notes.husk.org

party outings 1964 front cover by smallritual on...

Tue, 08 May 2012 10:01:08 +0100

party outings 1964 front cover by smallritual on Flickr:

‘party’ here means a group of people. this is a book of suggestions for day trips to tourist destinations

"In 2007 they were the subject of a large Tate Modern retrospective. “We felt we deserved..."

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:42:05 +0100

“

In 2007 they were the subject of a large Tate Modern retrospective. “We felt we deserved it”, says Gilbert. “But we wanted it in the right Tate, not the wrong Tate.”

“Every English artist who has a show in Tate Britain is finished two weeks later,” says Gilbert. “It’s the kiss of death. If you have Tate Modern, then the other one must be Tate Old-Fashioned. They’re trying to say that they don’t really believe in British modern art.”

”

- Gilbert of Gilbert and George, in a Guardian interview to promote their White Cube show.

The Cable & Wireless Giant Circle Map of 1945, photographed...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:38:00 +0100

The Cable & Wireless Giant Circle Map of 1945, photographed by iamdanw.

There’s a neater version at “Along What Dimension Is Cyberspace”, a post on what looks at a quick glance to be the fascinating (if slightly neglected) refractal site. (Again, thanks to Dan W for the pointer.)

It’s interesting comparing this decorative, slightly off-centred polar azimuthal map to the Pan Am route map, made just twenty years later, that I posted earlier. For example, the Empire and Dominions (as they then were) are shown in red, whereas Pan Am leaves the entire world off-white, and there’s far more labelling. Of course, both have the handy property of showing great circles (other than the Equator) as straight lines.

"The 18th century also saw some measurable advances in human comfort for the middle classes and..."

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:45:05 +0000

“The 18th century also saw some measurable advances in human comfort for the middle classes and above, ranging from better home heating to the availability of umbrellas to provide shelter from the rain. (Only a few British traditionalists objected to the latter as undermining national character.)”

- Peter N. Stearns in The History of Happiness at the Harvard Business Review.

"Jefferies had no interest in the nineteenth-century North American idea of wilderness on a grand..."

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 01:04:39 +0100

“Jefferies had no interest in the nineteenth-century North American idea of wilderness on a grand scale—a phenomenon to be experienced only amid the red-rock citadels of the desert or the glacier-ground peaks. For Jefferies, wildness of an equal intensity existed in the spinneys and hills of England, and he wrote about those places with the same wonder that his contemporaries were expressing in their reports on the Amazon, the Pacific, the Rockies, and the Rub‘ al-Khali.”

- Richard Jefferies, discussed by Robert Macfarlane in his article Going to Ground: Britain’s Holloways for Orion Magazine (via Russell Davies).

"The British culture does seem less prone to self-celebration, which is proper and all, but not..."

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:41:37 +0100

“The British culture does seem less prone to self-celebration, which is proper and all, but not exactly the best way to get noticed in a crowded world of tech startups.”

- Courtney Boyd Myers: London’s Silicon Roundabout from a New York state of mind (via Dan W).

I should write more about the differences between UK and US mindsets, but this is definitely one thing I’ve noticed.

plastic map by maraid on Flickr.Fantastic (and shot very nicely...

Mon, 23 May 2011 07:09:18 +0100

plastic map by maraid on Flickr.

Fantastic (and shot very nicely too).

Tea Making Tips from the Empire Tea Bureau, from the BFI’s...

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:12:22 +0100

Tea Making Tips from the Empire Tea Bureau, from the BFI’s national archive. So many great moments.

Captioned “A murmuration of starlings over Brighton Pier...

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:51:33 +0100

Captioned “A murmuration of starlings over Brighton Pier at sunset”, Linda Nylind’s photo illustrates Jonathan Glancey’s piece on the return of the seaside pier in The Guardian.

In the wake of the Creative Review blog posting the British...

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:05:00 +0000

In the wake of the Creative Review blog posting the British Design Classics set of stamps, designed by HGV for the Royal Mail next year, the ffffound hive mind is in full gear. (Not that I’m immune to the tendency, but I tend to limit myself to just one image from the set. After all, I can always go back to the original post.)

Anyway, how could I not love those stamps? Mind you, I do wish they’d used one of Beck’s diagrams, or at least a recent TfL map that doesn’t look far too cluttered when turned into a stamp. Still, that’s full-blown rant material. Best step away from the post editor.