One Man's Notes


Bored? In the Apple Store?


Too much coffee?


Tim Relf has no taste...

It shouldn't be this way – some of my best friends are farmers, my girlfriend is a farmer's daughter, I even work for Farmers Weekly. But The Archers epitomises all that's wrong with so much radio drama. It's too acted; too hammed up. It's as if the actors are trying to compensate for the lack of pictures with grunts that are a extra grunty, stutters that are over-stuttered, ooh-arrs that are a little too rustic.

via www.guardian.co.uk

BURN THE HERETIC...


The Past, in a Skip

via ageofuncertainty.blogspot.com

One of my obsessions that I have to keep at bay is a love for found photographs. I find photographs at sale at antiques fairs or in junk shops almost unbearably heart-rending; objects that were once beloved momentos thrown away and up for sale, totally removed from the context in which they were created.

I've had to be disciplined and resist their lure, because I have vast amounts of fmily scanning to do before I can think of any found photography scanning, but this tale of rescued photography just fills me with joy. Well worth checking out.


Work. Laptop. And a hint of iPhone


Conkered

IMG_0325
It was just laying there, on the patch from the car park, as I made my way to work this morning. How could I not photograph it?


Shoreham Farmers Market

A glorious day, accompanied by some glorious shopping…

  The Band
The Band

Honey Honey
Shoreham-by-sea Farmers Market
Shoreham-by-sea Farmers Market
Shoreham-by-sea Farmers Market


Walking in the Cairngorms, March 1989

Adam, Walker

Back in my final year of school, a group of friends invited me on an Easter holiday with them. It wasn't expensive; we took the train from central Scotland, where we lived, up to Aviemore, and then stayed in a youth hostel for the week. We cooked ourselves dinner, and entertained ourselves by spending our days walking through the Cairngorms, stunning mountains in the Highlands.

I was 17, and this was my first real holiday with friends, and I loved it. After a small accident, involving ice, gloves, my face and a swinging frame in a children's adventure park, I had a blast. I had experiences that week I have never repeated since:

  • being caught in a whiteout, and then finding our way to a nearby bothy to shelter, by holding on to each other's backpacks. 
  • going from snowy winter to glorious spring simply by heading down from the mountains to the valleys between
  • being so tired at the end of the day that sleeping in the communal bunkrooms was easy

It would be four years before I would go away on holiday with friends like that again, but this really felt like the first big step towards independent adulthood that would continue six months later when I left for university in London. Sadly, I'm no longer in contact with the four other people who were on the trip with me - Daniel, Phylida, Claire and Katy - but scanning my way through the transparencies I shot that week reminded me of what a great, life-shaping week that was. 

The whole set's below:

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649


Adur, Evening


Adur, Evening, originally uploaded by Adam Tinworth.

You know, I could just get used to living here…


Tech, 1988 Style

41hsdesk
This is my computer desk from the late 80s - probably '88 or '89. Yes, that's a portable TV it's connected to. And yes, that's a tape deck for loading programs…

RevStan might live to note the RSC production poster just visible in the top left of the picture. And yes, there's a hairdryer by the mirror. It was the 80s, I was a teenager. You blowdried.

Just noticed - two toy Daleks by the "monitor". WIN.


Amen (or your secular affirmation of choice)

So it seems we know too little to commit to strict atheism, and too much to commit to any religion. Given this, I am often surprised by the number of people who seem to possess total certainty about their position. I know a lot of atheists who seethe at the idea of religion, and religious followers who seethe at the idea of atheism - but neither group is bothering with more interesting ideas. They make their impassioned arguments as though the God versus no-God dichotomy were enough for a modern discussion.

via www.newscientist.com


Debenhams Matures…

via www.stylelist.com

This got a huge thumbs-up from my (fashion-obsessed) mother-in-law over the weekend. Debenhams is using older models in some of its adverts.

She actually felt she could identify more with the people on display. Goes to show that "aspirational" doesn't always need to mean "aspiring to look 18"…


Hints of that double dip

Our food costs have increased frighteningly since last year. Just to take a few examples from Le Manoir's own provisioning: our blueberries have gone up by 16% since 2009, butter 4.5%, flour nearly 12%, Jabugo ham 15%, Manuka honey 11.5% and milk by more than 8%.

via www.caterersearch.com

That's the chef Raymond Blanc blogging about the business challenges of the current economy. Base materials and energy costs up. Interest rates are going to have to rise at some point. Many public sector cuts to come.

Anyone nervous yet?


Pre-requisite for modern media?

We firmly believe that you can't build a modern media company without having a platform, and TypePad is our platform for doing that.

via everything.typepad.com

Interesting choice of words.


Living in the UK - not so great

The UK and Ireland have been named as the worst places to live in Europe for quality of life, according to research published today.

via www.guardian.co.uk

I'm not sure how and why the UK went so wrong, but this article actually sums up what we've been feeling for a while. Unless you're in a certain income bracket, the UK isn't a great place to be right now.


Where now for Movable Type and Typepad? - a post on my "work" blog about the Say Media news. I suspect several people reading this know way more than I do about the future, but I wanted to put an alternative spin on it to some of the predictions of doom circulating...


Thieves jamming car-locks?

Surrey police are exploring the theory that a gang of car thieves are jamming central locking systems to make it easier to steal goods from cars.

The theory arose after one a witness reported that a man used an electronic device to prevent doors from locking when he parked his Lexus at a local Sainsbury's.

via www.theregister.co.uk

That's a little worrying. I was in the Waitrose (how middle-aged am I?) car park on the way home from work a couple of weeks ago, and my car resolutely wouldn't open.

A couple drove up and told me that this was a common problem, and that I should go and see the manager about it. I said that it wasn't a problem, I could manually open the car, and they drove off. Just before I pulled off the manual open cover, I tried the fob lock once more, and it worked. Now I'm suspicious of that couple's motivations…


This Week in iPhone Pictures: 12th September 2010

Let's be honest. I rarely go anywhere without my iPhone. And, on occasion, I'm so taken by something that I grab a photo and upload it straight to Flickr. And for the last four days, I've done that consistently. Now, the challenge I'm setting myself is to try to do that every day from now on, aggregating them all here every Sunday. Here's the first four days' worth:

Beautiful morning in Lewisham

This is the pic that started it - it was such a lovely morning that I couldn't resist grabbing a pic as I got in my car.

Making a Shard

Changing at London Bridge, on my way to a meeting on Friday, I loved this view of the under-construction Shard.

St Nicholas' Dummy

A dummy on a stall in St Nicholas' Market made for a striking shot on Saturday.

Last of the summer roses

And a rose in my mother-in-law's garden caught my eye on a lazy Sunday.


Blog Unleashes Cliché in Headline

Katie Holmes unleashes her wild side in leopard print

via www.mydaily.co.uk

Oh, dear God. Is there no end to the clichés? How long have print media journalists been using "wild side" for anything to do with leopard print? It's dull, it's predictable, there's precisely nothing wild about Katie Holmes in that photo and do blogs really need to use the same clichés?

grumblegrumblegrumble


On the death of Vox

See It. Hear It. Vox It.

Last Thursday, I opened Safari, and found a death notice. Vox, a blogging platform I've used for four years, was on death row. At the end of this month, it dies.

I used to love Vox. Up until mid-2008 I was an enthusiastic Voxer, posting there as least as much as I do here. But my activity had petered off in recent years, and I think there are some lessons worth learning in the demise of this once-promising platform.

via www.onemanandhisblog.com

For anyone who has followed me over from Vox, I've blogged my thoughts on its end over on my "work" blog.


Enjoying the Downbeat

When I was growing up, I remember vividly my Dad choosing to absent himself from the living room when a depressing, downbeat or tragic fils, show or documentary came on. "I know these things happen," he would say. "But I don't need it rubbed in my face."

Like the teenage tit that I was, I found this annoying. I was still stuck in the mindset that sad or bleak = "deep". My father was clearly not as deep as me. 

Roll forwards a couple of decades, and I'm beginning to see his point. It's been a rough seven or eight years, with illness, mental health issues and death rocking the family. And now, in my precious leisure time, I've become somewhat adverse to stories tinged with bleakness and despair myself. Real life has plenty of that, thanyouverymuchindeed. Which is why I found myself a little thrown after we watched A Handful of Dust on the AppleTV last night. 

Kristin Scott Thomas in A Handful of Dust.-003a I'm not sure where our copy came from - a free DVD with a newspaper possibly, or inherited from my mother. But a while ago, I ripped it, stuck it on the AppleTV and charity shopped the original, intending to watch and delete the digital copy. And last night, at a loose end after Science Online and a trip to B&Q, we finally got around to watching it. 

I admit: it's been a while since I read any Waugh. And I do feel that this adaptation, as enjoyable as it was, lacked the satirical edge of Waugh's writing. But it was enjoyable, the characters believable and the acting uniformly great. But, my goodness, that ending was bleak. We spent the best part of two hours watching a decision, born of boredom, destroy a family completely. And what was the point in that?

Sleeping on it, I realise that I've slipped into too much of a goal-focused mindset in recent months. The point of the movie, as in so much of life, was the journey, far more than the destination. Did I enjoy the process of watching the film? Yes. Very much? Did I enjoy the ending? No - but that doesn't diminish the enjoyment of watching the film. And, in a sense, the ending wasn't final. It was an endpoint to a certain situation, a certain voyage in the characters' lives, but for most of them, there was life left to live. I'm a long way short of being a person who heads straight to the misery memoir section of the local bookshop, but perhaps I'm crawling my way back towards enjoying some of the more downbeat aspects of art.


Fishbourne Palace

image from https://addersdotblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/29f5a-6a00d8341da3af53ef0134868f1cd5970c-pi.jpg

image from https://addersdotblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/058e5-6a00d8341da3af53ef0134868f1cdc970c-pi.jpg

image from https://addersdotblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/f4490-6a00d8341da3af53ef0133f36af127970b-pi.jpg

image from https://addersdotblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/9e125-6a00d8341da3af53ef0133f36af12c970b-pi.jpg

image from https://addersdotblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/0d334-6a00d8341da3af53ef0133f36af135970b-pi.jpg


Abandoned Guardian

While walking down Shoreham Beach yesterday afternoon, we came across a Guardian that appeared to have been abandoned on a bench, and so was blowing around the beach in pieces:

Abandoned Guardian

Blowing Supplements
Blowing Supplements
We reassembled it, and left it held down by stones, in case the owner came back. But we didn't take it.

There's probably an extended metaphor for the future of print newspapers here, but I really can't be bothered to find it. ;-)


Maggie Philbin is....

Screen shot 2010-08-14 at 16.04.07
Somewhere, my inner seven year old, a Swap Shop fanatic, is squealing with delight.

(and yes, it's the same one)