Archive for the category: adventure

:: The great outdoors

Posted by Joelle on May 12, 2008 | Permalink

It’s been another quiet weekend on the Four Good Corners blog. And here’s why - glorious sunshine, getting out of the city, walks, Pimms o’clock, barbecues and picnics in the park.

I hope the sun is shining on all our readers this week too.

Categories: adventure
Tags: outdoors, picnics, summer, sunshine

1 comment

:: It’s a bit Eye up!

Posted by Kirsty on May 8, 2008 | Permalink

Despite being pretty sure that I’d freak out and curl up in a ball under the bench until the ‘flight’ was over, I booked a go on the London Eye for my man’s birthday a couple of weekends ago. Read more…

Categories: adventure, london
Tags: london, London Eye, South Bank, view

7 comments

:: 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

:: 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

:: 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

:: Puddle love

Posted by Joelle on April 4, 2008 | Permalink

I do love spotting secret messages formed by chance; cloud pictures, funny shaped pebbles or vegetables, and recently this puddle outside my office. The rain whispering ‘I love you’?

Categories: adventure
Tags: happy accidents, hearts, photos

3 comments

:: William Morris - my new hero!

Posted by Sonja on March 31, 2008 | Permalink

Oh don’t you love it when you find a new hero?

I went to the William Morris Museum in Walthamstow.

Amongst all the tapestries, stained glass windows and old cloth-bound books was a piece of linoleum (yes, linoleum) designed by the man himself. We’re talking linoleum from the 1800s! And they found it in a skip.

They also had his satchel, that he used to carry all his socialist pamphlets around in. He was quite the socialist, being against mass-manufacturing, for workers’ rights, and believing in good design as the route to a decent life for all (he put it better than that - seriously, you need to visit this museum).

He also had some interesting things to say about pattern, and they had his original designs, blocked in on squared paper like a cross stitch pattern, and then the resulting woven fabric.

I’m already planning a second visit. It’s pure pattern porn. Mixed in with a bit of politics.

Speaking of politics, “they” are trying to shut the place down. Disgrace.

Categories: adventure, art, craft, design, london
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