Archive for April, 2008

:: Political hippo, bear and zippy

Posted by Joelle on April 30, 2008 | Permalink

Four Good Corners doesn’t really stray into the political, but when I saw Vanessa’s political pig post this morning, it reminded me of these three political animals. A clever bit of dubbing and such spot on characterisation for the three main candidates for the London Mayoral Election. For anyone without the cultural references of a 25 year old in London: Rainbow is one of the TV programmes I fondly remember watching as a kid, the audio is from a newsnight interview with Ken Livingstone (Zippy), Boris Johnson (George, the pink hippo) and Brian Paddick (Bungle the bear).

Anyway, fellow Londoners, remember to vote tomorrow!

Edit: Updated video as that version got taken down.

Categories: adventure, london
Tags: politics, rainbow, video

1 comment

:: A political pig

Posted by Vanessa on April 30, 2008 | Permalink

I’ve been a fairly quiet corner this last week, and with good reason - I’ve been very busy indeed and had my lovely friend Fraser visiting. We also went to Coachella music festival, in Indio (and the desert). I especially loved The Teenagers, and Tegan and Sara. By Sunday we were all completely exhausted (wine + sunshine + patchy sleep = migraine), but stayed for a bit of Roger Waters’ set - during which he launched this floating pig above the crowd painted with anti-the-current-Government slogans. I know I should probably have been focusing on the message and not the medium, but I wonder how he got the pig to sail over the whole crowd? It seemed like it had been on strings which were then cut, but how could it be so cleverly operated without them?

Anyway, did any of you see any good bands this weekend?

Categories: adventure, music
Tags: coachella

5 comments

:: Fishy fun

Posted by Kirsty on April 28, 2008 | Permalink

In the middle of a raucous hen weekend in Newquay, we took some time off from drinking and wandered around the aquarium. I could spend all day in an aquarium - they’re so calming and I absolutely love the sharks and rays.

Read more…

Categories: adventure
Tags: Blue Reef Aquarium, fish, lobster, Newquay, rays, sharks, starfish

7 comments

:: Dorkbot

Posted by Joelle on April 28, 2008 | Permalink

Last week I went along to Dorkbotlondon #54, a geekout love fest full of dorks getting really excited. I felt seriously out-dorked, by the programming jokes I didn’t get, and feeling like the only person who wouldn’t know where to start to solder a circuit board, but still it was great. It was like walking straight into a copy of Make magazine.

The guy in the picture, Eric Raymond, had made these little robots that drew pictures generated from internet data like satellite maps. Dan Storell was beatboxing through a ZX Spectrum he had tinkered with to respond to the timbre of his voice (hot geek alert!).

There was another guy, who had made a brockenspiel - an instrument that played music generated by the magnetic strips on a credit card. Someone asked if it could be rigged up to play barcodes as well, and lo, someone in the audience just happened to have a barcode reader on their person, and during the break they adapted it and played tunes from the barcodes of the bottles of beer we were drinking. It was that kind of place.

It’s so cool that these people are all working on such crazy fun projects, and the atmosphere was really buzzy and supportive. Here’s to DIY creativity in all its forms!

P.S Sorry for the quiet posting week last week. All four corners have been kinda busy, but we’ve all pledged to post some lovely things this week, so do check back. We haven’t forsaken you!

Categories: adventure, craft, london
Tags: brockenspiel, dan storell, dorkbotlondon54, dorks, eric raymond, make, robots

1 comment

:: For good pictures

Posted by Sonja on April 21, 2008 | Permalink

What is it about Pictures? I love pictures. I like to look at nice pictures. I like to go into the gallery shop, after looking at Pictures in an exhibition, and look at more Pictures on postcards. I have a box file for pictures I like, and this smaller box for smaller pictures I like. Both my Picture boxes are full.

I found my dream picture box online. It’s called VADS, the online resource for visual arts. It has all the picture archives from lots of museums, universities, galleries etc etc. Translation: lots of nice Pictures. You can sign up and then store all your favourites in a ‘lightbox’. The pictures are sorted in collections, depending on where they’re from - the Crafts Council, Design Council, or the Frederick Parker Chair Collection. Et cetera.

I can’t show any here because they’re all copyrighted, but I promise it’s a box of delights.

Categories: about us, art, design
Tags:

1 comment

:: Four Bad Corners

Posted by Kirsty on April 19, 2008 | Permalink

Well, I never claimed to be a domestic goddess in the kitchen, but even I am pretty ashamed of this poor, poor show. This is muffins, people - muffins. Banoffee muffins, to be precise. Except it’s just a big blob of mess. Read more…

Categories: adventure, recipes
Tags: bad, cups, muffins, oven, wrong

14 comments

:: Fancy a cuppa?

Posted by Kirsty on April 13, 2008 | Permalink

I’ve been keeping this post hidden for a couple of weeks, as I made these cup warmers for a friend and I couldn’t post until after her birthday (why do I always, always type ‘brithday’?), but now they can be unveiled! The inspiration came from a knit pattern that I saw on ravelry.com, but because I am rather impatient and lazy, I decided that crochet would be quicker and would enable the warmer to be created in one piece. Sewing pieces together is one of my least favourite things to do, it makes me unreasonably grumpy (which is why I’m crochetting my latest baby blanket in 12 squares instead of 35…)

So, what little elements of crafts that you otherwise enjoy do you despise? What tasks or finishing touches put you off making or doing something that you’d really enjoy?

Categories: craft
Tags: crochet, cupwarmers, peeves

8 comments

:: Mark Pawson and possessions

Posted by Sonja on April 12, 2008 | Permalink

Last week I went to a private view of Mr Mark Pawson’s new exhibition at the Horse Hospital, one of London’s best venues, and miraculously still little known. A bit like Mark himself - one of our best visual conjurers, but miraculously still little known. He probably likes it like that.

He prints his own signs, badges and postcards. He collects things, mostly plastic figures, and always completes the set. He works in bright colours. He is the coal miner of culture.

I invited my friend Katie, who recently had all her possessions stolen and destroyed in a lock-up break-in. As we entered the exhibition, and I saw what a feast of objects Mark had assembled, I had some misgivings about bringing Katie. She saw one of his signs, that said something about listening to all the unplayed records you’ve ever bought, and reading all the unread books, and had “a moment”.

But we stayed and looked at his full set of plastic Kinder polar bears, and read his ‘cultural workers’ manifesto, and Katie seemed stoical about her losses. I may buy her a set of his badges, to set her back off down the road to ownership.

Categories: adventure, art, design, london
Tags:

1 comment

:: Anorak free

Posted by Joelle on April 11, 2008 | Permalink

Danish Blue by Zakkaliciousness on Flickr

Copenhageners have it. Amsterdammers have it. Londoners still need to catch on. What am I talking about? A culture where cycling is just a normal thing everybody does to get around their everyday business. Where there are no ‘cyclist’ just normal people, in business suits, in high heels, loaded with shopping, just being normal. The lovely picture above comes from the Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog, providing inspiration everyday for how it could be. Read more…

Categories: green, london, style
Tags: bobbin bikes, copenhagen, cycling, style

9 comments

:: The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

Posted by Vanessa on April 11, 2008 | Permalink

Talking of theme parties, I’m also partial to hobbled together theme restaurants and cafes. You know, not like Pizza Hut that’s organised round the theme of being… well, a hut that sells pizza; but rather like this diner en route to Yosemite National Park that was stuffed full of Western movie memorabilia and served a decent sandwich. I’d half a mind to order some cherry pie (the environment felt very Twin Peaksy) but in the end I didn’t. I’m sure like any kitsch idea that seems good in passing, my longing to stay the night in the small hamlet in the middle of no where that nonetheless had a fully stocked bar with bizarrely titled cocktails would probably not have been the best adventure - and Yosemite park by contrast, certainly was. But I would love a road trip that was purely silly at some point. To that end, Kerry bought me ‘Weird California’ before I left. I’ve seen a few of the places inside it, but I think a short holiday needs structuring around it instead. Prime sightseeing it might not be. But who doesn’t want to see a house that never stopped being built for an entire lifetime or giant dinosaur sculptures?

Categories: about us
Tags:

2 comments