hungry

good to know.

from learn something every day. excellent, as ever.

i ♥ anish kapoor

and this is why:

image thanks to the potz!blitz!szpilman! blog.

said the head redhead

it's already all over the twitters and the fezbook and the online papers, but i just have to say that i'm pretty flabbergasted by the political coup that happened this morning in australia.

as i was watching the football last night, i noticed a flurry of twitter activity on the #spill hashtag. given the amount of oil leaking into the gulf of mexico, my first thought was that it had something to do with the slick. i wasn't too far off. i guess

kevin rudd has been wildly unpopular lately - even amongst supporters and voters. including members of his own party (and its inherent factions). julia gillard, deputy prime minister launched a challenge on the top gig and massive debates and closed-door discussions ensued. rudd called a caucus vote first thing this morning, but in the end stepped down, with indications that it was going to be a landslide victory to ms gillard.

you could be forgiven for skipping the above detail as 'blah blah blah'.

but the punchline is, we have a new prime minister!

and her name is julia gillard.

she's our very first female prime minister. [she has red hair]

it's kind of a big deal here.

For those of you in the UK, NZ, Pakistan, India, Iceland, Germany, Israel, Chile, Argentina, Malta and the former states of Yugoslavia, you may wonder what the fuss is all about. And what took us so long.

We have a lot to learn in this little country of ours, but it feels like today we made a bit of a leap towards an evolved nation. At least on a public scale, high level responsibility is no longer withheld on the basis of having ovaries and a uterus.

As much as i'm totally a fan of her on a bunch of levels, i'm actually quite suspicious of the new PM at the moment. As the Deputy and Minister for Workplace Relations, she recently has made some dubious calls regarding the taxing of miners and their billions (poor loves) and she has supported harder lines on refugees, which i'm not a fan of.

She's not an outspoken feminist like the icelandic PM (bummer), but i'm looking forward to seeing how much things change now that the glass ceiling on the top tier has been smashed.

And even if she only makes it until the next election in 6 months' time, it's a start.

And when my nephew asks me in 15 years' time where i was when Australia got its first female Prime Minister, I'll proudly say that I was drinking coffee after pulling an all-nighter watching England scrape through to the final 16 and Australia bow out of the 2010 World Cup.

I reckon he'll think that's pretty old fashioned. In a cool kind of way.

she sees red

here's a list of stuff i'm angry about at the moment. i don't presently have time to go into extensive detail (lucky for you poor readers), but i might soon. just you wait.

1. skinny jeans rape acquittals. nicholas gonzales in sydney was acquitted from raping a woman because a juror (NOT even evidence presented as defence) felt that because our victim was wearing skinny jeans, that there must have been some consent as those things don't just come off on their own.

to that juror: fuck off and die in a hole. go back to the barbarism of the 18th century and see how serfdom suits you.

2. deveny getting booted. much has been written about her. i know. and although i am a fan of her stuff (and have followed her column, twitter and books), even i found the rove tweet a bit much. AND i was reading it real time. (unlike much of the judging public). as an aside, i think she could have dealt with the fracas a leetle better.

but fired? are you kidding me?

riddle me this - what do matthew johns, sam newman, bert newton and kyle sandilands all really have in common?

3. oil vomitting out into the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico. oh lord - where to start...
if you're going to do surgery, know how to stop a haemorrhage first.

4. resources capital heads deciding that they might take their bat and ball and go home because they're being charged extra to plum the land. see this

i know that K-Rudd is not this forward-thinking (maybe he was in a previous life, i dunno). but as much as this capital hostage is fucked, i'm also hoping that this is a strange and almost-genius environmental policy based on reverse psychology. tax the fuck out of the bastards, they throw a tantrum. we reduce our carbon emissions and stop desecrating aboriginal land. hooray!


there. done. next time: good news.

yes please

if these weren't such a pain to ship from the states, i would buy these for everyone i know and love.


thanks angus

fact checking supreme

about a month ago i got a loan and paid off my credit cards. primarily because of a dumb decision a while ago to get one of those cheap-for-6-months-and-astronomical-after-that-cards so that i could go overseas. dumb.

anyway, i had much pleasure in paying off that card and closing the account. i hated being part of that particular bank and their claustrophobic fees and charges. in fact, when i went into the branch to close it and the oh-so-funky salesperson feigned dismay in asking me why i was closing it, my reply was "because it's shit". no oh-so-funky response after that.

anyway, since closing it, the true colours of the bank have shown through: numerous calls a week from their sales department trying to sell me stuff; a suggestion at the end of my final statement that, if i changed my mind within 60 days, all would be forgiven and i could have my old $5000 credit back and then, last week, this hilarious piece of direct mail: credit card cover - because you can't always see what's coming.

never a truer word spoken, obviously.

i bet they never saw the line in the database next to my name: account closed. perhaps i should send them a shard from my cut up card?

given the shit that the global economy is in thanks to the dynamic between ignorant consumers and a manipulative banking sector, i should think that banks really do need to be on their best behaviour. in fact, perhaps in line with the alcohol industry, we need to start seeing 'responsible financing' disclaimers appearing on all marketing materials from consumer lenders. maybe i need to get over it.

anyway, at a very basic level, surely it helps if the various arms of an organisation are at least running off the same information so that they don't end up looking like a bag of dicks.

hippo birdy, two ewe.

just a quick post to boast about the fact that she sees red turned 3 the other day! i'm not quite sure whether it's a good thing for the world at large, really, but i'm proud of it. so there. hip, hip, hooray.

proxy required in vienna

[click to enlarge]

could someone in vienna please go to this at MAK for me? (marita and alex?)

or even better, could someone in vienna please ship me over so i can see the show? [and pop in and see marita and alex]

has conceptual art gone too far?

this was one of the headlines in last month's YEN magazine. being a bit of a conceptual art wanna be, i got all excited that the term was making an appearance again in more 'mainstream' media - well, yen's not exactly exclusive art/wank territory.

however the article, written by their new york editor, was such a pile of fucking shite that it put me in a bad mood. fortunately, or unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a copy online to link to but i'm still looking...

the premise for the article was to discuss art that pushes the boundaries of what audiences (and the mainstream media) can handle - citing two works which people were 'up in arms' about, both of which turned out to be unsubstantiated claims. the first, a work by a student at [some American University], in which she proposed to have artificially inseminated herself on a monthly basis, aborted/miscarried 9 foetuses, preserved them in flatwrap plastic bags, which were going to be displayed hanging from the ceiling. oh so damien hirst, but human foetus instead of dead lifestock and school gallery, not white cube.

the second absolutely shocking contemporary work she sited was the starving dog works, in which an emaciated dog was tied up in the gallery, with the words [something] spelled in dog biscuits on the wall. no gallery visitor chose to feed and/or try to release the dog, but made sure they complained to Animals America, especially after the dog 'disappeared' - apparently dying from malnutrition. They caused a big publicity hoo hah about it and then found out that the dog had actually been fed each day of the show, and taken back to its home.

for good measure, our trusty art journalist cited the animal rights 'sensation' caused by both Maurizio Cattelan Novecento - the 'hanging horse', and Mike Parr's video of a chicken being decapitated recently seen in the Sydney Biennale - her source, no doubt the same one i found through google - the trusty SMH, where the above pic is snaffled from, wrongly attributed to Attila Csorgo. And both works which have been in the public domain for, ooh, 10 years. Shocking.

and in terms of 'going too far', why didn't our indignant editor get up in arms about the intense and quite violent videos of Parr's, in which he stitches his own face up with thread and piercing needles? or his work in which he is dressed in the suit of guantanemo bay detainees and is willingly electrocuted by the audience? isn't that controversial? what about his pain and suffering? and the discomfort of the willing viewer? surely April O'Neill our reporter needs to stand up for the rights of the viewer! it's an outrage I tell you....


having made wild, eratic, finger-point gestures at some of the worlds most established artists, of course, our lovely editor mentions the whole debacle with Bill Henson (who isn't a conceptual artist at all - he's a fucking photographer) as some kind of evidence of conceptual art taking such extreme liberties with the innocence of unsuspecting gallery goers and paparazzi alike the public. will somebody please think of the children??

shocking. all of it.

and i don't mean the work cited. in fact, all the works that our investigative journalist-cum-fashionista used as proof that conceptual art is evil, were all works that were developed into a controversy by the media.

wow. who would have thought.

the foetus/dog works' complaints were false, the horse/chicken works are just proof that australia is 10 years behind the rest of the world - given that both works were made 10 years ago and for the most part, the controversy has passed. And the Henson? Well, like i said, he's a fucking photographer, not a conceptual artist. and if you're going to talk about the role of pornography/sexuality in art, etc, etc, talk about it. But probably not in a fashion mag that has 14-year olds with their tits out in a vice mag pose..



*i realise that this is the second time i've taken someone else's published article to task on this blog of late, but you'll just have to deal with it. sorry.

i'm tired..

it's been a crazy couple of weeks here and i need to have a bit of a lie-down.
i'm gonna take a bit of a rest - see ya next week or something.



image: me. from seb's flickr spot.

those magazines again

some of you may recall that i decided to buy a new magazine a fortnight. well, i've continued on that front, so have a little stockpile of interesting bits and pieces to read.

since i finished reading my book and couldn't quite work out where to go next, i decided to just catch up on all the magazines i've managed to collect on my 'to read' pile. i've had some real joy discovering some great articles, new mags and i figure that it's about time i shared them with you:

monocle




monocle is ace! it covers Affairs, Business, Culture, Design and Edits.. a little like Time, but monthly, and lovelier. The ever-talented Mr Hill has been seriously involved in starting the mag, especially its great online element, but is sadly leaving. He talks about the mag in much more depth here, so read that.
The bits that I loved included the discussion on trains and train travel, the snippets of info from around the globe: including a super clandestine mission to Mugabe’s Zimbabwe (before the fall, obviously); discussions with Lebanon’s answer to Veronica Guerin, May Chidiac about being blown up for campaigning against Syria’s occupation of Lebanon. There’s also a profile of Amos Schocken: publisher of Israel's Haaretz newspaper and contemporary art collector, plus a whole section on urban planning, which is like mind porn for a geek like me.

creative review




ages ago, I asked for someone in London to read the Creative Review for me. Well, I finally got to read it myself and boy is it a corker: it largely centres around the Tate and Tate Media, it’s inhouse comms department, headed by Will Gompertz. There are several articles – a diary of Will’s day, which is enlightening, but also quite sweet – discussions with awesome designer James Goggin and interviews with Fallon, who have worked hard with Tate on the strategy of turning the Tate into what it is today. Their great Create Your Own Collection ads for Tate are Fallon UK at their most brilliant. [Will talks about the strength of Fallon and their strategy, which is encouraging, as Fallon UK have taken a major hit in my opinion of them lately, thanks to their desperate TVC turnout.]

There’s also features on how they work with artists to develop the communications for their shows and also how they work with designers: emerging and established to accurately convey what a blockbuster is about. It also covers the joys and perils of working with that Tate logotype created by Wolff Ollins – design blockbuster himself, and also the more intense ways in which a gallery like that is communicating to the huge variety of people it does.

From an artist’s perspective, it’s a great feature: a behind-the-scenes look into the world’s most well-known contemporary artspace. From a comms person in the arts sector, it’s brilliant. As pathetic as it is, it’s so satisfying to read that the head of Tate Media – an organisation with an overall budget probably 1000 times mine, never has enough time to do all the cool things he’d like to do either and has to make it through the minefield of creative vs strategy. As a bonus, the Fischli/Weiss manifesto is printed up nice and large on the back, which is surely the artworker’s 10 commandments.

*magnation is so rad – they have a great pile of discounted mags and a few weeks ago I was able to grab monocle and creative review for $20. what a deal!


un magazine



it’s the first one in aaaages. it’s great. it’s so lovely to have it back. there are a few great articles: my favourite being Daniel Palmer’s guide to making a speech. i haven't read much more of it than that, 'cos i just found where i put it after the launch, but i'm looking forward to digging in deeper.

PLUS:

big issue

how could you not love this mag? i can never manage to buy it each week, but once a month seems to be my rotation. i picked up no. 298, which focused on the gap year - that year between high school and uni (mine ended up being a gap apprenticeship of 5 years!), with a great article on working overseas: ich bin eine gastarbeiterin. other highlights include helen razer (the woman rocks, i don't care what anybody says!) and mic looby, fiona scott-norman on drinking culture in australia, an interesting snapshop on polination control, plus the beautiful Beirut (Zach Condon) interveiw. bliss. i bought it from the vendor (on the corner of elizabeth and bourke) - i didn't catch his name, but he had a beautiful smile.

art review

february’s issue is only just hitting the streets here, but I’m glad I was able to pick it up: liam gillick on the cover – he’s just brilliant and I loved hearing about him “re-gifting” half the space of his mid-career’retrospective’ back to the organisations to see what they’d do with it. plus there was a great interview with the grumbly smokey Belgian “saviour of painting”: luc tuymans.

another highlight: review of Will Self’s Psychogeography, which I’ve been going on about for a while (which is on its way from amazon as we speak) and reflects the early stages of some investigation into psychogeography that I wanna do. [edit: check this stuff out happening in sydney].

art world 2

I know I posted about art world last time I did this, but can I just say again how fucking great it is to have a good art mag in this country? it’s sold out of magnation twice now. thankfully I can pick it up at work… featuring Rachael Whiteread: hello? hello!

red is the helvetica of colours

according to mr spiekermann.

i can't work out whether i'm delighted or dejected.

the rubbish around the edges

Unofficially, I've been accepted into a post grad course on public art next year. I'm really excited about it and have already been sucking up some great architecture/planning info and discovering new places to waste my time (here, here, here and here); thinking about structure and 'spatial relationships' and hopping from one foot to the other in anticipation.

As well as all that, I’ve been thinking about environmental and sustainability issues and how important good, or more specifically smart design is to helping combat some of the destructive things we’ve been doing to our planet.

[for an excellent post on the benefit of design in environmental sustainability, read ben terrett’s presentation from applied green..]


I also recently did the fantastic WWF footprint calculation and was appalled to realise that I’m living like we’ve got 3.5 planets to live off. As they gently reminded me, we've only got one so i better do something about it.

While I know that I can do a lot to reduce my impact, most of it had to do with things that are outside my usual pattern of operating (2 x 21 hour plane trips plus a couple of trips within europe will do that) and I wanted to plead: but I’m not usually like that! In actual fact, I'm petrified at what state this planet will be in within the next 20 years, because I know that, for all the talk, there are still only a few people really doing anything about it.

Which brings me to the main point of this post.

Most current sustainable solutions rely on the structure and habit of 'everyday living' to impement: you know, solar panels on your house, kerbside recycling, using public transport instead of taking the car everyday; going organic, using reduced packaging and energy-saver lightbulbs, etc, etc, etc. The good news is that for the most part, they're pretty easy to do for your average Australian, with an average job, average wages and average lifestyle. Which is great!

But what about when you want to step outside the order of that regular life? Like, you're travelling. Or you're renting or renovating. Or you're so poor you can barely afford food and electricity, let alone green power or organic vegetables. Or your workplace is sadly unenlightened and continues to fly the CBD Blaze of Glory flag. Or you're a super-cool rockstar who lives in 5-star hotels. Or you want to actually have a social life that doesn't include staying at home playing scrabbulous.

Trust me, it's really hard to remain carbon-neutral in any of those things. And being a super-cool rockstar who lives in 5-star hotels, I should know.


But seriously, here's a small case in point: the humble water-bottle.

thanks to Ooodit from flickr

I carry around a bottle of water with me, in order to a) save on packaging while keeping hydrated and b) save money. But when I go to a club, or a restaurant (as someone else blogged about recently) that water bottle gets taken away from me so that i a) maybe don't lob it at the lead singer of a shite band and b) so that i buy the water from the venue.

Now, you might not think that matters all that much, but say each club in a city the size of London takes 10 bottles of water away from customers each night and chucks it in the bin (note: not recycled). Say 10 bottles of water, 30 clubs (being conservative), 3 nights of the week (again, conservative), 52 weeks of the year = 46800 bottles of water being thrown away. It also means that another 46800 extra bottles of water are being purchased, to replace the ones that had to be chucked. And let's say that’s from people who are trying to be thoughtful. I don’t even want to think about the ones who couldn’t give a damn.

And don’t get me started on food wastage per night, per city, per year, per capita, otherwise I think I’ll vomit.

And that’s just a little example, using a bit of a peeve I had going on there. Which brings me back to my point – how can we step up the beat when we’re out of our rhythm? The real answer is easy: don’t eat out, don’t go out, don’t travel, don’t listen to loud music and don’t drive a car. Just don’t.
But we all know what happens when we have to be good all the time – the 1980s.

Is the only way to deal with these kind of ‘out of the ordinary’ environmental expenditure to offset them? Or is, as Sam says, carbon offsetting the morning after pill for environmental sustainability? Can't we just start making less of an impact? Now?



I think now is a really important time for those in service positions: city planners, architects, interior designers, food industry types, educational institutions, governments and scientists to also think about how to create sustainability structures so that when we’re out of our comfort zones, or our regular rhythms, that we’re still working towards reducing our impact, almost without even knowing!

Maybe this includes re-thinking licensing laws, developing intelligent food packaging solutions (even ones that the tight-arse mums and dads running the chippie will want to purchase) or even an incentive to eat in!, MAKING PUBLIC TRANSPORT AVAILABLE AND ATTRACTIVE!!!, using proper signage (no need for useless maps!), having proper sound insulation and equipment so that you don't need to crank the god-damned speakers until they're bursting, etc, etc, etc.

I know that loads of people are suspicious of companies jumping on the 'green' marketing bandwagon, but this is more than about marketing stuff. It's about making things green and coming to expect them to be made that way.

looking for new stuff

with all this business of big life changes, it's getting to that time when i take stock, assess and ponder. and go through my browser bookmarks and kill off the old, stale blog link and begin searching for new juicy bits and pieces to check out instead.you'd think i had enough shit to read with all the blogs n stuff i read anyway, but i'm thinking of it as a process of 'refining' and 'redeveloping'.

or maybe i'm just bored and have too much time on my hands.

nonetheless, some i've seen so far that have tickled my fancy include:

•bubble wrap: trust me, it's awesome and soooo addictive
•hot cross haiku: for when you really need to get a haiku out of your system
•the superest: the coolest game thang (thanks to angus) and the site that they hopped it from, TinkerX
•postsecret: i know it's not new, but i'm just getting into it again, especially with the one about the secret sperm deal between celebrity and the rich woman.
•blackbeltjones: for some reason, it took me a really long time to find matt's blog - even though i loved his presentation at Interesting.

and i'm [stupidly] still looking for more blogs to read. ones about books, art, crafty/making stuff, design, architecture, rekkids and writing - if anyone knows of any that they can't believe i haven't seen yet, feel free to rave about it in the comments section. i know that i should probably use delicious tags to do this, but i'm going be a luddyte and use the old school 'word of mouth' method first. ah well.

the day job thing.

i wanted to write something about the arduous task of looking for the perfect day job to compliment an arts practice. and then today, there is a great article in artshub about this quandry, written a lot better than i could ever do, so you should read that instead.

when appropriation becomes stealing

otherwise known as: one of the reasons i'm not a creative director in advertising.

there has been a lot of discussion online recently about the new ad by a well-known english advertising agency, for a large asian global electronics company and i'm going to add my two cents worth. just because, you know, i'm bored.

actually, i decided to write about it today because i met the two artists whose work it's "heavily borrowed" from whilst they were slaving away installing their own gallery show. i asked them whether permission was granted to use their motif and concept of coloured bunnies escaping in a de-saturated city, in such an obvious way. unsurprisingly, the answer was no.

the thing is, this isn't the first time that advertising has 'borrowed' ideas, motifs, designs and concepts from visual artists for the purpose of brand recognition or communication and i have to say it's an area that i'm passionate and biased about. in fact, if you're looking for an impartial viewpoint on it, i suggest you read something like campaign.. creative review... horse and hound.

i've always been interested in advertising. my uncle worked on production for tvcs when i was a kid, my mum and i always used to discuss well made ads when i was growing up, i did essays on the dangers of advertising's power in high school, and now i spend way too much time fucking around on blogs written by people in advertising. but it shits me to tears when creatives like the ones on the recent play-doh bunnies ad, the coloured balls ad (same culprit), the japanese car company cog ad (by another well-respected agency) and others like them, completely rip off ideas executed by well-known contemporary visual artists for the purpose of product placement, without due credit.

creatives? greatest fucking misnomer on the face of the planet.

hell, if the idea is so great and you can't possibly come up with another one, despite being paid truckloads to be 'creative', then get permission and/or credit the artist for fucks sake. just like if you use a song by a musical artist, you have to get permission or at least credit the songwriter and at least pay a hefty chunk of royalty.

i can tell you that 9 times out of 10, the artwork would not have been created to be associated with a commercial, profit-driven branding positioning. and once it has been associated with something as facile as a commodity, FMCG, consumer strategy (or whatever ad wank you wanna go with), then the whole concept of the work is lost to the bottom line and the original execution relegated to 'coulda been..' or 'in preparation for..'

and there's the possibility that the artist will be known as 'oh, you're the guys who originally thought of the moving the car parts for Brand So and So', or 'you're the guys who originally did the Brand XYZ bunnies". how's that for a typecast.

and, having said all that, it does hightlight that old 'fine line' again.

within the visual arts, artists borrow from other artists all the time and either incorporate it into the work - like early Richard Hamilton, or recreate work in a different context, or reference (appropriation) - like Yasumasa Morimura. provided that there is enough of a difference from the original work so that it's not a direct rip-off, doesn't solely rely on the original outstanding motif, or that it doesn't adversely affect the artists' reputation, it is considered acceptable*. both within the industry and in a court of law (well, at least in this country).

so what is that fine line between acceptable appropriation, and downright stealing? is it because, even in an era which avoids talking about the 'romance' or 'soul' of art, we still like our arts to have a sense of separation from the grit of our daily (commerce-based) life? are we back to square one on the whole 'difference between art and advertising' gameboard again? am i just getting way to hepped up about this? do i sound like carrie bradshaw from sex and the city, ending my post with all these unanswered questions? god, i hope so.



*see Arts Law and the Copyright Council of Australia for detailed IP and moral rights legislation in Australia.

things I have lost in the last 6 weeks

1. my pair of black sunglasses, probably in hamburg
2. the focus on my camer, in Vienna
3. my black hoodie with a minor threat patch, on the train from Vienna to Venice
4. my essendon bombers football scarf, on the train from Vienna to Venice
5.my black st paulli cap, somewhere between Turin and Lyon
6. two black rollerball pens.
7. my italian tweed gangster hat, in paris thanks to some badly behaved englishmen at the hostel.
8. my blue girls brigade jacket (with the offending anti-nazi patch) in paris.



* travelling is great, but when you're moving every 3 days and you leave shit behind, it's fucking annoying.

Four simple steps for city mayors who find themselves with extra people in their cities, otherwise known as tourists

1. Signage, signage, signage!
People, it’s not that hard, really, to spend a little bit of time, effort and money into really developing your signage. And how about, once you’ve put it up, try it out. Get someone to give it a trial run to see if it really works – there’s nothing more annoying than following signage that just fucking ends no where near where you’re ending up.

2. Tourist information booths.
I know they might seem a bit daggy, but honestly, theyr'e fucking vital and they could be really simple. Just make sure they are in key places like Airports, Central train stations and a couple of the main areas in the centre of town. You could even be a bit innovative and have collapsible ones that you could take to specific areas when there’s a big event on (like the Grand Prix, or a Film Festival). They need to give out maps, be staffed by people who at least speak the local language and one other (probably English) and are open at least as long as the plance they’re in (if not 24hours!). In fact, they could just be like John So’s info people that stand on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Sts in Melbourne, giving out info and maps to tourists, so you get to really connect with your tourists, AND you’re employing older people and ex-homeless in the mean time (Rob – do you have any connections with cities looking to refine their tourist industries? Mayor of London perhaps?).

3. Access to Money
Although most of us tourists have money with us when we arrive, sometimes things don’t work out that way and we need to get some, or we need to change it. Make sure that there’s both a Cambio/Wechsel/Change booth in the main Airport and Train Station (and boat terminal, if applicable) AND and ATM. How about one next to the other! That would be kind of sensible – put all the money type places together!

4. Access to transport and tickets
Firstly, read step 1 again.

Go on, read it.... read it!

OK..


Now, make sure it’s easy for both your locals AND tourists (or are time-consuming and bumbling fools, we can’t help it) to access transport system/tickets. Make sure there’s working machines and an open person to talk to, in case something goes awry, as late as the system runs (tourists arrive at all times of the day, usually way after your peak hour commuter has gone home). And always have a daily ticket available – it’s just common sense to be able to jump on an off transport and you’re making your way around town. If you don’t want to make it cheap, fine, be like that, but at least have one.

Extra loving touches

Late night food.
In my experience, Germany (and Austria to some extent) had their priorities well sorted. You can get food and beer at all times of the day at the major stations and airports (including supermarkets!). When tourists have just come off a long haul, or are about to jump on a train across 15 borders, most will want to grab food of some sorts. Be nice and give them a range from cheap, nasty, exlusive’ and healthy (a little from each is always nice).

Easy and affordable baggage storage.
There is nothing more of a drag than having to check out of your hotel/hostel./hovel at between 9 and 12, not leaving until 6 hours later and having no where to store your luggage. Having lockers is a really easy way to go about it, or if you want to really make things complicated, you can have a whole office connected to it (including Lost and Found – that always helps). It means that your tourists can continue to enjoy your beautiful cites, without having to get major back strain, or fuck off your citizens by running them over with those annoying suitcasewheelie things.

All of the above will certainly go some way to a happy tourist and we all know what happy tourists means: they spend more money and tell more people how great you are, which probably gets you either a myspace page/facebook group or re-elected, whatever takes your fancy.

bastard facebook

for those who haven't heard me bitching about this damned social network, have i got a blogpost for you!

everybody's on facebook now. it's no news. all my friends are hassling me to join, the suit walking down liverpool st is pontificating about why facebook is better than myspace, hell, even time magazine is writing about it. and and yet i dig my heels in. why?

because it totally shits me that facebook has just gentrified online social networking and suddenly, hey, it's OK!! myspace has been around for years and while i'm not one of those 'i've been doing it for years' type folks when it comes to this crap, what shits me about it is that all the 'adults' who didn't understand myspace, took the piss out of it, or just plain avoided it, are now on damned facebook. yes, myspace is rubbish. i know that. it fucks up a lot and is full of posing teenagers. but same goes for facebook - just posing adults and slightly better designed! it's just bloody AOR for online social networks, for fucks sake! huey lewis and the news for digital civilisation.

i'm sick of hearing people going on about the great things facebook does, like it's a whole new thing. it's not a new thing! jesus christ! i've been able to blag about my upcoming shows to my friends for years. we've been able to fill in stupid surveys about what our favourite colour is and whether we like tim tams or mint slices for a while now. in fact, i blogged on myspace before i blogged on blogger! oh. my. god! you can make a profile and say what movies you like? wow!! if i hear another person say "on facebook"...

and the fucking annoying thing is, more than all of that, is that i'm now on bastard facebook because i've had enough of friends hassling me. i'm resenting it like hell, don't you worry. and if i ever go on about the great things that facebook does (apart from the twitter widget, which has ultimately tipped the balance), please, shoot me.

'twas the night before christmas

when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...


well, actually, there is a mouse. in the kitchen.
and i'm stirring - well at least my guts are.
and it's not the night before christmas, but it's the night before the private view of my work at spinach.

but it'll do for now.


what i find most terrifying before a show opens (to the public) is not that people will hate the work, but that they will be indifferent, or indirect. i know that sounds like a cop out - 'it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game' type pragmatism. but i swear, it's true.

i would rather someone hate the work and talk with me about it, let me know exactly what piece of shit art wank they thought it was, than for someone to mildly dislike it, shrug, not even bother to discuss it - either with me or anyone else and leave or even worse, leave and then bitch about what a waste of time/money/space art is.

ok, so they may be right, but they could at least have the courtesy to let me agree with them! ha!