Brian Jensen

Day 3: No pancake joy.

2012-02-21T14:43:00.002Z

It's pancake day. Except for me. Even if I were to do a slowcarb version (omelette or meat-pancake) it's really the fillings that make pancake day: ham and cheese, banana and nutella, raspberry jam.
No, I'll have to content myself with chicken breast and broccoli. But a lighter, healthier me is worth it.

Day two of the 4-hour body

2012-02-20T08:58:00.003Z

Day one is always a breeze. It's good to know I have willpower enough for that. This was dinner. A Mexican pork and chickpea stew with homemade guacamole. By far one of the best stews I've ever made.

I couldn't face hardboiling eggs this morning at 5.30 so have eaten an omelette from Bene Bene and now I feel sick. I'm not sure doing what they do to eggs with a grilling machine should be called an omelette.

Consolidated

2012-02-18T13:08:00.001Z

I blended the two sadly ignored blogs into one. I promise to start writing. After a nap. Then maybe some lunch.

2011-10-09T12:32:00.001+01:00

I'm not a very good gay. I know a few show tunes and own some diva CDs and like watching naked men on the net, but in general I have very little interaction with the culture. Few gay male friends. Fewer nights out doing gay things.. I don't know what we're meant to be wearing or listening to or reading or doing or debating or supporting or kvetching about. how does a middle-aged man dive back into gay culture. I'm not one for club music and taking my shirt off to gyrate to anything isn't going to win me legions of new friends? Gay film festivals? I'd spend the night wondering if its better I nod with esoteric consent or lament the inanity of most of the storylines. I'm worried I no longer understand the culture. When I was really gay it was easy - culture was dualistic. One raved or one leathered. Now I don't know. How to dive back in. Any suggestions?

August is the cruellest month

2011-08-30T08:30:00.000+01:00

Grim is the best word. From the weather to the things that are happening to my family. My Uncle who went far too quickly. Only 42 days from the diagnosis of throat cancer to his death from the effects of chemotherapy. The race my mum and aunt made from Wisconsin to South Dakota and back only to return later that day when news reached them he had died. My mum awaiting results of a mammogram she didn't tell us she was having. The eventual and dispiriting diagnosis of breast cancer while she grieved the death of her brother. The helpless watch from a distant country.

One couldn't have made up this horrible story. But we banish feelings of despair to build positive momentum for my mum's surgery. The experts are decidedly positive. Caught in early stages. Options for treatment. My mum arming herself with understanding and support resources. Her children rallying. Communities of people she's touched arming her with their prayers. Her agnostic son willing to come to a truce with her God if he delivers the healing karma she's earned. We believe I can be here in body and there in spirit and count the days until I can be both together.

There are some storms which do not pass so quickly and which haunt the memory of the heart for much longer.

Gratitude: unexpected free time.

2011-03-30T13:52:00.000+01:00

Today I got up early and went out to Heathrow for a client meeting. Meanwhile, my client got up early and went to Canary Wharf.

Ooops.

The first temptation is to curse the inconvenience but I chose not to. Instead, I focussed on the free time I would have to read. I never go anywhere without a book, or rather, many ebooks on my Kindle. It makes delays and unexpected journeys a gift.

What goes into an experience strategy?

2010-11-28T11:04:00.002Z

I'm often asked what goes into digital strategy. I usually steer the question towards 'experience' so that we aren't limited to encounters in digital media and channels and recognise that people travel from off- to online seamlessly.

So what goes into an experience strategy? In it's most basic form:

What are we trying to achieve?
What are our participants trying to achieve?
What do we know about their needs and behaviours?
What content and functionality do we need?
What is the journey to, through, and from the experience?
What is the best way to structure it?
How can it be phased?
How can it evolve?
How do we manage it?
How do we measure it?

2010-09-19T17:22:00.000+01:00

Will write soon about Pompeii, Sorrento and Berlin, but in the meantime:

How to make the perfect poached egg. The vortex method really works!

2010-08-25T21:24:00.000+01:00

Can't wait. Yazoo - Reconnected Live (sampler) by MuteRecords

2010-06-13T16:21:00.000+01:00

Can't believe this is still even here. Don't believe anyone is reading it, but must get back into the habit of reflecting on things.

I recently downloaded, Sleep Cycle, an application for my mobile iPhone that monitors my sleep. Because the phone itself is sensitive to movement, you place it on your mattress, near the pillow (with the network turned off) and it monitors movement; the idea being that the deeper the sleep, the less tossing and turning one does. It then looks at the cycles of light and deep sleep to determine when the best time for the alarm to go off. For example, if I set the alarm at 6am, but that would the deepest part of the sleep cycle, it goes off instead at 5.45 when my sleep would be light. It's kind of fun/ creepy to watch graphs of one's own sleep cycles. I seem to sleep well for five hours (say, 10-3am) and then have lots of light/deep cycles from 3-6. Anyway, I find it fascinating, sad git that I am.

State of anxiety

2010-04-09T13:57:00.000+01:00

This week, I am in Bangkok. I thought the worst thing may be the heat. It's 100 degrees and humid. But turns out, I was venturing into political instability.

Red Shirts are a group of rural poor who are faithful
to the last PM who was overthrown in 2008 and want him reinstated.
They have been protesting in central Bangkok for the last six weeks,
but peacefully, and as such, the PM declared them a legal
demonstration and vowed no violence which the army and Red Shirts also
vowed. They then stepped up the protest and stormed Parliament on
Wednesday. As such, the PM declared a state of emergency, but no one
really knows what that means. They are trying to shift the Red Shirts
out of Bangkok and the PM has now declared them an illegal protest. He
is still vowing no violence, but has said that the march on Parliament
was an act of violence itself, although no one was hurt. There's a
feeling on all sides that the media is playing it all up but everyone
is watching what's going on. The PM is seen as being very by the book
and cautious and the Thais I spoke to don't think much will come of
it.

Saturday starts the nine-day celebration for Thai New Year and all
parties want it to be resolved by then so that the Red Shirts can go
home to celebrate with their families. People feel tomorrow therefore
will either be a climax or the end of it. We're being told to stay
away from the centre of town and have been assured by Global Unilever
that we are safe where we are (not being near any government or army
areas and, being a laundry detergent conference, not likely to be seen
as very political. Luckily, I didn't pack anything red). And like I
said, no one seems anxious about it including the British Consulate.
And the two Brits who have lived here for a while.

If things do escalate tomorrow, they are almost sure to close the
airport (they did it last year for five days during a similar
protest.) which means I may not be going home on Saturday and may
instead be lounging by the pool.

I think the worst thing that's going to happen is that I won't be able
to go shopping at Siam Paragon which everyone recommended. And as the
5-star hotel is a fort-like complex with six restaurants, two pools
and a cheeky Thai Jazz star named Lilibeth playing in the bar it seems
utterly civilised. It would be a shame not to get to sight see, but
better to be safe for the time being.

So, little apparently to fret about besides which Thai curry to try
next. I'll keep you updated but in the meantime don't worry. No one
here seems to - they haven't even interrupted the TV with it.

Businesses need social strategy not social media strategy

2010-04-09T03:55:00.002+01:00

Yet, most "social media" strategies have one or more of three goals: to "push product," "build buzz," or "engage consumers." None of these lives up to the Internet's promise of meaning. They're just slightly cleverer ways to sell more of the same old junk. But the great challenge of the 21st century is making stuff radically better in the first place — stuff that creates what I've been calling thicker value.

Organizations don't need "social media" strategies. They need social strategies: strategies that turn antisocial behavior on its head to maximize meaning. The right end of social tools is to help organizations stop being antisocial. In fact, it's the key to advantage in the 2010s and beyond.'

Umair Haque, HBR

State of anxiety

2010-04-08T12:09:00.000+01:00

I came all the way to Bangkok and all I got was a stay at a 5-star hotel.

Bangkok, as you may know, is under a state of emergency. Delcared yesterday by the Prime Minister,

2010-03-25T12:17:00.003Z

I love the phrase and the sentiment of 'three dimensional consumer-brand interaction' that VandenBosch describes:

You know, the real geniuses out there are the unsung talent at a lot of digital ad agencies. They may go by a variety of titles -- interaction designers, user experience designers, information architects -- but what they really do is connect the dots, they think about how the consumer is really behaving; and if they're really big thinkers, they can extrapolate that into designing how consumers interact with brands in real life. So from a strategy standpoint, it's about being one of those people who can think and plan for a three-dimensional consumer-brand interaction. If I could start my career over again, I think I'd like to be one of those people.

2010-03-12T14:15:00.002Z

Beautiful images from the Indian Portrait exhibition opening at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Russell Davies' brilliant quips at the Ogilvy planning conference

2010-02-28T16:56:00.009Z

I'm back! And determined to use this blog to relieve the manic feed in my brain. Mostly to practice writing things in a clear and digestable way without Powerpoint.

Welcome to Experienced redux (or dux)

This week I'm in Istanbul for a worldwide Ogilvy conference and the planning community got to experience a talk on 'interesting' things that Russell Davies so well threads - giving not only a gentle Sunday morning introduction to the week, but also some immensely relevant challenges for an organisation with the size, history and ambition of Ogilvy.

Rather than transcribe the brilliant talk, I'm sharing my random notes.

............................................................

In an example of analog objects with digital identities, lamposts in Gateshead have unique numbers so that people can call up the council and report outtages...

According to Gartner (?) 1/3 of Internet traffic to belong to 'objects' -- analog objects with digital feeds.

Digital-skinned architecture is the new preoccupation of architecture graduates (and it's only a matter of time before Coca-Cola will be asking to brand it.)

Instapaper is a simple tool that will store online articles and text into a PDF so that it can be read later. And, obviously, it can be printed.

Other analog objects with digital feeds?
Botanicalls a plant sensor that texts you when it needs watering.
Watson home energy monitor which estimates the annual cost of your eletricity as you use it.
Tower Bridge Twitter feed. The bridge goes up, there's a tweet...it goes down, well. you get the idea.

In the Nature of Technology, W. Brian Arthur delcares that as a rule, 'what starts as a group of loosely arranged objects becomes solidified into a single thing. But that thing becomes encrusted with systems and assemblies over time meaning that if you really want to innovate with it, you need to 'redomain' -- go back to another group of loosely arranged objects.

In the Robotic theory of the uncanny valley,

'The uncanny valley is a hypothesis regarding the field of robotics.[1] The theory holds that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot's lifelikeness.'

(How will we make this more friendly? Pink rounded type.)

So while we strive for ever closer targetting and personlisation, would we be better going for mass likeability?

The excitement of digital and the sentiment for analog will lessen over time. What can we do? Look for the legacy systems that the analog industry has left behind and use it to our advantage. Example: it wasn't downloads which finished off Blockbuster, it was ordering DVDs via the post (like Lovefilm or Netflix)

Analog products with digital identities also have a a built in comms channel and give relevant and action-based messaging that people can use. It gives us a not all-ways, but best-time on channel. (Think Nike Plus)

San Francisco wanted to turn the dead corner near the Tram stop at Castro and 17th Street into a pedestrian zone. Rather than wait years to file for the necessary permits, the city bought some paint and some chairs from Ikea, created the zone, and said that if anyone complained they would quickly remove it. Instead, it's become a pedestrian plaza. They call is the 'reversible pilot'. Trying something cheaply that can be easily undone if it doesn't work. This is what digital can be.

Great talk. Have been ruminating on digital's relationship with physical objects and this has fired me up... but then so has the thought of dinner....

The Berlin Wall and me.

2009-11-11T08:27:00.000Z

I remember standing in the middle of the front room of our college flat watching the news that the Berlin Wall was being taken down. I remember being dumbfounded. It was inconceivable and fantastical. You see, just 11 months earlier I'd seen the wall. I had taken a long weekend off from my studies in London to visit my cousin and her husband who were stationed in the US military in Berlin. They agreed to take me into East Berlin for the day. It was December, bitterly cold, a pregnant East German woman had just escaped across the river Spree and miraculously survived. But the East German government was bruised by the news and were on alert. My cousin's husband was required to wear his US military uniform when we went into East Berlin. I was told when we crossed the border to hold my passport up to the window but keep my eyes straight ahead and not make eye contact with the East German guard - it would be seen suspiciously as a slight or an attempt to communicate and we would be questioned. Indeed, a car ahead of us was pulled over for that reason.

Crossing into East Berlin was chilling. We were on alert about what could or could not be photographed. Who we could or couldn't speak to. Where in East Berlin we dare not go. The city, stripped of the advertising, commercial signs and neon was grey and seemingly deserted. We went into stores barely stocked with decades old furniture, shabby textiles and wooden toys. This was the 80s, mind and Western shops were garishly stocked with patterns and fluorescent colours. We bought a few wooden toys, had an extravagant meal of stodgy German food in a East Berlin restaurant, visited the Tomb of the Unknown Solider and made our way back to West Berlin. I later returned to a cold but somehow more festive London and finished my exams.

11 months later I watched as it all came down. As East Germans strolled freely through Checkpoint Charlie at once exhilarated and full of sadness that such a divide had been allowed to tear a country apart. The pictures of East Berlin and the Wall, now gone, stick in my head to this day and a visit years later to a reunified Berlin made them seem even more dreamlike.

Now, we celebrate 20 years of reunification and the freedoms and challenges that brought. But we must remember that these territorial walls exist today, tearing apart families, communities and cultures with no more justice than the Berlin Wall embodied. And be hopeful that, like the Berlin Wall, oppressive regimes and the controls they institute do not have to be permanent.

Those were the years...

2009-10-23T12:23:00.002+01:00

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Arpanet, Guardian publishes a year-by-year people's history of the Internet.

Dark

2009-10-01T11:36:00.004+01:00

Every month, the art buyers choose photographers to exhibit in the Ogilvy bar. This month we have the beautifully rich, dark work of George Logan, up-close shots of gorillas, chimpanzees and mandrills photographed at the Limbe Wildlife Centre is Cameroon - a centre for animals rescued from the brutal poaching and bushmeat trade.

The proximity of the animal to the viewer is captivating becoming almost tactile, and one sees how this type of animal portraiture is able to capture as much character and emotion as any human portraiture.

You are encouraged to visit the Born Free Foundation and the work they are doing to stop the illegal 'bushmeat' trade.

Remember Merlin?

2009-10-01T10:48:00.006+01:00

Merlin was a not-so-pocketable pocket video game in the early 80s that included six games (although I only remember tic tac toe and blackjack.) I loved Merlin, but it was a battery hog (much like Simon) and I soon gave it up.

The King of Madison Avenue

2009-09-30T11:50:00.004+01:00

Yesterday we hosted a book signing for Kenneth Roman, former CEO and chairman of Ogilvy, for his new book on David Ogilvy, The King of Madison Avenue. It has received positive reviews, and interest in what is arguably one of the most famous men in advertising is at an all-time high due to the popularity of Mad Men.

He told a few anecdotes about David and shared the discrepancies he found in his research between the myth (some told by the man himself) and the fact. One thing was clear: David was a charming genius who understood how to sell: his clients' products, his agency and his image.

During the signing I told Kenneth that I began my advertising career at Hal Riney & Partners (previously O+M West, now Publicis/ HRP) sitting underneath a gigantic portrait of Ogilvy. I made the mistake of asking a colleague who the old man in the portrait was in front of Hal and got a polite bollocking (and a history lesson). I told Kenneth I never imagined then I'd be heading up experience planning at Ogilvy in London all these years later.

Mr. Roman kindly inscribed my book: 'For Brian - David would have admired what you're doing - and that you trained with Hal. With best wishes, Kenneth Roman.'

That made my day. It will likely make many days ahead as it reminds me of the power of the legacy embedded in the organisation he built. Ogilvy retired in 73, and passed away in 1999, but ten years on he's still very much with us.

Sure-chigai tsuushin, or “passerby communication.”

2009-09-28T11:22:00.004+01:00

Wired reports that hundreds of Dragon Quest IX players are gathering in front of Yodobashi-Akiba department store in Tokyo with their Nintendo DS in hand to share tips and valuable 'maps' with each other.

Players in Tokyo are leaving the Nintendo in communication mode as they make their way through their day and collecting connection messages (pings) from other players also in communication mode that sometime include valuable tips for the gameplay, making it one of the biggest crowdsourcing game features ever.

Visit Denmark, they're easy apparently.

2009-09-21T13:01:00.006+01:00

A remarkably ill thought out video by VisitDenmark was pulled after complaints that it promoted promiscuity and made Danes look like promiscuous whores.. In the rambling movie, a gorgeous Danish woman holding a baby encourages men to visit Denmark so that she can find the father of her baby - the product of a drunken one-night stand. Really, one wonders how these things get past the idea stage and how the threat of fatherhood would persuade people to visit.

2009-09-17T13:08:00.002+01:00

Navigate London's 'designscape' with this gorgeous city guide.

2009-09-17T08:17:00.000+01:00

Afterall magazine have put many brilliant visual culture articles in their archive online for free.

Art and death

2009-09-08T16:10:00.005+01:00

Spent the day in the park reading the excellent Cabinet Magazine and learned, among many things, that the Pre-Raphaelites used a paint pigment called 'mummy brown' which was made of ground human and feline mummies until the 20th C. when the supply of mummies literally dried up.

Cabinet is a brilliant blend of the unusual and the explicative and satisfies curiosities about the world one never knew they had.

2009-09-03T10:30:00.000+01:00

We used to joke that six weeks was the gay relationship equivalent to the seven-year itch. Well the itch needed scratching and so after 7 weeks of ambivalent dating T. and I ended it last night. Rather definitively. I'm not sure why some feel the need to sever with cruelty when an unambiguous 'this has run its course' would suffice. It was what I was my goal. His was quite different. More of a 'let me give you a good reason to delete my number from your phone' strategy. And it worked.

I wasn't in love with him and was becoming sure I wasn't going to be. I try to pretend it wasn't his age. It was. Or his immaturity. It was. Or a basic lack of mutual interests. It was. We weren't suited, but I liked having someone in my life. Someone with whom one can experience basic intimacy. It had been far too long. It awoke a desire to be with people again. And for all of those things I should be grateful to T. Once I stop hating how it ended. I've never believed that relationships should be judged or remembered solely by their end, and it would be ridiculous to call that a relationship, so I'm hoping that after a good cry and a good pout and maybe a pint of ice cream I will look back on my summer fling with T. and smile.

2009-09-02T12:35:00.000+01:00

Hello constant companion

I am spending the next two weeks on holiday in London, at home, with small projects and goals and desires to sort and heal some things and clear out others. I've resisted the urge to call it a staycation, to feel guilty about not chasing the sun and take my bad habits on tour, to worry if I'm hiding away. I need to concentrate on making positive change in my life and to find a desire to create again. To feel each hour passing. To pay attention when anxieties and fears surface. To connect to more of live around me.

So here I am. Not entirely sure what to do with myself. Letting myself feel tired and worn down, but being aware of why and what I am doing knowing that good decisions will bring good changes - even despite the immediate discomfort they bring.

I asked to change medication yesterday. I never felt right on the sertaline. Less anxious, but not focused, balanced or happy. I forced myself to feel positive, but it was appearance and not real change.

Changing medications brings short-term side effects that aren't totally pleasant, anxiety and nausea. Restless, dream-filled sleep. Meditation helps some, but mostly the knowledge that it is temporary and that real comfort may be coming. Will be coming. Will make it a bit easier to change, more equipped to deal with the positives and negatives that life offers.

More equipped to connect and to create. That is my focus on this next period.

A therapist once told me that I live too much in my mind, so much so that I've let my body fall into disrepair. I'm now trying to focus on living in this body again. Repairing the damage. Meditation helps to place myself back into my body and I spent a good deal of time in the last few days in a body scan. The gym and Justin are a great help in that. Moving the body, making it contract and stretch and pull and push and do more than I think it should or can. At first the pain made me anxious, but I'm starting to sense the difference between good and bad pain.

Now, I concentrate on how I eat. Not necessarily what, but how. How mindlessly I feed it. How little aware of eating I was, waiting for feelings of happiness and euphoria to come. How able I was to turn off the feelings of discomfort that would follow. How little I tasted of the vast amounts of comfort I was eating. It is hard. I am not consistent. It is the single most important change I can make and therefore one that I'm most resistant to. The mind and emotion rally to act as they did before. To protect what they know. To give breadth and permission to the bad habits. I'm trying to re-wire the pattern. It is difficult. It requires finding satisfaction in other places.

How? How I connect and how I create. Connect and create. Simple and powerful, straightforward and complex words.

Techno-fabulousness

2009-08-12T14:29:00.000+01:00

Waiting from My Robot Friend and Alison Moyet. Moyet at her most Yazoo-like since Yazoo

The shake and shuffe game

2009-08-10T13:26:00.000+01:00

Not as tragically gay, 80s, or pop as I feared it might be...

(1) Turn on your MP3 player or iTunes or whatever.
(2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.
(3) Write down the first 25 songs that come up--song title and artist
--NO editing/cheating, please. Doesn't have to be 25. Could be 20, 50, whatever.
(4) Choose some people to be tagged. It is generally considered to be in good taste to tag the person who tagged you.

------

Who'd have guessed my iTunes is such a moody bugger, ha!

------

And on Yazoo
Yazoo, 'Yaz' were definitely on the soundtrack to my youth and this song about a friend's funeral fit my teenage black mood.

Icct Hedral Aphex Twin
Aphex Twin doing Phillip Glass. Good for moments when you need the mood to go absolutely creepy

Ceux qui n'ont rien, Patricia Kaas
'Moi je connais le bleu, des matins malheureux' and she's sexy as hell

Airplane, Indigo Girls
The Indigo Girls came to UC Davis with Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey, Jr. to raise awareness for some campaign issue or other. We were all shocked at how bad his skin was. SJP wasn't yet SATC so no one really said much. The Girls sat with the students, listening to other bands play, signing autographs and hanging with whomever, which I thought was pretty cool

Weird Fishes / Arpeggi, Radiohead
A love song as only Radiohead could write

Early Autumn, Ella Fitzgerald
Tell me about it, Ella. She's definitely my go-to-girl on Sundays and it's been a really long Autumn here, already.

Some people, Belouis Some
There was a music video show on channel 36, only on Summer afternoons, that played music from the UK this was one I remember from it.

China, Tori Amos
I have way too much Tori Amos on my iTunes. I blame my need for medication on her, but I like this song.

This House, Alison Moyet
My most favouritest-ever singer. Another depressing song but one of the best. "Under these fingertips a strange body rolls and dips I close my eyes and you're here again. Later as day descends. I'll shout from my window. To anyone listening, "I'm losing"'

Overground, Siouxsie and the Banshees
I used to listen to KROQ at nights in my room with the lights out. It really bugged my father for some reason, but it introduced me to Siouxsie Sue and although I was probably clinically depressed, I remember it fondly.

Trains to Brazil, Guillemots
Most likely a iTunes song of the week, but I like the rawness of it.

Ay fond kiss, Eddie Reader
From the poem by Robert Burns. 'Had we never lov'd so kindly, Had we never lov'd so blindly! Nor never met nor never parted, We would never be so broken-hearted.'

Am I the Only One (who's ever felt that way) Maria McKee
We saw this pinup of AltCountry play at a club in Santa Cruz. When the first song applause didn't meet with her approval she shouted down the mic 'This ain't no f***ing folk band'

Promise, David Sylvian
My friend Tim turned me onto David Sylvian, former lead singer of 80s band Japan. Now, I go with him every time David plays in concert (and he gets dragged with me every time Alison Moyet plays.) His album with Nine Horses is brilliant.

Radio, Robbie Williams
Cheesy, cocky and currently out of favour, but I like him anyway

To the workers of the Rock River Valley Region, Sufjan Stevens
I love that someone's writing chamber music these days. We'll see if he manages to write an album for each of the 50 states, but I think he's a brilliant lyric writer.

Country Mile, Camera Obscura
From the music researcher in our office. Obscura, indeed.

If you leave, OMD
RIP John Hughes

Beds are Burning, Midnight Oil
I've no idea I had this song. I liked the anger in his voice

Pleasure is all mine, Bjork
From the difficult to like album Medulla even though I like Bjork immensely. I saw her once at the local butchers in Maida Vale, dressed head to toe in pink fleece

Feel Good, Inc, Gorillaz
I always feel good hearing this song. It's on my gym playlist.

Cavaleir Monge, Mariza
Mariza is arguably the world's most famous singer of Fado, a Portugese folk music born in the taverns of Portugal. Haunting and beautifully sung

Optimistic Radiohead
Radiohead? Almost never.

Ich bin der Welt Abhanden Gekommen, Kathleen Ferrier
Ah, nice surprise. I've been working my way through Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise, a majestic survey of 20th C. music, and downloaded this scratchy recording of Mahler's lied because no newer ones bested Ferrier's mournful voice. " I am lost to the world with which I used to waste so much time, It has heard nothing from me for so long that it may very well believe that I am dead."

Sand drawing

2009-08-07T09:20:00.002+01:00

Obsessive and beautiful

Via ZeFrank

Shhh, don't tell my mum

2009-07-27T17:33:00.000+01:00

Day 11 without a drink...

2009-07-24T08:46:00.000+01:00

Last updated in March? Pathetic. Apologies to anyone, if anyone, who has bothered.

A natty status and will put effort into writing something substantial over the weekend.

Reading: White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Watching: Pedro Amadovar movies from Lovefilm
Listening: Bach, the Goldenberg Variations and Elbow's Seldom Seen Kid (which I listen to over and over and over again.)
Tickets to: A Doll's House and the Proms
Preoccupied by: My personal training programme and how disrupted it's been
Working on: Creating more digestable strategies that demonstrate more brand, rather than channel, thinking

Little giants

2009-06-22T09:40:00.003+01:00

I recently judged the OMO entries of the Mofilm Contest. Twelve iconic brands asked people to create user-generated adverts. The twelve finalists will be judged by Spike Lee for a chance to win an apprenticeship on his next movie. The winner will be announced at Cannes Lions 2009. In the meantime, you can see the charming OMO entry by Diana Triana here.

See more videos on MOFILM Cannes, a MOFILM competition.

Skeletons of steel scrapping the sky

2009-05-29T15:15:00.003+01:00

'What happened in the city of New York when the skyscrapers was born is that buildings turned from crustaceans, which are supported by their walls to vertebrates supported by their skeleton. But the skeleton had to be made of steel. It's one of the great transforming moments of how we live on earth as human beings.' David McCullough

In Frankfurt we walked past an enormous skyscrapper whose sides were unfinished in patches, revealing a rough coating of concrete the same texture and colour of a nearby church. For a moment, I thought it was deliberate, but the beautiful symmetry was accidental and temporary. Much like life.

And it's spicy too

2009-05-22T16:50:00.001+01:00

I'm a great fan of chili sauces. None more so than Sriracha. There is a charming little article about a brand grown famous not through marketing, but reputation.

Make a splash

2009-05-21T10:30:00.003+01:00

Move your cursor to create beautiful, inky calligraphic lines and explore hidden experiences.

Formative

2009-05-14T13:43:00.004+01:00

Today, standing on the pavements during a fire alarm, we talked about movies from our childhood that we felt were the most formative. I mentioned the Red Balloon, a wordless, but dramatic, short film from 1956 that played repeatedly on television in the 70s. The films mixes solitude, joy, bravery and folly and it probably helped form both my melancholic nature and my love of Paris. And you can watch it online here.

Stop and go

2009-05-05T14:25:00.002+01:00

A Night in Hong Kong, stunning stop motion video.

I hate Comic Sans

2009-05-05T14:16:00.001+01:00

A short film about the font Comic Sans, in response to Gary Hustwit's film, Helvetica.

2009-05-05T14:13:00.002+01:00

Desiree Rogers and her clients, diagrammatically

Human-assisted robots reveal human behaviour

2009-04-27T17:40:00.006+01:00

Tweenbots are simple robots Kacie Kinzer invented to see if strangers would be willing to interact with an anthropomorphised object on the streets of New York. They are set off in a simple, straight line with a written on a flag and instructions to point the tweenbot in the right direction. She didn't expect any to arrive at their destination and was surprised how actively and willingly strangers rescued the human-assisted robots from blocked paths, objects or perilous roads. She writes:

The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people's willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone.

2009-04-05T12:02:00.000+01:00

In typical headscratching style I started my holiday by working. Getting up at 4.30 to fly to Nice for the MIPTV conference in Cannes. It was a great event

2009-03-17T12:09:00.003Z

We Tell Stories, winner of the SXSWi elevator pitch contest, and very interesting story-telling site.

iPaint

2009-03-16T13:18:00.000Z

Gallery of beautiful images painted using the Brushes App on the iPhone

Photos from Zurich

2009-03-15T16:05:00.000Z

Photos from a sunny day in Zurich, faux cross-processed to deal with the poor quality photos my Ixus took.

On monoculture

2009-03-02T13:54:00.001Z

Idealists of the long tail and the 2.0 multiverse shouldn’t count out the monoculture—it turns out you can do a hundred NPR shows and have all the Web buzz in the world and it’s nothing compared to the power of one Hollywood movie actor’s passing remark.

Carl Wilson, author of Let's Talk about Love: Journey to the End of Taste

Ryanair and anti-social networking

2009-03-02T12:23:00.003Z

In a week when they announce they're considering installing pay toilets on their planes an illiterate Ryanair employee attacks a tech geek who highlights a bug in their site. Are Ryanair trying to be the Archie Bunker of the air?

Books are wonderful things

2009-02-26T13:29:00.002Z

Five rules for designing book covers (including the ubiquitous cope-out, 'rules are meant to be broken.')

Notgeld - German pre-inflationary currency

2009-02-24T13:36:00.006Z

Beautiful notes from the Weimar Republic

Stitched up

2009-02-20T13:47:00.004Z

I vaguely remember seeing Stitching at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002. What I do remember was how mindnumbingly tired and hungover I was after a late Saturday night trying to drunkenly find a hotel of which I didn't know the name or location. Sitting in a dark theatre on a Sunday morning was work itself, nevermind that it was a brutal and graphic play about a couple struggling to transition from sexual (dys)function to impending parenthood. It was startling. It was sinister. It stood in sharp contrast to the lesbian sockpuppet musical of the day before. It was also Mamet-esque in its ability to make poetry of cruelty.

Now Malta has banned it. There's a Facebook group to protest the ban. I can't claim to have loved (or remembered) the play, but don't believe that a European cultural capital in the 21st C. should be banning plays in which language and thought provoke. Are there limits? Undoutedly. But ideals will always be tested by values and in this case the freedom of the arts must withstand value-based legislation. and whilst Stitching is vulgar, it isn't the extreme of the test.

Plus, the very handsome Andrew Haydon told us to do so.

2009-02-17T16:01:00.004Z

Create your own Atheist bus ad
A recent controversy in the UK saw a local atheist organisation take out bus ads raising the ire of the small band of Christians who think they still live in a Christian country. Here's a chance to mock their pseudo-outrage

2009-02-17T16:01:00.003Z

Looking forwards day

2009-02-11T13:36:00.000Z

New A.S. Byatt novel due in May, and I can't wait.

Ogilvy sponsors brief at MIPTV in Cannes

2009-01-26T21:18:00.003Z

Ogilvy and Unilever join forces in MIPTV this year, including a brief in the Content 360 competition: Engage with women through branded content.

Best online car insurance experience

2009-01-09T13:27:00.005Z

NMA reports that Sheila's Wheels and Churchill provide the best online car insurance experience. The ads of both are guilty pleasures - one doesn't like to admit how catchy the jingle for Sheila's Wheels really is, but it makes me want to wear pink sequins...

UK Music charts

2009-01-08T13:41:00.000Z

They announced this week that CD sales will no longer be counted in the UK Music Charts as digital downloads now drive what we'll see topping the charts.

Today in history: history of science

2009-01-07T09:44:00.003Z

Léon Foucault uses a pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.

Foucault had an insight. A pendulum hanging on a wire and swinging directly north and south would appear to the observer to slowly move its plane of oscillation as the Earth turned underneath it.

I've lately been reading Steven Johnson's The Invention of Air which is proving how little about the history of science I know, but how interesting it can be when told well.

World Air Travel

2009-01-05T10:55:00.001Z

Amazing mash up of the world's air travel.

The thing about Home is...

2008-12-27T19:10:00.000Z

...the weather is schizo. Rainstorms and then sunshine.

...there is a store in the mall that sell things only sold on TV.

...there are commercial breaks every seven minutes on television.

...people are nervous about the economy. Houses everywhere are being repossessed and the malls were packed with people returning things, but not buying.

...I like having a car.

...my mum has an Omega shiatsu massage chair that works you over like a masseur. I've named it. We're in love.

...it's familiar and foreign at the same time.

The sun is out, and the that's the novelty of this trip. Bright, clear, cool but changeable and I think another storm is on the way.

The economy is the topic of every conversation. Almost everyone has been affected in one way or another. The flat next door has been repossessed and is unlikely to be the only one in the area. Stores are closing. The sales are extreme but still not driving people to spend.

We have quiet Christmases. There are no children. Mum works and isn't done until Christmas afternoon. I cook for her. We ate prime rib and crab. We drank wine. We opened presents late in the afternoon and had a leisurely meal. There is a lot of extended family in the area, but we have our quiet informal celebration.

My mum stunned us with a story about a man she was engaged to when she met my father. We never knew she was engaged to someone else. Or that she was a nanny. Or really what life in the midwest in the early 60s was like. How strange to know so little about one's parents before we were around. Still there is something new to learn from sitting and talking about life experience's over a bottle of wine.

It's nice to be able to share a relaxing holiday with family. So many have to deal with familial drama and emotional battle. People are driven to vent anyway they can (including Facebook status updates). I think we dealt with all of our drama years ago. We are comfortable in each other's presence now. That is a blessing.

As is seeing friends. Being made jealous by their lives, loves, interests and passions. How wonderful to see people thrive and enjoy life. And to rekindle familiar friendships based on long intersecting threads of memories.

Midway through the trip I'm content. And that's good.

Fries with your brand?

2008-12-02T13:25:00.004Z

People are lining up, apparently, for Tokyo's new unbranded quarter-pounder restaurants, a kind of Muji fast food with only two menu items.

I wonder if businessmen sleep in them in the early hours of the morning as well.

The Taj Mahal hotel, Mumbai

2008-11-27T09:33:00.000Z

It was almost exactly a year ago that I visited Mumbai, that I sat and had coffee with a colleague in the salon of this hotel which is now the the scene of devastating terrorism. One tries to not let the memory of a place be completely rewritten, but the sight of the burning hotel and the violent chaos is now overlaid on the memory of Mumbai's sights, smells and noises.

Movember

2008-11-26T09:04:00.006Z

An odd ode to the moustache as we celebrate a month of cheesy Facebook profile pictures and laughable attempts at facial hair growth albeit for the good cause of highlighting men's health issues. But let's be honest, that's not why men are growing them. It's to see if they can.

I didn't do it. I look like a civil servant with a moustache.

When is a teacup a storm?

2008-11-25T17:54:00.003Z

The numbers story of the size and impact of Motrin-gate. Did Motrin do the right thing in pulling the ad after 'baby-wearing' mums tweeted in outrage?

As seen on the web this week

2008-11-21T15:34:00.002Z

Good.is Great info graphics
Europeana.eu: The greatest hits of European culture
The argument for top-to-bottom customer experience strategy
ITV's product placement code of conduct

Sao Paulo

2008-11-09T11:57:00.000Z

This is the Octavio Frias bridge (from Wikipedia) and an image of all of the contradictions nd wonder I experienced in a brief and busy business trip to Sao Paulo.

The year-old bridge was built to ease the heaving traffic over the Pinheiros river. Traffic which occurs at all hours and is a common moan of the Paulistanos I met.

My less impressive pictures were taken quickly my own pictures from the hotel room and from cars.

Sao Paulo is a huge, sprawling city of high rise buildings interspersed with low single story houses and many precarious 'shanty' towns - entire communities living in plyboard and metal-walled warrens. It is urban, and without the dramatic landscape of Brazil's better known city, Rio. It is apparent there is no urban planning, no zoning, no delineation between commercial and residential. There is, however, an enormous economic gap in Sao Paulo, Brazil's wealthiest city but with many living in poverty, on the sides of roads, selling peanuts and drinks at traffic lights. We stayed in the business district, Morumbi, but even near our luxury hotel were the shanty towns and roadside bars. There was a garage selling tires and cachaca served by a man with a gun holster slung over his shoulder. Paulistanos are concerned for their personal safety. Many business professionals ride in armoured cars and do not talk about having children for fear of kidnapping. Yet for all of the social and economic problems, what I carry with me from Sao Paulo was how cosmopolitan the city was and how gracious our hosts were.

Visiting any city on business is deceptive. One usually travels from the hotel to office towers to nice restaurants and back. One has to learn about a place from unguarded moments and from the people one meets. Our colleagues in Sao Paulo were warm, funny, cosmopolitan and proud of their city (even if a few can't wait to get out of it.) Kissing is customary. Upon being introduced to a business colleague of the opposite sex a kiss is given on the cheek right away. Kissing is also a popular pastime of the young and there was mouthwash in every restroom I went to. As one could imagine, the Brazilians are a very sensual people. It is in the language, music, food and more.

One of many quirks of Sao Paulo (and maybe Brazil) is that a drive in isn't a place one takes a car to see a movie (this got a big laugh from a colleague) but a cheap place one takes a car (and a partner) to have intercourse in parking spaces enclosed by curtains. We didn't visit one, but that's what I was told. You've been warned.

It is through food, of course, that one experiences a place on a business trip. Brazilians love salgadhinos (appetizers). We ate bacalau (fried balls of salted codfish), hearts of palm, farofa ( a mushy pate made from manioc flour, eggs and other things), empadas, fried puffs of cheese bread, mangos and other tropical fruits and an exhausting Churrascaria meal.

Churrascarias are Brazilian steakhouses. One sits with a red and green card. If the green side is up, waiters carrying various types of barbequed meat on skewers descend. We ate at one of the most popular, Fogo de Chao. Within minutes our plates were filled with all types of grilled steak, deliciously salted kidneys, chicken, lamb, and more; and within minutes I had flipped the card over to red to ease the bombardment and to marvel at a plate full of mindnumbing, stomach cramping, but delicious beef and organ meat. Eaten, of course, with caipirinhas or beer. It was the most gluttonous meal I've had in a long time. And the next day, I felt sluggish. But there were client meetings and long flights home to be had.

So, my first trip to South America, and indeed the Southern Hemisphere although guarded and business-orientated was a success.

Lee Bryant on Web 2.0 Expo

2008-10-28T11:30:00.003Z

Interesting thoughts about small, purpose-led social networks halfway down the page.

I remain convinced that intimacy and common purpose are more in line with the culture of the internet than mega-malls like Facebook, where funders are more interested in achieving a ridiculous $15bn valuation for the company than in changing peoples' lives for the better.

Eyecandy

2008-10-28T08:25:00.000Z

I can't believe Spooks killed off the sexiest man on television. True to form, they've replaced him with another, Richard Armitage.

Yah, it's been a long, dry Autumn.

The time changed

2008-10-26T12:47:00.002Z

As hopefully most of you know.
I knew it was changing, what I didn't know, because I was working late, was that the clock on my mac changed automatically, so I assumed I had an early more to sleep when, instead, I was working an hour later than planned.

The time changed

2008-10-26T12:47:00.001Z

Is laughter the best medicine?

2008-10-26T12:17:00.000Z

I'm trying laughter meditation. Go on. I dare you not to laugh.

Seriously, five minutes twice a day is starting to work wonders...

Not curing my blocked ear, however.

Still blocked

2008-10-20T21:36:00.000+01:00

I flew to New York with a cold. And suffered a congested head because of it. Turns out it was my eustachian tubes and they're still blocked. I've popped pills, irrigated nasal passages, sniffed sprays and nothing's working.

If anyone has any ideas let me know. I'm starting to dread the flights I've got coming up.

David Armano on the agency path to enlightenment

2008-10-20T13:19:00.006+01:00

David Armano produces briliant diagrams. This one, and its Cannes piss up nirvana was timely indeed.

2008-10-19T14:26:00.000+01:00

I came in to the office to work, but little work is being done. My mind's flitting about, my attention unspanned. So much to do and so little focus. Only three of the six jobs have been crossed off the list.

Instead, I've mucked around with this template. I've cleaned my desk. I've unsubbed to emails I no longer read. I've surfed for solutions for managing the tangle of wires in my flat. I've read the Sunday papers online. Even daydreamed a bit.

There was a lot I meant to do this weekend, but blame cheap wine and an Italian for kicking it off in an spectacularly unproductive manner.

Time to go home. I've procrastinated as much as I could.

Make it a pencil

2008-10-19T14:10:00.005+01:00

D&AD 2009 awards call for entries is now open.

D&AD has been awarding creatively continuously since 1962. Alternatively lauded then derided for its expanded international focus and relevance in an industry in love with booze-ups on the French Riviera it is still dedicated to creative excellence and in educating and training new (and old) practioners. And that's pretty damn cool.

Full disclosure: I'm on the D&AD executive council. Further disclosure: I'm not necessarily opposed to booze-ups anywhere, especially on the Riviera, but come on.

Experienced - an experiment

2008-10-13T10:51:00.001+01:00

I should have done this years ago.

Welcome to Experienced, my blog about digital and visual culture. A place for me to shape and share observations on two aspects of culture that have long interested me. An exercise in discipline where I'll be posting weekly essays and random things that capture my attention. Another stage for professional ego.

It will be truly random. I don't have a curriculum in my head. I've not yet narrowed areas of interest. So join along for the ride, forgive the occasional diversion, and feel free to share with others.

Experienced - an experiment

2008-10-13T10:51:00.000+01:00

Today I'm 40

2008-10-05T16:13:00.000+01:00

Hmmmmm. Let's see how this goes.

Kelly's packed the day. Brunch. A boat ride around Manhattan. A play. Dinner at Balthazar.

At least I'm in New York with plenty of distractions (even with my congested head.)

I've been dreading this, and now it's here.....

DESIGN CULTURE: Brian Oakes and I.O.U.S.A

2008-09-25T14:23:00.000+01:00

An interview with Brian Oakes, the information designer behind the amazing graphics from a documentary about the dire state of the US trade deficit, I.O.U.S.A.

Croatia

2008-09-02T10:28:00.000+01:00

The island of Brac is a 45-minute ferry ride from the city of Split. I'm sitting in my hotel room looking at Split and the towering granite cliffs above it from across the Adriatic. The Adriatic is a stunning blue, but now reflects the hazy clouds that sit above it. It's pleasantly warm, the hotel is comfortable enough (although garishly mediterranean) and I'm glowing from the sun - not quite tanned, but glowing.

Supetar is the main town on the island. It is, like most mediterranean ports, all about tourism. The hotels, the souvenir shops, the restaurants all cater towards the flip flop and sarong-wearing throngs of people. There is a surprisingly similarity to everything - one can find the same hats, towels, beach mats, souvenirs up and down the Dalmatian coast. There is very little uniqueness to the place. Every restaurant (even the 'authentic' konobas) sell the same food: spaghetti, seafood salads, grilled meats and chips. The only unique food item I've seen are what the Greeks would call koftes, but what the Croatians call cevapcici, 'meat fingers.' It's good food, but dull in its repetitiveness.

Most of the c, s, and z should have a small circonflex or v-shaped accent, but I've no idea how to do so in HTML. The language, full of consonants and accents is a mystery to me, but every now and then one sees a latin root to a word and can associate its meaning, even if one has no idea how it's pronounced.

The terrain (and I saw a lot of it yesterday in a 10 hour drive up and down the Dalmatian coast to Dubrovnik) is rocky. Growths of pine and fig trees keep it green, but there is a light rock everywhere. In Brac, this rock, a type of granite, is famous for it's white purity. So much so that some of it was used in the American White House and stone carvers from Brac (which has an accent mark and is pronounced 'Brach') were sent to Washington.

The people are lovely. The hosts of the hotel have been very welcoming. The tourists seem to come from all over and the European cliches apply (pasty Anglos, sun worshipping Italians, Germans in too small speedos.) But everyone is jolly enough.

I'm lazing about. Yesterday was a 16 hour schlep to and from Dubrovnik so I'm wiped out and am sitting on the balcony dozing. I'm going to continue to do so while I can.

Loving London Bridge

2008-08-17T18:20:00.000+01:00

Moody and dark, the pictures, that is.

2008-08-17T18:17:00.000+01:00

I once bought a book because of the cover. And it was one of the best books I've ever read. So there.

A very long slide into autumn

2008-08-04T07:23:00.000+01:00

We are not just not going to have any sort of summer, are we...

Dhafer Youssef at the ROH Voices of the World Festival

2008-07-17T13:19:00.000+01:00

This is an oud. It's an Arabic lute that Tunisian composer and singer Dhafer Youssef strums, picks, attacks like a rock guitar, pounds like a drum, even sings into to produce a looped echo. He opened the Royal Opera House's Voices Across the World festival last night along with Armenian doudouk master Lévon Minassian and Japanese percussionist Satoshi Takeishi for an evening of haunting and timelessly modern music. Can't get much more world music than that. I highly recommend his album Divine Shadows which also highlights his amazing voice (a deep plaintive wail that can climb to a pure falsetto he produces through his nostrils.)

Lest you think I'm more worldly than I am, it was Tim's initiative to go.

2008-07-14T10:53:00.000+01:00

I can't recall the last time I spent a Sunday evening swaying in a gentle breeze in the courtyard of a 16th century mansion watching a Scottish band play sweet pop songs two decades old whilst the seagulls cried overhead and the stagelights cast colourful shadows on the old architecture.

As an early bday present, Tim and I saw the Blue Nile last night at Somerset House. Matt Hale (aka Aqualung and shockingly fresh-faced for a 34 year old) stood in front of us. We saw Will Mellor at dinner. But the highlight was still Paul Buchanan's pleading voice singing 'Downtown Lights'.

And I didn't wake up a year older.

Collision

2008-07-08T13:37:00.000+01:00

Alex Ross writes about two of my current interests: China and classical music, in this brilliant New Yorker article.

Waterfalls in New York

2008-06-25T14:01:00.000+01:00

Olafur Eliasson is becoming one of my favourite artists. Wish I could see the waterfalls in New York.

Yazoo in concert

2008-06-20T19:04:00.000+01:00

They were awesome!

London Bridge, falling down

2008-06-13T11:58:00.000+01:00

Found a flat in London Bridge.
Urban and lively.
Shorter commute to work.
No view, but better storage.
Nervewracking and exciting.

If you were wondering where I've been...

2008-06-08T17:28:00.000+01:00

The clever folks at OgilvyOne recently completed the hat trick of winning British Airways' global direct and loyalty marketing account as well as their digital marketing in Asia Pacific, Europe and Africa in the last nine months. I was the digital planning lead.

It meant six months of hardcore pitching, presenting and planning but all efforts were worth it and we won one of the largest and certainly most interesting accounts in the network. Now, the work begins...

Out of place = new

2008-06-03T13:37:00.000+01:00

I am reminded by John Maeda that feeling out of place is an opportunity to learn something new.

I am very out of place in the bars of New York; watching younger, fitter, more stylishly aware, more adventurous young adults and their admirers on a Friday night in a Hell's Kitchen bar. It seemed overwhelmingly out of place, but now I look back on it as an experience: to feel that carefree energy of young people on a Friday night. To remember how that felt and how much fun it was and to be glad of where I am in my life. To observe and feel and experience without judgment.

New York

2008-06-02T23:27:00.000+01:00

The Royalton / The W.
The Odeon / Shula's / Martinis.
Therapy / Posh / Vlada.
Mark and Richard.
Rajus / Claire.
Chris.
Patti LuPone in Gypsy.
Central Park / Times Sq.
Charles.
Dan.
Community Food.
Rain.
Home.

I happen to like New York

2008-05-30T14:29:00.000+01:00

What's not to like?

It's in the 70s (20s), sunny. Meetings have been breezy and informative. Catching up with friends Mark, Rajus, Chris has been lovely. A couple of shows. More than a couple martinis, great restaurants and a selection of museums. Civilised and lovely.

But could I live here? I still don't know. The throngs of people are intense and unmovable. The bustle is cacophonous. The staccato full volume voices are harsh to the anglicised ear. I would be in perpetual need of a nap.

Never say never and never not say no.

On being evicted

2008-05-25T08:35:00.000+01:00

The landlord has sold this flat so after three years, and the longest residency of my adult life, I need to find a new place to live.

At first I was blue. The tedium of finding a new flat, moving, getting cable and Broadband and whatnot up and running. I liked this flat with its modern impracticalities, it's undeniable conveniences, thick soundless walls, amiable concierges, dishwasher, and cosiness.

But then the construction work started at 8am on Saturday and I got over it.

Now, I'm more violet. This flat always was too small. I'm not particularly fond of Edgware Road. It's time for something new.

The real bugger is that had this happened last month, work would've paid for a relocation agent.

So after the long weekend and a week in New York I need to start flathunting again. Decide where and what. I'm thinking London Bridge, South Kensington or St. John's Wood. Near or on the Jubilee Line and a quick hop to work.

Now I'm a photographer

2008-05-17T14:03:00.000+01:00

Well, online, anyway.

Schmap published a photo I shot of the Catacombs in Paris.

Blackberry make an iPhone

2008-05-13T13:26:00.000+01:00

New Blackberry Bold looks an awful lot like...an iPhone

Genius idea

2008-05-12T13:28:00.000+01:00

The Get Out Clause, a Manchester band has to make a new video, but doesn't have any money. What do they do? They perform in front of more than 80 CCTV cameras in Manchester, then petition the government for the video under the Freedom of Information act. Very smart. You can watch the video here.

Muxtape

2008-04-28T13:23:00.000+01:00

Remember mix tapes? The hours that went into listing, organising and recording the perfects songs onto a cassette tape (usually for someone you wanted to shag the bones off of?)

Well, here's the digital version: Muxtape

Shagging not included.

2008-04-28T08:35:00.000+01:00

Isabel Fonseca was partly wrong. Those times when one is in the wrong place at the wrong time are very painful. Those times when duty and desire wish you to be in another place make the distance very keenly felt.

On self-exile

2008-04-19T11:53:00.000+01:00

"It’s more an idea than anything else...and that’s probably ideal. It’s handy living in the wrong place.” Isabel Fonseca