On autochrome

Fantastic programme on the BBC last night about Albert Kahn, the French philanthropist who commissioned thousands of photographs (many in colour) documenting the devastating effect of WW1 on France.

On flight.

Yesterday I took a dive down a flight of stairs at Vauxhall tube station. I wasn't paying attention and tripped over some woman's rolling suitcase and was suddenly in flight. I'm a bit sore and bruised, but fortunately relatively unharmed. Even more fortunately, no one was in my path - I could have killed someone.

I was thinking today that it's a shame that one doesn't really remember the sensation of being mid-air on those rare occasions that our bodies are hurled into flight. I remember hitting the ground and feeling the wind knocked out of me, but don't remember what it was like to have body and feet off the ground for those few nanoseconds. Shame that.

On 'When languages die'

From Language as design objects

"Of course these languages are endangered!" someone will inevitably crow. "English or the other major languages are informationally more efficient!" This isn't true. For example, what information is encoded in the English "my nephew"? For sure, it's a male person. But (as Harrison writes) "is he related to me by blood or marriage? Unclear. Is he older or younger than me? Unclear. Is he the son of my sister or my brother? Unclear. Is he the son of an older sibling of mine or a younger sibling? Unclear. Is he a boy or a man? Unclear." Taken in absolute terms, English isn't so efficient: we'd need a separate book to list all its major inefficiencies."

Upcoming D+AD events

Busy week for D&AD.

For the President's Lectures we've got Weiden and Kennedy sharing their insights and experiences on Monday night and Pentagram partner and design writer Michael Beirut talking about Pentagram on Tuesday. They're sold out, but I'd recommend begging or borrowing (but please, no stealing.)

The annual D+AD awards dinner is on Thursday. I'm curious to see who won this year. Yesterday the executive judged the Student of the Year and were all impressed by the outstanding quality of the work, but more on that after the winners have been announced.

Spring cleaning

Cleaned about 400 songs off of my iPod and now it positively gleams...

Currently enjoying:

Sarah McLachlan, Touch (and happy memories of college)
Tori Amos, American Doll Posse
Nico Muhly (classical music with attitude)

Recently purchased

Because I can't visit a place without buying books:

Mythologies, Roland Barthes
L'aventure sémiologique, Roland Barthes
Cours de linguistique générale, Ferdinand de Saussure.
An anthology of 20th century French poetry and a book on the painter Ingres.

Bonjour from Nice!

I'm in NIce, on the Cote d'Azur on holiday. It's paradise all around - lovely sea, lovely people, great shopping a bit of culture and a mild but sunny temperature. Spent three days in St Paul de Vence for a consulting meeting. We worked hard, but also ate at two Michelin-starred restaurants, L'Abbaye and la Colombe d'Or. We stayed in a charming resort, Le Mas de Pierre and had a conference room with a view of the collines. So it's hard to complain that most of the data analytics we discussed went right over my head.

Now, should I go to Monaco today or not?