New things this Summer

I feel like I’ve done a lot of new things this summer, so I made a big list (all with tedious links to relevant posts) because lists please me.

Lived in a big city
Cycled in london
went to barcelona, rome and naples
Saw two lots of prostitutes (Naples)
Saw dead bodies in pompei
Went to a wedding reception as a grown-up (conclusions: danced better as child)
Went to Lovebox and Bestival
Saw Florence and the Machine a lot accidentally
Went to first Tweetups – Cozytweetup in St James’ park, Ale 2.0 and Twestival,
Became a paid blogger,
Started writing for Bitchbuzz,
Went to pretentious grad and grown-up design shows
Went to my first company party (Moo). Stole balloons.
Went to a press conference
Did my longest placement to date.
Walked my soles out in london.
Saw my favourite comedians: Bill Bailey and Eddie Izzard
Was excited by seeing the countryside (felt horrified by this since i come from the countryside and clearly need to leave the city.)
Went to Ben and Jerry’s festival and did Press Pit runs. In front of the crowd is good.
Made candles.
Learned to cook more.

I haven’t made Naples sound great. It was very prostitue-ridden and a restaurant hunt ended in McDonalds. Also best driving at crossroads have ever seen in life – may not be of interest to those who do not like 6 minute videos of driving (I am mystified as to where the 102 views came from: Youtube search must be gold). I would love an aerial view of this:

Magic Christian (and Vauxhall)

I like this photo because the man at the front amuses me.

I do a lot of seeding at work. So I feel a lot of dismay that in this post I’m going to have to mention the Vauxhall Free Money Stunt. I don’t want to particularly because it’s not that interesting.

A post today reminded me of a film Ringo Star was in and I saw when I was about 9 on a slow-TV Sunday. As a change from Carry On films, I was pleased. I don’t know if I actually liked it, or whether I decided that satire was a nifty thing I wanted to get in on, like some sort of childhood scenester. A little bit like why I like Catcher in the Rye perhaps.

My Mother didn’t believe me when I said the Beatles had made a film about rich people swimming shit for money.

Today I’ve finally been reunited with the film since yes yes, Vauxhall made a car with £2000 worth of coins stuck to it to cleverly reminding people that’s how much a trade-in discount is worth (yes, the source of this info points out that it’s an effective way of getting a point across, but it doesn’t make me like it). And it was likened to a ‘clean version of Magic Christian’ which I was far more interested in. Here is a clip, it’s sexy:

Trade-in is a nice idea, although my parents leapt on the ‘splash out we’re near retirement’ bandwagon and bought up two replacement cars. The downside is that when you choose to buy the car you’ve always procrastinated over which has limited production, the trade-in time frame means you’re forced to get whatever colour is being produced in the time frame. Which in my Mother’s case is a lime green Beetle. I think that’s another of those things that becomes acceptable when you’re old perhaps.

Thanks to: cakeheadlovesevil where you can see more photos of people grabbing at the car if you’re so inclined.

Treehouse Gallery

Cycled to Regent’s Park Treehouses today. Consumed ice cream and saw two Lord Byrons (aka quiffy haired solitary men possing and reading books). We ambled around treehouses and I was reminded about numerous years of childhood naggings for a treehouse – nothing quite as fancy as these things, I’d have been happy with a wooden platform (or rather, that’s what I was pitching to my Dad as the simplest starting point).

At Uni there were rumours of a treehouse two students had made years ago. The directions were ‘up the hill, on the left near the field,’ which was great, but Sussex University happens to be on the Sussex downs: There are a lot of trees. Turns out it existed, and after a good forage round a massive wood we found it. It was miles off the ground and after drunk attempts, a few people made it up into the tree. It wasn’t bad, but needed some love. Then we navigated home with no torch with me using my camera as an occasional torch, ruining everyone’s night vision.

Today ended cycling home avoiding a big rain cloud. The treehouses were pretty sorted; they had umbrellas.

Here’s some photos that don’t ruin surprises, and the flickr set is here.

The case of the Perculiar Breadstick

I went to a press conference on Friday

to represent the company, which was busy working. Three interns got rounded up and we walked to Chancery Lane to a shiny building with tall doorways, and were given badges. Another intern decided to break his, which was great because destroying things at inopportune moments is usually my forte.

It wasn’t bad. I thought it would be. One Young World have got lots of youth in a big youth room to make some resolutions for G8 & Copenhagen. There was lots of gleeful suggesting that they’ll have found at least 10 awesome political world leaders by the end of it. It was nice, I hope it pans out.

Then there was free wine, and free food.

The main point of the post:
Maybe I am not up on my class etiquette but

How long has something that looks like Bacon wrapped on a squishy Breadstick been an appetiser?

If there is a name for this delicacy I would like to know it.

At this point the badge-breaking intern threw crisps on the floor – which again is usually my thing, although I did have a short choking fit to remind myself nothing changes.

Sundae on Saturday

Today was Ben and Jerry’s Summer Sundae on Clapham Common. I may be interning for Cake, the company behind the B&J PR but this report shall be wildly unbiased.

There was free ice cream.

I ate six. I may mean seven.

Here is Mr Super Furry Animals* holding a sign. This made me happy.

There was also band Marina and the Diamonds. Everyone raved about how Florence + the Machine played this slot the year before. (And before this, Lilly Allen) Maybe they will be big next year. She was skinny and had an 80s jacket and some silly but slightly staged dance moves – people seemed pleased by them.

I was with the photographers in the pit at the front of the stage so couldn’t take photos. Not a bad place to stand though.

*Gruff Rhys

Sony Street Beach with very little icecream

Strange advertising by Sony on Tottenham Court Road this morning. No ice creams I noticed. Also no electronics, mostly pamphlets.

Not as good as the Police charity volleyball beach outside Liverpool street station two months ago.

Time for our sodding tea and biscuits – Free Range week 5

Last day of (untitled) ends at the pub. I cycle merrily away 20 metres down the street and chain my bike up outside Aldgate East and head off to a pub somewhere else. Helpfully some fool tries to tamper with my bike lock and has a successful jamming session with the combination.

The next day I am lurking outside Brick Lane 118-ing my heart out for a handyman. The handymen are not by their diaries, and whilst my father offers to leap in the car with bolt-croppers and drive up from Reading I politely decline this and wait for alternative help.

Hello said I, popping into the Free Range art display. Hello said Loughborough textiles. We’re soft and pretty, stroll around and take photos of us. So i did. I also touched when I wasn’t meant to. Sorry about that.

Nice things by Jenny Appleton; Stephen Fry and Gherkin prints and a witty table. Said witty table opens with a drawer concerned primarily with sodding tea and biscuits (see first photo).

Then in T2 or some other slightly more arty (read lofty and poorly lit) warehouse I discovered some art. Ingeniously putting the most confusing work downstairs in some effort to either make people shuffle quickly into the building in or to dissuade those not seriously into art, upstairs had some interesting things.

It also had rogue animal farm-esque chickens sprawled on the floor by walls and pillars. I liked the installations which were mostly odd and included a space ship.

There were some giant WTF, OMFG, and LOL letters, and some laptops sitting in front of them which played a giant selection of youtube clips. Commentary on society no doubt, but appealed to me mostly through the appearance of Keyboard Cat on a laptop. This is significant because I like Keyboard Cat and his piano music-making is my ringtone.

Here is a link to the ‘100 most iconic internet videos today’ and although I have not yet fully investigated this gem, I see that Noah, Charlie and Powerthirst are there so it must be reliable.

Here is a link to keyboard cat as Dizzy Rascal falls off the stage. Plink plonk.

There was also a ‘Box of Not Knowing’ with bars of soap with life’s terrifying questions on them. Each one essentially a premise for ‘sex and the city’.

I also liked the free rock and took two. Sorry about this also, although there was no sign or candy attendant. Perhaps something to look into.

Digital design hunting at the Central St Martin’s shows

A blog in which I make obvious my like of the word hyperbole.

At some point a few weeks ago (can be ratified) Central St Martin’s college of the illustrious University of the Arts London held a design show (University of the Arts; a place my father frowned at and said in a very father-like voice that it was not somewhere he had heard of) . I went because design shows I figure are better than reading prospectuses, and I’m quite interested in the digital design course.

Ground floor was art which I chiefly ignored and took a few photos of bright things and of some knitted food.

Digital media was downstairs. It was very nice, but didn’t hold attention and I was mildly disappointed. There were some nice uses of technology; A video with hanging strips of blue and red in front of it which produced a slightly different video depending on where you stood. It might have stretched the suggestion that each video gave a different viewpoint when they were really quite similar, but It got the audience to jump around between screens which was nice to play with. There was also a podium which displayed different ‘layers of lives’ (video fragments) which played depending on which sensor hand hovered over. Someone had a play making an augmented reality shopping assistant which was good for a wave around.

Upstairs, after some nicely rickety wooden staircase was photography. A guy [Fen Yu Jen] had done some photo adventuring around the UK taking photos of people who serve tourists as their job. I liked the photos. Using a button trigger, the photos are nice; really serene in a simple sort of way.

I found some illustration work by Kelly Joy Sandall. Blurb:

“Anxious by the passing of time compounded by a personal sense of loss and absence, I set out to capture illusive moments. The personal became a vehicle in which to express this loss. The balloon can be used to celebrate, mask, burst of reveal. It can hide a moment, it can create a fleeting moment, it can be erased completely in an attempt to peel back time.”

Sure I like pictures of balloons. I wondered if in finding a dissertations theme whether this just creates philosophical hyperbole. Work should impress first and be supported by words – and if there’s art and philosophy behind it that then wonderful, lovely. But when it seems as thought short paragraph of art hyperbole is what drives it then the product seems to take a dive. I overheard a girl telling her mother how a friend had made an awesome book where as you turned the pages, the overlapping of pages moved from predominantly light to predominantly dark, not only representing the light changes during a single day, but also through a year. Very clever, thought I, viewing the book in a new light.

Maybe that’s my problem. I want to see digital design that uses new technology, makes sense and is interesting, and doesn’t set out a hyperbole alarm off.

Sidenote: I like the first photo a lot because it reminds me of photos by my friend Bob.

Yellow buckets and street drumming

Some Street Drumming on Oxford Street I saw last week. Enthusiastically smashed a bucket halfway through and made a snare out of change in a bucket – can’t really have been doing that badly then.

Toby Triumph and the diplodocus stegosaurus

We work in in the top floor of a building that looks like it’s trying to be a warehouse. Perhaps it is a warehouse, and maybe I haven’t met enough warehouses. It has some wooden floors I like, big spaces, some pillars and white walls.

@tobytriumph is coming to draw on the walls. He has a website unsurprisingly called tobytriumph.com and did the illustrations for hopfarm.comwhich are nice. We got asked for suggestions. I would like a diplodocus stegosaurus. I have drawn him with some shoes.