Boing Boing, one of my favourite quirky blogs, has a great piece of nostalgia for fellow geek gamers. It’s a compilation of classic arcade game deaths. Funny how, for a whole generation, these blocky, pixellated images evoke memories of wet Saturday afternoons hunched over the latest state of the art console. Video games were an integral part of my growing up. If you get it, enjoy.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
I’ve just added a new category to my links for Arts, Culture Etc and have added two great blogs (see the sidebar).
Katie’s camera blog is a smashing photography site, where Katie Johnson, a professional photographer, indulges her creative side. Ellie Williams is of course my sister’s blog – also a professional artist!
I hope you enjoy them both.
Every now and then you see a piece of advertising genius. I know it’s not completely new, but I love the style and sentiment in this ad for Twinings Tea (I am clearly feeling soppy after a long day!):
I am not in any way claiming an original discovery here, not with 6,000,000+ views on You Tube. However, there is something darkly satisfying about the humour in this ad campaign by Egyptian company Advantage Marketing and Advertising/Elephant Cairo, the first Middle Eastern company to win a Cannes Lion Award. Created on behalf of Arab Dairy, “Never say ‘No’ to Panda” took a Silver Lion in 2010, as well as a Gold Award at Epica 2010
This series of adverts for Panda Cheese combines humour, subtle menace and explosive violence in a manner not normally associated with pandas. Images of the silent panda-suited star, juxtaposed with the cheerful twang of Buddy Holly’s True Love Ways, creates a sense of the surreal more redolent of Donnie Darko than your average cheese advert.
Dairy Lea it is not!
More than anything, though, it catches that moment in every day when there is nothing else to do but unleash your inner panda…
My sister, Ellie Williams, has gotten involved with another fantastic project, this time in Port Talbot in Wales. Once again she’s working with her flatmate, Myrddin Wannell, and the international theatre company Wildworks, this time for the National Theatre for Wales. Driven by the actor Michael Sheen, The Passion is a piece of community theatre taking place over three days (22-24 April). Read more about it below!
June 2010 will be the third year that Britain has celebrated Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month.
There is a shocking amount of ignorance about the historic and cultural identities of the travelling communities in Britain. Few who are concerned about the impact of travellers on the greenbelt will pause to think about traditions that extend back half a millennium, more rooted in the history of the British isles than many would ever imagine.
As Jake Bowers writes on the GRTHM website:
“Quite simply, ignorance about who we are and where we come from leads to ruined lives. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month celebrates our culture and history by tackling the negative stereotyping and prejudices that have led to this situation.”
Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, History Month has gained international significance, Gay McDougall, United Nations Independent Expert on Minority issues, issuing a statement welcoming the United Kingdom’s commitment to recognising the contribution of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities to British society [see the PDF below].
This year promises to offer the widest range of activities to engage the settled community yet. I hope it crosses your path in places other than this blog. More than anything, I hope we are all big enough to rise to the challenge of considering Gypsy, Roma and Traveller issues with an open mind.
Michael Condron emailed today with details of his latest sculptures.
Interested readers, and particularly those in the Basildon Arts Collective, may recall that at the height of the furore surrounding The Woodsman I blogged on several occasions about Condron’s works of public art, bemoaning the treatment meted out to Progression.
I’ve extracted the photographs from his email and placed them in the gallery below.
Enjoy them, admire them and appreciate a quite extraordinary local talent. And then question why it is that Basildon’s Conservative administration have consistently demonstrated such hostility to public art, including Condron’s own Progression.
Most of you will be familiar with the ubiquitous Lolcats. Well, I presume the same enterprising group of students that have taken to spending their afternoons defacing Tory posters on the Rage Against The Election photo wall have put together a website devoted to… Lolcleggz.
If you like Nick Clegg and like the Lolcats humour, there are dozens of Nick Clegg pictures for you to chuckle over at lolcleggz.com.
Those of you of a creative disposition may be interested to know that the theatre company Supporting Wall have commissioned the first five plays of a new Parliament.
For those not familiar with them, Supporting Wall are a small but exciting company of players who have received rave reviews for their production Moonfleece, an exploration of the inner-city, urban-myth psychology of BNP activism.
In an exciting experiment in political theatre, all five plays will be written, cast and rehearsed within twenty-four hours of the polls closing. The one-off performance will be at 8pm on the 8th May at the New Players Theatre.
Those playwrights announced so far include:
Tickets are £10 each and are available online or by calling 020 7478 0135 (Soho Theatre)/08444 771 000 (TicketWeb). All profits will be donated to the Hansard Sociey.
Along with the anger that has been unleashed by the election, as witnessed by the Rage Against the Election Facebook Group, is a huge amount of creativity from artists wanting to express their anger at other parties or their support for the Lib Dems. Here are a few of my favourites:
To see many, many more, take a look at the photos on the Rage Against The Election Facebook Group.
Fragments and Reflections 