Russell Davies

we are how we park

I think, the worst parking I've ever seen.

lost (but good) straplines of yesteryear

Saw this at Alton Towers. What a great strapline. 'Shortens Every Road'. They should use this now. Brilliant.

Cafe Preservation Society

I bought the London Caffs book yesterday (fantastic - great photos and commentary, good mixture of 'cafe eras'). And it prompted me to look through Classic Cafes again. (Equally brilliant - lovely shots, fascinating points of view). Both make my own efforts look pretty feeble.

But that's not important now.

These books set me thinking that maybe we could all do more than simply document the decline of these places. Maybe we should try and take all this enthusiasm and knowledge and channel it into something like a Cafe Preservation Society.

It's role could be to keep an eye on the great cafes in danger, lobby planning authorities etc. and/or if all else fails; ensure that the atmosphere of the place is recorded and maybe some of the fixtures and fittings preserved for posterity.

Maybe it's something that English Heritage or the National Trust or the 20th Century Society are already doing, but they must have other fish in the air or balls to fry and sometimes you can't do better than get a few like-minded lunatics together to get something done. (You sometimes get the impression that Adrian Maddox is joined in lonely battle on these issues, maybe more of us could offer some help)

I'm going to write to the great cafe luminaries, see what they think, but I'm quite enthused by this idea. I'd love to get something going. What do you all think? Any volunteers? Who's in? Someone want to build a website? etc. etc.

If nothing else we could have some regular outings to cafes, and preserve them through our custom.

Or am I mad? Or is someone already doing this and I should pay more attention to the world around me?

Comments please.

Cry The Beloved East Midlands

(Apologies - this is a slightly parochial post).

We were talking in the office the other day about the death of Brian Clough and the all the Forest and Derby fans talking about him on the telly. And someone pointed out that he couldn't ever remember hearing East Midland's accents on the TV before. And that's starting to obsess me now. (Actually the EMDA draw it a bit too big for me, I think it's more like this size.)

Infact the only East Midland's accents I can think of hearing on the telly are Nigel Clough, Shane Meadows and Paddy Considine. (And there was a time when that bloke from the UDM was on a lot.)

And the only famous East Midlanders I can think of are Joe Jackson and DH Lawrence.

(And whenever people do Lawrence adaptations they always get the accents wrong and go all Yorkshire.)

I'm starting to wonder why this is the case.

Are East Midlanders too happy to be assimilated and let their accents slip away though lack of regional pride? (This has happened to me. But you don't see it happening to Yorkshire folk.)

Are East Midland's accents too unpleasant for public consumption - meaning they're less likely to become famous? Or what?

According to this Wiki article "the East Midlands has the least distinctive of all British accents. Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and The Wash, and to a lesser extent Northampton and Lincoln all have accents close to BBC English."

And this piece says that East Midland's accents are the actual basis of RP - "RP was once itself a regional accent - that of the East Midlands. It acquired its status because East Midlands speakers converged on London as it became a centre for merchants. In other words, London became the power base and the financial centre, and the East Midlands accent became the spoken standard"

That's a really interesting thought, but having grown up in Derby, it seems like bollocks to me. A Derby accent is certainly nothing like BBC English (ie RP) And it's cetainly distinct. No-one says 'ehup mi' duck' like a Derby chipshop owner. And I can remember that we could tell the difference in accent (and dialect) between places that were only a few miles apart.

Maybe this is something to do with time (or me not appreciating the timescales these authors are talking about) because this BBC piece about Chaucer says "he wrote in the East Midlands dialect (covering London, Oxford and Cambridge), the most influential in forming Modern English." And obviously you wouldn't think about those places having the same accent nowadays.

Anyway. Enough rambling.

What I'm saying is - are their any East Midlander's on the telly that I'm missing?

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.

client speak

This is a sign on the toilet door at a big multinational marketing organisation. This well-intentioned but convoluted use of language is exactly the kind of thing that sometimes stops them communicating succesfully.

vinyl's dead again then

saw this in the street

give it up

Is it just me or should The Economist give up with this stuff? It's been fifteen years, it's been a great campaign but it's just turning into wallpaper. It seems like a lazy use of posters and of late the campaign seems to have gotten really spiteful. It used to be about the value of intelligence and now it's about being in some club of elite, high-earning business men.

Like this poster above. Sure it's an easy gag to take the mickey out of that West Coast way of speaking (increasingly common here). But it's just a way of speaking, it's not a sign of intelligence or business acumen. They wouldn't do the same thing with a West Country accent or Jamaican patois or something.

roobarb and custard

Went to Birmingham last night to talk to the Midland's Creative Circle. Lovely bunch of people. Really good fun. Haven't been to Brum since the days we went to the Rum Runner and pretended to meet Duran Duran. I do like the new Bull Ring and this great place we did the talk at called The Custard Factory. Had a little debate with The Economist bloke about their ads. See next post.

Good displays in the Lego shop in the Bull Ring.

Good pub sign

Great thing in the window of urban village.

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.