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I love Jan von Holleben’s ‘Dreams of Flying’ photographs and I am the proud owner of edition #280 of his lovely book. However, skulking around the web this morning I stumbled across a Finnish photographer who seems to have ‘adapted’ the concept and publishing a book early next year. Personally, I think Jan von Holleben’s work is streets ahead – see this and other work here. It’s worth a look.

I love this bike. More wonderful bicis in this brilliant new book, Cyclepedia

A friend recently showed me his late Grandfather’s collection of John Player Cigarette cards.
There’s something strangely compelling about them. Ship’s Figureheads, Regimental Uniforms, Wild Animals, British Birds, Army Badges, Curious Beaks, Regimental Standards and Cap Badges and Hidden Beauties (one of which highlights the beauty of the Airing Apparatus of Pondweed!) How could this idea be applied to collecting digital things?

I’m neither a massive Beatles fan nor an Apple fan boy but Apple’s announcement yesterday was beautifully done. This stunning (and rare?) photograph was majestically displayed on iTunes and Apple.com home page. Less than 24 hours later, there are no less than 47 Beatles songs in the iTunes chart (thanks to Mark Headley for this stat) and they’re even running Google Ads with the graceful copy ‘John, Paul, George and Ringo. All together now’.

The Beatles, Twickenham, Middlesex, 9th April 1969
Credit: Photo by Bruce McBroom / ©Apple Corps Ltd

Picked up this book en route home from last weekend’s amazing Do Lectures. It jumped out from a small book/ antiques shop in Cardigan for a number of reasons. Firstly, I love the cover design – the illustration, font, colour and it’s tactile hessian like texture. Secondly, when I peered inside the opening sentence seemed so relevant – to my weekend at Do, and to where we are today in terms of technology.

‘Have you ever thought what a very large part of the world’s work consists in conveying messages from one person or place to another….the most complicated and beautiful mechanisms, are employed in this “science of communications”.

So I snapped it up and found it be the most wonderful read. I can’t work out when it was published (guessing 50s?) but it’s a charming jaunt through the history of communications from the days of mail coaches and the travelling post office (TPO) to the electric telegraph, the telephone, ‘the wonder of wireless’ right up to broadcasting.  It’s written in such a captivating and refreshing style that I couldn’t put it down. It marvels at the wonders of developments and has a refreshing congratulatory tone about the inventors – something which feels somewhat absent when we read about technological today.

The language and turn of phrase also had me laughing out loud on several occasions. Describing the clock work precision required by the mail workers on board the Travelling Post Office trains ‘Don’t forget it’s not only a matter of standing up in a swaying carriage and sorting letters. There are many different things to do, all precisely at the right moment…You will be pleased to know that they can make tea on board, and we may be sure that a cup of tea in the early morning hours tastes very good indeed!’.  In the chapter covering the beginnings of Air Mail it describes the French aviator and inventor as ‘that clever Frenchman, Beleriot”.
There are loads of great facts and figures in here, and wonderful stories. Some of my favourites below:

• In the chapter about the work of Wheatstone & Cooke and the development of the Electric Telegraph It highlights that it took until 1839 for the Great Western to allow a fixed line between Paddington and West Drayton – but in spite of this significant engineering achievement this failed to capture the public’s imagination until the electric telegraph was used by the Police to relay a message to London that a suspected murderer had boarded a train in Slough headed their way. When the train pulled in to Paddington ‘to the suspects astonishment he was spotted by detectives, taken to prison, tried and in due course hanged’. This human story of technology sounds very familiar – Twitter and the Iranian elections?
• Chapter 9 covers Submarine Telegraphy and there are some amazing tales about the attempts to lay cables under our oceans. With the first cable between England and France in 1851, England and Ireland connected in 1853 and how Charles Bright and William Thomson raised £350,000 to lay the first cables between England and America and the challenges they faced getting the two ships to meet in the middle of the Atlantic.
• Chapter 10 covers the Telephone; Graham Bell; formation of the Post Office then to the invention of the microphone (described as the ‘servant or handmaid of the telephone’) by the Welshman David Edward  Hughes. According to this account, we owe the invention of the microphone to an attack of bronchitis. In November 1877, Hughes, indoors with a severe cold was amusing himself with a speaking telephone. It occurred to him that there might be a some way of making the wire of the telephone circuit speak of itself without the need of one telephone, namely, that used in transmitting sounds’

It’s a great read – so if you see it in an old book shop, grab it.

Watched the film True Stories last night as part of Architecture on film season at the Barbican in London. I’m neither a huge Talking Heads fan or very fond of musicals but loved this film. Beautifully shot, some incredible characters and IMHO quite visionary given it was released in 1986 -  the film wasn’t a huge commercial success but I’d thoroughly recommend it – big screen or small. Review by Roger Ebert here
YouTube clip below (you can find many more on YouTube)

Got introduced to Broken Biscuits the other day- turns out the writers used to be part a mutual friend’s cover band, but now seem to be having some success writing comedy and kids shows – Big Babies is on CBBC and available via the iPlayer (UK peeps only I’m afraid). A classic children/ adult cross-over. Also snagged a couple of older sketches from them – ‘What the F*** is Parkour’  has only had a few thousand views on Youtube but made me laugh out loud,  ‘Alpha Male’ is more polished but funny nevertheless. Well worth a few minutes of your time in my humble opinion.

I managed to miss some of the best gigs at this year’s Southbank Meltdown Festival (Again!) but really like the site.  Simple, consistent design, and their functional footer with the share options. Mind you, their mini fav icon and colour scheme is in danger of looking a bit like the super market chain Morrisons

Meltdown festival share footer

Okay, it’s mainstream but it sure made me laugh – and made a few others too judging by the 900k plays and 8K comments on YouTube.
(a little bit naughty so watch with headphones on if you’re at work). But the next time I need an editor, I’m calling on Cassetteboy

You got to tip your hat to Innocent. Great products, great culture and a great business.
Very few companies these days manage to maintain a culture as the company experiences massive growth.
Innocent is now 250 employees, but continue to surprise and innovate.
At the same time they’ve managed to pull off distribution deals with the evil fast food over-lord MacDonalds (and shake off the PR backlash with ease) and selling a reported 20 per cent share to Coca Cola. Nice.
Video below from their recent AGM. A lot of companies, could learn a lot from Innocent or may be companies just need to be a bit more Innocent (honest).