Russell Davies

odd but graceful

These are some pictures I took about a month ago, in Matlock Bath. I'd fogotten I had them. They're of a odd little thing they do as part of the illuminations there. The tradition dates back to Victoria's Golden Jubilee - rowing boats, swanning up and down the river with these big illuminated structures attached.

When you first get there (nice and early so you know you'll get a good view) the boats are just tied up, light-bulbs and structure all very visible and it looks like it's going to be very crap and disappointing. But then dusk falls properly and they head down the river and it becomes slightly magical. You can't see the oarsmen or anything. Just these bright, iconic representations seeming to float magically above the river.

vinyl's dead again then

saw this in the street

cars and cameras

We were driving up the M1 the other day. Arthur very bored. So I gave him the digital camera for a bit and he took all these shots. Obviously they're rubbish and blurry and random. But they're also slightly beautiful and a bitter-sweet portrait of the unutterable tedium of some car journeys when you're a kid. Including the gormless grinning dad.

helmet hazard

This is a sign attached to a climbing frame thing in Regents Park. Are they saying no helmets? I presume they are. Why? are helmets dangerous? Do kids in helmets frequently bash into other kids, causing injury and destruction? And have you ever seen a kid in a helmet on a climbing frame? Maybe unrestricted helmet wearing is more of a hazard in Norway or wherever this frame was designed.

Though, the whole issue of kids and helmets is interesting. I'm very reluctant to make Arthur wear his when he's on his bike. Becuase he doesn't like it, and it means he gets less joy out of his bike, and if he doesn't learn to love mucking about on his bike then I've failed as a parent. It seems an acceptable risk. Of course it's easy to say that now. He's not had a horrible accident.

lavatorial differentiation

A long time ago I began collecting pictures of the graphics in aircraft toilets. Because a) it's something to do on a boring flight and b) I thought I'd be able to make a clever point about differentiation or something and c) I'm a bit strange. There's a bunch of them here but the strange thing is how undifferentiated they are. Here you've got airlines desperately trying to prove they're a little bit different from everyone else and here's a prime opportunity to do it and they're completely wasting it. Now, maybe I'm not flying classy enough airlines, maybe Virgin or someone's doing it better, but most of these are transcontinental business class flights on decent airlines. And they all look like the airline just stuck with the decals that Boeing or Airbus supply. And rebranded the bottle of handsoap. I think they ought to be able to do better than that.

That being said I do quite like the graphic style they all use. And the icons.

routemaster on oxford street

Apparently today is the last day we'll see such a thing.

how fire fighters get into gigs

authentic

Look, authentic is now a word you can just write on your brand/window. Presumably meaning 'authentic-looking' or, to put it another way 'not authentic'. So it becomes its own opposite. That's literally the most annoying thing ever. (see what I did there?)

Reminds me of all those conversations you have with clients where you write stuff and say 'obviously, this is just internal, it's not consumer-facing language' and the next thing you know it's plastered all over the point of sale.

We used to joke that no-one could fake authenticity like us. Seems we don't need to bother any more. We can just claim it.

but how?

in a tribute to the funkypancake stylee - this is obviously where you go to denn.

how secret? top secret

Someone kindly emailled me a bunch of roadsigns. This is my favourite. And here's the site for the bunker. The site describes it as an 'all-weather attraction' which makes sense when you think about it.