Russell Davies

day three - slightly let down by vegetables

8am - bike ride, ellie's cafe, brondesbury

9am - arthur's birthday presents, then back on the bikes

11am - Inn The Park, St James's park

3pm - Waterloo Sunset at the Hayward, South Bank

This fantastic. An installation/gallery/patio that does exactly what it's supposed to. It's visually strange and intriguing, so you can play with it for a few minutes, then you can look at the views, then you can have your coffee and watch cartoons. What else do you want from art? I watched a short film about the artist, Dan Graham, Anne watched Top Cat and Arthur watched The Powerpuff Girls. I'm an idiot.

4pm - Viennese Vegetable Orchestra.

This was supposed to be the highlight. I was very excited. But, I must admit, it wasn't as good as I was expecting. It reminded me of an end of term concert at a music college, a good joke, but it doesn't stretch to an hour. Maybe it's because they were operating in a second language, but they all seemed much too pleased with their gags. And their musicianship.

day two - a grand day out

Ended up being another prolonged day out, West London this time, of which I'm normally suspicious, but it worked out OK.

First stop was the London Wetland Centre. The staff were a little wary of Arthur's mighty yellow sword but he didn't really trouble the wildlife. There were a lot of khaki and green multi-pocketed waistcoats on parade, of which I'm a big fan. It's an impressive place, so close to the centre of town, but it's a bit more geared to the needs of birds and their watchers than 3-year olds with yellow swords. Which is fair enough.

Then, a quick nap in the car, while we drove up the A4 to Syon Park.

Syon Park's rather nice, but the winning feature is the miniature steam railway. When your parents have been escorting you on a slightly worthy day out you can't ask for better compensation than a miniature steam railway.

Then we thought we'd do our bit to champion healthy eating and headed to Ed's Easy Diner on the King's Road for an early tea. There you go Ms Morris, your policies are working.

Another excellent day. Am starting to worry though, is this blogging as a substitute for parenting?

day one - getting the most out of miserable southend

Day One. And with much excitement we decided to whip down the A13 and have a day in Southend. The weather was OK. It didn't seem that far. We imagined a day of buckets, spades, fish and chips. Like you'd get in Morecambe or Margate. Unfotunately Southend is more of a dump than you'd suspect. No sand. Just pebbles or mud. Lousy cafes and a pointlessly long pier.

We played a bit of adventure golf on a course which was rather splendid. But Arthur's still a bit too young to enjoy it. Especially as he didn't want the balls to go in the holes, since they were 'too muddy'.

It's suprisingly easy to take bleak photos of Southend. But despite appearances, and the prevailing conditions, we had a really nice day. Hung out. Made pebbly sand castles. Watched the kite-surfers in the distance. Overall, a good start. And a couple of nice comments reminded me how lucky I am to be doing this. And how good my employers are to be letting me.

sabbatical plans

As from Monday I start a two-month sabbatical from work. I've been here for seven years so they give me some time off to go and achieve something. Not sure exactly what yet.

I'm still going to do APG stuff so I won't be completely out of touch, but it'll be nice not to worry about day to day work things.

I'm going to try and post daily for the whole two months, so I can see if I do actually achieve anything.

Plans include:

Losing weight. Doing exercise. Writing more. Doing some music. Doing some long walks. Posting more to eggbaconchipsandbeans (which may not square exactly with losing weight). Hanging out much more with Arthur. Going to cultural stuff and watching lots of daytime telly.

is it just me...

...but shouldn't this campaign be hugely controversial? I bet they're a bit upset it hasn't caused more of a stink, unless I've just missed it. It's been a long time since I've seen guns used so gratuitously in advertising.

Which reminds me of a conversation I once had about guns. Because whatever you think of them as, you know, objects for killing, they're compelety fascinating bits of design. They have to function efficiently and effectively and a lot of the design is there to do that, but they also have to look intimidating and menacing and, well, sexy. Must be a fascinating brief for a designer. And yet you don't see them talked about in design books much. (Unless I've missed them. But they don't seem to crop up in places like D&AD). Anyway. I worked briefly with a chap called Tony Arefin (great designer, died sadly young) who'd confronted that taboo and had done a great front cover for ID magazine featuring these scary black weapons and we were wondering whether any major design museum had ever done a show about guns. It'd be hugely popular. It'd be really interesting. It would provoke all kinds of debate. I wonder why they've not done it. (Maybe they have and I've missed it.)

damn lucky

I'm not a sneaker obsessive, but I'm interested. (I'm basically just into Zoom Haven's). And I have a small collection of skateboards. And I'm a huge fan of Futura's work. Got all the books and stuff. So when I heard about the splay/futura For Love Or Money skate project I thought I had to get me one. So I did. But then I heard that they'd had a draw and I'd won these. Futura. For Love Or Money. Dunks. They are just lovely. Apparently there's only 24 on the planet. And they're never going on ebay. I'm keeping these. I've never won anything before. I'm damn lucky.

but how?

in a tribute to the funkypancake stylee - this is obviously where you go to denn.

how secret? top secret

Someone kindly emailled me a bunch of roadsigns. This is my favourite. And here's the site for the bunker. The site describes it as an 'all-weather attraction' which makes sense when you think about it.

useful

I can imagine a lot of meetings that should start with this cartoon.

more big meat

More in the noble American tradition of great ads about meat. see also.