular track which isn't satisfied until I've played it. But then, inevitably, one listen isn't enough. In the past, particularly when I lived alone, if that urge hit while I was watching a DVD for instance, I'd switch the film off or play the music through headphones while the film continued playing. As a child this need manifested itself in a deeper way when I didn't only repeat certain songs playing on a record or cassette player, I'd actually forward to particular sections of songs or music and listen to those over and over before rewinding and replaying. Back in the pre-Walkman days, if there was no music on family car journeys I'd just hum tunes to myself and annoy everybody else. Throughout my life, whenever I find an album that particularly resonates with me I'll listen to that on repeat, over a period of days or weeks or months. Despite having an iPod crammed with different artists and genres it seems that, at a given time, only a tiny selection - whichever is currently in favour - will ever be listened to. For me, music acts as a kind of comforter.

The downside to this behaviour is that listening to the radio just doesn't work for me. As a teenager stacking shelves during supermarket night shifts, I used to hate it when colleagues would play the radio because its invasiveness edged out the far preferable, comforting music playing in my mind. I find advertising and talking between tracks incredibly intrusive. But the randomness of radio - not enjoying what's playing at a particular moment and not knowing what's coming next - make it difficult for me to stay tuned to a station for very long because my attention span just won't stand for it. I suppose the real problem is most stations just don't play what I want to hear. That said, in recent years M has introduced me to the joys of having 6Music on in the background from time to time and I've been fortunate to discover some beautiful tracks.

In this age of portable MP3 players, using random is largely a no-no for me too, unless it's a playlist I've carefully put together. What I'll usually do is cue tracks as I'm listening, depending on how I'm feeling and what springs to mind at the time. So if you're one of the many drivers passing me on my walk to work in the morning it's a fair bet I've got my head down, looking at my iPod screen, navigating to the next track. Last.fm generates random radio stations based around particular artists or genres but again, it rarely seems to work for me: I end up continually hitting the skip button or generating a new radio station until I hear something suitable or give up.

Over the past few years I've tried to embrace randomness a bit more often in a bid to discover new music. It might seem a bit contradictory, given what's been said so far, but discovering new music has never been much of a problem for me and I like to think that I'm into allsorts of weird and wonderful sounds. Granted, the internet has made this easier, for example by being able to instantly check out the recommendations of others. And sharing a flat with my girlfriend over the past two years has also meant listening to her choice of music sometimes, not just mine - definitely a positive thing. I'd never come across Martha Wainwright or Joan As Police Woman before moving in with M but I've seen both perform in Bristol. That said, I'm sorry to say my repetitious playing of these new-found artists has resulted in M becoming not so keen on them as she once was...!

counterbalance

2010-10-04T15:05:00.001+01:00

guardian.co.uk, 25/09/2010

take me home

2010-10-04T14:50:00.003+01:00

under the skin

2010-10-01T10:41:00.005+01:00

We were only in San Francisco for a week but in that short time it embedded itself under my skin. England has seemed a depressingly dreary place ever since my feet touched the ground at our awful Heathrow airport. Unsurprisingly, I took far too many photos while I was away and have only recently got around to uploading them to Flickr. You can find them here but it's going to take a while to label and tag them all properly. There'll be more SF posts here too over time...

Apple alphabet

2010-09-23T20:57:00.001+01:00

abcdefghi^TMjklmnopqrstuvwxyz

@ceoSteveJobs

wayfinding

2010-08-25T21:30:00.003+01:00

Brighton and Hove's pedestrian wayfinding system is almost a year old but last week's trip gave me my first opportunity to check out the signs properly, having only noticed them from a bus last time I was in town. On the face of it they're very similar in design to the ground-breaking and award-winning Bristol Legible City system - the UK's first major city legibility project - introduced in 1997. But then there's a reason for this: Applied Information Group have had a hand in the design of both cities' systems (and others in Leeds, London, Glasgow, Dublin and Vancouver).

Because I love this kind of stuff, long before I moved here, Bristol's beautifully-designed series of direction signs, information panels and area maps was one of the few things I knew about the city. Justifiably it went on to win awards from both Regional Planning and the Royal Town Planning Institute.

The Brighton and Hove signs are equally well-designed and actually go a step further in giving pedestrians an estimation of the time taken to reach a given destination. As with Bristol, the maps are oriented to reflect the direction you're facing and there are indicators letting you know how far you can walk in 5 minutes, though there seems less emphasis on showing certain landmark buildings within sight in 3D. But they do use a wider colour palette. Moreover, being a larger city, Bristol's system places a certain emphasis on where you are within the city as a whole and signs are not just found in the central area. In Brighton this is less important - though I'm led to believe there are plans to expand the system.

For me, these wayfinding systems are not just about helping residents and visitors navigate the city; they provide a strong visual identity, bringing disparate areas together into a coherent whole (much as street name signs bearing the city logo whether they're in Mile Oak, Woodingdean, Portslade or Hollingbury do). My only fear in Brighton is the propensity to cover any signage in grafitti and stickers - in which case let's hope the council manages to keep them clean... and therefore useful...

the street cassettes of Brighton

2010-08-24T20:54:00.001+01:00

During a very brief trip to Brighton last Friday I was pleased to finally catch sight of some of these fantastic repainted telephone wiring cabinets around town (apparently they're called PCPs - Primary Connection Points). The examples shown here are on Queens Road but there are more around the New England Quarter apparently. They're by Cassette Lord, a graffiti artist who moved to Brighton from Portsmouth in 2001. Personally, I love them: for the sole reason that each repainted cabinet succeeds at turning ugly (but necessary) street furniture, ordinarily unnoticed, into a work of art. After all, so much of the urban environment is depressingly bland: why shouldn't streetlamps be painted in rainbow stripes? Why not brightly-coloured railings? Why not cover dark green telephone cabinets with colourful lo-fi cassette graphics? Full marks to Brighton & Hove City Council on this - they don't do everything right but they did initiate this project and have a pretty good record of supporting artists (as with the graffiti jams at New England Quarter a few years ago). A good example of some forward-thinking by a local authority, working with artists rather than against them. Nice work!

iPad love

2010-08-09T10:48:00.002+01:00

Before Saturday the iPad was an item of technology I wasn't too fussed about. I wasn't particularly impressed by its launch, had no plans to buy one and couldn't imagine a time when I could afford one.

That was until I wandered into the Apple Store at the weekend.

I'd played around with the MacBook. Fumbled with the iPhone 4. I've lusted after both for a while now... But then I picked up the iPad. And fell in love. Again.

You've seen the ads by now. But everything they say is true. It's beautiful: incredibly easy to use; the display so detailed and crystal-clear. I've absolutely no use for one, still can't afford it and would be nervous whipping it out in public. But for browsing the web at home it's perfect.

Wonder if I can persuade M that we need one...

more travels around Cornwall

2010-08-07T20:46:00.003+01:00

As a child of the south-east English coastline I remember being blown away on first seeing the beautiful turquoise sea off Cornwall during a childhood holiday. Back home the sea was grey-green, the beaches pebbly. Here, the sea was blue and inviting, the beaches golden. And there were palm trees!

Cornwall continues to hold an idyllic allure over me. On our trip to stay with M's sister and neice this year, nestled way down in the farthest reaches of Land's End, we enjoyed another performance at the stunning clifftop Minack Theatre (thanks to our hosts who both work there). Showing was the Stamford Shoestring Theatre's On The Razzle, a Tom Stoppard adaption of a nineteenth century Viennese play. Even with my poor attention span I managed to stick with the story to the end. Coupled with a lovely Minack Cornish pasty made for a very enjoyable first evening away.

On Saturday we had a mooch around the picturesque little fishing village of Mousehole before heading to Penzance and enjoying a tasty lunch in Archie Browns, a health food shop/deli/cafe that wouldn't feel out of place in North Laine. As the afternoon wore on we found ourselves at Penlee House Gallery & Museum which housed some beautiful old Cornish paintings.

Sunday was spent in Falmouth. I was expecting a more 'arty' place than I found. To be honest it was a bit bleak, but then the rain didn't help. Highlight of the day was definitely the fish and chips from Rick Stein's - superb and definitely recommended.

On Monday our hosts had to work so we went on a clifftop ramble from the Minack eastwards to a beautiful isolated sandy bay at Porth Chapel. For a change the sun was beating down and by the time we'd clambered down the rocks to the beach we were ready to jump in to the sea to cool down. Unfortunately, I completely overestimated how warm it would be at 11am and found myself running back onto the shore even more eagerly than when I'd run in seconds before. It was heartstoppingly cold. As I turned around I saw that a group of young women were enjoying a swim, up to their necks in the freezing ocean: hardier souls than me. I didn't have the courage to venture back in...

Later we met up with our hosts who'd finished work for the day at lunchtime. We sat outside the front of the house catching up with their artist neighbour who, the day before, had shown us a selection of his wonderful Cornish coastline-inspired paintings in his shed-cum-studio. I would happily have brought any back home for the wall above our fireplace; one in particular really caught my eye. But given the price of the print, let alone original, meant it will remain in Cornwall until someone with a lot more money than me comes along.

Before we set off for home in the afternoon we all enjoyed a cream tea at the cafe in the remote coastal hamlet of Porthgwarra. This was about as isolated as it gets: just a scattering of cottages around a cove accessed by a track. Ironically, despite being the only non-Cornish person present I was the only one to prepare their cream tea the true Cornish way: jam first, then cream on top (cream then jam is the despised Devon way!).

And so our 2010 trip to the south-west corner of England came to an end. Sadly, after this third trip, I still haven't gone surfing in Cornwall and still haven't got wet up to my neck in its sea. All the more reason to hopefully return again next year I guess...

Yorkshire

2010-07-26T16:42:00.009+01:00

Summer's great for getting out of the city and visiting friends, family and places you don't often see. A few weekends ago we were asked to babysit for M's cousin who lives near Chippenham, a short drive east along the M4. Given they have an outdoor pool, vast garden and were having a barbecue - coupled with the blazing hot weather forecast - meant we jumped at the chance.

Then the weekend before last we embarked on a much longer trip, having been invited to stay with friends in Leeds. Up bright and early we arrived before lunchtime which meant we could spent the afternoon exploring the city, first visiting the art gallery and then heading to one of the few MUJI stores outside London. I was especially impressed by the magnificent shopping arcades in the city centre, architecturally a lot more interesting than the main shopping area in Bristol which completely depresses me - even on sunny days.

On Sunday we visited Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site owned by the National Trust. We spent several hours wandering the estate and gardens before stopping off in Harrogate to visit Betty's Tea Rooms, an establishment that was a bit lah-de-dah for me but where we enjoyed a huge cream tea (another good thing about summer).

We had to leave on Monday but on the way back visited the superb Yorkshire Sculpture Park which is hosting a major exhibition of ex-Brighton College student David Nash's work until early next year (more info here). YSP also houses its own collection within a beautiful parkland setting, including work by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. We spent a good few hours looking around before having lunch on the cafe's terrace. The place is an absolute dream for photographers and you could quite easily spend the whole day here but, to be honest, it was so hot we left shortly after lunch for the long drive back. Meanwhile, the summer continues and I'm looking forward to our next trip and possibly the opportunity of some outdoor swimming: Cornwall!

lost in translation

2010-07-21T13:28:00.001+01:00

I'm sorry to say I never got around to writing about our travels to Crete last September. We stayed with M's parents who were living out there at the time and spent a very relaxful week swimming in the sea, reading, eating fantastic Greek food and exploring the island. Recently I had a bunch of photos printed and last night, as I was filing them in an album, came across an image I took of this bizarre sign outside a harbourside bar in Chania. I've heard of Engrish, but is this example of 'lost in translation' a case of Grenglish? Or Greeklish?

gadge

2010-07-13T17:06:00.000+01:00

On Saturday we caught the train to Chippenham to hook up with some old friends of mine whose son was taking part in the Dragon Boat Races on the River Avon. Except it turned out he wasn't actually taking part. Oh well. Earlier in the week I'd read that Five's Gadget Show would be in attendance - good news for me as The Gadge is essential viewing. So we were very lucky to arrive just as the race between presenters Jason Bradbury and Ortis Deley, in futuristic-looking water-borne craft, was finishing. I managed to grab my camera and get these shots as they headed back down the river. I won't say who won - check out the new series when it starts later in the year...

five songs I first heard on BBC Radio 6 Music...

2010-07-12T20:30:00.003+01:00

Five beautiful songs. Five reasons why I'm pleased they're not closing the station after all.

Marissa Nadler - Diamond Heart

Lambchop - My Blue Wave

Dillard and Clark - Train Leaves Here This Morning

Colleen - Sun Against My Eyes

Tula - No Name

bees

2010-07-08T15:14:00.003+01:00

Following on from my last post here's some more Ashton Court wildlife action: a pair of bees caught collecting pollen on this Buddleia bush yesterday afternoon. Buddleia are apparently also commonly known as Butterfly Bush because they're so popular with butterflies. There are plenty of those around Ashton Court too but I need to be a bit quicker with the camera to catch them...

wildlife on the way to work

2010-07-08T12:49:00.005+01:00

Most mornings I walk through the deer park at Ashton Court. Every now and again I enter the enclosure to find the herd congregated across the path, right where I'm headed. It's rather strange as one-by-one they get the message that somebody is approaching until finally almost every pair of eyes is staring at me. And then they begin to move away; some bolt, others idly wander. But you can get pretty close. Today was one such morning. I took this photo after my presence had disturbed them. As you can see, they didn't move too far away. You can also notice that several were interested in what I was doing as I crouched down with my camera.

It's a real privilege to be able to walk through such an amazing place on my way to and from work. In the past I've seen goldfinches, robins, swifts, sparrows, pied wagtails, magpies, great tits, blackbirds, crows and jackdaws. One afternoon last week I saw what looked like a whitethroat, though I'm still checking on that one. The real pleasure is seeing the resident buzzard hovering ahead. One morning I was treated to such a spectacle only about twenty feet above my head. Sadly, I didn't have a camera but on other occasions, where the path circles up above a dip I have found myself almost level with the buzzard as it stalks its prey.

a walk in the woods

2010-07-05T10:56:00.002+01:00

Back on a blazing hot day in May we met up with my folks who were holidaying in Somerset and drove over the old Severn Bridge to the Forest of Dean. The three mile walk we embarked upon before sitting down for a picnic took us through some beautiful woodland, over wooden bridges and along streams and rivers. It also took us up some killer hills too. I only just found the photos from that day on my camera, so here are my mum's three border collies enjoying the water along the way...

millpond

2010-06-26T20:15:00.001+01:00

After an early breakfast at the excellent Lockside (formerly Sid's Cafe in Only Fools and Horses, though thankfully a bit more upmarket nowadays) we headed to Clevedon for a walk along the coastal path up by the golf course. As you can see from the photo of Clevedon Pier, the sea was like a millpond.

song

2010-06-24T20:43:00.003+01:00

Very happy to discover It's Immaterial's gem of an album, Song, has been reissued within the past year. The week it was released back in 1990 I bought it on cassette and over the course of the summer it practically became glued inside my Walkman. Achingly beautiful songs with themes of suburbia, shop floors, unemployment, coastal freighters, northern England, resignation, loneliness and desperation probably don't sound the ideal 'summer soundtrack' but the album, some twenty years later and with Britain gritting its teeth amid more economical and political severity, resonates as powerfully as it did back then. Song is a classic-that-never-was; a timeless album that originally passed by unnoticed because at the time there was other music coming out of Manchester that was catching the nation's attention. It's great to have it back.

a few things...

2010-06-23T13:37:00.001+01:00

...I haven't had time to blog about over the past busy couple of months...

An Evening with Rufus Wainwright, Colston Hall, 23 April

It's not often you turn up for a gig only to be told, as you enter the auditorium, not to applaud during the first act, but this is precisely what happened at Rufus' Colston Hall outing in April (albeit for the first half of the show). As if in a procession, Rufus slowly and deliberately made his way onto the stage wearing a gown with a long train, sat at a piano amid absolute silence and proceeded to perform his recent piano-and-vocal-only album, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu in its entirety. At the time I wasn't really familiar with the album but since that evening have been listening to it over and over (though my compulsion to listen to certain tracks or albums repeatedly for weeks on end is routine for me). The audience politely respected the request not to applaud which made for a slightly strange experience, as each song ended to deafening silence. But I was mesmerised - it was an extraordinary performance and, for some reason, I found myself taken back to those days of living in New York (much as I did during the excellent Antony and the Johnsons gig at the Colston Hall a year ago). The fact that I've never actually lived in New York - only visited for five days in 2006 - is besides the point; there's something about the music that takes me there.

After the interval a more casually-dressed Rufus returned and proceeded to make his way through some of his earlier and better-known songs. He joked with the audience between songs and, of course, we were now allowed to be as noisy as we liked. One thing that did become frustrating was the number of people using camera flashes - I found it very annoying, particularly as one of the culprits was sitting not far to the left of me. But that soon settled down and I was sad to see the gig end. Beguiling is not a word I would use in the outside world for fear of being punched in the face, but that's exactly what it was. A truly fantastic evening.

Electric Hotel, Waterfront Square, 22 May
Never have I been so confused but enjoyed it so much. Electric Hotel, a site-specific contemporary dance performance, was staged as part of Bristol's Mayfest. We arrived at the outdoor location as darkness fell and were handed wireless headphones as we entered. At the front was a huge 4-storey 'hotel' made from stacked former shipping containers. As the performance began, blinds were raised to reveal a nightclub and swimming pool on top, rooms, corridors and stairways below. For the next hour or so we eavesdropped the lives of characters in the hotel, the soundtrack through the headphones dipping into different rooms. I didn't have a clue what was going on but the choreography was astounding - at times two or more dancers played one character and as they'd enter a door via a corridor above you'd see the same character enter a room below. Amazing. Unfortunately, the whole thing passed far too quickly...

Triptych, Brewery Theatre, 20 May

This was crazy. Papier mache, overhead projectors, shadow puppets and a tree costume combined to tell three childlike stories - the third of which was by far the most memorable, if absolutely bizarre: the oldest man in the world goes for a walk, ends up in a jazz club where the Egg Baby plays drums. It's a bit of a sad ending but over a month later I can still hum the catchy Oldest Man in the World song that accompanied it. And I would bet that, if you're reading this and were there, you can too!

bookmarks

2010-06-21T20:59:00.001+01:00

After a hectic couple of months (moving, exams) I've finally managed to complete my set of 100 bookmarks for the Bookmarks VIII project organised by the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England. In the past artists have been invited to make a set of 100 signed and numbered bookmarks which have then been given away in various locations across the world. This year, people who work in libraries have made the bookmarks (that's how I came to get involved). My set features a quote by Zora Neale Hurston against 10 photographs I've taken of the sea, inspired by the notion of homesickness. They'll be set free across the globe over the next few months and I'm looking forward to hearing from anyone who picks one up (there are contact details on the back). I've added a page about the set here.

new Waterstones logo

2010-05-14T12:12:00.000+01:00

Nice modern typeface spoiled by a logo of somebody's bare backside about to sit on it.

Here's what Creative Review and The Register make of it.

Jackson

2010-05-11T14:35:00.000+01:00

It was with great sadness that I learned that Jackson, Brighton's World Famous Wire Fox Terrier, passed quietly away in his sleep on Sunday night. Jackson came to his owners J1 & J2 in 2004 from Fox Terrier Rescue and was probably the bravest dog I'll have the pleasure to meet. The list of illnesses and major surgery he brushed aside during the course of his life ran the length of your arm, yet it was always with surprise that on each of the several occasions I saw him he was full of energy, a real livewire, always ready to tear a toy to pieces - something I would always struggle to comprehend. Was this really the dog, seemingly constantly in and out of the veterinary practice, that I kept reading about on his excellent blog, Jackson's World?! Of course it was; I just never saw him during those times when illness had the upper hand.

I must confess to feeling a bit winded when I read of the news last night. It may seem strange to admit that when it wasn't my own pet that passed away but over years of following updates on the blog it was clear that this was a very special dog, one that seemed to just keep on getting back up after each brush with illness. In that respect Jackson was an absolute inspiration. He has a huge following online and I know that there will be a great number of saddened followers across the world today.

My condolences of course go to J1 and J2.

Inspired by Wire Fox Terriers and, no doubt by Watson (Jackson's predecessor) and Jackson himself, his owner (and friend of mine) J1 has carefully established a wonderful little sideline in beautifully-designed WFT-inspired gifts. Please check out her site over at Forever Foxed. A percentage of profits are donated toward Fox Terrier organisations in both the UK and USA.

Photo of Jackson taken from Jackson's World blog.

Adam, Louis, Elliott... and me

2010-04-27T09:16:00.002+01:00

Probably about ten years or so ago the now-defunct Select magazine ran an conversational interview between Louis Theroux and Elliott Smith. At the time both were enjoying considerable success in their respective fields (though perhaps in Elliott's case 'enjoying' is probably the wrong word): Louis Theroux had made a string of popular Weird Weekends documentaries while Elliott Smith had performed at the Oscars and released the best-selling album of his career in XO.

Three years later Smith was dead. I was on an early morning commuter train from Brighton to Surrey when I found out, skimming through The Independent. There it was: a photo of the lank-haired singer taking up much of the page with the headline: Suicide theory as cult folk singer Elliott Smith is found dead. I felt as though I'd been punched in the stomach.

I'd saved a few articles and interviews over the years and tried to find the Select piece with Louis Theroux, but it had gone, evidently thrown out by mistake during a move sometime I guess. Over the years I've tried to find it online but without success. But then a few weeks ago Adam Buxton put a call out for questions to ask Louis during one of his excellent new Mixtape programmes for BBC 6Music. I posted a sprawling paragraph about the interview back in 2000 and wondered what Louis remembered of his meeting with the singer. Well, the show was broadcast this weekend and I was very pleased to hear Adam ask my question and Louis spend a few minutes answering before introducing the excellent Independence Day. You can listen to/download the podcast here.

A future Mixtape show will feature Jon Ronson, of whom I'm also a big fan. We held an event with him at Waterstone's in Brighton a few years back and he insisted on feeding poor Anton a joke to tell the audience before he went on so they would be in a good spirits. Brilliant!

If the BBC have their way they'll close 6Music next year and a huge chunk of interesting radio will disappear: #save6Music

nice ending

2010-04-22T16:48:00.007+01:00

This morning I was about to cross the Suspension Bridge when I overheard a woman in jogging gear just ahead order her two young sons on bikes to hurry up before they 'got trapped' by pedestrians on the bridge. I wondered what she meant as I overtook them before reaching the bridge but then, a minute or two later, when I was halfway across, it was clear what she had meant: for I was in her way. This was confirmed when I heard 'BEEP! BEEP!' being shouted from behind by one of the little kids. 'He won't hear you' the mother said in an annoyed tone - like I was doing something wrong - but the youngster didn't give up. 'Beep! Beep!' he continued, louder.

Now if you've crossed the Suspension Bridge as a pedestrian you'll know that it's not very wide and you have to keep well to the side if people are coming in the opposite direction. However, this doesn't stop complete morons every now and again cycling along the walkway rather than riding on the road part of the bridge like they're supposed to. Every time that happens it annoys me like crazy. Cyclists who use pavements are enough of a nuisance, but when one's coming at me on the narrow Suspension Bridge walkway it makes me want to push them into the River Avon below.

So back to this morning: I was almost across now and had listened to all the noises coming from the kid and heard how annoyed the jogging mother was. Had it not occured to them to just say 'excuse me', for which I would have moved aside. Oh no. Why not? Because this part of Bristol is full of obnoxious, snobby, rude, middle-class types who don't give a toss about other people and think they can just brush them aside. And that's why I'm not going to let them pass. Besides, they're lucky I heard them at all: usually I'm wearing my headphones plugged into my iPod but this morning I couldn't find the flippin' thing (Where the hell is it???!). But I'm kind of glad that I didn't have it because if I had I wouldn't have heard the nice ending to all of this. I kept up my normal pace right to the end of the bridge with them all breathing down my neck and then mum announced 'Right! Come on! Overtake now!'.

A cycle ridden by the older son passed me. And then, OUUUUCCCCHHHHH!!!! A loud shriek of pain came from the mother as her younger son rode his bike into her ankle...

Vashti Bunyan

2010-04-09T11:19:00.001+01:00

Last night we saw the lovely Vashti Bunyan perform her achingly beautiful songs in front of a disappointingly sparse audience at St George's Bristol. To be honest, the lack of people made for a far more intimate experience but it was a bit of a poor effort from what is apparently the UK's 'most musical city'. The performance itself was superb, and Vashti's frail folk songs were enriched by the backing by three young musicians on guitar, recorders, piano and some other glock-sounding instruments I've never seen before. For over an hour I was transported to a slower-paced world, free from stress, where the sun shines permanently down on a folksy rural idyll. Whatever that means. This was also the first gig at St George's where I've been impressed by the accoustics, sound was crystal clear, perfect. This was the start of a tour that takes in some UK dates and several in Europe. For any Brighton friends tuning in Vashti Bunyan is appearing at St Georges Church there on Saturday - should be a better turn out there given she's signed to Brighton's FatCat label.

back to the bakery

2010-03-19T16:57:00.000Z

Lyme Regis. Home of the wonderful Town Mill Bakery (first visited and blogged about here and hopefully opening in Bristol soon). We were in Somerset last Saturday morning wondering where to spend the sunny day and it turned out we were only an hour's drive from Lyme, so that's where we headed. It was great being by the sea again - first thing I noticed as we reached the seafront was the salty air. How I miss it. We had a late-morning coffee at the Town Mill Bakery before walking along the prom to the Cobb and then back again. Lots of people about, beautiful sunshine, salty air - a perfect spring day by the seaside.

apologies Brighton

2010-03-19T15:07:00.004Z

Apologies to folks back in Brighton who I never got a chance to meet up with this week. It was a shorter trip than originally planned and most of my one day back in the city was spent visiting my grandad who's recovering from an operation he had early in the new year. That was Wednesday. Brighton was looking great in the sunshine, buzzing as ever. I particularly liked the new map/signposts on Queens Road (should've taken a photo). Had an amazing fish finger sandwich in Bill's: nice thick bread, tartare sauce, decent fish fingers, ketchup and rocket. Glad that place is still around. Then Woodingdean for the afternoon, back to the house that holds many fond memories and used to entertain the whole family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, parents) but now so quiet, just my grandad left. Had a weird trip back into town on a #2 bus (noisy, chaotic) and by then cloud had replaced the sunshine and I could feel myself going down with something. Next day (yesterday) felt ill, coldy and drained, so got the earliest train back to Bristol. Two changes and 6 hours later I was back and went straight to bed. So sorry I missed everybody down there except S&H (although it's been energising to hook up with several old friends who've made it to these parts recently). I'll be back soon to catch up when it's warmer and when I've finally got over this string of colds that have laid me low for over a month now. Despite the horrendous train journey I think more frequent trips are in order...

In the meantime, even if you've never been there, even if you don't know where it is, please help save Saltdean Lido...

8001050F-ed

2010-03-01T18:54:00.002Z

Owners of the original 'chunky' PlayStation 3s have woken to find their consoles have been rendered nothing more than expensive doorstops overnight.

Er, that'll be me then.

I powered up for a Heavy Rain session this afternoon (2 days in and it's absolutely gripping) to be confronted with an ominous 8001050F error message telling me the game cannot load. Turns out it's a problem with the system clock - switching to March 1st seems to have thrown millions of PS3s across the world into a spin. Sony are working on a fix. Meanwhile, the now-infamous 8001050F already has it's own Facebook page...

More info: Playstation.Blog / @SonyPlayStation on Twitter

morning fog

2010-03-01T18:33:00.000Z

Today provided another one of those foggy mornings where the Suspension Bridge just seemed to disappear...

Heavy Rain

2010-02-23T16:53:00.017Z

Friday sees the release of a genre-busting video game on the PlayStation 3 that has been described as 'interactive fiction' and 'virtual theatre'. Heavy Rain looks set to be the nearest we've come to a narrative-driven interactive movie, with many likening it to the films of David Fincher. In gamesworld its release is highly anticipated, with even the Guardian wondering whether this is the most important title of the decade.

Heavy Rain is about making decisions. Reviewers have spoken of the game's 'unprecedented emotional connection' (Games TM, #93); the characters are apparently so believable you can't help but become totally immersed in their lives. Rather than move them around an environment, you control decisions and actions via the PS3 controller (many of these actions are completely mundane, others a matter of life and death), thereby affecting how the storyline plays out.

From the instant you are given control of Heavy Rain, there comes the realisation that you’ve never played anything like it before. Ethan Mars lies asleep on his perfect bed in his perfect house, it’s Saturday morning and glorious sunshine pours through the ceiling-high sliding doors. A floating icon prompts you to nudge the right analogue stick, and as you do so, Ethan stirs. Press the stick fully and Ethan sits up, but you do it slowly, unfolding the animation as your character awakens from his dozy reverie.

Ethan then spends the rest of his Saturday morning just the way you’d expect a successful young architect to spend it. He stumbles into the bathroom, with various button prompts fluttering around the room indicating various objects to interact with; the sink, an electric shaver, a toothbrush. Ethan cleans his teeth, you sweep the controller from side to side to mimic his actions, maybe he has a shave (if you’re so inclined), he takes a shower, goes downstairs and glugs orange juice from the carton, makes a coffee, does a little work, maybe watches some TV. All this more virtual theatre than ‘game’ - you as director more than ‘player’ - making decisions, twiddling sticks and pressing buttons to guide Ethan about his morning. (Telegraph)

You control four different characters during the game, starting with Ethan; and the fate of each lies in your hands. Reviews have spoken of the 'weight of consequence' that you feel as you manipulate these characters (once somebody dies there is no going back to an earlier saved game). Moreover, reviewers are suggesting players navigate their way through the story just once, for fear that playing again will simply feel like watching a bunch of deleted scenes. But rather than let the game gather dust on completion Games TM suggests letting a friend or family member have a go, even if they're not usually interested in video games.

But what do I know? The game hasn't been released yet, but for the past week I've been poring over written and video reviews online, and basically getting myself worked up into a frenzy that should see me buying the game as soon as it hits the shelves. 2010 looks like being a great year for my PS3 and me: I'm already eagerly awaiting the console's release of GTA: Episodes from Liberty City (March) and for months have been dreaming of Rockstar's latest, the massive Read Dead Redemption (think: GTA set in the Wild West) due for release in April. Can't wait!

Machinarium

2010-02-21T20:33:00.003Z

Late last year, as the dark nights closed in and the air turned cold, I began playing Machinarium, an addictive little point-and-click puzzle game. Initially, it was the beautiful visuals and atmospheric soundtrack that lured me in, but soon, after completing the demo's first three levels, I found myself sucked in and dutifully downloaded the rest of the game.

You control a little robot, Josef, who goes about a city undoing the mischief wreaked by the Black Cap Brotherhood. They're planning to blow up the tower but there's also Josef's girlfriend to free too - she's been locked up and forced to cook. Using the mouse you solve various puzzles to move on to the next level. If you're anything like me, this usually involves clicking virtually every pixel on the screen to find something to pick up and/or use. A hint is available for each level in the form of an animated thought bubble and if you really get stuck you can get more help by accessing and completing a separate minigame. Because there's no dialogue, either spoken or written, this comes in the form of diagrams. It was a beautiful experience playing this on cold winter evenings: I recommend dimming the lights and wearing headphones for full immersive effect.

Machinarium was developed by a group of Czech developers who financed the projct themselves. The mp3 soundtrack by Tomas Dvorak comes with the download. The game is available on PC, Mac and Linux.

You can play the first three levels of Machinarium free online here.

more near misses

2010-02-19T11:36:00.002Z

On a daily basis I take my life into my own hands by doing something apparently simple like walking to work. Why? Because if you're a pedestrian in Bristol you're the lowest of the low. Car drivers rule. They drive where they like; they park where they like. If it means a woman with a pushchair has to walk out into the road because somebody's parked on the pavement then tough. Moreover, zebra crossings serve only as a nice pattern painted on certain stretches of road. It's taken me a while to realise that you're not actually expected to use them to cross a road safely.

This morning provided yet another example: at a zebra crossing in Clifton two cars drove obliviously through while I was midway across. To be honest, there was no near miss involved - I could tell they weren't going to stop, so I made sure I did. But as I reached the pavement I noticed a guy who'd been walking past had stopped and was facing me.

"None of them stopped???! It's unbelievable! Two cars just drove through while you were crossing!"

This nice friendly American couldn't believe it. I explained that I was used to this occurrence as a pedestrian in Bristol. Zebra crossings count for nothing here. Neither do pedestrians. Even many cyclists seem to think that the pavements are there solely for them.

Getting around is a far cry from what I had become used to in Brighton where public transport is taken seriously (as it is in most other cities) and the council, years ago, decided to try to do something about traffic congestion. There, there's an excellent bus service with electronic signs that give out real-time information regarding when the next bus is due; as a result bus use in the city has soared; car parking is tightly regulated with wardens everywhere so drivers know they can't park wherever they please; and the rail network serves a string stations from Falmer to Worthing. Never, while I lived there, did I ever consider the need to drive a car. I've always walked, got the bus or jumped on a train.

But as I've discovered over the past year, none of that seems to work here, so getting around is a pain. Walking 3 or 4 miles in a city shouldn't be the quickest way for me to get to work but it is. Bristol is the opposite of Brighton & Hove: the sketchy bus service operated by First is despised and expensive; the local rail line serving many inner suburbs is underused and ancient (and again operated by First). Consequently, for a city that prides itself on it's green credentials, everybody drives. There seems to be no real appetite for change - if there was everybody would surely have pulled their finger out by now? And even if there was a decent bus or tram service I'm not sure the people of Bristol would use it. They seem to be too happy in their cars trying to mow down people like me on zebra crossings.

The council's answer to all this is clear: get a bike. But, to be frank, given my experience as a pedestrian on the city's roads, cycling seems suicidal (I've seen an accident here where a cyclist ended up under a lorry and it wasn't nice). You would expect one of the largest cities in Britain to have a modern, 21st century transport system in place to get people around. Sadly, there seems to be little chance of that happening here anytime soon. Bristol, I'm beginning to discover, is a bit of a backwater.

finished!

2010-02-13T22:34:00.000Z

Back in 2008 Rowan posted a series of unfinished sentences on her blog. At the time I thought I'd give it a go but then put it off so many times that I never got round to it. I've always meant to though and recently, with Blogger introducing the concept of pages (rather than just posts), I've taken the opportunity to provide a bit more background info to this blog and finally get around to answering the 40 sentences. You can find them here.

Midlake

2010-02-13T10:15:00.000Z

Midlake are a difficult band to pin down. Their first album sounded a lot like early Grandaddy; the second had a 70s rock feel about it. Their latest, the recently-released The Courage of Others, has a more folksy, Fairport Convention air. With each album their songs seem to have become less infectious. So it was slightly unfortunate for me, then, that during last night's gig at the Anson Rooms any early material was eschewed; many of the songs were newer material and as a result I became easily distracted by the chatter coming from the back of the auditorium - usually in front of where we were standing (it never ceases to amaze me how people can turn up for a gig and just talk all the way through it. I have some live Elliott Smith somewhere where, between songs, he makes a barbed comment about the noise which prompts a huge cheer and applause from the front). Midlake put on a tight performance, the banter with the crowd was nice and they ended with the beautiful Branches as an extended encore so I left happy enough. I guess I'm just one of those 'earlier material' snobs at heart...

smooth

2010-02-04T18:01:00.000Z

Forgot to mention the incredibly smooth pebbles on Budleigh Salterton beach. Granted, I still wouldn't want to walk over them barefoot but they certainly had a Zen-like charm about them.

done!

2010-02-04T17:31:00.001Z

January seems to go on forever: cold, dark, snowy, icy and bleak; basically, a grim old introduction to a new year. But luckily for me, in her infinite wisdom, M planned ahead and late last year booked us a night away at a B&B in a location only revealed to me on the day. So last weekend we headed south, via her parents' in Somerset, and spent a couple of days on the south Devon coast. We visited Beer, a nice little fishing village, then Sidmouth and ended up in Budleigh Salterton, a very pleasant seaside town and winner of my award for Friendliest Place in Britain. It was so friendly, M (born and raised in Cornwall) had to grudgingly re-evaluate her lifelong suspicion of Devon folk. No mean feat. We stayed in a very comfortable B&B on the outskirts of town and enjoyed a meal in comfy local pub on Friday night. As we walked back along the seafront the moonlight reflected on the calm sea was an unforgettable sight (typically, I whipped out my Canon G9 at this point but unfortunately it doesn't handle night very well). We woke on Saturday to clear blue skies, sunshine and a heavy frost. After downing a huge breakfast and checking-out we headed across town to the nature reserve and embarked on a riverside walk inland. Never have I been greeted by so many people as we passed. We ended up at Otterton Mill, a centre for crafts with a gallery, bakery, restaurant and shop before walking back to the seafront. We spent another night in Somerset before returning to the city on Sunday. The following day was 1st February so that was another bleak old January crossed off. 'Done!' as Gordon Ramsay would say...

The Road

2010-02-03T10:59:00.000Z

Last night we went to see The Road - the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel.

My God was it bleak. Probably the bleakest 111 minutes I've spent in a cinema. Very harrowing stuff.

None the less it was a hugely enjoyable film. I'm just not sure I could sit through it again (though I'm strangely drawn to reading the novel now).

I came out feeling I needed to see an episode of [the terrifically upbeat and enjoyable] Glee before heading to bed, just to put me back on an even keel. I didn't and consequently had a nightmare where a woman stood behind three open coffins in a church battled to stuff the suddenly lively cadavers back in during a service...

slumming it

2010-01-16T16:20:00.006Z

I've spent a couple of fascinating hours over the past two evenings watching Kevin McCloud's Slumming It, a Channel 4 documentary in which he spent several weeks living in one of the most crowded places on earth: the slum of Dharavi in Mumbai.

Spread over an area of under a mile Dharavi is home to over 1 million people. Originally a fishing village amid mangrove swamp the industry died after a dam was built nearby and the marshes drained. As a result Bombay (as the city was called then) developed into the island city it is today. Migrants moved in to the area establishing communities and industries such as pottery and leather tanning. Today Dharavi is Asia's largest slum: a city within a city, hemmed in between two suburban railway lines and the Mithi River. It has become part of a wider consciousness in the West recently after featuring prominently in the film Slumdog Millionaire.

As a nervous McCloud discovered, conditions inside the slum are, frankly, frightening: tightly-packed corrugated-roofed buildings line a rabbit-warren of dirty, narrow streets, dotted with excrement; children play next to open sewers of toxic chemicals; rats scuttle everywhere; the strictly-rationed water is contaminated and, unsurprisingly, disease is rife; people queue to urinate and defacate in the local river. In the programme, the heat among the densely crowded streets seemed almost suffocating.

To his credit, McCloud immersed himself in slum life during his time there. Put up by a family of 21, crammed into a tiny living area, he chose to sleep on the floor rather than accept the offer of a bed (that said, after being disturbed by a rodent rattling around in a plastic bag at 5am one morning he seemed ready to quit). For two weeks he lived like a local and attempted to see as many facets of the settlement while he was there. After spending a morning with the city's dustmen McCloud visited a vast waste dump where men, women and children scoured Mumbai's refuse looking for any scraps of plastic and other materials to sell for recycling (consequently, 80 per cent of Mumbai's plastic waste is recycled). As each dustcart pulled up to dump it's load, crowds would race to search the refuse as it fell. It made sobering watching. Apparently, gaining permission from the authorities to film the site had taken a while to obtain and you could see why. Deeply shocked, McCloud could barely speak. Later on he toured tiny one-room factories (there are said to be 15000 of them in Dharavi) where workers seemed unaware of the hazardous and even deadly working conditions: paint tins were salvaged and restored to be used again; dangerous machinery was used with apparent disregard; a pile of plastic being being separated for recycling turned out to include hospital waste as a horrified McCloud found when he uncovered a collection of used hypodermic needles.

Apparently, architects and planners have claimed that Dharavi has the answers to some of the biggest problems facing Western cities: 85 per cent of the population is in employment; the numerous thriving small-scale industries (including pottery, leather goods and textiles) sell to domestic and international markets; the recycling rate is high; crime is low. McCloud discovered a highly organised society amongst what initially appeared to be chaos. At one point an entire crowded street stopped to kneel in a single direction, pray as one and then rise to continue their business. Despite the problems and the filth, Dharavi was not a bleak place: the streets were full of energy, spirit and colour - all things that, by comparison, seem lacking in our cities. Children played happily outside; people talked to each other as the world went by; beautiful women in immaculate saris sauntered past; many of the buildings were painted beautiful pastel colours. And there were no cars.

Quite obviously the programme offered a stark contrast to life in the West. McCloud thought the people seemed happy. Were they? Life looked extremely tough. Hanging over their heads are plans to demolish Dharavi and rehouse the population in high-rise flats to be built in its place - the kind of failed buildings we put up in the 60s and are demolishing now. Watching the developer talk about his plans was like watching a car crash unfold in slow motion. McCloud was given a glimpse of what could become Dharavi's future when shown existing tower blocks in Mumbai: they looked decrepit but were apparently just five or six years old. Each one was built excruciatingly close to the other, literally a metre or two apart so people lived in tiny dark rooms, shut away from their neighbours. Far better, surely, to improve conditions for the existing settlement (introducing proper sanitation for a start)? Unfortunately, there's no money to be made in that. Despite the filth, grime, shit, rats, refuse and the living and working conditions we'd seen until then, the prospect of Dharavi being razed so this planned redevelopment could go ahead actually proved, for me at least, the most disturbing part of the documentary.

Photo taken from Wikipedia entry on Dharavi

bench dweller

2010-01-07T20:55:00.002Z

There was quite a collection of snowmen on the common near the Suspension Bridge in Clifton this morning. Unusually, all of them seemed pretty big - not your usual few-feet-high sculptures. This was my favourite.

trademark

2010-01-07T20:48:00.002Z

Frozen Britain^TM

feels like a sick day

2010-01-06T14:32:00.005Z

Overnight snow meant pretty much everything in Bristol, and most of the rest of the country, ground to a halt today. Luckily for me, this meant a day off work.

It doesn't happen often but closing in such circumstances feels like a kind of enforced sick day. So this morning I had a nice long lie-in, read for a bit, cooked myself a nice breakfast, drank coffee, took a few photos out the window, had a brief session on the Wii, chose some recipes from cookery books. Later on I'm going to make a winter hotpot for dinner.

A nice enforced day of staying in and relaxing. Just like a sick day back in my schooldays.

All that's missing is a nice bowl of Heinz Tomato soup...

a kick + rock

2010-01-01T18:28:00.001Z

No more Adam & Joe.

Gutted.

As an antidote to this sobering news I've been rocking out to the awesome Crock - an unsigned side-project of Sam Coomes' (of Quasi fame).

Check it out!

2009 in 3s

2009-12-24T09:31:00.008Z

cinema: 1. Fantastic Mr Fox 2. Bright Star 3. Away We Go sounds: 1. Grizzly Bear 2. Midlake 3. Joan as Police Woman travel: 1. Crete, September 2. Cornwall, July 3. Monmouthshire, February gigs: 1. Grizzly Bear, Anson Rooms, November 2. Anthony & the Johnsons, Colston Hall, May 3. Emerald Ensemble Summer Serenade, Colston Hall, August tracks: 1. Les Fleur - 4 Hero & Carina Andersson 2. Southern Point - Grizzly Bear 3. Bandits - Midlake talks: 1. Chris Anderson, Explore @Bristol, July 2. Susie Orbach, Arnolfini, May 3. Alain de Botton, St Georges Bristol, May food: 1. Budokan, Clifton 2. Tiffins, St Michael's Hill 3. Juniper, Kingsdown jaunts: 1. Westonbirt Arboretum, October 2. Weston-super-Mare, September 3. Oxford, November exhibitions: 1. Banksy vs Bristol Museum, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery 2. Rowena Cade Visitor Centre, Minack Theatre, Cornwall 3. Boscastle Visitor Centre, Cornwall books: 1. Jupiter's Travels - Ted Simon 2. Dogs of Winter - Kem Nunn 3. Skyscrapers of the Midwest - Joshua Cotter

(revised 30/12/09)

Redland zombies

2009-12-24T08:52:00.000Z

Walking home from the bus stop last night was treacherous stuff: the pavements were sheets of ice. People were resorting to walking in the roads.

As M said when she got home, it was like a scene from Night of the Living Dead...

thanks. and sorry.

2009-12-01T10:29:00.002Z

It's very sad to see Borders in Queens Road is closing after the company went into administration last week. I found it quite a shock to walk past on Sunday morning and see the windows full of garish yellow signs announcing the bad news and a clearance sale.

For me Borders has become a kind of indoor community space otherwise lacking in our towns and cities. A space where anybody can go to hang out for a while. Where else can you spend the whole day whiling away the hours on comfy seats, reading books, browsing an unrivalled range of magazines and enjoying a coffee in a social setting without being hassled? Maybe the public library, maybe a cafe, maybe a museum or art gallery. Maybe Waterstone's. But none do informality and comfort that Borders does. Or did (in recent years I'm sure they must have done away with some of the sofas). First Brighton, then Bournemouth and now Bristol: for me, Borders has become a place to spend an hour or so when idling or needing to kill time. I could visit safe in the knowledge there would be something there to interest me. But soon it'll be gone. Walks home via Park Street will no longer provide the opportunity to take time out for half an hour or so.

I feel guilty saying it but I have contributed to the company's downfall because I can't remember the last time I purchased anything in Borders. For me, it had simply become a space to browse the books, videogames, DVDs and music away from the cold. If I found anything interesting I'd check the price then and there on Amazon via my phone and bookmark it. Terrible. But evidently not uncommon behaviour - the company made a loss of £10.3m in 2007 then 13.6m last year.

So thank you Borders. Thanks for the all the times you were there when I needed you. Thanks for offering me the job in Brighton all those years ago (I never took it). Thanks for opening late in Brighton back when you first opened so there was somewhere to hang out other than the pub those evenings. Thanks for the Douglas Coupland event (Brighton again; he used my drawing!). Thanks for being there in Bournemouth on Friday afternoons as I waited for M to finish work. Thanks for being there in Bristol the past two wet summers when you offered somewhere warm and dry to sit and read.

Sorry I didn't buy more. But most of all, sorry for all the staff that will lose their jobs.

spam

2009-11-18T10:29:00.000Z

Can't call you
Details of actors' death
Warning! Server down
Test. Test. Can u read it?
Did you see my keys?
Account erased.

autumnal colours

2009-11-04T10:19:00.008Z

A few weeks ago we spent a sunny Saturday morning at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire. The weather was perfect for capturing some of the beautiful autumnal colours...

never sell your love

2009-11-03T18:32:00.017Z

I was saddened last week to see David Hieatt, founder of Howies, quit the company he formed with his wife Clare back in 1995. Back then they produced a few t-shirts from the living room of their London flat but over the next few years Howies grew and, following a move to Wales in 2001, settled into its first office/warehouse on a Cardigan industrial estate. But despite attracting a loyal customer base the pair were forced to remortgage their house twice to keep the company afloat. Then in 2006 they sold Howies to US outdoor clothing giant Timberland. Since then stores have opened in London and Bristol but the relationship has evidently been strained. In his final blog post David says, "The morale of the story is simple. If you find something you love, you should never sell your love. When other people own your dream, destiny is no longer in your hands." For the past five years or so I've been inspired by David's words on the Howies blog and in the beautifully-produced and thought-provoking catalogue. So, for old time's sake, here's one of many articles that struck a chord with me...

Find your love

You know that dream you carry around with you each day?
It's kinda important.
Wasn't it what you were put on planet earth to do?
They say everyone has a calling, can you still hear it?
Doesn't it eat away at you? That treadmill you are on, did it ever get too much?
Did you ever wonder what it would be like to do your thing?
Did you ever feel time was passing you by?
Just how many days have you left before your last?
Did you ever wonder about stuff like that?
Did you ask yourself 'what was stopping you?'
There is never a right time.
You will be too old. Too young. Too something or other.
When was the last time you took a risk?
Did you remember how alive it made you feel?
There are no guarantees of success.
It's not called a leap of faith for nothing.
It's not too late, honest.
Jump.
You might fall.

You might fly.

construction?

2009-08-18T08:41:00.011+01:00

Every day I check the progress on this.

I've just carried out today's check: there are four guys standing around chatting and leaning on some scaffolding.

Not sure where all their mates are...

In fact, there never seem to be more than a couple of people in each half-hourly shot.

Fingers crossed we're still on for August 2011...

into the belly of the white elephant

2009-08-17T10:50:00.012+01:00

On Saturday afternoon I was privileged to spend a couple of hours exploring the derelict Clifton Rocks Railway on a tour organised through the Bristol Flickr group.

Back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the underground funicular railway ran in a tunnel cut from the cliffs, taking passengers from Clifton, at the top of the Avon Gorge, to Hotwells and the harbour at the bottom (for trips on the pleasure steamers). Unfortunately, the railway was never a great success and closed in the 1930s.

During the Second World War the BBC sought to house an emergency headquarters in Bristol that would be used in the event of London's Broadcasting House being incapacitated. They earmarked the bombproof disused railway tunnel but, after a series of bombing raids, locals began using it as a shelter. The BBC instead created four chambers above each other at the bottom of the tunnel, featuring a studio (complete with piano) and transmitter, recording and control rooms.

The emergency studio never had to be used. The BBC's lease expired in 1960 and the railway was left to fall into a state of disrepair. A voluntary group now looks after what is left and have worked hard to make the site accessible for guided tours. They estimate the cost of total restoration as costing from £10-15 million.

Donning luminous jackets and hard hats we filed into the damp stairway that leads down from the old ticket hall and runs alongside the former railway tunnel. This had been sectioned off and seating installed when the tunnel served as an air-raid shelter. In fact, the tunnel barely gave any hints away to it's original use - the old train carriages and tracks had long been removed. At the lower end the former BBC rooms' floors had collapsed and were in total disrepair. Rusted old fuseboxes remained attached to walls and abandoned wartime drinks bottles could be seen in the shelters.

The tour took a good couple of hours, down through the tunnel to the bottom where a gate looks out onto the busy A4 carrying traffic between the docks at Avonmouth and the city centre; through rooms that looked nothing like they had a century ago. It was all absolutely fascinating. I should also add a note of appreciation to Maggie, the guide, who was incredibly knowledgable and had given her own time to be our guide for the afternoon. I felt lucky to be able to explore what, for most people, will only ever be seen in photographs (tours of the railway are very limited). I struggled with my 350D in the low light but have uploaded a selection of the more successful photos I took to Flickr.

There doesn't seem to be much will in the city for the railway to ever be fully restored. Certainly the cost seems very prohibitive. Even if it isn't I hope many more people get the chance to explore what remains and learn a little more about what has been called an exciting, eccentric white elephant...

jump!

2009-08-11T14:50:00.004+01:00

This desolate-looking alcoholic Ronald McDonald has been a relatively recent addition to the Banksy versus Bristol Museum exhibition. Complete with a bottle of whisky, he sits perched precariously above the entrance to the city museum on Queens Road.

With only a few weeks left until the exhibition closes on 31 August, long queues continue to form on a daily basis. I've been getting a few hits from people Googling 'Banksy queue': the museum's website is warning people to be prepared to wait for up to 3 hours for admission ~~(I'd be surprised if people are actually having to wait that long)~~ and to join the queue in University Road by 2.30pm at the latest. If you're not from Bristol and you're thinking of seeing what all the fuss is about there's an excellent guide to the exhibition, including info on how to find the Museum, here.

My Flickr set of photos from the exhibition are here.

clean graffiti

2009-08-11T12:52:00.001+01:00

In recent days this 'clean graffiti' has cropped up on pavements near where I live advertising a new burger bar in Cotham. Though I've been aware of this guerilla-advertising-type process for a while it's the first time I've seen it for real (the effect is produced using high-pressured steam cleaners over a stencil). I guess for branding purposes it works quite well (after all, here I am writing about it, though that's only because I've never seen it used before). Whether it'll convert into paying burger-consuming customers is another thing. We're in uni-land here, close to the Whiteladies strip, so if this stretch of paving hasn't reverted to its normal grubby state by October then I'm sure it'll get noticed by its target-market. I just wonder, though, if they've missed a trick by not stencilling direction arrows all the way down the street to the bar itself. Not that I condone the insidious reach of advertising into our everyday lives, but just an idea...

travels around Cornwall: Launceston to St Ives

2009-08-09T10:31:00.005+01:00

At the end of July M and me headed down to Cornwall for a few days. Earlier this year we'd been invited to stay with M's sister. She lives a short distance from Land's End so we decided to take her up on the offer and slip in a night at a B&B on the way. After a bit of research we discovered a place in Boscastle run by a couple who happened to share our names. My name is fairly common, I suppose, but M's Cornish name (yep, she was born there) is far less so. To find a couple sharing our names meant we just had to stay there.

Our trip began in Somerset and the drive down through summer sunshine to Launceston took barely a couple of hours. We stopped for a break and a wander around this little market town which is overlooked by a Norman castle. With plenty of time before check-in at our B&B we drove west to Tintagel, a busy seaside village, parking for lunch near the imposing Camelot Castle Hotel on the clifftop. A footpath headed toward the coastline so we followed that round in a circle past the entrance to the ruins of the castle which is perched on top of an 'island' (or, more accurately, peninsula) that juts out into the Atlantic. As I had been when I first visited Cornwall as a child, I was struck by just how beautiful (and blue!) the sea was - so different to the grey/green of the south east where I grew up. It was a steep climb back to the car. After almost a year of living in Bristol it seems I'm still not used to hills...

Boscastle is only a short drive north of Tintagel and we had soon arrived at our B&B, the very friendly and welcoming Boscastle House. On our arrival we were treated to coffee and lemon drizzle cake - very unexpected but a nice gesture that set the tone for our stay. In the early evening we set off down the steep lane, bordered by beautiful cottages, that leads into the northern part of the village nestled in a valley around the picturesque harbour and scene of the disastrous flash flood of 2004. It was warm and sunny and holidaymakers were making the most of the summer evening. After some food we went for a walk along the river toward the natural inlet that protects the tiny harbour. With such steep hills surrounding the village it took no imagination to work out how torrents of rainwater, sweeping down from all sides, wreaked the havoc it did five years ago. To me, it felt as though we were cut off from the world; looking out to sea from the clifftop above the inlet added to the feeling that we were totally enclosed by the geography around us.

The following morning I experienced one of the most amazing breakfasts I can remember: it was too much for me to resist the [organic, locally-sourced] 'Full Cornish' (bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, hogs pudding and toast) and I also managed to squeeze in an incredible homemade-marmalade muesli bar - for which I'd have gladly paid for the recipe. Alas, my hints got me nowhere...

By the time we were back in the car and on the road early rain showers had passed. We were heading south toward St Ives, a picturesque seaside town which has become renowned for its wealth of local artists as well as being home to Tate St Ives and the Barbara Hepworth Museum. It's not a car-friendly place by any means so we parked at St Erth and took a short train ride into St Ives on a route that wound it's way around the edge of the River Hayle estuary and bay via Carbis Bay, one of the places of M's childhood. It looked a beautiful place to grow up.

I vaguely remember visiting St Ives as a child, and the image I have is of palm trees in the rain. This time we were treated to warm sunshine and blue skies. Unsurprisingly, the small town was heaving with tourists. We took a leisurely stroll around the sandy harbour, through seaside lanes and sandy, narrow streets, passing numerous little art galleries, and walked up to the headland with its lookout station.

The biggest disappointment of our time away was paying heed to the weather forecast on the BBC website. It predicted showers or heavy rain for the entire time and, in the rush to pack our bags while entertaining M's brother's family, visiting from Sweden, left shorts and swimming gear firmly in the drawer. As it turned out the forecast couldn't have been more wrong (apologies for the source). Consequently, on seeing half the UK population having a whale of a time in the sea, M was faced with the prospect of having to buy a new swimming costume just to take a dip! So after a quick trip to the Tate St Ives shop and then a cream tea, we began the search. It didn't take long. M got her costume but I wasn't quite so brazen, and faced the embarrassing prospect of rocking up to the beach dressed for an ordinary workday in jeans and a shirt.

St Ives, with exotic palm trees everywhere, interesting streets and geography was very beautiful. But I couldn't help thinking I'd prefer to visit in the autumn or winter, when things are quieter and more relaxed. Perhaps a walk around the bay on a dark, wintry night...

In the late afternoon we caught a crowded train back to St Erth and headed south for Land's End to M's sister's and an evening performance at the stunning Minack Theatre, of which more soon...

Cornwall surfing

2009-08-08T13:21:00.004+01:00

Been a bit slack posting here of late so, in the spirit of summer (and while I finish writing about our recent travels around Cornwall), here's a photo of surfers at a beach in St Ives...

now wash your hands. now wash your hands. now...

2009-07-15T10:36:00.003+01:00

Now that instances of swine flu have been reported within the organisation in which I work we're being advised on how best to avoid infection. But given the number of times I'm expected to wash my hands each day there'd be hardly any time left to do what I'm actually employed to do - such would be the frequency of traipsing back and forth from the toilet.

So we're being recommended to wash our hands...

every time we use the lavatory
when starting work and before leaving for the day
before and after eating
after using the PC or telephone
when someone nearby coughs, sneezes or blows their nose
after shaking hands with someone
after handling money
after using a vending machine or visiting other shared areas

Conceivably I could be wandering the corridors to the toilet upward of 30 times a day. Makes a change from working I suppose...

dead? or just sleeping?

2009-07-08T19:32:00.005+01:00

I keep seeing crash-landed bumblebees, more than I can ever remember before. On a daily basis I seem to come across 2 or 3 on the pavement on my walks to and from work. Sometimes more.

Are they dead? Or are they just sleeping?

Banksy versus Bristol Museum

2009-07-08T11:22:00.007+01:00

Finally got to see the show last week but because I was entertaining a friend on a trip to Bristol, and coupled with the fact that it was one of the hottest days in recent memory, our trip was a brief one. This was the only photo I took - I'm planning to return in the near future and get there for opening at 10am.

Over a month into the exhibition large queues continue to form at weekends and even during midweek we waited ten minutes or so to get in, only to queue again once inside.

Shortly after it opened M, whose cousin works at the museum, was lucky to be shown around before opening time and had the whole place to herself! Outrageous...

I enjoyed what I saw of the show and it's great to see so many people attending an exhibition at a museum (over 100,000 in early July). I read somewhere that the Tories are thinking of reintroducing museum admission charges if they get in at the next election - while I disagree with that policy the council would have boosted their coffers nicely from this exhibition.

For anybody outside Bristol still thinking of taking a look there's an excellent guide here.

x2

2009-07-07T09:07:00.002+01:00

Don't think I've ever seen two rainbows at once before but that's just what we were treated to as we drove through the Somerset countryside last Friday evening...

ideas

2009-07-06T21:13:00.000+01:00

Last Wednesday we went along to a talk by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine in the US, who was in town as part of the excellent Festival of Ideas. Over the course of an hour he spoke about the ideas behind his two books, The Long Tail: how endless choice is creating unlimited demand and the recently-published Free: the future of a radical price: the economics of abundance and why zero pricing is changing the face of business.

Over the past couple of months we've also attended talks by Alain de Botton (the pleasures and sorrows of work) and Susie Orbach (bodies) as part of the festival and on every occasion so far, much as the speaking part has always been interesting, things really seem to get going when the audience put forward their questions: a teacher at a college spoke revealingly about the superficial nature of her female students; a woman seemed to temporarily disarm Alain de Botton with her views on housework; and last week Chris Anderson, in response to a question, made me think when talking about how quality depends on relevance. Thankfully, it's been nothing like my sixth form college lectures where, when thrown open to the floor, heads everywhere looked down and everyone nervously shuffled down in their seats...

The festival has been running since 2005 and originally formed part of Bristol's bid to become 2008 Capital of Culture. The bid failed but the festival went ahead anyway and will continue into next year when the theme will be Science and Technology.

Banksy queue

2009-06-14T19:10:00.008+01:00

This was the queue for Banksy versus Bristol Museum, the secretive, long-rumoured exhibition that opened yesterday at the City Museum & Art Gallery. We were on our way for breakfast on Park St - much as I'm looking forward to seeing the show I think I'll leave it until things have calmed down a bit. That said, given the massive media coverage this weekend, that's looking unlikely for a while...

14/08/09: Queue update
20/08/09: Opening hours extended