I'm sitting here winding myself up watching Manu Chao videos on You Tube. I've managed to get some tickets for next Wednesday to see them play at the Forum and I'm seriously excited.
It's grandma's funeral that day too, which is less exciting obviously, tho' I'm hoping it wont be a dour affair, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want it to be.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
£120 road sign
This almost invisible congestion charge sign ended up costing me £120 last week since I missed it when I drove to work to return the hire car that I'd rented for the weekend in order to go to Wales. Unfortunatley, due to a crash on the M4 we didn't make it to Wales and instead spent fives hours on a Friday night driving nowhere in order to end up back home.
The really painful thing is that the hire company, Capital Hire, have charged £50 + VAT to photocopy the congestion charge letter and send it to me. OUCH.
The sign should be bigger, it's stealth! If the van on right was on the other side of the road you wouldn't see it at all.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Chimovski return to the Stage
A big thanks to all those who made the French Revolution in London party last night and gave support to us. Was great to be back on stage playing music, we've got some great new songs and it felt really good to be up there. Hopefully I'll get hold of some photos soon.
We're working on the website, so that should be live soon, and we're still recording so we should have some more stuff for your iPods soon.
We're working on the website, so that should be live soon, and we're still recording so we should have some more stuff for your iPods soon.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Glastonbury 2008
Here are our photos from this years' Glastonbury festival.
Once the rain stopped it was a great festival, I think my favourite band to see were Vampire Weekend - see them if you can 'cause they're great live. We also saw Manu Chao again, who rocked, a bit of Leonard Cohen though we split early as Tasha didn't really like him, some great circus and comedy, and lots of other stuff too.
Once the rain stopped it was a great festival, I think my favourite band to see were Vampire Weekend - see them if you can 'cause they're great live. We also saw Manu Chao again, who rocked, a bit of Leonard Cohen though we split early as Tasha didn't really like him, some great circus and comedy, and lots of other stuff too.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Keeny Greeny
I've been spending the last few months trying to get under the skin of sustainable and 'good' design, but it's proving very difficult to reach a consensus in many areas as to what we should all be doing. True, there are some examples of great forward thinking design, like the Herman Miller Aero office seat, but the main difficulty I have is convincing everyday clients and my fellow designers as to what the best steps forward are and how we can make them economically viable. One of the main problems it seems to me is that consumerism is so fundamentally woven into our society as the model for happiness and good living. I finally got round to watching the http://www.storyofstuff.com/ video and it says everything I've been thinking and reading for ages... only thing is trying to change the momentum behind our current way of life and alter the rather self destructive direction we are currently pursuing.
There are lots of great ideas coming from people like wearewhatwedo.org and http://www.dothegreenthing.com/ but I wonder how global all that really is - who's actually reading them and taking part other than what probably amounts to a pretty small concerned minority at the moment. So how do we get these thoughts out to your every day Joe Blogs? Well the Internet is certainly doing it's part on many fronts, as I suppose is some of the media. But many of the arguments are still unresolved, and some ideas that seem really good on the face of things have terrible implications - such as trying to run our cars on Bio Ethanol- Bye Bye Forrest and food!
Anyway, just some ramblings as I sit here musing on how to draw all this stuff together into something that makes sense.
There are lots of great ideas coming from people like wearewhatwedo.org and http://www.dothegreenthing.com/ but I wonder how global all that really is - who's actually reading them and taking part other than what probably amounts to a pretty small concerned minority at the moment. So how do we get these thoughts out to your every day Joe Blogs? Well the Internet is certainly doing it's part on many fronts, as I suppose is some of the media. But many of the arguments are still unresolved, and some ideas that seem really good on the face of things have terrible implications - such as trying to run our cars on Bio Ethanol- Bye Bye Forrest and food!
Anyway, just some ramblings as I sit here musing on how to draw all this stuff together into something that makes sense.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Back in Colombo
So Leah, Tasha and I have returned to Colombo after five months in London for a two week break to celebrate Aushi and Ero's wedding, which is next Saturday. It's great to be back, especially as this time we have no agenda and nothing to organise, which means we can chill and hang out and go visiting places.
Last night was Aushi's 2nd Hen Night, once again themed after Sex and the City. They asked me to take some photos, which came out ok but I don't have permission to post them here yet...ok, well maybe use one.
So tomorrow we're going to head South towards Galle with Zarook and Neela so spend some time chilling with them. The weather is very hot and pretty muggy, but the sun has been out so hopefully I can get some colour over my computer tan. Plus I'm determined to get a bit of a tan since Helena has a bet out against me that I will come back the same colour as I left...
Last night was Aushi's 2nd Hen Night, once again themed after Sex and the City. They asked me to take some photos, which came out ok but I don't have permission to post them here yet...ok, well maybe use one.
So tomorrow we're going to head South towards Galle with Zarook and Neela so spend some time chilling with them. The weather is very hot and pretty muggy, but the sun has been out so hopefully I can get some colour over my computer tan. Plus I'm determined to get a bit of a tan since Helena has a bet out against me that I will come back the same colour as I left...
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Monday, May 05, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
apparently it was a car chase...
that got the bikes (see my previous post)! Now that would have been fun to watch!
Went on Si B's Stag Do this weekend to Dan's parents farm down in Surrey. We did lot's of boy stuff, like shooting, quad biking and swapping manly stories about the good old days of being young, free and single!
The clay pigeon shooting took place on the farm itself under a lovely clear blue sky and was lead by a couple of real old geezers who regaled us with their stories, usually begining with 'well, when I was a lad' and 'caws, kids these days dhant know their bauwn'. We split into two groups; the have shots and the have not shots - I was needless to say in the beginners team and spent quite a while missing, but on my very last go I got 6 clays for six bullets so I was dead chuffed.
After a Bar-b-q that was most skillfully cooked up by Dan's folks we headed off to quad biking, which took place on a seriously hill-billy farm but was pretty enjoyable considering my preference is to have pedals if the word 'bike' is involved! There was plenty of mud and a fair amount of testosterone to boot.
Quad biking was followed by setting up camp back at the farm, and with a fair degree of optimism I strung my Hammock between some very thorny trees next to the camp site. I'd forgotten how cool the hammock that we bought way down in Florianapolis is, and it's fairly ironic that I carried it all the way up through Brasil only to send it home and not use it till now. I put up a tent anyway just in case the many predictions of rain were to come true...
Once camp was all set we headed off to the Hare and Hounds for a fantastic meal and some post shooting/quad biking analysis, general advice to Si on being married, er, again, and plenty of Spitfire ale and red wine.
Back at camp a number of hours later and with some marsh mallows and Stella Artois to hand we lit the carefully pre-prepared bonfire (Dan's handywork) and settled down to some suitable round-the-camp-fire banter. I'm sure at this point I began to bestow virtues on Red Ken beyond his merrit in response to the terror I felt that some of the party were considering voting for Boris... Oh well, seems to be the way with a lot of people I know, and it occurred to me today that we may well end up using the term 'Borisisms' way more that we can currently imagine if it goes his way.
After I failed miserably to get my guitar to play properly and we'd thoroughly exhausted a good number of Stella cans I fumbled my way into the Hammock and settled down to get some shut eye. Sure enough at some very early time of the morning I was awoken by rain pitter pattering through the tree leaves and onto my head, so in fear of a total down pour I upped camp and retreated to my tent. However, no sooner had I got there than the rain stopped and all was well again at camp Mohacek.
Sunday was a day of recuperation and rest and generally feeling pretty mash-up, which would mean that the stag do can count as a complete success.
Went on Si B's Stag Do this weekend to Dan's parents farm down in Surrey. We did lot's of boy stuff, like shooting, quad biking and swapping manly stories about the good old days of being young, free and single!
The clay pigeon shooting took place on the farm itself under a lovely clear blue sky and was lead by a couple of real old geezers who regaled us with their stories, usually begining with 'well, when I was a lad' and 'caws, kids these days dhant know their bauwn'. We split into two groups; the have shots and the have not shots - I was needless to say in the beginners team and spent quite a while missing, but on my very last go I got 6 clays for six bullets so I was dead chuffed.
After a Bar-b-q that was most skillfully cooked up by Dan's folks we headed off to quad biking, which took place on a seriously hill-billy farm but was pretty enjoyable considering my preference is to have pedals if the word 'bike' is involved! There was plenty of mud and a fair amount of testosterone to boot.
Quad biking was followed by setting up camp back at the farm, and with a fair degree of optimism I strung my Hammock between some very thorny trees next to the camp site. I'd forgotten how cool the hammock that we bought way down in Florianapolis is, and it's fairly ironic that I carried it all the way up through Brasil only to send it home and not use it till now. I put up a tent anyway just in case the many predictions of rain were to come true...
Once camp was all set we headed off to the Hare and Hounds for a fantastic meal and some post shooting/quad biking analysis, general advice to Si on being married, er, again, and plenty of Spitfire ale and red wine.
Back at camp a number of hours later and with some marsh mallows and Stella Artois to hand we lit the carefully pre-prepared bonfire (Dan's handywork) and settled down to some suitable round-the-camp-fire banter. I'm sure at this point I began to bestow virtues on Red Ken beyond his merrit in response to the terror I felt that some of the party were considering voting for Boris... Oh well, seems to be the way with a lot of people I know, and it occurred to me today that we may well end up using the term 'Borisisms' way more that we can currently imagine if it goes his way.
After I failed miserably to get my guitar to play properly and we'd thoroughly exhausted a good number of Stella cans I fumbled my way into the Hammock and settled down to get some shut eye. Sure enough at some very early time of the morning I was awoken by rain pitter pattering through the tree leaves and onto my head, so in fear of a total down pour I upped camp and retreated to my tent. However, no sooner had I got there than the rain stopped and all was well again at camp Mohacek.
Sunday was a day of recuperation and rest and generally feeling pretty mash-up, which would mean that the stag do can count as a complete success.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Bike rack destruction
Check this, someone overcooked this junction and destroyed this rack of bikes. Nuts. Hope no-one was putting their bike in at the time...
Friday, March 28, 2008
Long time no blog....
Hard to come home and blog when you're on a computer all day at work, but now I have one of these fancy pants Macbook Pro's to work/play on, it's super sweet - such amazing product design. Plus I am running Windows XP under Bootcamp on it and have my seat of Solidworks working a treat so I can do proper work on it ;)
Leah and I are busy trying to find a home of our own to buy, but it's not proving particularly easy. Plus the markets are all going crazy so who knows what to do? People round here live in very expensive shoe boxes....
Tomorrow we're doing Shoot Portobello, which should be awesome fun. Check for photos on Shootexperience.com
Anyway, it's Friday so I'm going to get off this machine and go have some fun!
Leah and I are busy trying to find a home of our own to buy, but it's not proving particularly easy. Plus the markets are all going crazy so who knows what to do? People round here live in very expensive shoe boxes....
Tomorrow we're doing Shoot Portobello, which should be awesome fun. Check for photos on Shootexperience.com
Anyway, it's Friday so I'm going to get off this machine and go have some fun!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Woken up at 5am
This morning I was woken up by an alarm at 5am. First it infiltrated my dream and I found myself outisde an enormous skyscraper office block with the same alarm going off. We were trying to turn it off by switching various sockets on and off, but to no avail. Arrrgh, failure dreams, must mean something deep and meaningful.... ;) Anyway, when I woke up the alarm was still going off and now I cant get back to sleep, so I'm up. Hurray.
Finally took delivery of my Dahon Speed P8 folding bike on Friday. I had to go to the scariest industrial estate ever, which is to be found round the back of Wormwood Scrubs prison on Mitre Lane in case you want to go for and 'extreme walk' some time. Since the bike is a folder it allowed me to unfold it there and then and ride home, which seemed to impress the lads working for the courier company no end! Riding a folding bike is a little unnerving at first since it's easy to believe that one of the many quick-release hinges could leave you in a crumpled heap of folded wheels and pedals at the least bump in the road...however, so far so good and it's great to be riding again - public transport sucks! While not the smallest or quickest folder, the Dahon offers great value for money and looks great too....well, for a folder anyway.
Mrs Leah Bazalgette and I are happily settled back into our lovely flat in Maida Vale and she got confirmed at Cunning last week so is feeling a lot more permanent now. We've the In-Laws/Land-lords staying at the moment, i.e Neela and Zarook, which is great, though it's a little odd to have other people here all the time! Looks like we'll have Leah's sister Tasha move in after they've gone too, though I think I've managed to convince her that I'm a total anti-TV fascist, banning all but Radio 4 from the media streams.... well, I'm not that bad, but Hollyoaks really isn't my idea of interesting or relaxing TV. In the mean time Leah and I need to sort out our own space I think, and having to share this flat will no doubt galvanise us into getting our sh*t together.
Off to Wales this weekend to introduce Neela and Zarook to proper cold...
Finally took delivery of my Dahon Speed P8 folding bike on Friday. I had to go to the scariest industrial estate ever, which is to be found round the back of Wormwood Scrubs prison on Mitre Lane in case you want to go for and 'extreme walk' some time. Since the bike is a folder it allowed me to unfold it there and then and ride home, which seemed to impress the lads working for the courier company no end! Riding a folding bike is a little unnerving at first since it's easy to believe that one of the many quick-release hinges could leave you in a crumpled heap of folded wheels and pedals at the least bump in the road...however, so far so good and it's great to be riding again - public transport sucks! While not the smallest or quickest folder, the Dahon offers great value for money and looks great too....well, for a folder anyway.
Mrs Leah Bazalgette and I are happily settled back into our lovely flat in Maida Vale and she got confirmed at Cunning last week so is feeling a lot more permanent now. We've the In-Laws/Land-lords staying at the moment, i.e Neela and Zarook, which is great, though it's a little odd to have other people here all the time! Looks like we'll have Leah's sister Tasha move in after they've gone too, though I think I've managed to convince her that I'm a total anti-TV fascist, banning all but Radio 4 from the media streams.... well, I'm not that bad, but Hollyoaks really isn't my idea of interesting or relaxing TV. In the mean time Leah and I need to sort out our own space I think, and having to share this flat will no doubt galvanise us into getting our sh*t together.
Off to Wales this weekend to introduce Neela and Zarook to proper cold...
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Bye Bye Family
Just seen our family off on their way to the airport and back to the UK :( Sad to see them go, and to know that we're heading off soon too... but what a fantastic time we've all had!
Monday, January 07, 2008
Happy New Year!
Ok, so we're a week into it, but then I've been very busy with all the parties here - getting married, er, three events for that! - Leah's birthday, Zarook's 2nd 30th - so young and handsome to boot. It's been the most amazing end to 2007 and a fantastic start to 2008. Check Sami and Mer's blog for some descriptions and photos, I'll post more of mine later...I'm on a Mac so no Picasa at the moment - please google, sort us out a Mac version!
I'm really looking forward to this year - Factory have given me an opportunity to try and really make a difference with sustainable design and I've a new path to establish with that one. Exciting and daunting too.
So for 2008 I want to:
New year was also great - all our friends down at Hikaduwa beach, 'angin' out and causin' trouble. Some great surf to be had there too - almost felt like I was getting somewhere again. Man, it's so nice to bod up and down in the warm indian ocean with turtles popping up for air every so often.... going to be hard back in the Atlantic!
Then an awesome 'home-coming' reception, where Leah and I got to enter riding on palanquins, with a procession of traditional dancers and women throwing flowers at our feet. Oh, and an elephant!
So I've a week left to sort our selves out and enjoy this wonderful family before heading back to London. 2007 was such an amazing year - here's to topping it with 2008!
I'm really looking forward to this year - Factory have given me an opportunity to try and really make a difference with sustainable design and I've a new path to establish with that one. Exciting and daunting too.
So for 2008 I want to:
- Surf more
- bike more
- read more
- cook more
- grow some of my own food
- shop local - farmer's markets rule!
- climb more
- play more music
- take more photos
- spend more time with my family
- blog more
- make more of a difference
- live the life I love
New year was also great - all our friends down at Hikaduwa beach, 'angin' out and causin' trouble. Some great surf to be had there too - almost felt like I was getting somewhere again. Man, it's so nice to bod up and down in the warm indian ocean with turtles popping up for air every so often.... going to be hard back in the Atlantic!
Then an awesome 'home-coming' reception, where Leah and I got to enter riding on palanquins, with a procession of traditional dancers and women throwing flowers at our feet. Oh, and an elephant!
So I've a week left to sort our selves out and enjoy this wonderful family before heading back to London. 2007 was such an amazing year - here's to topping it with 2008!
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