In 1957 Dr Heinz Haber narrated Our Friend The Atom as part of the Disneyland TV series. The programme sounds amazing, from the ‘duck and cover’ era but actually factual.
The photograph’s of the accompanying book which I am dying to get my hands on for my collection.
While I was working in Istanbul last week I managed to visit the Basilica Cistern, a underground reservoir dating back to around 543AD. It’s architecturally amazing, even more so as something underground and underwater – Columns with carved capitals, carved Medusa blocks and vaulted ceilings!
If you ever find yourself over there give it a look. That and the mosques, anciant city wall, aquaducts…
Available online through the Academic Earth organisations website are videoed lectures from some the leading universities of the USA. It’s absolutely terrific, entire courses available to watch for free!
I’ve started working my way through Yale’s Introduction To Psychology course. Great way to kill a train journey.
I bit the bullet and bought a new camera, a Ricoh GX200. My old Canon IXUS was not up to the job and I didn’t want the hassle of lugging around a full DSLR. This seems just about the perfect compromise – the portability of a point-and-shoot, the comprehensive manual controls you’d find on a DSLR and fantastic build quality. I like the understated aesthetic too, no glitz and glam or pointless copy telling everyone how many megapixels you’re rocking. I took my British Museum post photographs on it, which I think look pretty good, and it faired pretty well during a weekend away in Berlin.
I recommend it to you all.
For the first time in years I took a stroll around the British Museum. I was blown away by the presentation of some of their ancient Greek pieces, absolutely mesmorising. The complete lack of colour in the room makes for an ethereal experience. I don’t think that the photographs can do them justice. In a way they remind me of some of the Francis Bacon paintings I saw at the Tate Britain.
Great series of talks at the V&A, London.
V&A Evening Talks
I went to the Dieter Rams talk the other week and it was great. He’s an insightful chap.
As a maxim I quite liked this: “Less, but better.”
I’m thinking of heading to the talk from the IDEO chief executive, Tim Brown. Anyone else interested?
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie
White Circle Pocket Novel – 1938
Picked this up on eBay the other night – It’s amazing! I’m building up a collection of vintage books mainly for the cover designs. This is the first I’ve bought with adverts inside too. The penultimate page is for Cadburys!
