Russell Davies

phones for me

MAKE magazine have a saying "If you can't open it, you don't own it". I like this idea. And I own this biscuit tin. I can open it whenever I want. Most technology terrifies me though, I'd be horribly worried about cracking open most of the things I own. Which is one reason I'm excited by the toy-hacking workshop tomorrow.

But I recently took a step in the right direction, following the death of my favourite ever phone - the  K800i. I had vowed to keep this for as long as I could. Sailed through the upgrade opportunity. Turned my nose up at the N-95 and the iPhone. Didn't need those. Happy with what I had. I'll have this forever. Good old sustainable Russ. But then it died. Thoroughly. I wandered from repair shop to repair shop and they pronounced it un-revivable. So following brief dalliances with various devices generously loaned to me, I went to get another from Orange. Except they wouldn't give me one. They pressed the new one on me. The K850i. How different can it be, I thought, so I said yes. And with remarkable speed it turned up at my door.

And, it has to be said, it's not an attractive phone. Good camera. (Though I preferred the old  shutter-camera door to the little button thing.) But otherwise not good.  Silly wannabetouch buttons on the bottom and it looks fat and glossy, like a 300ZX with a neon under-body kit.

And the back's not much better. I stuck some playmobil stickers on it, but it didn't make it any better. So, I thought, I can't wait to get rid of this. As soon as the year's up, I'll be done with it. But I realised that was bad thinking, so I wondered if I could get to like it any more by personalising it somehow.

Me and Arthur had been playing a lot of Warhammer, and been painting figures, and we had all this paint and spray around so I wondered if I could paint it. Maybe paint it like a Warhammer phone.

So I taped it up and gave it a good spraying with 'chaos black'. (And it looks good with the tape on. Like some kind of fetish object. That'd be a good aesthetic for a phone.)

And, although, I've not got the patience to do this tidily, it looked a lot better already. So, then I tried to work out how to embellish it.

I was going to just use Warhammer Ultramarine decals, but they look a bit too right-wing and militaristic out of context. Fine if you're playing a wargame, not so good to just pull out of your pocket. I've not solved this yet. Keep looking for the right stickers. I then had a bit of a scare, we had a really cold day and I got condensation in the camera lens, everything was all blurry for a while. And it occurred to me that I was going to struggle to get Orange or SE to fix it if it was all nasty and black. That seems to have fixed itself though, so I don't have to face that yet.

What I've discovered now though is I seem to have created accelerated graceful aging. The worn paint makes it look a lot older that it really is, but in quite a cool way. So I think I don't need to find stickers or anything, I just need to respray it every now and then, in different colours, and before long it'll get that knackered, lived-in, paint-layered, Millenium Falcon look Will Wright so admires.  Next I want to work on making my own sounds for it, then I'm going to try and screw up the courage/know-how to do some of this.

everybody needs a decision unit

naked thighs and cotton frocks

(You'll have to excuse me if too much husbandly pride creeps into this post.)

Anne recently won a short story competition with a fantastic story called Naked Thighs and Cotton Frocks. Her prize was publication in a short story anthology (named for her story) from the smart and enterprising folks at Leaf Books. You should of course buy many copies from Leaf themselves and therefore support small, interesting publishers. But Anne has a few review copies to go to anyone who wants to blog about the book, so if you'd like a copy you can email her: anneshewring at hotmail.com. Or get in touch via her blog. Writers of reviews may well be blessed with reciept of these extremely exclusive limited edition promotional badges.

diaries

There was a lot of talk of people giving up blogging last year, probably a combination of Facebook, Twitter and generally running out of words. But I'm excited to see that lots of people who haven't posted for ages have started again. (I'm not adding any links in case I spook them.)

But I also suspect we're gradually working out what this kind of short-form, periodic writing is good for.

One thing it's clearly brilliant at is diaries, not writing your own, but reading historical ones. I find reading a diary all at once a bit dense. But reading it at the same pace it was written, relating it to the rhythms and coincidences of your own life, is perfect.

The daddy is still Phil Gyford's Pepys' Diary.  A joyous thing, a work of love, a gift to the internet. It's more than a diary, it's a daily portal to Pepys' whole world. Just look here at all the things Phil has done to enhance the basic diary. If you've not looked before the Story So Far section will get you going. You should subscribe.

And I recently discovered (via a mention on the radio I think) WW1: Experiences Of An English Soldier, which is a fantastic thing; transcripts of the letters received from a WW1 soldier, posted  90 years after they were written. With all sorts of additional commentary and scans and context. Again, it seems to make the thing more meaningful, to read it at the pace it was written.

Slightly different, but equally useful and captivating is Matt Webb's RSSification of The Notebooks Or Leonardo Da Vinci. I'd never read this any other way. It's too big, too daunting, too abstract. But, as a little slice of thought in my bloglines reader everyday it's brilliant, a welcome alternative to all the wittering about brand utility and  GPS. And, very often, there's something in there that makes you stop and think and want to explore more.

I wonder what else could/should be dismantled and delivered like this.

centre points

I've always liked Centrepoint.  It may be because I have incredibly coarse architectural sensibilities and only ever think something's good if it looks like Gerry Anderson might have had a hand in it. It's looking particularly fine at the moment because it's exposed at the back due to some demolition work.

Apart from the proudly slabby way it looks, and the fact it's one of the few tall buildings in Central London, it's surrounded by pleasing atmos and conspiracy. It was empty for years when it opened, due to a shady/savvy real estate deal, which led to suspicions it doubled as a government nuclear shelter. It sits squat in the middle of St Giles which is the area of central London no-one's ever heard of but which is drenched in virulent and violent history so It's the kind of place yer Sinclairs and Ackroyds are keen on.

And it's fascinating because at street level it's a disaster, a horrible mash of bus-stops, cross-roads, traffic lights and a Thunderbirds-ish 60s sculpture in a litter-magnet pond.  This seems to be a result of the above shady/savvy real estate deal.

And, in the basement, in the nasty subways under the traffic, leading to Tottenham Court Road tube, there's a brilliant snooker club where you can waste away a skiving afternoon.

Whenever we play that game where you fantasise about your dream home, I always mention Centrepoint. I'd dearly love a Tracy Family / James Bond penthouse pad on the top. Perhaps with a helipad. Certainly with a speed elevator down to the snooker club. And with speed-dial to Orbital, Foyles, Flat White and Argos. It seems though that I am to be thwarted; there's going to be a new private member's club called Paramount on the top two floors. I've never seen the point of such clubs, but in this context it makes sense. The perfect location, brilliant views, the right architectural atmospherics for swankery, a good place for a restaurant. I wonder if they'd let me live there. Just occasionally.

the smokes of kilimanjaro

I bought this tankbook at Magma yesterday. Interesting thing. Cigarettes are such nasty and disagreeable things (especially now all the smokers have been forced outside where you can't avoid them) but all the ephemera and packaging is so good. It's one of the iconic highly-designable shapes like the 12-inch record sleeve. I guess it's good because it's relatively cheap, simple and easy to change (some of it at least), it's thoroughly tested in the real world, millions of times a day and the design clearly matters; it has a significant impact on the horrible business of selling the things. Things that really matter to an industry tend to get better.

Tank have got the fetishistic aspects right, the little bits of fiddling you want to do; including the gold strip to remove the cellophane and the foil inside.

The book itself is a little disappointing when you get it out, but I guess they've got to save money somewhere. It's perfectly readable though, which is the important thing.

I like this idea a lot. There's nothing more terrifying than being stuck somewhere with nothing to read so having something with you all the time is a nice backstop. And, since the cigarette pack form is so nicely evolved it's good to see it being used as a force for good. It makes you wonder why other things haven't evolved towards the cigarette pack shape.

Would CD cases or minidisc packs have been more popular if they'd been more like cigarette packs? Could someone learn from the sociability of pack-sharing. Sweets manufacturers maybe? MP3 players have gotten too small to be cigarette-pack substitutes. Maybe they should get bigger again, but have a hard core around a softer exterior. It's not just the shape and size it's also the malleability. I guess that's what we're doing when we put things in MP3 cases. Phones are the obvious parallel, but is there a phone that's very ciggy-pack-like? Not sure.

It's also about what seems natural and right in pockets, they presumably co-evolved with cigarettes. I love pockets. Anyway.

caff eh?

I've been neglecting both eggbaconchipsandbeans and agoodplaceforacupofteaandathink recently. I think because I've been cycling to lots of places. When I walk I find I notice more cafes and pop in more frequently. So I'm going to try and rectify that - it seems an essential first step if I'm going to create any long-tail splurge for the book, and frankly, I miss it. Here's a start then - The Islander in Uttoxeter and Bridge The Gap down Vauxhall/Battersea way.  Picture above is the always glorious Bar Bruno.

too far

You can't change what you can't measure, so, inspired by Roo, and facilitated by the Great Circle Mapper, I had a stab at working how much I flew in 2007.

It adds up to 67,231 miles, which must be substantially less than 2006 and 2005, but is still much too far (from both family-life and carbon points of view). At least one of those European trips was of no benefit to me, my audience, my bank-balance or my carbon-footprint. So I need to be more thoughtful about where I go.

I'm going to try and do Europe by train next year, which will mean more time away but less carbon-burned, less Heathrow-visited and more new things seen. Anyone want to join me in a trip to the lift conference by train? (Assuming I can get my ticket booked.)

I also looked into Atlantic crossings via cargo ship (and scroll down a bit) but I don't think I fancy being away from home that long. (It'd be a great time to start a book though, no distractions, just miles of ocean.)

I suspect the first step in doing something about the energy we use is paying attention to it, and finding useful ways to mark it and understand it. That's part of the genius of dopplr and part of the appeal of these brilliant airport luggage patches on etsy (via Make).

gps question

Forgive the lazywebness of this, but I'm planning on doing some more long urban walks this year and I'd like to track myself in a geeky GPS way. I was just wondering if anyone had any recommendations on handheld GPS doodahs, not too expensive, good for walking about and logging your every move in overly obsessive detail. Thoughts very gratefully received. Or maybe I should try Hoosgot.

speechify

Speechification got a write-up in The Guardian over the holidays which was rather exciting. And there's been some fantastic listening up there recently. I've especially liked Dan's contribution of The Oyster Farmers, Roo's extra Don't Hang Ups,  Bobbie's Stop The World and Steve's To Sing Like Bing. And if you don't listen to anything else you might want to bend an ear to this Chris Watson programme.