Tell me why I don’t like Mondays?

Biblical rain, boyfriend lost my hat yesterday, hair is now curly, man-made boots are sodden, buses are shafted, monthly travel card ten quid more expensive than last month and I see no improvement to the service, trod in a pulped pile of Metro newspapers outside Old Street station, right foot now saturated more than left, giant spider hanging on stairwell ceiling at work made me shriek, upgrading my phone took 40 minutes (how many more times do I have to tell people that ‘s.i.o.b.h.a.n’ says ‘shivorn’?), new phone can’t be delivered to my office because it’s a band 6 (WTF?), customer service leaving a note for the delivery driver to deliver it to my house after 7pm, but they can’t be certain delivery driver will read the note, I have been given two numbers to call in case I don’t receive my shiny new Nexus.

Shit happens I guess.

It’s only 11.05am.

Bird Talk.

I know a great place, really central, loads of birds.

Few things rattle my cage but of late one particular thing is really starting to bug me.

Chicken bones.

If I see any more goddamn chicken bones on the streets of London…

It is becoming a real problem. I’m sure these bones are indeed biodegradable and in time will turn to dust and blow away but that is not happening right now.

The reality of ‘right now’ is far weirder and leading to something all together more sinister and ecologically scary.

Pigeons are effectively becoming cannibals and nomming their distant chicken cousins.

Imagine if cats ate cats? It would be a problem right?

(this is where some smart arse tells me that in certain part of the world there are a plethora of fried cat shops, and the streets are littered with cat bones which are then… yep, you get it.)

Can anyone explain why it is that the boxes/packaging of chicken take-out meals seems to make it into the bin and yet the bones just get flung onto the street?

I have such beef with this. (Insert own meaty joke).

Go West. I mean East. South East.

So, here are two photos I took of the Westfield site pre construction of the now well establised Westfield ‘cennar’.

Digging for gold in the wrong place.

Contrary to popular belief, it would appear that the pots of gold are not directly underneath said construction.

I’m going to look at creating a game, which stitches together a photographic map (photosynth maybe?) of London based on ‘where the rainbows end’ type images and see if I can’t at least find myself a penny or two.

Who wants to play? I’m thinking MMOG, offline treats, cult following.

Obviously it’s that simple.

Oh yeah – anyone able to actually build this?

I’ll retain originator rights and go 60:40 on profit share…

Yorkwich or Nork? A tale of spliced cities.

Last night in my dream, I created a city.

It was pretty fantastic but a nightmare to navigate…

Growing up in the North, my closet city was York* but since my family made the move to the coast a few years ago, my closest city when I visit them, is Norwich.

Imagine my delight when during my dream I managed to merge both of these cities into one place; creating a rather splendidly spliced together city -  rich in history, architecture… and roundabouts.

As I dreamt and drove (it would seem I am a criminal in my dreams), these roundabouts became wiggly paths which were home to buildings and landmarks from of each city – confusing AND I seem to remember these paths looked a lot like the Yellow Brick Road.

Believing I was headed for the York Shambles, I suddenly found myself at Norwich Cathedral…

Weird and slightly Sam Tyler/Life on Mars upon reflection.

I do however wish it was easy to splice together actual cities. Imagine London and New York spliced? Or, New York, Madrid and London… OK, I’ll stop now.

Fantasy cities would also be fun to play around with; imagine the obvious mash-up of  Blade Runner’s 2019 vision of LA, The Fifth Element’s futuristic NYC and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis?

OK, so slightly dark and a bit of a dystopian vision (see 56 things about me, number 44) but alluring and visually stunning nonetheless.

Having just tried to find some visual matter that depicts spliced cities, I stumbled upon an awesome image created by Jonah Freeman; a spliced and reconstructed image of a picturesque mega-city.

Nice.  Icanhaz?

Are there any more examples out there people?

And also, can I copyright the phrase ‘spliced cities’ please?

* OK, so it was actually Hull but I preferred York and have chosen to ignore Hull for the creative purpose of this post.

Ideas rich, time poor

I have two (maybe three) blog posts in my head right now and really want to write them but alas, I am time poor.

I figure that if I outline them here, I will feel compelled to actually write about them in the next few days…

(i) Lost – general musing on SE05 so far…
(ii) Collaborations and mash-ups
(iii) The Wrestler

More soon.

Before I go, I must share my thoughts from the weekend:

(i) Burn After Reading is possibly the worst film I have seen since the original Russian version of Solaris.

(ii) I can’t speak highly enough of Skylon

(iii) I went on a carousel at the weekend on the Southbank and I had so much fun. It was my boyf’s first time on one!

(iv) I actually Enjoyed MI III on Channel 4 last night.

It’s snowtime!

I for one wasn’t hugely disrupted today, in fact, I found it quite a jolly experience walking the extra miles in order to get to and from work.

Glad I have wellies in London. I felt sorry for those who didn’t…

Today was also mildly amusing in that I think I figured out where the yoof of today is going wrong in the romance stakes… imagine the scene; 6 hoodies in a park, one yells to me ‘happy Valentines Day‘ whilst another lobs a snowball at me – hitting me between the boobs.

All in all, an interesting day and I conclude that despite crippling public transport issues for many, most people within zone 2 seemed really chilled out, just mooching at a slow pace – fully accepting that there were no buses to take them to work and just enjoying the familiar yet not so frequent feeling we all get when the snow starts to lay in London town.

Here is a snapshot of my day:

My London day.

Pics of the day….

Crouch Hill train tracks

My Garden

Finsbury Park

Ideas…

January has certainly been a springboard for creative thinking. That and the credit crunch of course.

I believe the two to be a powerful combination for thinking of new ways to make money/survive the global crisis and to buy that alpaca farm in a remote and stunning part of the world and never sit at a desk again :)

Did I say that out loud?

C’mon, everyone has escapism thoughts don’t they? My ‘escape chips’ are certainly not ready for cashing in yet though, I’m still enjoying my media life and London for that matter. Well, today I am enjoying London, tomorrow I’ll probably hate it.

If I’m honest, London is probably the muse for my very simple business-venture idea. I am so convinced it has legs, I cannot wait to find the time and work the idea up and then call my folks and hit them with the ‘muuum, daaaaad -  how do I go about setting up a business?’ line.

Rents know everything right? They are so astute, I’d bet my life savings* on them being able to preempt the next sentence after the above… it would include the words, you, lend, money and please?

As well as this idea, which is now brewing and taking over about 60% of my brain, the other idea is more related to what I do and feasibly I probably could work it into my day-to-day job but I feel I’d prefer to work it up and develop it further in sunnier climes – with ocean views, waiter service and some cute foreign animals to boot.

I think there is a need for this one but I’m worried about missing the boat if I don’t make time to think this one through. It’s so obvious.

More on the progress of these as and when.

Happy Friday.

*You’d be better off pulling the sofa cushions out and collecting the small change and assorted fluffy snack foods that have escaped my mouth of late.