The Island of Abandonment

Anyone fancy spending a week sailing across the Bay of Logic, or maybe emigrating for several years to Fool's Paradise?

I hear that it's not easy to get a visa for Utopia these days.

James Turner's Map Of Humanity is a staggering achievement and, judging by his explanation, is not something to take lightly.

It is an attempt to map the last six thousand years of human history and thought upon a theoretical geography to discover a sense of what kind of civilization humanity has attained. And like the geography of human nations, it is in constant flux, changing and growing as long as mankind walks the face of the earth.

Personally I think it's wonderful. I certainly don't pretend to understand the complexity and scientific nature of how it has been created but I've already spent too much time examining the detail and 'having a good look around'.

via The Map Room.

Satchel Blue release 'February'

Our latest album, titled February, has now been officially released.

It's the fourth album released under the Satchel Blue name, although the first to really feature the complete band.

It's also the first to be released with AWAL.

View Satchel Blue - February on iTunes.

A very limited number of CD's will be available very soon.

The Bristol Sessions E.P. was released two years ago and is available to download free at myspace.com/satchelblue.

Talk Like A Pirate Day 2007

Now I know I've mentioned it before, largely due to spotting this poster by accident in Cornwall last year, but it honestly had completely escaped my attention that today was Talk Like A Pirate Day.

That was until I popped over the Flickr to check that my cameraphone Royal Albert Hall photo had transferred ok last night and spotted a subtle addition to the Flickr logo in the top left corner.

They're obviously fond of pirate conversation over at the Flickr offices.

Phew!

13.1 miles completed in 1 hour 49 minutes.

It must have been the new shoes.

[update] I came 421st out of a total of 1,505 finishers according to the results list - that'll do me.

New Forest Half Marathon

On Sunday I will be running, or attempting to run, my 8th half marathon. Eight!! And that's without mentioning three Great Midlands Fun Runs and one Great South Run.

What began as a completely under-researched idea in a pub beer garden in 1998 has rather surprisingly led to an interesting and bizarre selection of medals on my bedside table.

The theory behind the madness states that "he who enters a half marathon will subsequently train like crazy to prepare his body for running 13.1 miles and be incredibly fit and healthy in the process".

Unfortunately, and rather predictably, this doesn't appear to work in practise.

My training regime for the New Forest Half Marathon this Sunday has been as follows:-

wk/beg.
4th Jun - 1 run - 2.5 miles
11th Jun - 1 run - 4 miles
18th Jun - 1 run - 3.5 miles
25th Jun - 0 runs - 0 miles
2nd Jul - 2 runs - 5 miles
9th Jul - 1 run - 3 miles
16th Jul - 0 runs - 0 miles
23rd Jul - 0 runs - 0 miles
30th Jul - 1 run - 3.5 miles
6th Aug - 2 runs - 6 miles
13th Aug - 1 run - 1.5 miles
20th Aug - 2 runs - 6.5 miles
27th Aug - 1 run - 5.5 miles
3rd Sep - 1 run - 5 miles
... and so far this week, my final week, 1 run - 3 miles.

I've never entertained the idea of being a finely tuned running machine but even I can tell that this kind of training plan is
a) never going to make it very easy to run 13 miles, and
b) not really going to make much progress on the keeping fit and healthy front either.

I have bought some great new running shoes though, from Birmingham Runner, so it's not all bad news.

Spell with flickr

Some time ago I had what I thought was a great idea. It centred around trying to give a bit more focus to my photography whilst being more creative at the same time.

Without going into all of the boring detail it basically involved taking pictures of a whole variety of typography, signage, lettering etc and then using the captured images to create words, sentences and so on.

As with most of my ideas I never quite got around to trying it for real. Then today I stumbled across this extremely simple, and very clever, app called Spell with flickr which will take any word or sentence of your choosing and create a visual representation using flickr images.

For example:-



The fun part is that, once the initial word has been entered a straightforward URL is produced - e.g. http://metaatem.net/words/james - which can be used to recreate the word many times over using different images.

If you wish, individual letters can even be switched to alternative images bearing the same letter with the simple click of a mouse.

I think it means my idea is now pretty much redundant - must be time for another one.

Found via Ventnor Blog.

Moseley Folk Festival 2007

The second annual Moseley Folk Festival took place in Moseley Park this weekend.

Lots of fun was had by all and the it remained dry until 7.30pm on Sunday evening which isn't bad going considering the summer we've had.



I found it particularly noteworthy for a number of, quite different, reasons.

It was the first occasion in a long time I walked away from a live gig feeling equally inspired and excited by the performance/performer(s) on stage - in this instance the truly fantastic Rory McLeod (above).

I shall be purchasing CD's very soon and hoping that the recorded version captures the talent and personality of the live show.

Other acts which stick in the mind include Nizlopi (who notably did not perform the JCB song), Findlay Brown (who was very kind to the little boy who asked him for an autograph), John Smith (similar in many ways to Ray LaMontagne), and Simon Fowler who performed some great acoustic versions of old Ocean Colour Scene songs.



The festival also proved a reminder yet again of how popular knitting appears to become when it's offered to a group of people sat in a field drinking cider for two days - or maybe it's got more to do with the cider than the wool/needle mixture itself.