HipstaWalk #1
Spring finally seems to have arrived in London, so I took the opportunity to walk a chunk of the distance home this evening. I headed down Kingsway, across Waterloo Bridge and made my way to London Bridge along the south bank.
And the light was so very beautiful, I couldn't resist trying to grab some images using the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone. After some experimentation, I settled on the Helga lens and Verichrome film as best suited to the conditions. And I'm pretty pleased with the results .
Buildings:
Plants:
Construction:
I'm really pleased with these results. I'm planning a few more walks if the weather stays good…
Labour Goes Keywording
This amused me - this is the feed from Boris Johnson's blog in my feed reader. Note the partial feed. Tsk.
Also note: the keyword-based feed advertising inserting an ad for Labour in the Tory mayor's feed.
Bonus note: does that mean if I'd clicked through, a small amount of Labour money would have gone to Boris?
A New Photo Project
Some pictures from the early stages of a little photographic project I've set myself:
The observant might be able to make an educated guess as to what it is - but I'll write more about it tomorrow.
Too Sexy for Who?
You just know that the new Doctor Who production team have got something right when the Daily Mail is complaining about the show after one episode.
In this case, it's about the new assistant, Amy Pond, played by the stunning Karen Gillan, being "too sexy" - a point they illustrate with multiple photos of said excessive sexiness…
QotD: The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done...
What's the hardest thing you've ever done?
Telling my dying mother that it was OK for her to go.
QotD: Sweet Treat
If you could only indulge in one dessert for the rest of your life, which sweet treat would you choose?
Profiteroles.
To Commute or Not To Commute
We're in the middle of trying to figure out where to live next. It's dawning on us that we're facing a choice between our ideal lifestyle and convenience, between the rural idyll and being 10 minutes from the office.
That discussion makes this piece in Business Week rather sobering: people spending three hours of their day commuting, while constantly planning how to escape this lifestyle. I spend between 90 mins and two hours commuting most days at the moment, and I find that pretty tolerable. how much would I trade off for a better life?
And how long until the internet allows us greater freedom for remote working, of the type espoused here?
Too many questions, and, once this place is sold, I need some answers to go with them…
Hello, New Tardis
I thought they'd save this for a big reveal on Saturday, but no, here it is.
Thoughts?
Holborn's Burning (Briefly)
OK, I admit it. the title's a bit of an exaggeration. But we had the excitement of a small fire here at EG towers this afternoon. As best I can tell, a pile of bags of shredded paper somehow caught fire just outside our Holborn office, leading to smoke, fire extinguishing and the arrival of the fire brigade:
The building security guard actually tried to stop me taking the last photo. Apparently photos of burnt paper in the foyer are a security risk…
Photoshop 5's magical fill tool
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch
via kottke.org
This looks insanely awesome. I have a whole bunch of scanning and cleaning up of old family photos to do - some going back to my great-grandparents' era. The time savings from these tools would be huge.
Is Le Wei Xiang, Lewisham any good?
We flicked through the menu and I was fair jumping up and down at seeing such gems as "Blood Curd, Pig Bowel, Ox Tripe, Ham & Veg boiled with Dried Chilli and Chinese Spice", "Shredded Beef Stomach with Preserved Chilli" and "Stewed Pigs Trotters in Soy Sauce".
via www.meemalee.com
Just up the road from where I live. Sounds well worth a visit.
Leaders' Wives
This is the wife of one of our political leaders.
These photos are a decade old.
This was front page news yesterday.
I despair of political debate in this country sometimes.
Eleventh Doctor trailer 3
w00t! Another trailer for the new series of Doctor Who (thanks, Michael):
How awesome is this? Let's enumerate the ways:
- The Amy-balloon. I want an Amy balloon, and we haven't even been introduced to her yet…
- World War II Daleks
- Stonehenge. It may be tiny and disappointing in real life, but this makes it look cool.
- Cyberman FROM THE CRYPT.
- What looks suspiciously like aircraft versus a flying saucer
- Did I mention World War II Daleks?
Selling the Kids on the Eleventh Doctor
Last weekend, we went to the cinema with Stacey to see Alice in Wonderland. And very enjoyable it was, too. But that's not what I want to write about. You see, as it was an afternoon screening, and thus full of kids, they showed the 3D trailer for the new series of Doctor Who that starts next month:
As the 11th Doctor's distinctive physiognomy swam into view, a defiant pre-teen voice announced loudly to the cinema: "I hate him."
Yes, a small boy hates a version of the Doctor he has seen for all of about a minute's screen time. But then, he's one of a whole generation of new Who fans who are having to deal with an experience that's completely new to them: the Doctor becoming someone else. If that boy was 8 or 9, David Tennant was the Doctor for pretty much the whole of his life. He might vaguely remember the Christopher Ecclestone series - and he's probably watched it - but the tenth Doctor is his Doctor, and this guy is some impostor.
And this is perhaps the last of the great challenges for the new Who: can it survive the transition to a new Doctor, after a long-running, popular predecessor? It's worth bearing in mind that the last time the series successfully achieved this was way back in 1982, when my 10-year old self watched with mingled horror, excitement and dismay as my beloved fourth Doctor fell off a radio telescope and became the alarmingly youthful fifth Doctor.
So, it's been 28 years since this form of switch was pulled off successfully. That's a challenge. And there will be a generation for whom David Tennant will be as Jon Pertwee was for me: something from the past. And they'll be easy to win over. The adult fans will come easily, if the quality stays high. The challenge is that key childhood group that drive the appeal of this family show. "I don't want to go," said the tenth Doctor as regeneration overtook him. Many of the audience would have been sharing that same feeling.
The Stephen Moffat, Matt Smith and company have about an hour to persuade the kids that the change is good.
Me? I'm already persuaded. I'm looking forward to the new Who. Much as I enjoyed the RTD era, its tics and weaknesses were aggravating me by the end of the End of Time. Time for something fresh. Time for change.
Reggie Perrin Redux
I watched last year's remake of The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin with some trepidation. I loved the original and, while it hasn't aged well, it was a pretty seminal piece of sitcom work. Updating it as Reggie Perrin seemed doomed, frankly.
And yet, by the end of the season, I had come to enjoy it. Underneath the traditional sitcom production values, there was something far bleaker and darker than you see in conventional comedy, and more so than there was in the original. The main arc was quicker back then, with the original fall and rise played out in a single series, with the later ones having to explore further from the core to keep it going. in the 2009 version, we were left with an angry, despairing Reggie quite possibly on the brink of committing suicide for real, rather than just staging it.
News that a second series of Reggie Perrin is coming leaves me with equally mixed feelings. The final episode left it quivering with potential, with the chance to explore the frustrations and fallacies of modern life in more detail as Reggie shed the trappings of the ordinary. Yet the press release suggest that something of a reset. That would be a shame. Here's hoping it's better than that.
25 Years Ago...
Today on the internets...
Today I have been:
- Finally figuring out what body con means. Not knowing had been bothering me for months.
- Being amused by this:
- Hearing the sound of drums
- Exploring the psychology of the profile pic