Running away...

A couple, Adam and Helen, who are friends of a friend of mine here in Oxford have set up a great little company called Sheepskin.

If you ever feel the need to properly get away from it all, yet at the same time want to retain a few home comforts, then Sheepskin have come up with a great solution.

They have collected a small group of properties in very remote places where "...nature wears the trousers and man asks permission, there is inspiration all around and poor weather is about the wrong clothes."

Their places look really fantastic.

The 'Other' Nobel Prize Winner

Phew, twitter has really killed this blog. Thankfully every so often something comes along which needs a few more characters. I tried to twitter this but failed.

So, the other people to win a Nobel Prize this week were Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, winning the prize for economics. As an aside it's always worth doing a bit of digging on the winners of the economics prize, I personally always learn a thing or two.

I won't go into detail here about her research and conclusions, but read the following blog:

Peter Martin - The Economics Nobel explained, in a video

If this really flips your widget, then knock yourself out on the full paper:

Nobel Paper - the heavy stuff

This thinking has a LOT to say on two subjects close to my work and heart.

1. Community - it helps to explain how we can better manage and moderate our common resources

2. Social Entrepreneurship - It provides a good model on which to base the 'free' but limited elements of our products and programmes.

Hat tips... @mattbish @moorehn @mattyglesias

Enjoy, my little nurd friends.

Greenbelt '09 - It's the people stupid

Well.. it was another fantastic Greenbelt. For me, perhaps, the best ever.

It's a very personal thing, but there was a combination of factors which made it special.

1. People

2. An agreed time management process

3. The usual combination of great talks, music and arts stuff

1. People - We were blessed enough to be the people responsible for agreeing, finding then communicating the spot for a gang of 23. This was a mixed group of mainly hOME folk, but also old friends of 20+ years. Everyone got on well, and fist fights were kept to a minimum.

2. Mary and I developed and agreed a very simple but structured time managment system for the weekend which comprised of three elements. Ask me on the comments if you really want to know what it was.

3. Really, really enjoyed almost all of the stuff I saw. Rob Bell, Alex Horne, Douglas Alexander, HFASS... Also really enjoyed Matthew Bishops talk, and it was a real joy and privilage to introduce him; great questions from the crowd.

But overall... it was the people who made it. See everyone at Breakfast in our little camp bit, and hanging around until things kicked off, was just fantastic. It was a great place to question and reflect on what each of us had seen and experienced... in the end I concluded it's the people who make Greenbelt what it is, corporately and individually....

PS. I regret not taking my camera this year... doh. The picture above was taken in the Beer Tent in 2006

Creativity, schools and the future of education

Just came across this great, great talk, from TED, by Sir Ken Robinson (probably way, way behind the curve) - Creativity, schools and the future of education...

Unmissable!!

The School of Life

The picture to the left is the shop-front of a group called 'The School of Life'. 

The describe themselves as "a new social enterprise offering good ideas for everyday living", offering courses, holidays, books, food advice, occasional talks and advice on finding a psychotherapist (among other bits and bobs). 

There is some relationship between these guys and the raggle-taggle bunch behind The Idler.  

There are number of things which I really like about what they are doing, which might take a bit of time to explain, if you would care to indulge me. 

1. They are and they're not, counter-cultural

Last autumn I attended a 'blah...' day at CMS house, in Oxford. The day was lead by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat, and centered around their book 'Colossians Remixed'. 

I had the joy of sitting next to Pete Ward for the day, and here I must confess, like Jonny Baker 'I am a disciple of Pete Ward'.  Jonny has a very long pitch as to how and why this is the case, but for me Pete simply taught me to pray in The Spirit and trust my instinct, sound advice indeed. Anyway, I digress. Pete's main beef with Walsh and Keesmaat's reading of Colossians is that it was and is 'anti-culture', meaning they presented a picture of Christ who is against culture. Now, IMHO a lot of this boils down to  Neiburh's models in 'Christ and Culture'. In the current climate for many in the 'emerging/t church' there is much confusion about this, confusion which is not helped by simplistic for-and-against arguments, not something which Pete can be accused of. 

Anyhow, back to 'The School of Life'. This bunch are not simply presenting themselves as anti-culture, which is an impossiblity anyway, but rather applauded what they see as 'best', 'meaningful' and 'beautiful' in culture, and expounded on it. 

2. It's Liquid 

There are different elements of The School which people can buy-into. There is not guilt element, demanding that people buy into everything, there are just lots of helpful points of entry to support people think a bit more about their own lives and what they want from life. 

3. The mundane is to be celebrated

A good example of this is a group which gathered for a 'Heathrow Weekend' (the pictures can be found on the 'School of Life'  facebook page. This group, facilitated by  Alain de Botton, toured terminal 5 of Heathrow airport looking for the unusual and beautiful in the architecture and environment of the space. To me, this is akin to finding God in the everyday. 

Anyhow.. over the past couple of weeks I've found their stuff, and more particularly their approach, quite inspiring. 

The poor also need art

"Today, after more than a year of planning, 2000 square meters of rooftops have been covered with photos of the eyes and faces of the women of Kibera. The material used is water resistant so that the photo itself will protect the fragile houses in the heavy rain season. The train that passes on this line through Kibera at least twice a day has also been covered with eyes from the women that live below it. With the eyes on the train, the bottom half of the their faces have be pasted on corrugated sheets on the slope that leads down from the tracks to the rooftops. The idea being that for the split second the train passes, their eyes will match their smiles and their faces will be complete."

This reminded me of a quote I cam across years ago (18+) in the book 'Original Blessing ' by Matthew Fox.

"The poor need not only bread, the poor also need beauty' Monsignor Hildebrand

A must see...

While lounging around feeling sorry for myself with a cold on Thursday, I remembered a film that I saw last year, which I will have to put as one of my top films of 2008, despite the fact it was released in 2006. 

The film was 'Kenny' and going by the film poster, or DVD cover, you would normally avoid it like the plague. However, a friend of mine, Kelvin (perhaps the best graphic designer I have ever met?), give it to my housemate, Mark, for his Birthday.  So this was enough of a recommendation to give up an evening... 

It is Brilliant... it is a REAL gem of a film. It has more to say about inclusion/exclusion, clean/dirty, hope/hopelessness and lost/saved, than ten thousand films which claim the same pretension. 

As you can tell, I am really quite a fan!

Best collection of the 44th...

Like most people, I suspect, I've been looking at a LOT of photo's from the Presidential Inauguration... But for just one last look... this is the best collection from the Boston Globe.

What makes it especially good is the international perspective.

beauty and practicality... in a mug

I found this post through Len Sweet's twittering. I really, really like nice design pieces which also deliver really sound functionality. The three I liked most were...

The one below is a good example of functionality without form... I like the idea (really helpful for those who belong to the persecuted minority of sugar takers), but the form is not good enough. 

Form and function

At home in bed with a bad cold, and in one of those places where I don't know what to do with myself!!  Perfect condition to explore the world of twitter and figure out it's usefulness or otherwise. 

Rather than try to make an argument for it myself, go to this link to The New York Times, which nicely covers the pro's and con's, along with a few surprising anecdotes. 

Illness brings out the worst in me, so it's best I'm left alone in my own squalor until it passes - unless you're happy to bug me on twitter. 

"It's time to play the music..."

Fantastic post today on the Guardian Film blog. It's about Rowan William's favorite films... Andrei Rublev and The Muppet Christmas Carol apparently?!

Read the whole post here... It explains why I could hear him singing the Muppet Theme Tune on the way to Lambeth this year...




" It's time to play the music
It's time to light the lights
It's time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight.

It's time to put on makeup
It's time to dress up right
It's time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight.

Why do we always come here
I guess we'll never know
It's like a kind of torture
To have to watch the show "

Stephen Fry posts his 'Wittenberg Protest'

The 'ever perspicacious' Stephen Fry has listed his 15 changes which MUST be taken on board for v3 of the iphone software... the longer post on iphone competitors can be found here.

Fry writes...

But, despite my emotional as well as intellectual belief in Apple there is much wrong, or at the very least deeply unsatisfactory about the iPhone and perhaps about its ‘business model’. When the first generation came out I offered the view, based on my experience of releases and refinements in this field, that iPhone the Third would be The One. I still believe this to be true. Any wishlist for hardware and software improvements in v3.0 would be bound to hope for – nay demand – the following:-

1. Cut and paste. I mean come on!!
2. iPhone version of Safari to be Flash capable.
3. Video recording: iPhone should be like a Flip
4. Upgrade of camera (xenon flash, higher res)
5. Front facing video camera for 3G video calls
6. MMS
7. User file management capabilities
8. Bluetooth that is worthy of the name. File transfers between different phones and platforms is a minimum requirement.
9. A memory card slot.
10. AM/FM radio. (Mobile TV too, why not?)
11. Better (and removable) battery.
12. Built in projector (this prolly won’t come till V4, but you never know)
13. Customisable glossary for Apple’s predictive text input system. BlackBerry has a superb autotext that allows BB units still to outperform iPhone when it comes to input.
14. Email to be widescreen capable.
15. Attachable proprietary or third party peripherals: keyboard, projector (if not built in see wish 12), printer etc. Maybe not necessary if iPhone implementation of Bluetooth gets the kick up the arse it needs.

I started to loose him at point 12... but all in all a pretty good protest!!

Easily among one of the best...

On Thursday night I went to see the Neil Cowley Trio at the Cornmarket in Newbury. It was a truly fantastic gig...

The're a Jazz Trio (Piano, Bass and Drums) which I first came across them on Late Night with Jooles Holland, and immediately bought both of their albums. 

Neil Cowley (frontman) is an artist with an impressive career history, at the age of 10 he performed a Shostakovich piano concerto at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, then went onto play with The Brand New Heavies and Zero 7, among others. 

I find it hard to describe how good they were... the craftsmanship, timing, energy, enthusiasm, were just awe inspiring.... I have a favorite track, His Nibs, which they didn't play... and it didn't matter. They played in a venue which was only a quarter full... it didn't matter (but it was a travesty). Just Brilliant...  I'm starting to gush now... and I don't care.

I know this next suggestion may be a little controversial,  but if you have to sell body parts of your own grandmother to buy tickets , then do it... and do it NOW without regret or reticence.

Tragedy is that Newbury was their last listed Gig, but they are playing around at the London Jazz Festival, and event that finishes tomorrow.

(Someone.... no names mentioned... has pointed out that I may have been a little influenced by alcohol or tiredness when I wrote this post..!!?? You decide?!)

Where is Jim...?

Just added a very cool gadget to my iphone called instamapper. It sends my GPS location to a site and updates a map at the bottom of my blog. So if you ever need to know 'Where's Jim'... you'll be able to find out. 

Here is where I am right now...

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

Visual representation of quantitative information

One of my favorite ever books is book by a chap called Edward Tufte, and called 'The Visual Display of Quantitate Information'. Two things about the book.

1. It's basically about how numbers can be displayed to help people understand what numbers are saying. There are some beautiful examples of both helpful and unhelpful diagrammes and pictoral representations. 

2. It's a really well made book, basically Tufte struggled to find a publisher who would a. publish the book, b. deliver the production values he was aiming for. So he published the book himself and it's just really, really nice. The printing quality is fantastic. 

But... if a book is not going to be sold on it cover... this is the book. 

This post was sparked by a post I saw which had looked at visual representation of voting in the US election, the post can be found here. Hat tip Andrew Sullivan... again.

The picture, above right, is a really great piece of work. It looks at the voting on a county by county basis, and distorts the map of the US because gives greater space to areas of higher population. What then presents itself if a purple country with swathes of red and blue running through the more rural or urban areas.

Classic...

From The Onion...



Carrying a majority of the popular vote, Obama did especially well among women and young voters, who polls showed were particularly sensitive to the current climate of everything being fucked. Another factor contributing to Obama's victory, political experts said, may have been the growing number of Americans who, faced with the complete collapse of their country, were at last able to abandon their preconceptions and cast their vote for a progressive African-American.



Citizens with eyes, ears, and the ability to wake up and realize what truly matters in the end are also believed to have played a crucial role in Tuesday's election.




Major hat tip to Andrew Sullivan

04:43- Off to bed

It's now 04:43, and I'm off to bed. As Gore Vidal just said "I didn't really expect it to be this easy".

I stayed up for John McCain's concession speech, now that was the man we wanted to see through the campaign. But, I suspect the Rovian clones who ran his campaign just wouldn't allow that to come out. 

I'll save Obama's speech for tomorrow, along with the final numbers for Montana, Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina. 

My Kid Could Paint That...

Just finished watching the film 'My Kid Could Paint That..'

For anyone who hasn't seen it, or heard of it, it's the film of a little girl, called Marla Olmstead. Read the Wikipedia page here...  In short, Marla was a four year old girl who, between the ages of 4 and 7, produced amazing pieces of abstract art. 

As you watch the film it moves from a story about a little girl and onto:

-  a family 

-  a community 

-  a nation 

After this the story takes a really interesting twist, and into a different journey about story. 

The documentary ends by saying "it's a story about what happens to stories", about the nature of narrative. 

To me the heartbreaking part of the documentary was what it had to say about what we do with the 'my story - your story - our story - the story' stuff, how distrust breaks apart the narrative we all depend upon to build common cause and community, and how hard it is to build again when trust and faith have been broken.  Do watch the film... 

American Fervour...

Just watched the third of four parts of 'The American Future'. The BBC/Simon Schama series on recent, post independence, history. This third part looks at the connection between Religion and Politics in the American context.


I've always really liked Schama's style of presentation and it's really interesting to see and hear a 'secular Jew' commentate so incisively and sensitively on this subject. Those in the UK can view it here.

The programme has always made really solid links between the past and present, and this third programme is no exception.


He never reverts to cheap gags or even the easiest of obvious shots, he just make a self-evident case that the Church has lost it's way in politics, away from the intent of the Founding Father's and the earliest Christian leaders who fought against injustice, and too into the hands of the American Right.... and back again?!


Do take a half an hour just to watch the last 30 minutes, it's brilliant. And watch he face at the end of a Mega-Church service... priceless.

McCain

This made me laugh...

"He's George W. Bush without the prudence and caution."

... and cry!