The world is so full of a number of things*

The 4th Plinth, Trafalgar Square, London
Originally uploaded by daveograve@

Randomness upon randomness, next Wednesday (2nd September, 1pm- 2pm) I've been selected to take part in the Anthony Gormley Sculpture "one and other", in Trafalgar Square, London. I get an hour to be up on the "fourth plinth" and, well, do what I like. It will be streamed to the Internet, and maybe appear on Sky Arts as well. Being into all this new media, etc etc... am thinking of giving some thoughts about the nature of streaming media and arts. Whilst taking some photos. And will see if I can stream my *own* content from the plinth. That'll show em!

This is a photo of someone else up there, doing their stuff. I'll let you know how it goes, no doubt. (and in case the caption doesnt load, the image is by DaveoGrave, used under a creative commons license).

*its the first line from my favourite short poem, from "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson. The full version goes like this:
"The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings".

Blame it on the weatherman

About 6 months ago, BBC Weather changed its interface for local weather forecasts. I dont like the new version - too hard to read, and its very pessimistic (ie if a drop of rain is forecast all day, the symbol for the day is "downpour").

And more to the point - its often very very wrong.

So hats off to my Uncle Jim, who pointed me in the direction of yr.no - the Norwegian equivalent of the Met office. Easy to use, you can see what their decision is based on, and we get pretty graphs. Nice.

Consider this a public information service, loyal reader. Although I'm not sure that its altogether more accurate...

FTW, MS Gillian McKeith

Do you remember my rant about people who buy correspondence PhDs from non-accredited colleges, and parade them as if they are bona fide qualifications? And my letter to Sainsbury's?
Well, I win. They are changing their database accordingly.

Although they quite clearly think I'm a nutter.

Down the road, is where I'll always be

I dont think I'll ever be bored by the fact that there is free Internet on long distant trains in the UK now. Although I do always wonder why Google thinks National Express Trains are in Sweden.

InfamouShed

My recent shed exploits on BBC 6 have made it onto the UCL news pages.

music update

L.D.Durbin just pointed out that you can listen to the Varjak EP on LastFM. Didnt know they had finally put it up...

(and those who emailed me, I hope to get to the post office sometime this week).

Slow to a stop

Been quiet around here... I contracted some old fashioned, hardcore food poisoning and its taken me two weeks to even approximate towards normal. Grrrrr. Lots to catch up on.

I spent a lot of time over the past week aimlessly surfing the web from my sickbed, catching up on blogs and feeds and news. I'd love to share with you some hidden gems I discovered, but to be honest... a lot of the information overflow was just a little bit.... Meh. Celebrities I have never heard of (there seem to be more and more to fill the voids in internet content), cliched writing, and Gies a job I can do that artwork. Which probably says something about me - I probably need to retreat from the interwebs, knuckle down for a few weeks to make up for lost time, and you know, pick up an academic book or something once in a while, now my brain is cranking up again.

But still. Some fun things along the way if you fancy wasting some time:
Lady Gaga as architectural cipher,
When the heroes from your teenage years totally disappoint,
Why change perfection (and gies a job I could do better),
A wealth of design info,
a fun start to the day,
know your onions,
when crafts go bad,
big in japan.

And now, cold turkey from random interweb travails. I have an overview journal paper, chapters to edit, and courses to plan (including the start of lecture writing for next term...) this week. Rationed interwebs! Rationed twitter! Rationed f'book! Nose: Grindstone!

I would write *sigh*, but the truth is I'm glad to be back.

all ur shells r belong to us

meant to post this ages ago - taken at Shepreth Wildlife Park, near Cambridge.