Russell Davies

The Only Girl In the Orchestra

To file in the (too small!) category of short but joyous documentaries: The Only Girl in the Orchestra.

Extraordinary, in a quiet and lovely way. 

"This is my theory of how to enjoy your life incredibly. You don’t mind playing second fiddle…"

Unmusical steeliness

This New Yorker article about Norman Foster is one of the best things I've ever read. He's a fantastic subject; he's done a lot, there are many opinions about him and he's a compelling combination of terrible and effective.

But, also, it's incredibly well-written. Such phrase-making, such brilliant summing up.

Some choice bits:

"Michael Bloomberg once described his collaboration with Foster, on a European headquarters in London, as one between “a billionaire who wanted to be an architect and an architect who wanted to be a billionaire.”

"To build a very large operation that still resembles a boutique one required decades of sustained control. Foster has controlled the work, and controlled his image, and controlled the images made by him: a Foster + Partners project will almost always have its accompanying Norman Foster sketches, often made retrospectively, rather than in the heat of design. They’ll be annotated by Foster, in a spiky hand that some of his colleagues have learned to imitate. These images may show a building’s future users spreading their arms above their heads, in a gesture of joyous abandon that it’s hard to imagine Foster ever having made."

"Foster shares with Steven Spielberg an ability to deliver “massive blockbusters that are also aesthetically and artistically successful."

"Foster expects to reach the end of his paragraphs, and talks over attempted interruptions with unmusical steeliness."

"The contrasts in the marriage can sometimes seem derived from hackneyed national stereotypes about introversion and extroversion. Elena used to host a popular Spanish TV show called “Let’s Talk About Sex.”"

"She recalled once instructing him to put down his pencil and pay attention to her. Foster tends to keep a cloth-covered sketchbook nearby. He had protested that he’d been listening to her carefully, and could repeat what she’d just said. Elena replied, “I need you to hear me with your eyes!”"

"...last summer, I joined a few of Foster’s video meetings with colleagues. Sometimes his interventions were specific and small-scale: he asked about the legibility of the lettering on the exterior of a school theatre in Connecticut, and about the parking lot out front. “Not to distract us now, but just consider if the neck to that car park was tightened,” he said. At other times, Foster’s interventions had more drama. Once, invoking Roger Ridsdill Smith, the firm’s most senior structural engineer, he said of a tower design, “I think I’d pull Roger in and look at it being a balanced cantilever.” I identified a catchphrase: “It’s worth a study.” You could almost hear the dinner reservations being cancelled.

His remarks never sounded capricious; nor did they seem unwelcome. This is the core of the business: people draw ten versions of a stairway, or a lobby, and agree to develop the best one, and then someone—possibly Lord Foster—starts to wonder about an eleventh version. Foster is very good at designing. But he’s also very good at making others not stop designing."

I should stop now. It's very long, there's so much of it. But it's so good.

 

 

 

 

 

Male CPUs

A post from Navaz reminded me about Cayce Pollard Units. And it occured to me that, of late, I've been tending towards a middle-aged man version of that. And, since I had an idle minute I asked ChatGPT to show me what that might look like. It came up with this:

That had the requisite anonymity but was just too grimly plain. So I asked for dunks and a grey v-neck. (I also asked for a bit of white t-shirt poking out at the waist but it refused.

That felt slightly more deliberate, but I wondered what something less 'default' would look like, so I asked for the same look but styled by Martine Rose and Margaret Howell:

It's not interested in showing much t-shirt is it? I'm interested in the assumptions too. A young, white man. So I wondered what it thought Cayce Pollard looked like ('thought' obvs).

But then, since I'm man in his 50s I thought I'd try that.

Again, not liking the shoes. And I thought I'd try again with the jumper:

Better. Looks like someone who'd have been cast as a disgraced former Detective Inspector in Shetland.

I then sent it a picture of me, see what it'd do with that. And I got this, which is simultaneously flattering and not. I am this sad and bemused but I think I'm a little taller.

So I tried again. Less me, but further from the ground.

And then I got to my stop and got off the bus.

I know that some of you will think this is all a disgrace. A trivial use  of a terrible thing. You're probably right, but there's something here isn't there? This isn't a gimmick, it's a tool. It's going to be used. How, for who, that's the question. One of the questions.

Interesting 2025: Fairytales as emergency survival manuals for civilisational collapse.

Nearly done. Next up is the extraordinary Zoe Scaman. She says she's a "professional magpie - forever darting between the shiny, the strange, and the strategic, stealing ideas from everywhere and stitching them into something novel." Zoe's going to be talking about "fairytales as emergency survival manuals for civilisational collapse." Feels like that would go nicely alongside Paving Stones.

Mario's

Interesting 2025: Paving stones

The redoubtable Cate McLaurin is our next speaker. Though, actually, on the evening, she's going third. Her topic is 'paving stones'.

That's it. That's the post.

Sold out

Blimey. Interesting has sold out. That's never happened before.

And someone just emailed me about a waitlist, which we've never needed before but now, I guess, we do.

So, if you'd like to be on the waitlist please email me via the 'contact the organiser' button on this page.

When worlds collide

Acquired on Epic Systems

I've just been on a long car trip and I ended up listening to the Acquired podcast episode on Epic Systems. Not a company I'd heard of or a story I knew. It's fascinating. Whimsy, determination, abuse of power, the wealthiest self-made woman in history, medical software, ERP failures, government over-reach, MUMPS, more whimsy.

I imagine many people I know will find this equally fascinating. And many others I know will find it infuriating, galling and partial. I'd love to hear people talk about this.

 

Hi-nology

This picture:

Led me to this record. V enjoyable.