Posts from the ‘Stories’ Category
Feeling a little bit like Siku today after a 15-mile walk yesterday.
Walking from sunrise to sunset (the days are short, it’s not that we walk slowly), we covered 3 London boroughs and spotted (amongst other things), a triangular castle, a lake filled with terrapins and walked under the Thames.
Not bad for a Thursday.
The thing I’m enjoying most about the Capital Ring is its variety. Chris warned us various councils had lobbied to have the route pass through their districts, showing off new leisure centre complexes and flagship urban developments. Fine. It’s unremarkable stuff but interesting to see what they’re all intent on displaying, how different areas prioritise services and how much (or rather how little) they’re all used. Walking the Greenway through Newham on a Saturday morning we were alone. In contrast, getting the bus to the station to go home and the high streets are rammed. It’s not even Christmas anymore but no-one else seems to be the slightest bit interested in anything other than spending.
It’s the fluctuation between wild common areas, landscaped public gardens, manicured football pitches, overgrown woods, well kept forest trails, decrepit riverside paths, long-forgotten urban developments left to rot and incredible architecture that is making this journey worthwhile. Few of these bits (triangular castle excused) are outstanding in their own right but the combination is amazing. We’re constantly saying things like “I don’t believe this is London” ; “where the hell are we?” and “are you sure this is the right way?”
Occasionally you’ll emerge for a few hundred yards along a road, nip across some crossroads and be transported somewhere else entirely. Then again you’ll see a sign steering you down some dimly lit back alley between two razor wire fences along a non-existant path that has been replaced by a bog. No, really.
Let’s face it. The media lies.
We finished our third stage of London’s Capital Ring this weekend.
Walking from Hackney Wick to Beckton district park I was pretty amazed to be the only people on the Greenway for a hefty chunk of the journey. Despite it being a beautiful day we had only a couple of dog walkers for company.
I wanted walk the ring to see different areas of the city I’d not yet had a reason to visit. And while the path takes its fair share of odd twists and turns the majority of the route thus far has been remarkably green and very peaceful. Winter has been a good time to start.
Chuffed to bits with these words from Richard at Forbidden Planet on mine and Tom’s contribution to Paper Science 6.
But the best thing here, beautifully drawn by Tom Humberstone, written by Anne Holiday, is the gorgeously poetic In The Running.
An esoteric/sideways impression of what “work” can actually mean to some people…. to you it may be 9-5, the job. To others it can be a lifestyle, putting in a “shift” doing something interesting, something essential, something they feel driven to do. Such is the case here, with Rebecca taking a small obsession and turning it into a regular thing, not necessarily clocking on, but attending to watch the object of her affection / interest / obsession with a regularity of employment. And then we see the other side, the object of Rebecca’s observations, and she’s just as dedicated to her work, in her own special way.
Or maybe it’s something completely different, maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe not enough. Doesn’t matter a bit… lovely.
Read the full review here.
With a brief as focused as “jobs” I didn’t want to do something that felt too obviously task focused. We all, each of us, understand the nature of actions and doing stuff for money. That, to me, felt too rooted in the everyday to stand out amongst a collection of really talented contributors.
I’d been thinking a lot about the Olympics and how the discipline of athletes is pretty extraordinary. Imagine training for years, only to catch a cold the day before your first event. Or getting attached to a pair of trainers that went missing or the laces broke or your favourite t-shirt shrank in the wash. Maybe I’m too nostalgic or emotional in the way I look at things and become attached to objects and people. But when your job is to the same thing almost every day for almost four years, it seems like appreciating a t-shirt design or a pair of comfortable socks might just keep you sane.
I wondered what it would be like to flip that output of dedication and obsession on its head and see it from someone else’s perspective. Someone whose own experiences of “work” are very different.
Are you wearing contact lenses? Do you own an iPhone? If you answered yes to either question, in Sami Niemela‘s eyes, you’re a cyborg.
It’s a neat pointer to the ways that we all use technology to augment our attributes. These can be simple, like spell-checkers, or more complex, like pace-makers. All true.
But it’s not always about technology. There was a lot of talk about machines and robots, networked objects and digital tools at Playful, all of which may well inform the ‘Shape of Things to Come’. But a lot of this talk felt nostalgic for a future that hasn’t quite turned out how we had hoped.
Jetpacks exist only on the back of lego men.
Phil‘s tweet is the best summation of this needlessly despondent chatter:
It’s better when I can touch it.
I think it was at this point that Brendan Dawes challenged us all to re-discover the magical layer.
“Give people an invitation to interact,” he bellowed. “A knob or a button will probably do.”
And this is it. Sometimes it feels like people needlessly throw around technology as some kind of totem for successful engagement. Or, something they (or we) are (or should be) in awe of. A buzz word that we gloss over because we don’t really know how it works, because we never get the chance to immerse ourselves within the experience. Brendan’s genuine enthusiasm for making, breaking and making all over again was infectious and exactly the kind of invigorating call to action I’ve been looking for.
If we’re going to shape the future, we’re going to need to have a hand in it.
Looks like I’m going to require a shed.
