Log of Intrigue

2009-07-27T22:54:00.005+01:00

Karin Weiner

2009-07-27T22:30:00.000+01:00

Joy Godfrey

2009-07-27T17:58:00.004+01:00

Fred Kennett

2009-07-27T17:45:00.004+01:00

Suzanne McIvor

2009-07-27T17:36:00.003+01:00

Will Edmonds

2009-07-27T17:27:00.003+01:00

Catherine Sutcliffe Fuller

Fields Raised for the Consumer

A Sheltered Field

A Fox

A Tailored Plain

2009-07-27T17:26:00.000+01:00

Philip Eliston

2009-07-27T17:16:00.003+01:00

Nicolas Burrows

2009-07-26T19:13:00.004+01:00

Titian Anadyomene

2009-07-26T10:34:00.006+01:00

Mark Boyle and Joan Hills Zinc dissolved by acid.

2009-07-26T10:09:00.012+01:00

Shirin Neshat

Women of Allah (photographs)

Rapture (video still)

Madohkt (video still)

2009-06-18T23:14:00.002+01:00

Julie Maier and Aaron Hogg at Type Tees

2009-06-03T11:19:00.002+01:00

Jeanine Woollard

2009-06-03T11:11:00.002+01:00

Marlene Dumas Passion, 1994, Guache and ink on paper

Amelia's Magazine Environmental Illustration

2009-05-08T15:12:00.002+01:00

Good competition here:

This illustration is by Laura-Maria Arola

Mushrooms

2009-03-24T22:28:00.006Z

I haven't blogged in ages have I! Well I have been busy doing things out in the real world, which is surely more productive. I'm not sure that images of mushrooms make much of a comeback post, but they sure are cool.

Via

Via

12th International Book Fair

2009-03-08T12:24:00.011Z

I really enjoyed looking at all of the beautiful things on display at the book fair; I think that the older I get, the less I take the creativity of others for granted. A selection of things I liked:

Anne Rook has tapped into a project I had in mind with her exploration of the apple in terms of its 'brand'.
Incredibly, there are over a thousand varieties of apple in the UK, but I suspect that most people can only name a few, owing to the select few available. I'm sure a fellow vis com student based an FMP around this; I will try and dig out the old exhibition catalogues... Anyway, I like the flat images Rook has produced, but the accompanying animation doesn't inspire me at all.

This poster from David Birchall (Black and White Cat Press) is rather groovy, and has now replaced Johnny Depp's portrait of Patti Smith on the wall above my keyboard.

Letter Press Printed Cards are keeping the Gutenberg tradition alive. If you must engage in the exchanging of greetings cards, then at least don't go to Clintons.

New Arcadian Press aims to to 'generate a continuous programme of artistic, scholarly and poetic research into cultural landscape'. The resulting journals are lovely items.

Where to Buy Food In Leeds

2009-03-07T17:03:00.008Z

This post is more of a plug, for the places that offer alternatives to the horrible supermarkets.

CITY CENTRE

Kirkstall Market. The farmers market is every first and third Sunday of the month, from 9am to 2pm; a good chance to support local producers and buy seasonal harvest.

Out of This World

Org Organics

Leeds University Green Action Society Food Co-op

LS6

Oblong Food Co-op

Maumoniat's International Supermarket

Abu Bakar

ONLINE

Lembas Speciality Vegetarian Wholefoods

Pop Organics

Custard Apple

2009-03-06T17:09:00.005Z

This curious fruit grows on the Annona reticulata tree, which can be found in tropical climates. Image via The Green Intifada.

Big Ideas

2009-03-01T13:43:00.000Z

This is a great speech, courtesy of TVO's Big Ideas series. Cultural Studies professor Toby Miller approaches the environmental impact of e-waste with an array of philosophical and critical methodologies.

Electronic Waste

The compatibility between religion and western liberal development is explored very eruditely, and with some cracking long words, by political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain.

Religion and Democracy

Twigs

2009-02-27T18:16:00.001Z

Today I went on down to the college photography studio for the first (!) time, to get a macro lens on these gooseberry and blackberry clippings, which I might use as part of a website, or perhaps just in an illustration. When at the allotment I notice so many wonderful textures and details; I particularly love the way the subtleties in the colour of the berry buds betray their variety. I'm going to have to photograph as much as I can before I graduate.

Old London Bridge

2009-01-31T22:08:00.000Z

Why don't we have bridges with buildings on anymore?

Wallpaper Birds

2009-01-31T21:55:00.001Z

Made from vintage wallpaper, by this person:
http://www.inkeheiland.com/

The Selby

2009-01-31T21:45:00.001Z

Me in my sitting room yeah?

http://www.theselby.com/
Inspiration for living spaces.

A Story Tattooed

2009-01-18T21:24:00.000Z

Shelley Jackson is publishing a story. On the skin of 2095 volunteers. And only they will be able to read it. An original idea, perhaps I will apply for a word!

Fruit Typography

2009-01-18T21:10:00.000Z

Just perfect!

Sarah Tweed

Before Sunrise

2009-01-17T23:38:00.000Z

I love this film, and the idea of short lived but wonderful relationships. I think we'd all feel a lot better about saying good bye to people if we did so abruptly, and purposely avoided the depressingly inevitable fizzle out.

Leeds Museum

2009-01-17T16:50:00.000Z

The new museum holds many treasures, but my favourite is this Roman mosaic depicting Romanus and Remus suckling on the she-wolf that rescued them from the river bank on which they had been abandoned. She looks like an affable sort of creature, no? One source* suggests that she actually fed the twins biscuits.

Edifying diversions include mincing around in a animal print cloak, puzzling over the relevance of items in the 'History of Leeds' section and, if a parent, reading from the information points your child is conveniently unable to comprehend, in a smug bid to appear sagacious.

But children aren't daft. Upon perusing the 'How to Save the World' public comment board, observe the perspicacity of one nine year old: 'Use less paper! So I shouldn't really be writing this then...' That's right my child, the ice caps are melting because of YOU and your scribbling chums.

*The Unofficial Founding of Rome by M. Saunders

Tilt Shift Miniature Faking

2009-01-14T15:06:00.000Z

This involved using various tediously complicated photographicic techniques/ the Photoshop blur tool to make a real-life subject look like a miniature. It's the sort of art one looks at and pronounces 'cool'.

The Crisis of Perception

2009-01-13T19:23:00.000Z

Dr Deepak Chopra explains how the environmental crisis directly challenges the way humanity perceives reality. Science has spent hundreds of years making distinctions that don’t really exist. As a result, we think of ourselves as separate from the environment. The reality, he explains, is that we humans are an integral part of the environment – and that the environment is part of us.

http://www.bigpicture.tv/videos/watch/07e1cd7dc

Entomophagy

2009-01-07T20:20:00.000Z

Last year the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation held a conference on the benefits of eating insects. Many humans around the world are consumers of insects, scientifically known as entomophagists, but we in the West don't take advantage of the nutritional and environmental benefits that bugs offer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3343288/Eat-more-insects,-scientists-say.html

Macclesfield Psalter

2009-01-07T20:08:00.000Z

14th Century Illustrated book of psalms. Faced being taken out of the public realm earlier this year, but was bought by the Fitzwilliam Gallery. I think it important that such works of art are available for all to see, even if most people aren't bothered.

Medieval Britain on Television

2009-01-04T14:38:00.000Z

In Search for Medieval Britain, 'Medieval art historian Dr Alixe Bovey uses the oldest surviving route map of Britain to make a series of journeys through Britain in the Middle Ages.' Some interesting content, but an inordinate amount of screen time is taken up by Dr Boweys' annoying face and unnecessarily sporty mode of transport. Also unlikely is the use of emerging Polaroid photographs to link between sites of historical interest. Altogether not hugely edifying.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009xws3

The map she uses as a guide is the Gough map, dating from the 14th century. Of what profound relevance this is to her journey I'm not sure.

A much more coherent programme on the era is 'Inside the Medieval Mind'.

Subsequent parts on YouTube.

In our Time's programme about Abélard and Héloise is also very good. French, I know, but I got a bit distracted.

Detail of an illumination from a 14th c. manuscript of Le Roman de la Rose.

Stephen Fry - Language

2009-01-02T17:45:00.000Z

In his edifying new podgram, Fry asserts that 'only to a dullard is language a means of communication and nothing more.'

The transcript can be found on his website.

Bill Bryson's Britain

2009-01-02T17:04:00.000Z

Memorable excerpts from Bryson's Notes from a Small Island:

'It has long seemed to me unfortunate - and I'm talking the global view here - that such an important experiment in social organisation was left to the Russians when the British would have managed it so much better. All those things that are necessary to the successful implementation of a rigorous socialist system are, after all, second nature to the British. For a start, they like going without. They are great at pulling together, particularly in the face of adversity, for a perceived common good. They will queue patiently for indefinite periods and accept with rare fortitude the imposition of rationing, bland diets and sudden shortages of staple good, as anyone who has ever looked for bread at a supermarket on a Saturday afternoon will know. They are comfortable with faceless bureaucracies and, as Mrs Thatcher proved, tolerant of dictatorships. They will wait uncomplainingly for years for an operation or the delivery of a household appliance. They have a natural gift for making excellent jokes about authority without seriously challenging it, and they derive universal satisfaction from the sight of the rich and powerful brought low. Most of those above the age of twenty-five already dress like East Germans. The conditions, in a word, are right.
Please understand I'm not saying that Britain would have been a happier, better place under Communism, merely that the British would have done it properly. They would have taken it in their stride, with good heart, and without excessive cheating. In point of fact, until about 1970 it wouldn't have made the slightest discernible difference to most people's lives, and might at least have spared us Robert Maxwell.'

'Given the nature of the hotel I'd expected the menu to feature items like brown windsor soup and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, but of course things have moves on in the hotel trade. The menu now was richly endowed with ten-guinea words that you wouldn't have seen on a menu ten years ago - 'noisettes', 'tatare', 'duxelle', 'coulis', 'timbale' - and written in a curious inflated language with eccentric capitalisations. I had, and I quote, 'Fanned Galia Melon and Cumbrian Air Dried Ham served with a Mixed leaf Salad' followed by 'Fillet Steak served with a crushed Black Peppercorn Sauce flamed in Brandy and finished with Cream', which together were nearly as pleasurable to read as to eat.
I was greatly taken with this new way of talking and derived considerable pleasure from speaking it to the waiter. I asked him for a lustre of water freshly drawn from the house tap and presented au nature in a cylinder of glass, and when he came round with the bread rolls I entreated him to present me a tonged rondel of blanched wheat oven baked and masked in poppy-seed coating. I was just getting warmed up to this and about to ask for a fanned lap coverlet, freshly laundered and scented with a delicate hint of Omo, to replace the one that had slipped from my lap and now lay recumbent on the horizontal walking surface anterior to my feet when he handed me a card that said 'Sweets Menu' and I realised that we were back in the no-nonsense world of English.
It's a funny thing about English diners. They'll let you dazzle them with piddly duxelles of this and fussy little noisettes of that, but don't fuck with their puddings, which is my thinking exactly. All the dessert entries were for gooey dishes with good English names. I had sticky toffee pudding and it was splendid. As I finished, the waiter invited me to withdraw to the lounge where a caisson of freshly-roasted coffee, complemented by the chef's own selection of mint wafers, awaited. I dressed the tabletop with a small circlet of copper specie crafted at the Royal Mint and, suppressing a small eruction of gastro-intestinal air, effected my egress.'

My own mother is a perpetrator of eccentric capitalisation. The greeting cards she sends me go generally something like this, 'HAPPY Birthday Laura, LOTS of LOVE from MUM xxx' with each word altering further in scale.

The Tower of Babel

2009-01-02T17:00:00.001Z

The biblical explanation of language diversity.

Genesis 11:1-9 (KJV)

1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. 4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Depiction by 16th Century painter Pieter Breugel

Palladio's Teatro Olimpico

2008-12-18T21:34:00.000Z

The beautiful 16th century set was designed to be a Utopian Roman city.

Homer's Earth

2008-12-17T17:32:00.000Z

"The Homeric conception of the world represented as a flat, circular disc of land surrounded by a continuous ocean-stream remained a popular notion in the Greek world even after many philosophers and scientists had accepted the theory of the sphericity of the earth enunciated by the Pythagoreans and subjected to theoretical proof by Aristotle. In this interpretation the world is like a plateau on the top of a mountain; inside this, close to the surface of the earth, lies the House of Hades, the realm of Death, and beneath it Tartarus, the realm of Eternal Darkness. The plateau of the earth is surrounded by Oceanus, the world river, and from its periphery rises the fixed dome of the sky. The sun, the moon, and the stars rise from the waters at the edge of the dome, move in an arc above the earth, and then sink once again into the sea to complete their course beneath the Oceanus. The atmosphere above the mountain of the earth is thick with clouds and mist, but higher up is the clear Æther with its starry ceiling." http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/AncientWebPages/105mono.html

Apoplexy-Working with the Nutmeg-Grater

2008-12-14T23:38:00.000Z

The drawings of incurable lunatic James Tilly Matthews. I may take up craziness, people seem to find it endearing.

I do rather want an actual nutmeg grater. Not any old nutmeg grater though, A George III silver nutmeg grater.

To the day when I own such an object!

Inventory Art

2008-12-12T17:28:00.000Z

I followed a link and found this on the website for a gallery in London called
The Approach. I think the creators go by the name of Inventory. I like it and that's all there is to it really.

Type for Change

2008-12-12T17:16:00.000Z

I'm feeling a little fed up after handing in my last project as I know I didn't do myself justice. So I think that the best thing to do is to up the productivity. As well as storming my dissertation, I'm setting myself a few creative tasks over the holiday period, the results of which I will post up here!

I plan to submit to Type for Change, a submissions based thesis addressing typography as an instrument for social change. In fact, I am more likely to do this than the ISTD brief, as the latter isn't something I can knock out in a fortnight!

ISTD Student Assessment Projects

2008-12-10T19:34:00.000Z

I was thinking that I could tackle one of these briefs before my FMP gets under way. In particular the '10 Things You Should Know About...(Gardening/Science)' interests me. It could be a good way to weave my appetite for knowledge with my area of study. The deadline is in March.

http://www.istd.org.uk/flash_content/index.htm

Statement of Intent including Work Experience Evaluation

2008-12-07T13:50:00.000Z

This is a copy of the SOI/work experience evaluation I have produced for the benefit of my peers and tutors.

I will start at the beginning, and I will try not to equivocate.

I am on the third year of the enigma known as Visual Communications. I blog arbitrarily at rolamcclary.blogspot.com and my project research is posted at thebinyard.tumblr.com. This compartmentalisation of the blogging procedure can get confusing, but I think each provides a patchwork of my interests. I do not have a website, as I do not feel it necessary.

At the inception of my time on this course, I was very uncertain of how to proceed with my future. I am still uncertain, but not half as convinced that this is a dreadful thing to be. Contextualising myself is far easier than it was two years ago. I can now state that the direction determining decisions I make are tentatively guided by ethical and environmental principles and a growing disillusionment with industrial norms. This means I make decisions carefully, often with painstaking protraction. The art and design that inspires me tends to challenge perceptions, be they physical, ethical or philosophical. I am also in love with the idea of creating beauty, and confess to being a hopeless shoegazer, but am realistic enough to recognise my own artistic limits and the career paths that I will not suceed in. Apparently I am a gifted orator, but most of the time I have awful trouble expressing myself.

I was never quite sure where to undertake a work experience placement, so began by volunteered myself for local film events, namely Leeds International Film Festival and Lumen's Evolution, but never felt as though I were contributing any real talent; my mere presence as festival guide being adequate. Then, last summer, out of a desire to break free from my hermetic lifestyle, I started and continue to volunteer once weekly with a community based organisation called Hyde Park Source (http://www.hydeparksource.org). They work with disadvantaged young people aged 13-25 to transform local urban environments into usable social spaces, and the experience has transformed my horizons! At once, the projects are concerned with developing the young person's employability and creating a finished product and I assist the main youth workers in supporting the youngest set of service users both off and on site, involving working with them on practical activities and empowering them to complete evaluative portfolios. Separately, I have begun to partake in the actual project design. This is an ongoing placement; I have now been with HPS for over six months. I have learnt many a vocational skill from the experience, but more integrally how to interact confidently and professionally with and around young people, specifically those brought up in backgrounds very different from my own. Working with and subsequently learning from my more experienced colleagues has been invaluable. I have enjoyed and benefited from working with children part-time, but as a result have come to understand that I crave full-time mental stimulation on a different level. This revelation forces me to accept that I need to work altogether more professionally, if I want to work in an environment that would provide me with such.

M work placement, if it can be called this, contrasts with those taken in more orthodox scenarios, therefore comparision will have to be on a general level. Others who have undertaken typical design based placements may have put themselves in a more lucrative position as far as job offers are concerned, but my experience has been particular to my own direction and will be in prominent place on my CV.

I realise that my time left on my course is precious, and do not want to waste it. This cold reminder of my impending freedom should galvanise me into action. in the aim of earning a 2:1 in Visual Communication. I work with a 1st in mind, but given the circumstances, I feel that the former grade is more realistic. Anything less than this and I cannot conceive of how miserable I would be. Freedom is a word I use pejoratively here.* Despite my frequent listlessness, I genuinely do enjoy being in education, and the benefit of contact with those who can provide me with objective feedback. I am taking steps to ensure that I am armed with contacts when I set out alone, so that I do not sink for lack of connections with existing practice. I have set about networking, in the hope of finding myself a niche within a suitable industry. I have found myself interested on many levels in permaculture, which is functionally land and nature stewardship that draws on a set of principles conducive to sustainable living systems. A part-time course in permaculture design provides me with a wealth of opportunities for learning and making relevant contacts.One of these steps is in the form of a permaculture course starting in the Spring, and for better or for worse, coincides with my final major project. Other activities that relate to this include time spent on a communal allotment, previous volunteering for environmentally concerned projects, and the odd spot of guerilla gardening. There is an obvious theme running through all of this, which can only work in my favour, when I consider my broader objectives. After I graduate, I feel it only necessary to move away from Leeds, which has become a comfort zone. Even with my new found connections, staying still will inevitably breed complacency. This is not to say that I will flourish wherever I relocate to, but at least I am giving myself the chance to reinvent my enthusiasm. I am allowing myself until the end of the third year to decide exactly how to earn my living.

When prompted to evaluate my 'portfolio', which really is a tangible conclusion to the last three years, I perhaps have to consider it in a different light from those presented by others on the course. Although I would have baulked at this situation at the beginning of the course, one that I would have thought to be self-defeatist, I am now more comfortable admitting that I am not a brilliant visualiser, just visually intuitive. Although there are examples of my graphic design which I do not consider completely incompetent, I am not proud enough of it to declare to be what defines me. What I do have are ideas, and a developed sense of what is important to me, that which in my first year I sorely lacked.

Strengths and Weaknesses need listing.

* as does Rousseau when he speaks of an individual's involuntary emancipation from society, because the thought of my deliverance from the college's numbing embrace strikes fear into my heart. (Please include or exclude at your wish this pretentious little digression.)

Map of Language

2008-12-05T21:40:00.000Z

I have hitherto not seen a map this exciting. It was made in 1741, but I found it just now on this brilliant and erudite blog: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com

Justine Smith

2008-12-05T21:18:00.000Z

What a great concept. We are made of money.

http://www.justinesmith.net/

GM Solutions

2008-12-04T22:02:00.000Z

Another Horizons gem, tackling the controversial issue that is genetically modified food. I was duly reminded that we have in fact being modifying what we eat throughout the ages, in the process of selective propagation. At about 18 minutes into the programme, the presenter digs up the original carrot, which is hardly something you would want to put on your plate. When I consider that the carefully bred vegetables we eat would not survive in nature if we did not tend them, it becomes more difficult to define what is 'natural' and what is not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fsxq6

Time and Space

2008-12-04T21:57:00.000Z

A while back I blogged about Einstein's speculation on the nature of time, and I've just come across this explanatory episode of Horizon. Among other things, it is revelatory thought to me that I see the objects around me as they were in the past, albeit nanoseconds. I suppose one could work out the exact time based on the fact that light takes eight minutes to travel from the sun, which is 150 million kilometres away. Following on from this line on thought, if by photographing space, we are capturing galaxies as they were billions of years ago, is it possible, with a deep enough field, to photograph the very inception of the universe? Best part of the programme? Meeting the 'Director of Time'. Cool.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fyl5z/Horizon_Do_You_Know_What_Time_It_Is/

If time is only really a forth dimension of space, why is it, and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move in time as we move about in the other dimensions of space?

You know how, on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they could represent one of four, if they could master the perspective of the thing.

HG Wells, The Time Machine

The presenter of the Horizons episode was Dr. Brian Cox, who is part of the group of scientists who developed the Hadron Collider. Here he is explaining it in simple words for numpties like myself.

Mincemeat

2008-12-03T19:33:00.000Z

Look what I made look what I made look what I made! My new favourite smell!

Roger Deakin

2008-12-02T22:55:00.000Z

I will be hinting liberally about these books over the coming month. Britain travelled and described through the eyes and words of a wanderer.

A nice tributary article to the swimmer and writer here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jul/15/scienceandnature.features

Brideshead Left Well Alone

2008-12-02T22:43:00.000Z

"Who wouldn't want fleetingly to evoke a decadent, glamorous era through their dress?"

In this week's Guardian I came across anarticle on the failures of the columnist to emulate the foppish stylings of Sebastian Flyte.

Maybe as a nation it would serve us well to give up our upper class aspirations, but is a little romance for bygone days so very destructive? Besides, this book seemed to me to be little about glamour and all about religion.

Jazz for Dinner

2008-12-02T17:09:00.000Z

Some sounds from the London Jazz Festival, including the mighty good Mighty Jeddo...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fr8h4/Jazz_on_3_Highlights_of_BBC_Introducing_at_the_London_Jazz_Festival_2008/

I'm also listening to Mr Scruff...

Note to self regarding career possibilities: Raise orchard of historically common but now rare fruit trees. Hone pie making skills. Open speciality pie shoppe for the people. Get my more creative friends to make it look cool. Host live jazz/ improvisational pie-making sessions. Call it The Medlar Club.

Self Discipline

2008-12-01T19:34:00.000Z

Lying in bed yesterday morning, wondering how it could be that I was still lying there three hours after I had planned to rise, I felt a growing anger at my limbs for not bothering to move. Then I remembered that I had forgotten to tell them to. This, I felt, was a revelation.

Prawn Flavoured Beef

2008-11-30T20:03:00.000Z

Funny radio spoof about food additives, made in the eighties and starring Stephen Fry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007jmm8/Delve_Special_Series_2_Food_for_Thought/

Christianity and Islam

2008-11-29T23:23:00.000Z

More TV links! Even if you have a hard time taking Boris 'Granny Butter' Johnson seriously, this programme about the age-old clash of civilisations sounds undeniably interesting. Very topical too. The relationship beset with conflict was established in the era following the fall of the Roman Empire, which is where Boris begins the programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fy48j/After_Rome_Holy_War_and_Conquest_Episode_1/

Soap Nuts

2008-11-28T22:54:00.000Z

I've just started using these as a 'natural' alternative to detergents, on the basis that without hours of research and a degree in chemistry, I just don't know what most commercial products contain. I like to know for what I'm giving up my money. Soap nuts are also really cheap, compostable and don't come in a burdensome plastic bottle.

The 'nut' itself is actually the shell of a drupe fruit that grow on the sapindus shrub in tropical and warm temperate climates. I think I'm right in saying that the word saponification, which is the conversion of fat or oil into soap, has it's derivation in this botanical name. When the sticky shell is exposed to water it surprisingly produces a unscented lather, which works to lift dirt. Just place them in a cotton bag inside the drum and add a couple of drops of essential oil to the conditioner drawer for fragrance. Although I haven't yet tried to wash anything particularly soiled with the help of soap nuts, I doubt I'll be reverting to the usual dubious powders and liquids. You lose supermarket.

Recently I've been anxious that I may be falling victim to the trend of green marketing, but I am adamant that I make my purchasing decisions based on my own personal set of standards, they may or may not coincide with those advocated by environmentalists. One must take a dialectical approach to all situations.

Paying the Piper

2008-11-28T21:50:00.000Z

This is an inventively named Radio 4 broadcast ruminating on the effects on capitalism caused by the mighty credit crunch. Which is a pandemic of late capitalism. As you might expect, there is more than a mention of Marx.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fm5s4/b00fm5l6/Analysis_Paying_The_Piper/

Given that capitalism is a linear system and we live on a finite planet*, how could Francis Fukuyama have seriously suggested that capitalism is the final form of society? I can only assume that he saw it not as a sustained form, but as a vehicle for the extinction of the human race. Does human history conclude with the end of human struggle (a Hegelian position) or the end of humans?

*I borrowed this nice and simple reduction from Annie Leonard, in the much viewed Story of Stuff.

Einstein and Eddington

2008-11-28T21:09:00.000Z

An entertaining period drama chronicling the acceptance into the scientific world of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Previously, I didn't realise quite how much opposition Einstein faced; his untimely German nationality and a strong resistance from obstinate proponents of Newton's theory of gravity both served to deny him success. Neither did I realise that he was such a ladies' man!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ft62c/b00ft61z/Einstein_and_Eddington/

Eddington was the English astronomer who risked the ignominious accusation of treachery to advocate Einstein's ideas. Here's a photograph of the real E and E, embroiled in a heated discussion about what they had for breakfast.

Einstein's theorisation on time being different for everyone makes my head spin. The limits to my intelligence prevent me from comprehending the curves in space, and how they my make my minute differ from yours.

Buy Nothing Day

2008-11-27T23:52:00.000Z

It thrills me to think ponder would happen to the economy if everybody did this. Stop being a well-behaved consumer for a day!

The first thing I ever read by William Morris was a quotation (quote?) in a themed address book my parents have owned ever since I can remember. Have nothing in your house that you consider to be neither beautiful or useful. I like to use this to gauge whether or not to buy something.

http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/

Gentleman's Relish

2008-11-24T21:59:00.001Z

Classic British Workwear

2008-11-24T21:53:00.000Z

Old Town Clothing

Fleet Foxes Live Set

2008-11-24T13:02:00.001Z

They were on the Bob Harris show the Saturday past. They make beautiful music with a hints of Gregorian chanting and the Beach Boys.

Click here for a pop-out window. The set is about an hour in.

Wonky Fruit & Veg

2008-11-24T12:31:00.000Z

Earlier this month the EU repealed rules which require fruit and vegetables sold in our shops and markets to be of uniform size and shape. It this the end to decades of silly bureaucracy? Does this also mean that produce will be harder to package and therefore sold loose? This bodes well.

This BBC article has the list of fruit and veg. I'd be interested to access the actual EU regulations online.

Medlar Tree

2008-11-24T11:43:00.001Z

Along with the quince tree, in fact to a greater degree, the medlar is one of those elusive, romantic fruit bearers, once quite common but now so obscure that finding one would be quite a task. The fruit which it produces is most unusual in that it requires to be blet before it can be eaten, meaning that it's at its sweet sticky best when on the verge of being a putrid pulp. As if that weren't enough to dissuade the potential picker, the thing quite plainly resembles a cat's bottom. Needless to say I covet this greatly, and will certainly be planting one in my garden. When I get a garden that is.

Shakespeare dots his work with mentions of the medlar...

Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a pop'rin pear!

Cameron Carpenter

2008-11-22T21:04:00.000Z

What an astounding organist!

Screenwipe

2008-11-20T18:08:00.000Z

Charlie Brooker is back! In the first episode he discusses television in the current economic climate, with special mention to Dickensian dicking machines and infuriating little piss-weasels.

Deborah Bowness

2008-11-20T17:48:00.000Z

...designs wonderful scenery wallpapers. My favourite is the fake bookshelf.

Patti Smith

2008-11-20T15:59:00.000Z

...is a woman I look up to.

In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.

'Dream of Life' was one of my favourite festival films.

Matt Saunders

2008-11-18T20:45:00.000Z

Bloody marvellous new animation from my chum.

A conversation from Matt Saunders on Vimeo.

Christopher Kane Mini Dresses

2008-11-15T17:01:00.000Z

Something medieval about these.

Ecofeminism

2008-11-12T11:09:00.000Z

Is it time for a global matriarchy? Elements of eco-feminism fascinate me (particularly the notion of women's bodies as an exploitable resource), but the discriminatory power implied is surely a danger to prospects of gender equality.

"Historically [man, woman and nature] have been unequally valorized. In particular, the interests of male dominated societies have been served by managing women's bodies as a 'natural resource.' That meant positioning the female sex 'somewhere between' men and nature in the order of things." Ariel Salleh, Austrian sociologist and eco-feminist.

LIFF: Flow, Mermaid

2008-11-10T21:21:00.000Z

Flow, a film about the growing problems with the global water supply. One reason put forward by the World Development Movement to care about water shortages in developing countries is that of concern for the welfare of women. For many women in places like Africa, it is incumbent upon them to fetch water for the family's daily needs. This prevents them from being in education or work. If you care about women's rights, water deprivation is a key issue!

Russian film Mermaid, by director Anna Melikian. A wonderful kind of beautiful.

LIFF: Winstanley, Chomsky and Co

2008-11-08T20:40:00.000Z

Both such worthwhile viewings.

Winstanley In the 1600's, after the English civil war, there came about bands of people who aspired to live in rural egalitarianism, what we might recognise as socialism. These were common people, sowing common land, led by dissident protestant Gerrard Winstanley. It may have been unsuccessful at the time, but leaves a legacy, however little known, to inspire generations. I say we celebrate the diggers and their ideas...

...that we may work in righteousness, and lay the foundation of making the earth a common treasury for all, both rich and poor.

Chomsky & Co served to introduce me properly to the man who is, as the New York Times put it, arguably the greatest living intellectual. It turns out, as I had expected, that Noam Chomsky talks a lot of sense. One of the most galvanising sentiments, and I think it was put forward by Normand Baillargeon, was the notion that even if we as individuals are unsettled by what understand of the world, we are unlikely to do anything about it, because we are all sat in front of our television sets, in our own homes, alone. Without opportunity for discussion with our fellow man, our thoughts of unrest remain nebulous, unvocalised and perhaps even quashed by our own introvert selves. I propose, and I use a phrase of Chomsky's own coining, that we maintain intellectual self-defence, but only be careful not to allow our cynical mistrust to cost us valuable alliances.

I want to read some of Chomsky's politically focused books, but he has been such a prolific author I hardly know where to start! If any Chomsky fans are reading then do advise.

Human Evolutionary Future

2008-11-08T20:04:00.000Z

Humanity may split into two sub-species in 100,000 years' time...evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge. Read the BBC report.

If this is true, and commonly accepted, what chance does the human race ever being an egalitarian one?

LIFF: Drifter, Out of Time

2008-11-07T23:17:00.000Z

Two films which particularly spoke to me today:

Drifter. A transient life on the road provides room for insight. As do crazy people.

Out of Time. This film was ever so moving. Oh, how I mourn for that period of time before my own, when local shops dominated the marketplace. Death to the supermarkets!!!

I leant my scarf to a girl in the cinema today. It was a human moment, somehow breaking the illusion that all there exists in that blackened space is the other world on the screen.

The Credit Crunch

2008-11-07T13:36:00.000Z

The BBC explains it all in a 5 part series. Watch just how the improvident suffer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00f9s3y

Plastic Soup

2008-11-07T13:05:00.000Z

"A rubbish dump twice the size of the United States has been discovered floating in the Pacific Ocean."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512424/Rubbish-dump-floating-Pacific-Ocean-twice-size-America.html

This isn't what I got out of bed to hear :(

Plant More Trees Tshirt

2008-11-07T12:57:00.001Z

I saw someone on the street wearing one of these t shirts and I rather like it. It is made by organic company Tippitappi. Only thing is that they American, and I think that it is rather unethical to have a t shirt travel 4,000 miles to get to me. Boo.

Third World Statistics

2008-11-06T23:40:00.000Z

A talk by Professor Hans Rosling, on the TED website. I would like to see free data available for all!

The End of Poverty

2008-11-06T22:56:00.000Z

Once again, reminding me of one of the first posts I ever made, Leeds International Film Festival is upon us, with a catalogue full of films I plan to go and see.

I made a start tonight, with a film from Oxfam: The End of Poverty? I went keeping in mind that perhaps the bias of the people behind the film would hinder its objectivity. However, I was pleased to say that I was presented with a greatly informed account of the events that have led up to the current, torrid global situation. I feel much less ignorant for it, and more able to speculate on the worsening future.

http://www.theendofpoverty.com/

Nurturing Creativity

2008-11-06T22:40:00.000Z

Sir Ken Robinson, of who I know very little, talks inspiringly about the development of creativity within the confines of an education system. He closes by concluding that in order to succeed in stabilising our global environment, we need to develop a 'human ecology', one which would be adopted and taught to children from their inception in school. This would mean re-thinking the fundamental values that are instilled, moving away from the traditional preparatory training for employment and ultimate acquisition of wealth, and concentrating on enriching the mind.

The Ecological Credit Crunch

2008-11-03T12:27:00.001Z

The Guardian comments on a recent WWF report, which predicts that we are consuming as if our planet were twice as large.

Rudolf Beaufay's Shop

2008-11-01T16:32:00.000Z

Second-hand tweed for the sartorially discerning gentlemen in Hamburg.

http://www.rudolf-beaufays.de/

The British Country Look

2008-10-29T12:54:00.001Z

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fbdcl/British_Style_Genius_By_Royal_Appointment_The_Country_Look/

My next sewing project...tartan trousers!!!

Alex James, rock star turned cheese farmer.

Luella Bartley

Allotment

2008-10-27T21:59:00.000Z

I recently became a member of a communal allotment. It is currently barren, the fruits of our labour not yet even conceived, but come summer and there I will be able to spend many a pleasant evening with a trowel and some wine, beholding the glory of burgeoning self-sufficiency! As for potential set-backs, at this stage I'd rather not imagine them, for the sake of optimism.

The Atheist Bus

2008-10-23T15:35:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure how I feel about this. After all, vehement disbelief takes just as much unfounded supposition as its counterpart view. However, the word 'probably' gives more of an agnostic feel to the campaign.

The Man Who Planted Trees

2008-10-23T15:32:00.001+01:00

I remember watching this as a child!

Climate Chaos Café

2008-10-23T00:42:00.000+01:00

Tonight was my visit to the Climate Chaos Café and I have come away not only, as my Grandfather used to say, having had equal sufficiency, but feeling incredibly inspired. The facilitator gave a fascinating talk under the title of 'Gardening for the Future', in which he (reminding me of one of a previous post of mine) alluded to the war-time effort to self-produce food, following with advice on how to garden in view of the warming climate. Then I paid two-fifty and was fed a three-course meal. My diary is also burgeoning with notes, dates and numbers. Hoorah.

For anybody with a concern over global warming, this sort of thing is held every Wednesday at 6.45 at The Common Place. It is run by Stop Climate Change at Leeds Tidal.

SDC Breakthrough Project

2008-10-22T23:26:00.000+01:00

"The Sustainable Development Commission is launching Breakthroughs for the 21st Century, an exciting new project for 2009 - and we’d like you to be a part of it. We want to bring together some of the best ideas that will truly put the UK on the path to becoming a sustainable society – one which is strong, healthy and just, and lives within environmental limits. We plan to showcase these ideas in a publication and at a high-level event next summer."

There is a questionnaire that can be filled in by those interested, with a space for ideas. I appreciate the chance to add my thoughts, and hope that this isn't just another exercise to create the illusion of power.

The Trauma of Geophysical Dislocation

2008-10-22T23:14:00.000+01:00

Jefferson Medical College professor Salman Akhtar discusses "The Trauma of Geophysical Dislocation", proposing that psychoanalysts need to pay special attention to their immigrant patients. Akhtar suggests that the immigration experience creates disruptions to the waking screen that are too often ignored in therapy and that the objects and landscapes that are left behind have a more significant impact on the immigrant's psychological well being than has generally been recognized.

Listen.

Ernesto Neto

2008-10-21T18:19:00.000+01:00

One of the leaders of the contemporary Brazilian art scene, Neto "works with abstract installations which often take up the entire exhibition space. His materials are gossamer-thin, light, stretchable fabrics in nylon or cotton. like fine membranes fixed to the ceiling by long, stretched threads his works hang down into the room and create shapes that are almost organic. sometimes they are filled with scented spices and hang in tear-shaped forms like gigantic mushrooms or huge stockings, sometimes he creates peculiar soft sculptures which the visitor is allowed to feel through small openings in the surface. He also creates spatial labyrinths which the visitor can enter and thereby experience the work and interact with it."

This inspires me to do something artistic with all of those laddered hold ups I have accumulated! Of course, mine would spill.

Global Economic Future

2008-10-20T01:27:00.000+01:00

An article in the Economist, intriguingly alluding to W.B.Yeats' famous poem, 'The Second Coming'.

Burn After Reading

2008-10-20T00:43:00.000+01:00

I went tonight to watch the latest Coen Brothers' flick, and came out wondering why I did. It's not as though it was a bad film, in fact it has had very favourable reviews. I just don't feel in any way edified by it. Perhaps the utterance of a couple of words I'm trying to include in my working vocabulary were of value, and of course the mere appearance of Clooney & Pitt is always welcome, but I drew no real rumination from the film, nor did it connect with any other issue that currently has a bearing on me. Is this to mean that every film I watch, or every book I read, needs to be contextually relevant, or that I simply wasn't 'into' that particular film? I think the latter to be the truth. After all, I frequently indulge in period dramas without a fig of obvious grander significance. So why this regret? I am most likely just pissed at having spent a fiver on a film I didn't much like; that could have been used more judiciously to buy a bottle of corner-shop-plonk!!

Good Men?

2008-10-20T00:23:00.000+01:00

Some words from Kurt Vonnegut's 'Timequake':

"...Dillinger robbed only the rich and the strong...(he) wasn't a simpering, sly swindler. He was an athlete.

In the slavering search for subversive literature on the shelves of our public schools which will never stop, the two most subversive tales of all remain untouched, wholly unsuspected. One is the story of Robin Hood. As ill-educated as John Dillinger was, that was surely his inspiration: a reputable blueprint for what a real man might do with life.
...
And another, as disrespectful of established authority as the story of Robin Hood...is the life of Jesus Christ as describes in the New Testament."

Words of the Revolution

2008-10-20T00:00:00.000+01:00

A little Byron, from 'Don Juan': "...revolution alone can save the earth from hell's pollution."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dw3p7/Words_and_Music_The_Ringing_Grooves_of_Change/

Medieval Economic Systems

2008-10-16T18:41:00.000+01:00

"Community rather than individuality was at the heart of the medieval approach to things..." article affiliated with The Idler.

In light of this, my Utopia requires usury to be outlawed and guilds to be re-established. The first of which will be the Net Book Agreement. Amazon is cheap but you won't find a charmingly dishevelled bookseller lurking among a pile of mouldy George Elliots. On the plus side, nor will you find a dead badger.

(Sorry to steal your blog posts Christian, but I wouldn't if it were not for their sheer brilliance.)

People who Told the Truth

2008-10-16T18:30:00.000+01:00

I watched muddy masterpiece The Libertine the other night, and I have to say that I rather like the 2nd Earl of Rochester. He was debauched, drunk and diseased, but he made no excuses. He was essentially true to himself. In a world where we lie almost continually, whether to protect or to pomp, a completely truthful person is rare. I first thought upon this after reading some Camus; The Outsider sees protagonist Mersault live his life without contrivance, but of course it was to be his downfall.

Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.

From Rochester's 'A Satire Against Mankind':

Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)
A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.

Charlie Brooker on the Invisible Apocalypse

2008-10-16T18:04:00.000+01:00

"Time to grow our own vegetables and learn hand-to-hand combat with staves..." The man has insight.

Agrofuels

2008-10-15T16:15:00.000+01:00

To find out why they are actually incredibly BAD, follow Biowatch Uk. I suppose to the uninformed they would appear as environmentally friendly alternative fuels, but the implications are convoluted. An acquaintance of mine is heading the protest tomorrow, unfortunately I have to be in uni, or else I would go. I think Direct Action is best action of all, especially with the promise of 'guerilla gardening'!!

Leeds Light Night

2008-10-15T15:11:00.000+01:00

Despite being decried by my friends, and despite the fact that I could only scoff at the performance art, I think that Light Night is a positive thing. This video I found on the Met's website.

The Great Unfreeze

2008-10-15T14:54:00.000+01:00

In association with Climate Chaos Leeds and coinciding with Leeds Light Night, I partook in this demonstration in the centre of Leeds. It is difficult to tell, from my perspective how effective it was, but it did draw attention.

Read the Yorkshire Post article and watch the video.