This is just a short post to an exhibition of the best wildlife photography of 2007 exhibition. THe pictures are stunning and make you realise there is so much to see in the world.
Awesome, just go and check them all out by clicking on the picture above.
Cheers for now.
So yesterday morning I am meant to fly from Amsterdam Schiphol to a small regional airport in the UK. It’s not the greatest airport in the world – far from it, but it is convenient. Anyway, this is a journey I make regularly and one I am not fond of.
Anyway, the service I booked on was due to depart at 09.40 local time. Now I’m usually quite patient when it comes to travelling, I took the train to the airport, leaving plenty of time. The check in desk was where it all went a little wrong. The desk is advertised as opening at 07.40, 2 hours before the flight is due to take off. It opened at 07.50, and when I check in the sarcastic lisping bastard behind the desk said to me, (in the tone that gets me angry) “…and, make sure you are at the gate on time.”
Now, I wouldn’t usually be pissed at that, but yesterday morning it got to me and for a second or so I analysed what I had just heard, then I asked the guy is he was serious. He was telling me that I should not be late when he swan up to the little computer desks and taken his merry time opening them ten minutes late just got my goat. I told him so, and his pouty look was enough to show he understood.
OK, so then I have the usual hour or so to kill before walking to the gate (and if you have ever used the “H” gates at Schiphol, you will know it’s the kind of thing you do as long as possible) I womble around the duty free bit, looking at stuff I really shouldn’t buy, for prices I really know are inflated. I made my way to the gates and breezed security to find that everything looked good for an on time departure, something which I knew wouldn’t happen with this particular airline. I’ve taken years worth of flights with them in a better the devil you know situation and never has one of them left on time.
When I walked towards the gate I looked out of the window at the fog and realised there was no plane there. This rang alarm bells as the screen above the gate said “BOARDING”. Boarding what? The special invisible plane that wonderwoman lent the airline?
When the check in staff arrive at the gate to take our cards off us, they seemed to make incredibly long phonecalls, long enough to get past everyone who wanted to know, a) where the plane was and b) when we were going to ever leave the Netherlands.
Now when the plane arrives (you know the plane that the signs say we are already “boarding”) a couple of guys I know were getting off (no, off the plane, you dirty fucks). They told me the plane had been circling over the sea for a while and was also quite late leaving the destination airport. SO I kick off with the guy from the check in desk when I next see him and he just doesn’t give a fuck, not a sausage.
This seems to have been the cause of every delay I have ever had with this airline, the worst being a 4 hour one which was not mentioned at the check in desk. It turned out that time the aircraft was in another country and was never going to make it to Schiphol. But they never mentioned it at all. Why do they leave it to the captain of the plane to tell you while you are 32,000 feet above the sea that they have fucked up? On most occasions they know way before you check in about any delay. Let’s face it, an hour and a half delay on a 1 hour flight must mean you are being taken for a ride in more than the literal sense.
So my question is this, what’s the worst service you ever got from an airline? let me know, post your story here and I might just start a website at some point, see what the worst one is.
Right then, moaning over, I’ll go back to the post about design in the one…
Cheers for reading this rant.
Some people just love the ability to change their environment. Some people love to be all blinged up. Some people just love to get they pimp on. With this somewhat cool light bulb from think geek you can do all three of the above. Using a remote control and a bunch of LED’s + some gadgetry/witchcraft you can set the colour of the bulb to match your mood.
Think, yellow to mellow things out. Think red to look like a psyhco/prostitute. Think green to scare the living bejaysus out of your guests or look like a really intense scary science lab.
Colour can set the mood in your life as we all know, painting your walls blue can make you feel cold etc, but having a light bulb that allows you to set the mood is good. Unless, you knew that was coming, you don’t paint your walls white. If you shine red light on a blue wall the colour emitted will be a complete surprise to you. Remembering how reflection works, “Red paint only looks red as it reflects red light whilst absorbing all the other colours of the spectrum (to a certain amount)”.
So head over there, buy one to simply look pimp, but please don’t blame me for making your life a harsh mix of headaches and interior design clashes.
Design makes the flowers come up in the spring, makes the grass turn green and makes the rabbits go at it like nobody’s business. Love it and it will love you right back.
OK, I’m a designer and as in most cases designers love to see design in any form, that is taken for granted but us British designers have another love in their lives. Tea. We seem to drink more tea than most other professions, indeed I regularly down between 8-12 huge mugs of the warm brown liquid every day. I can’t do without it. The choice of brew for me is the wonderful Typhoo, round tea bags which taste great. Awesome stuff.
Which brings me to this… Monkey picked tea, this has to be taking the piss. Apparently there is a lost art of training your monkey to pick tea leaves and a small village has still kept this long lost tradition and can therefore charge top dollar for this kind of tea. I want to see proof, real evidence that a monkey has picked this tea. A monkey actually climbed the tea tree, picked the leaves, brought it back down to the gang master and was happy about it.
The price for this wonderful drink and product of the industrious animal kingdom is $US 24.99 for 2 ounces of loose leaves, ready to brew up. I’m sorry but that is a ridiculous price to pay for what could simply be tea picked from anywhere on the planet. Personally I would suggest you buy from the fair trade suppliers and put your money to good use.
Still I’ve worked with a few people who have turned out to be only really good for getting the studio tea round in, which leads me to wonder if I have, unknowingly, worked with this particular brand of trained Monkeys before.
Fighting for the rights of designers who drink tea everywhere, product of the environment.
Come back soon, we’ll have the kettle on.
This is a great idea, many times I’ve written a message on the fridge or other place to wish a happy birthday or similar festive greeting but it always ends up like the writing of a three year old due to my damn handwriting skills. This will hopefully end the terror of unreadable messages on the fridge or gifts wrapped immaculately then spoilt by my scrawl.
It’s just a case of simply blocking out the dots or lines to leave a neat and tidy message. This is a great idea, and for once something I can’t be cynical about for a change… Have a look at it in more detail at the great SUCK UK website where they have many items of a similar innovation level which I simply don’t have time to write about individually.
Keep digging for the answer to your life in the garden of design, it is in there I promise.
images and product © SUCK UK.
OK, so these last few posts seem to be getting the environmentalist out of me into the open, but that’s just how things have worked out… all the talk of recycling and stuff and now this one using free solar energy.
This rather clever bag is capable of recharging your gadgets by using solar energy/witchcraft to make the electricity needed to juice up your stuff… great idea right? In principle yeah, great idea, but let’s look at it a little more closely. A bag big enough to carry your laptop with a solar charger on the outside that generates enough energy to charge… your mobile or your iPod. So, unless you are wanting to charge up anything more than your smallest of mobile tech, then you better go find a Starbucks which has a wireless connection and some plug sockets to carry on through the winter days…
Design and innovation is a great and wonderful thing but being a cynical designer is a wonderful and satisfying thing.
Cheersy bye for now!
Check this out, am I getting very earth conscious in my old age (I turned 34 on Sunday) or is this another way of recycling? Well that isn’t a question really it was more rhetorical, yes it is a way of recycling and it is frickin’ cool!
This guy Ryan McElhinney is a great designer whose lighting and interior products are great in every sense of the term. His liking for recycling old toys is a great way of showing us how to get rid of those old bags of toy soldiers we all have laying around the loft/cupboard/wardrobe/book shelves or anywhere else you might have stashed them under the impression they might be worth something one day.
I’m just looking at my collection of dust gathering toys on my bookshelf here in the office and thinking what could I do with them…
Maybe they can stay there cos I don’t know if I want to spray them gold and glue them to a mirror. That’s probably best left to this Irish geezer. Check out his work by clicking on the picture above. It’s great stuff.
Remember to worship design, as it is the stitching to the fabric of the universe.
OK, Living in the Netherlands you have to recycle. No seriously, it’s the law and stuff, paper, cardboard, plastic, old batteries, glass – your hair too if you want. Anyway I’m kind of used to it now, but you have to take it seriously, it’s for the best in the long run.
A couple of friends have recently bought new iPod Nanos and Shuffles in the clear plastic boxes. Which are kind of cool (does anyone remember the original iPod packaging – that was awesome) but then you have an empty plastic box. What to do, what to do… Well this company has some great ideas for the use of them. Turn that empty box into a speaker for the iPod which came out of it, genius.
All you need to do is switch the top from your box for the new one with the speaker mechanism on it to the clear plastic base.
Last question is, what do you do with the top you replaced? now you have one part of a cool box, but not the part you can put anything in… or am I being too damn practical again.?
OK, first blog entry for a long time, hope it gives you ideas, it made me think about repurposing some of my old bits and pieces – being such a geek is useful at times, but idle is the thing I have to get over.
thanks for now, more to follow.
Filed under: Life
Hello, it’s been a while. Again. Truth be told being not busy tends to breed being busy. Strange as it seems, I’ve been busy here for the last month. Needless to say there hasn’t been a thing I’ve done on this blog since november, which really sucks as I was meaning to do a bit more here, but hey needs must etc.
OK well, I’ll start posting again, but only of you guys love me. Promise? OK, then, see above for some new stuff.
Keep coming back to see me cos I missed you.
cheers
