Archive for January, 2008

A perk of working from home is the ability to make a nice lunch. Winter blues call for warming soups and the good old Campbell’s Condensed always goes down a treat with some crusty white doorsteps. But shock horror today! The label had changed and slapped over the classic red and white band was an ugly swatch: “Soon to be Batchelors”.

Batchelors will only ever make me think of grim, salty, dusty cup-a-soups that my mum subjected me to as a kid, not the lovely thick and creamy Campbells that Makes Double. This is a soup tragedy!

So many icons of 20th century culture are being swallowed up, rebranded, rebooted, renewed — and often to the detriment of the product in question. Will there be anything left for us to remember in ten years? Twenty?

Luckily, further investigation reveals that Batchelors won’t be changing the recipes and as they haven’t actually bought the brand, we might yet see Campbells on the label again in 2013.

I wonder by how much this will increase the value of Warhol’s classics?

Last week I went for a run for the first time in about 10 years. Actually, I say run it was more of a slow jog. Though when I say slow jog, I guess I really mean it was a brisk walk interspersed with some slow walking. And a sit down.

Fitness is not my thing. It doesn’t seem to run in the family either. I’m pretty sure my Dad didn’t exercise much more than his drinking arm and the closest Mother gets to any kind of activity is jumping from one personality to another. Literally.

I want to get fit. Really I do. I’ll enter my 36th year in August and I feel tired all the time so I can’t neglect this part of my life any longer. But after feeling achy and exhausted all week after only a short run, maybe I need to start even more simply?

Perhaps a night in the pub exercising my beer biceps would be a good start?

Overdosed on blogs this week and noticed that everyone is summarising their 2007. Bandwaggoning, here’s mine:

highs

• Finally moved away from my home town after only 35 years :-)
• Increased my salary significantly — for a short time
• I had balls big enough to reject a ’sensible’ career path
• Went to Glastonbury for the first time with highlights of The Who, Madness, Editors and Shirley Bassey!
• Met a lovely lady
• Made some new friends
• Became my own boss as a freelance webbie thing and haven’t yet had to promote myself
• Started writing a blog and realised how much I love it
• Discovered the only things I missed from home were my few close friends
• Quit psychotherapy
• Learnt more about the father I never really knew
• Joined Facebook with all its great connecting capabilities

lows

• Mum’s craziness (and therefore my own guilt) reached astronomic levels
• Lost a friend through my decision to reject corporate hell
• Struggled to make friends in a new city
• Learnt that flat sharing with an idiot is both a false economy and a waste of time
• Found some more ailments to add my steadily growing list
• Getting to grips with London’s expensive and confusing transport system
• Joined Facebook with all it’s shitty pointlessness

things to achieve this year

• Gain enough paid employment to clear my debts and save some cash
• Have a decent holiday
• Start a fitness regime — morning runs are the first thing, from next week. Eeek!
• Get a better daily routine: earlier nights and earlier starts
• Spend less time on the computer
• Buy a decent camera and start experimenting
• Start drawing again
• Explore London and find some decent pubs!

If I manage to do even half of those I’ll be happy. :-)

• Beautiful photographs of forgotten “sound mirrors” built in the First World War as a low-tech precursor to RADAR
• Amazing pictures of bouquets frozen in liquid nitrogen then shattered
• Limo see-saw

Corporate giants beware: Consumers are getting more and more tech-savvy and can use the web against you. The Guardian shows how 2007 was the year of consumer power. Another great example of how the web is maturing and being used in positive ways.

Andrew Collins has written a great post outlining why it’s “time for a return to - or a formalisation of - good manners.” It’s a shame that his Manners Manifesto even needs to be written, but I’m glad someone is still thinking this way.

I already try and do as much as I can from his list and that comes from one of the good things my mother did for me as a child: she taught me good manners. These days she’s a lunatic schizophrenic who collects dead birds and literally expects God to provide for her, but I’m glad her middle-to-upper-class aspirations gave me those good manners.

However, I don’t agree with everything Andrew says. I never buy the Big Issue because it’s dire. I have sworn at a free-newspaper vendor on the tube who barred my way into Canary Wharf station by sticking his arm out right in front of me — immovably. And I’m not always that friendly to strangers, especially since moving to London: get too friendly and you’re likely to be knifed in the guts or receive a toe-cap to the bollocks. Be even friendlier and firearms might be involved.

Neverthless, it’s good to see a rallying call for better manners. I’m going to try and improve. Will you?

It’s a new year: what better time for a lick of paint around here? The old design was never finished and I never really liked the literal interpretation of ‘pale movie’: monochrome images of some of my favourite films. So they are gone: dumped down the virtual swanny.

The new theme is still straightforward, but instead of a lighter background, I’ve opted for something more sombre. The focus is the large, randomized background images which capture ideas about loneliness, alienation, dereliction, decay and obsolescence; themes that I’ve always been interested in and will be exploring over the months to come as I try to improve both the subject matter of my posts and my writing style (I’ve been accused of being too wordy and too dry). While this is part of my style, I really want to develop language that’s more colourful and compelling, so stay tuned to see if I manage it…

Oh, and Happy New Year, etc.