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Show me the way to Amarillo. Or Belgium.

Published by hostler February 14th, 2007 in work, interesting, books, new poke things and webstuff. 1 Comment

Quietly launched last week, but now shuffling into a centre-stage position, is the wonderful travel.dk.com from Poke for Dorling Kindersley.

All the usual suspects are there - content browsing, integrated booking with affiliates (with many more partners to come), advertising partners, user-submitted content and comments and ratings. I think we’ve managed to do all of those expected functions in a much more integrated way than any other travel site to date too. But wait, there’s more.

The bit that gets us excited was bourne from a line in the research - something along the lines of 75% of travellers buy travel guides but only consume around 20% of them - ie. lots of travellers cart around 80% of a wasted publication. Add to that thought, some of the “Generation C” thinking of late and a dollop of technology in the form of server-side PDF creation from XML-tagged content and a self-publishing model practically invents itself.

So, browse a destination and compile your own travel guide. Add the bits that interest you, leave out the bits that don’t. Add travel essential info if you want to. Or don’t. Already have maps? Leave them out then. All done? Buy it for a fraction of the bookshop price.

Hats off to Simon Ridgewell, Nic Roope, Vik Sharma, Buzz, Nico, Gemma, Derek, Gabes and Patrick from Poke for their never-ending attention to detail throughout, and a special mention to Georgina Atwell and Fergus Day from DK who placed a lot of trust in Poke from the beginning and who never lost their nerve - even when things got tricky-dicky in the run up to launch.

This is just a phase 1 launch, with some very exciting functionality to come. Watch this space.

Super(bowl)califragisexy

Published by hostler February 11th, 2007 in music. 0 Comments

Dear Prince,

Please tour England. Soon.

Love

Tom

Shoddy

Published by hostler February 1st, 2007 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Can’t contain it any longer. The new “squeezy” Marmite is making me cross. It’s not so much the idea but rather the execution, particularly the pack design.

First off it’s totally the wrong ergonomic shape to squeeze - it should be a tube. Secondly, the plastic formulation is wrong - it’s too hard and inflexible - resulting in a pack that’s permanently deformed and looks unappetising (see above). Thirdly, the combination of these two faults results in shaky hand syndrome during use and Marmite just about everywhere but on your toast. Fourthly, it’s so wasteful - you end up throwing so much away because you can’t squeeze anymore. I mean - Marmite was ALWAYS about being able to get one last slice of toast out of a seemingly empty jar.

Back to the glass jars from now on …

Pick a colour

Published by hostler January 30th, 2007 in gadgets and apple. 0 Comments

Yum!

Also of interest is the re-versioning of the get-a-mac ad’s for the UK using Mitchell & Webb.

The perfect choice for sure, but what makes it interesting is that it’s the first time in years and years that Apple have rolled out anything but the US ad’s with the simplest of currency changes. The US ones worked fine over here, although they did divide opinion as to whether they actually achieved any switching behaviour rather than under-pinning the common perception that us Mac owners are “just a little bit smug”.

There’s even new original scripts, so perhaps the start of a semi-independent Apple UK again …

The art of consumption

Published by hostler January 29th, 2007 in interesting, art and photo. 0 Comments

I love photo-mosaics. I find them fascinating.

Some nice photography by Chris Jordan that uses them as info-graphics to highlight American consumptive behaviour.

Also check out his earlier portraits of mass consumption for lots of beautiful pictures of rubbish.

Never mind the bollocks

Published by hostler January 29th, 2007 in interesting and music. 0 Comments

I’m still reeling from the weekend. I have finally seen Paul Simonon play bass. And then some. Let me explain.

I caught the opening night of the The Good, The Bad & The Queen tour at the Trinity in Bristol on Saturday night (you can learn more about the band in my earlier post if you missed it.)

An amazing performance. The unique sound - a sort of spacey, dubby musichall English whimsey - makes much more sense live than it does on record. Damon, looking for all the world like the artful dodger is actually quite charming, but it’s Paul that everyone was there to see, with his bass guitar slung below the bollocks, skanking, knee-dropping and strafing the audience with stomach-shaking dub. Effortlessly cool.

And then the “I was there” moment I can bore my grandchildren with. The final encore saw the band re-shuffle to quickly put Paul on guitar centre stage, and have him launch into Guns Of Brixton - Paul’s monument on London Calling - and the first time he’s played it in about 20 years. Ohmyfuckinggod.

(Sorry about the rubbish quality - I was trying to skank, shout and pinch myself all at the same time)

I have been piecing together all the seperate live experiences i’ve had - Mick in Big Audio Dynamite, the sorely-missed Joe in the Mescaleros and now Paul in TGTBATQ, the jigsaw is complete and I can just about visualise what seeing the Clash must have been like, and I tell you, it melts my spine. You can get your own coat. I’m staying put.

“A one, two … a one-two-free-four …”

Bobby

Published by hostler January 28th, 2007 in photo and film. 0 Comments

Image © Harry Benson

Earlier this year I caught the Harry Benson Retrospective at the National Gallery of Scotland. I knew Harry for his work photographing the Beatles just as their star was rising in the US, but is was this image of Ethel Kennedy that really remained with me that day.

Harry was standing next to Bobby as he was shot leaving a press conference, having just won California in the 1968 congressional election primaries, putting him on a sure path for the Whitehouse race next year. Taken just seconds after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination this, and the sequence of images he managed to rattle off, catpure the mayhem, bewilderment and sheer horror of the moment in that room. At the show, this image of Ethel had been blown up to lifesize, so you looked her straight in the eye. Chilling.

When I heard of Emilio Estevez’s film that covered the events of that fateful day, it’s huge ensemble cast and the seven-minute standing ovation it received at it’s premier at the Venice Film Festival, I was very keen to seen it to put this experience in perspective.

The film is semi-fictitious, following as it does the lives of 24 people in the hotel on that day, woven seamlessly around the actual footage and events of the time. The events in these peoples’ lives paint a picture of how America was feeling in the late sixties - the racial tension post MLK, the growing resentment towards the Vietnam war, and the rising economic problems in the face of another depression. The direct comparison with current day events is obvious and timely and very deliberate. Where is our Bobby Kennedy today?

I couldn’t do the film justice here - all I can say is “go and see it” - i’ll give you a money-back-guarantee.

Listen up Steve

Published by hostler January 26th, 2007 in wii and apple. 0 Comments

I love the fact that my sleeping Nintendo glows when i’ve got mail. It’s such a welcome sight to come home to. Anyway, I now wish my Powerbook would do the same.

Blue for boring mail, red for angry mail, pink for a love letter. How hard can that be Steve?

(Or maybe it should be pink for Spam …?)

No sleep ’til Montpelier …

Published by hostler January 25th, 2007 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Something my little brother has kept quiet is the new band he’s been playing with. Until now that is, and the extra-ordinary blog referral power I wield. World meet the Cedar. (Standby for 3 incoming links)

Not quite the acid-folk fusion sound i’ve been hunting for all my life, but very pleasant nonetheless - and bonus - they’re playing the amusingly-named Beard Museum in Oxford this Sunday night - and double bonus - the frontman is called Neil Gay.

Now stop that. Right now. Stop it. Really. I mean it.

Might just pop along …