Sunday, February 1, 2009
eBay gum, lad
A short note to mention that I’ve put two new reviews up on the site - one for the Pear Tree Inn in Whitley, the other for the Butcher’s Arms in Sheepscombe. One for either side of the M4. Nice and democratic, like.
But also, I’d like to take a moment to thrill you with the news that I’m about to embark on my first ever eBay selling mission - in which vein, I’d like to ask you, what activities are you yet to do that you really should have done, or tried, at least five years beforehand? Is anyone out there more behind the times than me? I’d love to know. I need some cheering up.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I know, it’s been slack
.. but it’s winter, and there was Christmas, and all of that. There are other reasons too tedious to go into, but there you have it, the internet’s not interested in all of that.
I have just lost half an hour of my time to this most fantastic application wherein you can search for photos on flickr according to colour. It’s addictive and illuminating at the same time, and as such, elicited from me a cry of sheer joy at the wonders of technology. I think I’ll go have a cold shower of youtube comments to bring me back down to earth.
The site is, what a surprise, going to be undergoing a format revolution in the near future. Just thought I’d warn you. I’m going to install comments on all entries. Do you think it’s a good idea? I should hope so, it’s taking me ages to work out.
Friday, November 28, 2008
“You’re a DEMON!” / “Do you need help, little man?”
So, I think I’ve found the inspiration for the brilliant Funny or Die David Blaine videos.
All of which is not helping my attempts to stop saying ‘What the F!’ about 10 times a day.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Butterflies and sweatshops
On a weekend of many excitements, I had the pleasure of visiting my friend Helen’s art show for the Totterdown Front Room arts trail – which we normally use as an opportunity just to have a good old nose round other people’s houses. She’d made these amazing “entomologist cases” – but the little butterflies and other beasties were in fact hand-scalpeled from vintage marbling paper.
You can find out more on her blog. But anyways, as she was selling these for an extremely reasonable price, I tried to work out, were you to take into account the cost of materials, the amount of hours spent doing the intensive, painstaking work necessary to create said paper beasties, and the cost of upkeep for her ‘factory’, which, seeing as it was her living room, would essentially be factored against her final salary, whether she was essentially running an art sweatshop, and could hold herself in contempt of the Working Time Regulations, Employment Rights Act and the national minimum wage regulations, and send herself to jail. You know, for laughs, like.
In having an idle Google around to find out a bit more about employment law (I’m boring like that), I came across a delightfully-named online company selling cheap leisurewear. They’re called, in marvellous taste, Sweatshop. And whose wares are being advertised on its homepage? Why, there’s Adidas, who Oxfam accused of ignoring worker’s rights, and who paid their Chinese workers 65 cents an hour; Asics, accused of exploiting vulnerable workers; and Nike, unchallenged champs of the whole making-small-kids-make-shiny-things-for-peanuts hullabaloo.
I’m most impressed by the company’s straight-down-the-line approach to the whole issue. It’s selling cheap sports gear, it’s called ‘Sweatshop’ – but it offers not the teeniest hint, not the smallest of visual winks, that perhaps its name is a little contentious.
Brave stuff.
Anyway. Awesome artwork, Helen!
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Bread and witches
I just made a rye and caraway loaf - a lovely, woody, autumnal bread for this week’s sandwich fun - and, while having a quiet Sunday paper-focused drink in my local pub (a lovely, woody, autumnal kind of thing to do) mentioned this to Eamon, the pub’s owner/chef/culinary genius. From which conversation I learned that rye grain, when rotted (called rye ergot), develops hallucinogenic properties, and that those accused of witchery in the middle ages were more often than not luckless tillers of the land, who had happened to eat rotted rye…
For those of you familiar with the experience of taking hallucinogens, I think you’d agree that a fatal visit to the dunking stool would have to be counted as one of the heaviest trips of them all.
This story seems to be borne out by the most cursory bit of Google research - the Salem trials followed an outbreak of rye ergot, and that ‘the spasms suffered by ergot victim were called St. Vitus Dance’ - or the ‘Dance of Death’.
Which is a darned fine piece of trivia to learn of a Sunday evening. I’m looking forward to my sandwiches, albeit with a slight sense of trepidation.
