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Big Swedes - 25p each!

Big Swedes - 25p each!, originally uploaded by unpop.

Just over two years ago I spotted a sign advertising 'Loose Swedes' at the top of Copplestone hill. They were going for 50p each. A bargain! I was out that way again on Sunday and I'm delighted to see that the same place is still selling. And at the same price! So much for inflation.

But wait! What's this?! A little further along the road I came across this sign. Another farm, this time selling 'Big Swedes'! And at half the price of a loose one! So it seems you can have either a 'big' Swede or a 'loose' one, but not both big and loose... Decisions, decisions...

I know which I'd go for.

Garden room day 1

Garden room day 1, originally uploaded by unpop.

We're having the 'shed' converted into a 'garden room'. The builders moved in this morning, and this is the state of play at the end of the day. We're very excited about having a place to lounge and read books away from TV. Plussing as which we'll actually be able to sit somewhere indoors and be able to see all the fine work that C has put into making the garden something that's well worth looking at. C has bought a second hand sofa and chairs from Otto Retro, so the furnishings are already well in hand...

yes, I will have fries with that...

Some discussion over on Amy’s facebook page about the suckiness (or otherwise) of being a teenager. Sometimes I fear that I come over all ‘oh feel sorry for me because people picked on me and my teenage years were horrible’, but you know, it’s not that at all. Once upon a time it might have been true, but now, well, meh, it’s just meant as a kind of ‘well this is how it was’. No judgement. And as I pointed out, I don’t think I exactly went out of my way to try and make things easier.

Also, yes, there were some great high points, mostly from late 16 onwards, and mostly to do with people I met and events that happened thanks to getting a bicycle and joining a cycle club. But teen years up to that point? Sheesh. See, I’m with Julian Cope with the ‘being 14 sucks shit’ point of view. Also with Lester Bangs on adolescence in that interview with Richard Hell.

And whilst I think communications technology might make it easier to find a niche in life at that age which does not rely wholesale on one’s immediate physical environment, I’d still not want to be a teenager again. Not in this era or in any other. If I could live through my thirties again, however, I’d be there in a flash…

Anyway, the teen years thing made me think of that scene in the last episode of Freaks And Geeks. The AV room scene where the teacher charts the future life graphs of the jocks and the geeks. I couldn’t find it on YouTube so you'll just have to use the video of your imagination (and/or memory). Or spend longer looking than I did...

fit Sheffield into your pocket

Speaking of miniature figures, as I was dreaming about the other day, here’s a bunch of postcards of Sheffield in miniature. Well, not really, it’s actually a bunch of tilt-shifted photos, but they are pretty cool. I wonder if, when we look back at 2007 / 2008 in ten years time and consider the fads and trends, will we look at tilt-shift photos and think ‘ah, how quaint’. Or will they still look kinda funky?

basking in the sunshine

Good to see the Brits starring at the Tour Of Qatar. First it’s Wiggins leading home Garmin in the team time trial for the first race leader’s jersey, then it’s ‘old man’ Hammond nipping off the front into a desert gale. Go Roger! Yay! Now what’s the betting on a bunch sprint today and Mark ‘the cock’ (copyright Mags) Cavendish making it three in a row for the Brits?

Analyze This

Just been reading this piece on I Like about model villages. It reminded me of a couple of things, one being the obvious one of the conclusion to Hot Fuzz. The other was a dream I had last night. Now I do not normally remember dreams, and when I do it is usually all hazy and piecemeal. So you know, don’t expect no Kerouac Book Of Dreams kind of shtick or anything, but here goes:

I was some kind of secret agent, tailing a suspect. Suspected of what I have no idea, but whatever… The tailing was taking place at the seaside. A bit like the south Devon coast path, around Sidmouth actually, now I think about it. Except there was a sandy beach, which was more like Troon I suppose. And suddenly on this beach I noticed there were loads of little figures standing in the sand. There were tiny teddies, little soldiers (like the old HO scale Airfix figures), and a load of little people like you get in model railways. And they were all lined up neatly in rows, stretching out on separate ridges of sand. I had to be very careful where I was walking.

So these little figures, right, it was like being in Lilliput or something, and I became distracted by how cool they all looked, and I forgot all about the tailing I was meant to be doing. I crouched down, took out my iPhone and started taking photos of all the little figures.

As I was taking the photos, I became aware that there was a swimming pool just beyond the top ridge of sand (and figures) and suddenly this blonde girl surfaced from the water and I snapped a portrait of her with the little teddy bears in the foreground. It was an amazing photo. She asked to see it, and then for some reason she said she’d always wanted to meet a gondolier. This confused me, as you can imagine. I said I was a secret agent, not a gondolier, at which she shrugged disappointedly and swam away.

So, like, gondoliers are more attractive that secret agents? Someone should tell James Bond.

A Photo A Day...

Mags has been doing a daily photo project on her Flickr pages. It made me remember when I did something similar back in 2003. Can it really be six years ago already?! Scary. Anyway, I went to have a look at it a few weeks ago and discovered to my horror that I had forgotten to upload the entire old Tangents art gallery to the new server. It’s all back online now though, and I’ve been having some fun looking through those old images. The one on the left there is one from the 15th January 2003, and it reminds me that I was still firmly ensconced in my old Art room in the ageing Horizon Block of the school. The photo is of the purple display paper that was on the wall beside the window. The other photo from that day is of a corner of my personal wall in the same room. A blurry shot that shows a corner of a note from Pam and Mike, and a photo of Connor Oberst… You can access the whole project by going here for the main Tangents Gallery archive, and clicking on the ‘2003 diary’ link. Or you can, of course, not bother…

Erasure

I upgraded my web hosting account last night. Little did I know that it would mean that my entire site (1.5GBs worth of data) would effectively be wiped. Argh! Fortunately most of it is stored locally on my desktop machine, but the files for most of my Mixwit mixes were not. Which is why all the Mixwits except the ‘Don’t Bogart My Heart’ one are now deleted. I’ll try and go back and erase or modify the appropriate entries. It’s also possible that a load of old links from here and elsewhere may no longer function. The ful mix downloads from the box.net site aren’t affected.

The Tangents archive and all of John Carney’s sites should now be back online, and hopefully the rest of the things will be there by the end of the day. Fingers crossed.

Now to make some more Mixwit mixes. Any excuse will do…

Genius move

I admit I was somewhat sceptical of the so-called ‘Genius’ part of iTunes 8, but I’m being seduced, particularly since I spent much of this morning pottering around the Geek Lair trying to whip it back into shape after weeks of neglect (there were CDs, magazines, books, bills, cameras, sketchbooks and assorted paper products strewn everywhere). It one of those moments where I just couldn’t decide on what to play, so I hit a random recent addition and let the ‘Genius’ do its thing. The resulting playlist is below. And damn fine it was too.

The Ghost - I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Tender Buttons - Broadcast
Since K Got Over Me - The Clientele
Rollerdisco - Black Moth Super Rainbow
The Only Mistake - Joy Division
Dead Wrong - Frausdots
Save Your City - Radio 4
Hello? Is This Thing On - !!!
Together & Down - Benoit Pioulard
The Velvet Cell - Gravenhurst
Illumination - Broadcast
Deeper Into Movies - Yo La Tengo
Lights - I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Party - El Perro Del Mar
Carnival Kids - The Futureheads
Feast On My Heart - Pylon
My Own Face Inside The Trees - The Clientele
Threnody - The Daysleepers
Good Clean Fun (Album Version) - Clearlake
If You Could Read Your Mind - Clinic
Great Waves - Dirty Three
Drive That Fast - Kitchens Of Distinction
Feel The Same - Battle
Money In The Afterlife - Saturday Looks Good To Me
Young Men Dead - The Black Angels

Pruning

Today I took the metaphorical pruning shears to my Google Reader feeds and cut it all right back to the bare minimum. I’m sure that this follows good gardening practice, but someone who knows about these things would best placed to tell whether this metaphor is accurate or not. Regardless, it’s felt rather grand to cut back on the potential information overload. Sometimes quiet is so much better.

I’m not saying what I cut, but I will tell you a few of what I kept. Like the delectable Record Envelope. It’s not updated particularly regularly these days, but it’s always an inspiration. My design students are doing record cover designs at the moment, but I’m hesitant to show them this site because I am convinced they will think all the old designs ‘gay’. Or whatever parlance they are using these days. But I love them. The designs, I mean, not the kids.

Also kept is the essential Red Telephone 66 blog, which has been the source of a great deal of my recent listening. If you don’t dig this blog then you have ears of cloth. I shall call you Bagpuss.

Interestingly, the ‘technology’ section of my reader list has the most slashes. Does this mean I am less enchanted by ‘new technologies’ as I once was? Perhaps. Or perhaps I’m just tired of getting essentially the same stories rehashed. Or that there is simply too much to sift. I vacillated over whether or not to cut lifehacker for ages. In the end it was granted a stay of execution, but for how much longer? Maybe if I used windoze I would find more of relevance, but meh… I don’t. So I don’t. But it’s worth it still for posts like this one. I’m going to need that tip about ties pretty soon.

Finally, I’ve certainly kept the rss feed coming in from Stupefaction, as it’s one of my favourites and always stuffed with hip references. There was a link to a photo of the sleeve of Felt’s ‘Index’ 7” a few days ago, and I took that as the nudge I needed to scan my own copy and put it in my ‘pop ephemera’ set on Flickr. I also scanned both sides of the disc, which are here and here. I’ll probably post about this separately as well.