More urban spam from coffee republic. It seems part of the experience they're trying to offer you is the feeling of constantly being sold to. Not so much a third space, more an enormous shelf-wobbler.
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creative spaces squidoo
I'm getting more and more interested in this 'creative spaces' idea - what kind of environment encourages good creative work?
So I've built a little squidoo to round up some thinking and links and stuff. Let me know if you have anything to contribute.
(Picture taken from the creativespaces flickr tag, contributed by vandys. Hope that's OK)
undercover economist
This is well worth getting. In the tradition of Freakonomics and Blink etc, but a bit more about the real world of life and brands we all deal with, rather than rarified worlds of art or drug-dealing.
Mr Harford's site is well worth visiting too. There are lots of great links on there and a fantastic piece on presentations the easy way.
lunch through a child's eyes
Sorry, this post is a bit sappy. Normal cynicism will be restored as soon as possible.
One advantage of working close to home is that every now and then Anne or I can take Arthur out for lunch from school. Of course I'd never actually done it before today, but what a laugh it was.
He said he wanted to go to 'the place where they have everything' which stumped me for a bit, until Anne said he meant the food court at the Plaza on Oxford Street. Of course, that's what a food court is, not a dumping ground for every global food franchise, it's the place where they have everything.
Walking along Oxford Street was brilliant too.
He took a leaflet/flyer from every leaflet/flyer person we passed becuase he said how boring it must be standing there, with people not taking your stuff. Which is true. And he made each one of them smile. As an adult you're trained to avoid eye contact, stay in your bubble, ignore the streets incase they're troubling. Not a five year-old. Not Arthur. He walks around with his eyes, head and heart wide open.
Told you it was sappy.
scary youth
Are you a planner? Have you been doing it for a while? Pretty good at it? Doing it like you've been doing it for years?
Be afraid, be very afraid.
I had a small moment yesterday visiting blogs and stuff that trainee / ad school planners are putting together and it struck me; these people are really smart. Informed, insightful, energetic and funny. And they're blogging and sharing and connecting like mad. These people will take our jobs and they deserve them.
Here, here and here are some people worth employing.
And actually if you're a wannabe planner without a job, but with a blog/website let me know, by commenting here, or emailing me and I'll make a little link list so people can see who's out there.
fast food, fast book
Kevin Jackson has written this splendid book - Fast: Feasting On The Streets Of London. (the image above is from the book, off of Amazon). Portobello books were kind enough to send me a copy.
It's splendidly enthusiastic about all the brilliant varieties of Fast Food you can get in London from kebabs to eels. (Though it's predictably sniffy about the corporate varieties.) It's dense with all the little facts you want to know about the histories of London's coffee houses, Milk Bars and chip shops. It has a nice line in mixing the trivial anecdote with the heavyweight academic reference and I really like the photography. You really get a sense of an author who likes what he's writing about, which meant I powered through it in an evening, using little sticky notes to mark all the places I'm very keen to visit. Top stuff.
funky lunch
I just had lunch with Funky Dave. At the Breakfast Club. What a nice and interesting man.
Anne has questions
...about family holidays and the wisdom or otherwise of holidaying with other families. I'm sure she'd be grateful for your thoughts. If you have any.
(I think she worries we'll go mad if the three of us keep doing this kind of stuff together. On our own.)
