The calm before the storm - Thanksgiving afternoon.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Close investigation, before Thanksgiving
As I am returned from London, what follows in this and the next few posts are a selection of photos that you can explore in more detail over at flickr. Enjoy!
Monday, October 29, 2007
Continuing the fine tradition...
...of lazy posts when we have too little time to say anything properly, here’s an amazing online tool that's like Google Earth — except you get to see buildings from street level, for a few cities in the Us so far.
And here’s a list of things that a guy has tried, and failed, to masturbate to.
tags: [maps] [urban] [cities] [new york] [google earth] [masturbation] [sex]
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Keith Jarrett...?!
Speaking at the group's annual conference, Keith Jarrett will ask Police Minister Tony McNulty and Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to consider escalating stop-and-searches among black people to reduce the number of shootings that have claimed the lives of another two teenagers in the past week.
At first I didn’t knowwhat to think. A great jazz pianist getting into policing? It didn’t make any sense. Luckily this brainlessness was entirely due to one less cup of coffee than was wise before picking up the paper this morning.
One of my colleagues in work is a lovely man. He will approach the desk with a slim new volume of poetry every month; a periodical about art every few weeks; talk about recent trips to Paris and the architecture therein. Which is why I was knocked for six when, this week, I grandly unfolded that day’s Great Modern Buildings poster from the newspaper, and he said “Oh, what’s that?” This is a church so famous, so oft-illustrated, that I can’t believe he didn’t know it, specially in our line of work.
But what was truly amazing — and surely the Guardian must have realised this would happen — was the reaction it got from those in the office who don’t give a damn about architecture. Twenty minutes later, two people (let’s call them Agnes and Norman) were still pointing to the poster and arguing interestedly about whether the roof was thatch or concrete. I knew which, and hadn’t said a word so it was partly my fault, but I left the office feeling that the best work I’d done all day was a bit of unfolding.
tags: [architecture]
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Architectural things
Forgive the briefness, but I promise you, these links are good ones. I have a cold. Enough said.
The Stockholm subway really does give the impression of being hewn out of solid rock — because it is. Zaha Hadid — remember the name. The Glasgow Museum of Transport’s conceptual rendering looks like a line of gabled industrial workshops has been slightly melted like butter, and swirled.
I’ve touched on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house before, but this post on MetaFilter presents a rendered movie of the place which is just amazingly good.
Ignore those on the thread who tell you that he built the house on top of the commissioning family’s favourite picnic rock — he built it around the rock so that it formed part of the hearth in the livingroom. Also, ignore 2blowhards on the subject of Wright’s houses. Their criticisms are like saying of the Pantheon, “But it’s got a hole in the roof. Stupid primitive Romans.”
Seeing Wireframe London opens up a small universe of play inside my head. Not sure why yet. The river is the only thing that’s solid. Which chimes perfectly with a book I have recently devoured.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Ingredients
...for pancakes, courtesy of a South African genius, my last morning in Greenwich. Well, not ever. Just this summer.
First warm night, barbecue - flame effects 7
Yes, those have been a lot of flame photos. You have to wait for it to burn down to embers before cooking anything.
First warm night, barbecue
It was also my last night in Greenwich, so we decided to stay home and do something special.
Twisty turny Pavilion, Kensington Gardens, 2007
...with a disappointed Jonathan in the foreground. They actually close the pavilion at 6pm daily and we got there at 6.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Guru Paws
Sissie's brother, who appears to be cunningly imitating a wicker chair. Greenwich, this afternoon.
Homeward bound
Well, tomorrow morning I shall be winging my way to London. There is a fifty per cent chance of photo posts, which may or may not be properly tagged and fleshed out with info. Or perhaps the other fifty per cent chance - not much at all. We will see...
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Ephemera
First of all, many, many apologies to everyone who still reads this blog for the silence. I haven’t died, nor have I become brain-dead, although a distinct sense of slowness in the brain department after coming back from work these days is chiefly to blame. Anyway, on with the post.
I’ll start up again slowly today, with a few interesting links. In the history of both Windows and Mac OSes, one of the most user-customised features has been the background image on the desktop: the wallpaper. And here is a web-based wallpaper search tool which operates via a flickr API to allow you to search for your choice of wallpaper by pixel resolution, image format and keyword. Of course, you’re restricted to the images available on flickr but that’s hardly a disadvantage. I have a marvellous Japanese moss garden to soothe and cheer me when I power up the silicon beast.
I’m going to have a dinner party on the Tube just like this one when I go to London. No, I didn’t say absolutely the next time I go to London, but sometime. And here’s a mimic. And here’s an interesting piece of psychology.
Finally, if you’ve watched the last few clips and wouldn’t mind leaning back to enjoy them again, but this time with a drink in your hand, do learn a little more about an essential cocktail ingredient.
More soon.
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