Russell Davies

sark to dome

I was listening to Robert Elms the other day and heard about this Memoryscape thing. It's a walk, from The Cutty Sark to The Dome with accompanying MP3s based on a sound archive - dockers and local people talking about life on the river and in the docks. You can download the mp3s and the map from the site.

I went on Sunday morning and it was fantastic.

You get a very good sense of the overlapping industrial histories going on. From clippers to docks to light industry to wasteland to imminent flats.

The relatively unpeopled nature of the place makes for a lot of graffiti.

I wonder what that exclamation mark is trying to tell you. 'Look out! There's a river!' Isn't that relatively apparent?

You get great industrial shapes. I bet you get a lot of photographers around here, doing the juxtaposition thing they love so much. Nature and Industry. Industrial Wasteland and Yuppie Flats. Poverty and Wealth.

Do cranes get used a lot in sculpture or art? It seems like they should do. They look great and they're probably dense with all sorts of metaphor. But I don't remember seeing any big cranes in the turbine hall.

Near the dome (which I love) there's a real wasteland. An area waiting to be compulsarily purchased. And there's this great cafe/motel called the Millenium Motel where various migrant workers stay. Either inside or in the caravans and camper vans in the yard. While the spaceshippy spurs of the Dome lurk in the background.

The dritwood's not really delivering on the romantic John Masefield / Caribbean beach bum / Robinson Crusoe images the word conjures up. Lots of sports equipment in there though.

And there's lot of interesting little holes and things to peer through. A great walk. Try it. There's also a version on the posher bit of the river - West of the city. Probably more pleasant and less interesting.

spleen

i just want to get home in time for Teen Titans

justice

hollywood suggestion

I've just been listening to some Studio 360 podcasts (highly recommended). The October 1st issue has an interview with Neil Gaiman, which I really enjoyed. I've tended to avoid his stuff in the past, looks a bit too goth for me, but I think I'll have to yield. He talked really interestingly about a bunch of stuff.

One of the things he discussed was the dreadful predicatibilty of many Hollywood movies - you know exactly what's going to happen from minute to minute with a lot of them. Partly because you know how long the average movie lasts, and you know that they've still got X amount of time to fill.

Anne and I once discussed a solution to this which, if I was Global President, I'd immediately impose.

You know how a lot of movies like to open with a bit of suspense? There's a chase scene about 10 minutes in, the heroes in peril, or something. But you know he's going to be OK becuase he's the big name movie star and they're not going to kill him so soon. Or at all, probably.

Well, they should have a quota system that means that some movies do end about 10 minutes in. So the car is teetering on the edge of the cliff, the hero has to grab his girlfriend's hand to escape, he stretches to reach her, their fingers touch, he  grasps her fingers,  he falls, pulling her down on top of him, they both die, movie ends. If, say, 1 in 10 movie ended 15 minutes in, like that, wouldn't that make all the others that much more suspenseful?

I think you'd have to do it so each movie was available in two cuts, one of 15 minutes (or whatever), one the full 90, and they'd be served up randomly by  the projectionist.

That'd add interest at the multiplex.

the sound of artifical nostalgia

I think the autumnal sunshine has fired up some kind of nostalgia hormone in me, but I saw these two CDs in Borders and couldn't resist them. I've been listening to them all morning at work. Not exactly cutting edge youth marketing activity but never mind. All the tunes are exaclty what you'd expect, and they evoke a Britain I have no memory of whatsoever, but that I feel connected to via the shipping forecast, Lord Peter Whimsey tapes, Stephen Fry's suits and Anne Dudley's (apparently very rare) music for Jeeves and Wooster.

lovely illustrations

I was at Scarthin books at the weekend and saw these beautiful books in the 50p section. Only later did I notice that they're all illustrated by the same guy - Leslie Wood.

it's been a funny week...

...started on Saturday in Derbyshire with another trip to see Rocester.

Their non-wining streak is now up to about 53 games. (I think). But thre's a new spirit about them. New manager. Some new players. They went a goal down early and then battled back fro a draw, which felt like a victory. A very good way to spend a couple of hours.

Since then I've done two trips to Amsterdam, which has been a pain, but one of them included a chance to see Ajax v Arsenal which was splendid. Another good game. Great atmosphere.

One of the things I enjoyed at both games was my favourite crowd noise - the post-outrage murmur - that few seconds of grumbling mutter you get after the shouts of outrage about a refereeing decision or a potential handball. I love that sound.

I think I'll be seeing more of Rocester than Ajax in my life though. Better chips at Rocester.

Right down there on the touchline. That's Johan Cruyff. But you probably can't see him very well.

hello future

Months and months ago I foolishly agreed to speak at the IPA Strategy group conference.

(I imagine there's something there to promote the conference but since I'm not a member of the IPA I can't get in to see. How dumb.)

The conference is all about how communications strategy will have changed by 2015. They originally wanted me to talk about demographics and cultural change and how anglo-saxon or not the world will be by then, but since that seems to require actual knowledge and work I said I couldn't do that.

Instead I've offered to talk about how planning practise might change, what tools we'll be using, what skills we'll need, where we might be working, what life as a planner might be like. Obviously, I have no idea about this either. But I've found these three illustrations of where planning life might be going. And I'm going to post some speculations on here. If anyone has anything to chuck in, I'd love to hear it.

My first thought is that blogging (or whatever it evolves into) is going to be a core planning skill very soon. I think I'd be very reluctant to hire anyone who didn't have a blog. (If I was hiring. And I'm not so don't ask.) It teaches you all sorts of good stuff - precis, collaboration, generousity. And it's a really useful communications skill for the kind of distributed businesses we're all likely to be living in.

 

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ego moment

I wrote this essay for Campaign (which is to advertising what The Grocer is to grocery). It was intended to publicise the APG awards tonight but they neglected to mention them. Oh well.

They didn't tweak it much before they put it in - but I prefer my subheads, so here's the original. Warning - only likely to be of interest to planners, and frankly, not many of them.

(It's a word document.)

Click here to download.

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