D'log

NCN 506 photo tour:I spent the afternoon finding out where exactly the Stoke City Centre – Tunstall National Cycle Route (SUSTRANS No. 506) goes, and photographing it step-by-step. Only about half of it is open and/or signed at the moment. Stoke Council were supposed to do the vital Burslem stretch in Spring 2002. Then that […]

NCN 506 photo tour:I spent the afternoon finding out where exactly the Stoke City Centre – Tunstall National Cycle Route (No, 506) goes, and photographing it step-by-step. Only about half of it is open and/or signed at the moment. The Council were supposed to do the vital Burslem stretch in Spring 2002. Then that slipped […]

Go figure:Figurative art, still going strong, and all the better for being unfashionable and out of the meedja spotlight.

What are high street shops for?For… Not allowing the customer to find what they want. Standing in queues. Making the customer feel a nuisance. Finding out that the staff know nothing about what they’re selling. Bamboozling the customer with small-print and dodgy offers. Being too hot in Winter and too hot in Summer. Tiring the […]

Jerwood Photography Prize:The Jerwood Foundation has launched a new addition to its prestigious round of prizes; a new Photography Prize. It’s fairly restrictive; entrants must have graduated from a visual arts degree course after January 2000, have created their work after that date, and can only submit work as photographic prints. The deadline for entry […]

The “BOHO Creativity Index”:What a ridiculous peice of newspaper fluff. Its slapdash methodology trivialises the work of Richard Florida, and demeans the good name of DEMOS. It’s the logical conclusion of forgetting that Florida’s work mostly works with measures of “correlation”; which don’t necessarily imply “causation”. What would a serious ‘creativity index’ for British cities […]

“Does my art look big in this?”The Spectator, on why our Art Dept’s are pumping out so many conceptual artists.

Rainy day in the Midlands:A dull rainy day, in a rainy week. National ‘Sun Awareness Week’ draws toward its bitter end. These snaps taken through the window of a speeding car, on the way to take some storyboard photos for a friend’s short film about an egg fetishist….     

Future imperfect:For a second year, the Guardian has a slightly less-than-enthusiastic opinion on the Becks Futures show. Protect your brain:Have you seen those posters which warn of the dire dangers of not wearing a cycle helmet? Very annoying, especially when you know that… “the largest survey of cycling casualties ever undertaken concluded that helmets did […]

Shocking bores 2:And there I was thinking that Birmingham’s Fierce Festival had mellowed a little, had this year allowed a little wit to leven its tired po-mo angst. Or perhaps not.

IdentiFont:You see a fantastic classic font. You haven’t a clue what it is, but you really want to know. There’s no way to contact the designer who used the font. IdentiFont, to the rescue!

Stimulating the creative industries:My musings on Taiwan seem to be confirmed by their own creative-industries experts. The experts suggest that China’s centralised “long march” approach to growing a creative sector probably isn’t going to pull a live rabbit out of the magic hat, and are wary of trying the same in Taiwan. Meanwhile, over in […]

PAW prints:A variation on the photoblog theme, and one which arose at about the same time, is ‘PAW’ (photo a week), PAW has resulted in many people with sites adhering to the PAW concept, but who wouldn’t call themselves ‘photobloggers’.

Blatant search-engine bumper-upper:The curse of Kylie’s panties strikes again. The Midlands Creative Circle seems to have got one look at them close up, and therafter speedily expired 🙂

Land Lines:The sterling organisation which promotes English distinctiveness, Common Ground, have got themselves a weekly series, Land Lines. The show will be broadcast at peak time on BBC Radio 4, after The World at One. Starting on 14th May 2003, each week the presenter takes two “landscape detectives” to a place that they don’t know; […]