idleformat

ritual

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:49:00 +0000

Bristol institution Boston Tea Party have extended their upstairs space in their Park Street cafe. We popped in yesterday morning for a quick coffee and were pleasantly surprised by the sudden spaciousness.

It used to be a Tuesday morning ritual of mine to pop in for a West Country breakfast. Increased working hours has put paid to that in recent months but as a special birthday favour to myself I took the day off last week and rekindled the cooked breakfast flame. And boy was it good.

a few days in Copenhagen

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:41:00 +0000

Copenhagen sunset

At the end of May we spent a few days in the beautiful city of Copenhagen, my first visit to the Danish capital and our first trip using couchsurfing site Airbnb. We found a small, bright apartment in a block standing a stone's throw from the rectangular lakes between the city centre and the vibrant area of Nørrebro and the more cosy Østerbro.

Nyhavn

Given the sun and heat we tried to take things a little easy, though that didn't always work out as we attempted to cram in as much as possible. Highlight of our stay for me was an hour-long boat trip along the river and harbours. We were treated to some beautiful architecture - the impressive Black Diamond library building and Opera House, Holmen's waterside housing schemes including one where you can drive your boat into the building, the world-famous Noma restaurant and the Little Mermaid statue.

Christianshavn

The boat also took us through the canals of Christianshavn, busy with people enjoying a cool drink beside the river, and around Slotsholmen and the Christiansborg Palace, home to the Danish Parliament, Danish Prime Minister's Office and, of course, main location for the excellent TV drama Borgen.

Sortedams Sø

Well worth a visit was Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, an impressive art museum which is home to a wealth of Mediterranean sculpture and French and Danish paintings. The afternoon we visited was baking and we pretty much had the entire building to ourselves.

Cyclists in Nørrebro

The wide streets with their separate cycle lanes have no doubt been written about in great depth elsewhere; suffice to say, yes, they make cycling pretty effortless. It was interesting to note that there was no Spandex on show amongst Copenhagen's cyclists - they're way too cool for that: check out the Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog.

Exploring the city was a real pleasure: I loved it's laid-back nature and relatively compact size. In the parks, it seemed as though the entire city had come out to enjoy the sunshine. There was no boisterousness; just folks having a lovely time.

Assistens Kirkegård cemetery

Sunbathers even lay among the gravestones of the beautiful Assistens Kirkegård cemetery in Nørrebro. To be fair, it felt like a cross between well-manicured garden, park and cemetery with cyclists gliding along the tree-lined avenues. Even we stopped to enjoy our packed lunch there.

Danish hot dogs

As with San Francisco, there was something about Copenhagen that got under my skin. I really hope return to spend a little longer there sometime in the future. In the meantime I have been reading the excellent Classic Copenhagen blog to calm my withdrawal symptoms.

u-turn

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:00:00 +0000

This interesting airborne u-turn was visible in the sky above Wells, Somerset on Monday evening.

soda bread

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:30:00 +0000

I'd never baked my own soda bread until Tuesday. Never realised before how quick and simple it was.

Classic Soda Bread recipe at River Cottage

my first kingfisher

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 18:36:00 +0000

At the weekend we joined M's mum and aunt on a walk through part of the Somerset Levels. It was a perfect end-of-summer countryside walk: beautiful late afternoon light; a slight chill in the air. I felt the promise of autumn with its darker evenings; a time to hunker down indoors with good books, a box set or projects to complete. My favourite time of year. Buzzards patrolled the sky ahead while swifts zipped and circled. We saw a sparrowhawk thwarted in an attack on a group of sparrows when we drew near. I even saw my first kingfisher - at least as far as I remember. I've been a casual birdwatcher since childhood; a renewed member of the RSPB for the past year or so. I don't recall seeing a kingfisher before. Unfortunately it was in flight - I watched as it passed us right to left, a dazzling blue on top, bright orange on its front. Beautiful. The walk took us along the edge of fields and a river, past cottages and tethered rowing boats, through land that less than a year ago was flooded way above our heads. It was a walk I'd enjoy making each season of the year, to witness how the landscape changes.

Brandon Hill

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 08:45:00 +0000

Brandon Hill is the perfect city park to enjoy lunch and catch up on some reading on a sunny day. The squirrels are quite tame too. This one was running away but after I made a clicking sound (aka speaking squirrel language) she came running back toward me. Perhaps I inadvertently said I had some food. If so, I apologise to this particular squirrel. She didn't wait long to find out that I had nothing and was soon scurrying away after I'd taken a couple of photos.

I also wrote about Brandon Hill in a post published here back in 2007, before I moved to Bristol.

Brighton Wheel

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 10:25:00 +0000

Brighton Wheel from the corner of St James Street and Madeira Place during a brief stay in June this year.

missing

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 14:00:00 +0000

The longer I'm on Facebook the more interested I am in the people I once knew who have never created a profile.

undoing time and memory

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Supplying instant information on demand at lightning speed, digital archives threaten to undo time and memory the same way mass tourism transforms the faraway into the quickly forgotten thrill of an away-day trip.

Chris Bohn, The Wire, #355, September 2013

What are the implications for a generation that wil never have to rely on time and memory? When all the TV shows they ever watched as a child are archived and accessible instantly? When every milestone of their growing-up has been captured on an iPhone and uploaded to social media sites by their parents? When everybody they come into contact with throughout school, college, university, workplaces has a profile on social media? What will it be like to never forget a person or an event or media?

pasties (and ketchup) at Kynance Cove

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 09:00:00 +0000

One of this year's highlights for me was sitting on the cliffs at Kynance Cove with M and her sister eating fantastic hot Cornish pasties from Ann's. The weather was better than you could expect for March, perfect for a spot of outdoor pasty consumption. We had to buy a bottle of ketchup to add a certain je ne sais quoi to the proceedings - an act I was convinced would see M and I driven out of Cornwall. But M's sister (dyed-in-the-wool-Cornish) didn't seem to have any objections. Dare I say, she even joined us...

Printsgram

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Printable PDF files from your Instagram photos.

Printsgram

a beautiful tribute to analog

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Only just got around to watching the wonderful Berberian Sound Studio. Set in an Italian horror film studio in the 1970s, Toby Jones plays a sound engineer working on the audio track. The disturbing and brutal film is a far cry from the documentaries he is used to working on around his home in peaceful Surrey.

I loved the shots of the analog equipment in the studio; of fingers flicking switches and turning knobs. The film is clearly a tribute to this lost era of filmmaking but it also, perhaps inadvertently, celebrated other forms of analog life that have passed us by. So the viewer is treated to long, lingering shots of dubbing charts, with their handwritten annotations and colouring-in; we saw equipment was tinkered with using a small screwdriver; 70s dial-telephones with their clunky handsets; we heard the comforting clacking of typewriter keys being tapped.

If the film had been terrible it (which it definitely wasn't) it would still have been a visual feast that I would have had no trouble watching to the end.

magazine heaven

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I'm a sucker for lavishly-printed, beautifully-designed magazines so when I heard about STACK I could barely contain my enthusiasm and subscribed straight away. The idea is wonderfully simple: each month STACK sends you a different magazine. You won't know what title you are receiving until you open the package but the list of potentials is a roll call of beautiful, intelligent, well-designed, thoughtful, independent magazines. I've been reading a few of the available titles for a while - Huck, Little White Lies, Boat and The Wire (you can opt out of any that you already subscribe to and they'll send an alternative) - but there are a lot more that I am looking forward to sampling over the coming months. The USP as far as I'm concerned is receiving and reading magazines that I wouldn't ordinarily get to read.

stackmagazines.com

new Spike Jonze film

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 09:16:00 +0000

Her is the forthcoming film from one of my favourite directors, Spike Jonze. Heartbroken Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) purchases a computer with an operating system just a little bit more advanced than your average PC running Windows - to the extent that the boundary between OS and human becomes blurred and he falls in love with it.

Plus! Music by Arcade Fire.

Fiz

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 20:23:00 +0000

Earlier this week we lost Fiz, the elder of my mum's Border Collies. She passed away at the grand old age of 15.

She was a gentle and thoughtful dog with striking eyes: one was blue, the other brown. I'll always remember her for her love of being carried. You just had to hold your arm out and she'd rest her front legs there ready to be scooped up. This was fun when she was younger, but as she became an adult it became rather more strenuous; you couldn't hold her for very long but it was worth it just to see her nonchalant expression, as though a Border Collie being carried was the most natural thing in the world.

Fiz was much loved and deservedly spoiled during her time with us. At the moment it's still difficult to accept that she won't be around next time we visit my parents.

a charming city

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Bristol. A charming city from 134Moises on Vimeo.

Bristol is a great city to live in - there's plenty happening all the time, as recent posts here illustrate - but despite almost five years having passed since moving to the west country I still struggle to call the city my home. No such problem for Spanish filmmaker Moises Perez who made this warm-hearted tribute to the city he adopted 11 months ago.

Hiut Denim Year Book

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Lavishly produced, full of inspiration and gorgeous illustration and photography, Hiut Denim's second Year Book is a thing of beauty. Unsurprising given David Hieatt, the company's founder, started Howies whose catalogues last decade blended a similar mix with product information. I held on to each issue and my collection still lives on a bookshelf at home. After David quit the company he went on to form Hiut Denim, now making jeans down the road from Howies in Cardigan, west Wales. Meanwhile, Howies stopped producing their catalogues so it was great to hear that Hiut would be publishing a Year Book last year. It didn't disappoint and, if a quick skim through the second issue is anything to go by, this one could be even better.

Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Jesus' blood never failed me yet,

Never failed me yet,

This one thing I know,

For he loves me so.

Gavin Bryars' Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet is without doubt the most heartbreaking piece of music I've heard. Lasting 26 minutes, it begins to build very slowly from silence, looping the above unaccompanied refrain sung by a homeless man recorded in 1971 for a documentary about London street life. Slowly, orchestration is added and builds alongside the repeating refrain before subsiding gradually to silence. To sit with a pair of headphones listening to the piece in its entirety is a profoundly moving experience. This is not music to wash the dishes to.

Lyme Regis Instagramage

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Some Instagrams of a very enjoyable family day trip to beautiful Lyme Regis earlier this week.

If you're on Instagram check me out - I've just started posting there again after a bit of a sabbatical.

idleformat on Instagram

is this how life ends?

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Beautiful and heartbreaking. If, at the end of life, we experience random snapshots from what has gone before, I always imagine they'll feel like a Terrence Malick film. In both To The Wonder, which we saw at the cinema back in February, and 2011's The Tree Of Life, I've been captivated by the way he presents his narrative as a series of everyday moments from life. When coupled with a particularly elegiac soundtrack (Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs appears in both films) I'm left with the feeling that life is too sad to contemplate. When that happens there are only two things you can do: wallow further in your own pity or hit the Humax and watch a load of Man v. Food episodes. Ultimately, this is Marmite filmmaking: you are either completely drawn into it or you find it pretentious twaddle (as the couple sat behind us evidently did).

Frances Ha

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 09:07:00 +0000

Went to see this at the Watershed on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely not a chick-flick; definitely not a romcom; yes it's in black and white and stars Greta Gerwig but it's definitely not mumblecore. Co-written and directed by Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) it was well-written, brilliantly acted and zipped along at a cracking pace. I heartily recommend you see it if it comes to a cinema near you. Just don't bother watching the trailer before you go - it lowered my expectations considerably.

Frances Ha

Official Site

Little White Lies review

IMDb

Gromit Unleashed

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Everywhere you go in Bristol at the moment people are stood taking photos of these 5ft high Gromit sculptures. Each has been individually painted by a different artist, designer or celebrity and there's a trail of 80 of them dotted in and around the city, the furthest being located at Paddington Station.

Gromit Unleashed has been phenomenally successful since the sculptures were unveiled earlier this month. I've actually seen short queues of people waiting to take photos of family members stood beside the popular Aardman Animations character. During the first weekend I began taking photos of all the Gromits I noticed but I quickly realised I was snapping away without actually taking time to really look at them. I stopped photographing them at that point (except for the photo used here purely for illustrative purposes!). Besides, Bristol Culture has collected photos of all the Gromits here.

The trail ends on September 8th when the sculptures will be auctioned to raise money for Wallace & Gromit's Grand Appeal, the Bristol Children's Hospital Charity.

Hello Lamp Post!

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Last Sunday I found myself engaged in a brief conversation with Bristol's Pero's Bridge on the harbourside.

Don't worry, this isn't as strange as you might think. In Bristol, residents and tourists have been having conversations with lamp posts, pillar boxes, phone booths and other kinds of street furniture over the past few weeks.

It's all part of Hello Lamp Post, winner of the 2013 Playable City Award. The project turns Bristol into a playable space by enabling you to interact with its street furniture via text message. Each object has a reference code which you use to strike up a conversation.

After texting 'HELLO BRIDGE' along with the code (helpfully Pero's Bridge had a huge banner draped across the side telling me what to do) I received a message asking which of the nearby boats I liked the most. After replying I received a another message letting me know what somebody else had answered to the boat question along with a comment on the local seagulls as well as a further question to keep the conversation going. As more and more people take part so the bank of answers to questions will become more varied and interesting I imagine.

It's quite a novelty but I felt my answers weren't as interesting as they could have been. Perhaps I can find some more objects to wake up over the next few weeks. I'm not sure how long Hello Lamp Post lasts but, for now at least, Bristol is that quirky place where you go to talk to the street furniture...

Hello Lamp Post from PAN Studio on Vimeo.

my time as a DJ (kind of)

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 12:00:00 +0000

When my good friend D1 asked me to cover his weekly internet radio show during his paternity leave my inital reaction was 'Sure! Why not?' The nearest I'd come to being a DJ until then had been scrabbling around on my iPod to find suitable tracks to play when entertaining guests at home. This, I knew, would be a whole new ball game but, I agreed to do it, knowing that there was still a long 6 months before I would go live on air.

D1 broadcasts the D1Radio Hour as part of The Thursday Night Show (TTNS), a global live internet radio show playing a diverse range of music across time zones but also featuring live artwork and photography as a canvas on the website and a chat room where you can converse with other listeners and DJs.

At its most basic, D1 suggested I could broadcast using the open-source Mixxx software with a laptop and, preferably, a mic. His own setup used this setup augmented by djay for iPad feeding into an external soundcard/USB audio capture device and relayed onto a web server via a Mac.

It all sounded complicated to me but I began investigating the different options. Hardly anything made much sense as I surfed the web for opinions on different hardware that I could use to make the whole thing as easy as possible. While the internet is great for providing a wealth of different views, this served merely to create more confusion. D1, as ever, was always on hand to answer my questions via email (he's in Brighton, I'm in Bristol) and provide a gentle nudge in the right direction despite the impending birth of his child.

I was reluctant to spend money on equipment I would only be using for a few weeks and as the date of my first show in April edged closer D1 suggested I could use Garageband on the Mac to pre-record my show as a podcast. This would remove the live aspect of DJ-ing and also meant there would be no links; rather than a DJ set it would be an hour-long mix. It wasn't ideal, though I'll admit it appealed in many ways as it removed the pressure of going out 'live'.

The first show took a day to prepare. Until then my use of Garageband had been virtually nothing but it's quite intuitive and I soon got the hang of it. Equalizing the individual volumes took a while, as did actually choosing the tracks to play. But it worked - the first four shows were simple mixes but then I began experimenting using the built-in mic on the MacBook Pro. It wasn't brilliant by any stretch but it was usable, so the final shows had some rather stilted links (!).

The shows went out on D1's slot on Thursday evenings between 9 and 10pm in April and May. Despite the work involved it was an enjoyable experience - once I had a list of tracks to play it was straightforward putting them together in Garageband. The links added a whole new dimension - they made the show more personal but took an incredible amount of time to get right. The best shows were where I received feedback from listeners and fellow DJs in the chat room. It made me aware that people were listening and that all the preparation had been worth it. A friend of mine who lives in Wales was also incredibly supportive - giving feedback via text during the shows and requesting download links for the shows when they'd gone out.

None of my shows went out live, though, so I'm not calling myself a DJ just yet. I'll leave that to the folks who know what they're doing...

D1 is now back in The Thursday Night Show hotseat between 9 and 10pm UK time every Thursday. Check him out live or listen to his sets on Mixcloud. There's also a TTNS app for iOS so you can listen wherever you happen to be.

Brighton gets its own Hipstapak

noreply@blogger.com (idleformat) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 18:31:00 +0000

Brighton. Birthplace of idleformat. Home to the Royal Pavilion, Palace Pier, West Pier and Brighton & Hove Albion; source of inspiration for countless novelists, artists, musicians and photographers; provider of fun for dirty weekenders, daytrippers and eccentrics.

Now, in 2013, the city by the sea provides the theme for the latest Hipstamatic film and lens combination. The Brighton Hipstapak, features Doris Lens and Sussex Film.

Hipstamatic is a digital photography app for the iPhone that replicates the feel of analog cameras, inspired by the popularity of retro photography such as Lomography. Hipstapaks are the combinations of film, lenses and camera cases that you can buy as add-ons to the app. Each film and lens will give you a different look to your digital photos, especially when you combine lenses and film from other Hipstapaks.

Below is my photo of Bristol's Victoria Park using the new Brighton Hipstapak. Shame the Pak wasn't available a few weeks earlier when I was actually back in town...