Whatever the camera was just pointing at!

Earlier this week I was looking for candles in a home decoration shop, when a young woman who was also looking at the selection of candles asked me something along these lines:

I have a date coming over, should I buy scented candles?

The answer came quicker from my lips than I could think about the reasons for my reaction.  ”No, definitely no.” She looked baffled, so after a brief moment to gather my thoughts I gave her a breakdown of the evening from a scent point of view [sic]. His aftershave, her perfume, both you deodorants, scents of shampoo/conditioner, the smell of food, wine AND candles? That’s going to be a rich mix. Too rich for me, anyway.

Step back for a moment from the question if scented candles add the atmosphere in a room and recall the moment you last approached the candle section in a home deco store. As you step closer, the faint glimpses of vanilla and coco scent that attract your attention become exponentially pungent as you step closer to the shelf itself.  The air is thick with a blinding concoction of artificial aromas, and you’ll have to hold each candle close to your nose to be able to tell it’s smell, because anything more subtle would be drowned out by the overwhelming blend of stimuli. Scented candles are wrapped up individually, unscented ones are just stacked up in crates as they are. It may appear that this done to disperse a sense of luxury, but my guess is that the combined smelling power of dozens of scented candles quickly becomes unbearable even to the passing shopper.

gotosira's flickr stream

Image Credit: gotosira’s flickr stream

Now enter the Febreeze adverts. People are let into dilapidated rooms that have been treated with air fresheners. To the shock and horror of the viewers, the blindfolded members of the public plunge their noses into squalor and grime only to proclaim that everything smells like it’s been freshly washed.

A trader on Hydepark’s Christmas Market told me how the landlord in their hostel has dotted air fresheners around the hostel’s rooms and corridors, to mask out the damp and mouldy smells that result in years of neglect and disrepair of the hostels roof.

So one has to ask the questions, what exactly is the scent industry trying to achieve with it’s products?  The New York Times published and article on the manufacturer’s change of tack, but falls short on pointing out the fundamental flaw in the concept behind air fresheners itself. Like the owner of the damp ridden hostel, Febreeze suggests in their ad that they can fool your senses into believing that everything around you is sound and fine, when in reality you’ve been led into squalor and decay, as long a you turn off the light.

But have we not been equipped with our senses to detect when the environment around us is not healthy? Our sense of taste warns us from eating food that is not safe, our eyes watch for mould and our smell detects the damp in which fungi and mould flourish.  So congratulations to Febreeze for putting the stealth cloak on squalor and decay and encourage doctoring the symptoms rather than the cause.

But that wouldn’t earn you the millions that it does.

Most of us who cycle a lot or use the bike to commute have got removable bicycle light that run on batteries. They’re great: Small, mostly waterproof, available across a wide price spectrum, mostly bright, and most importantly, they’re removable.  taking the lights off the bike when parked up somewhere is simplest means of not having them stolen.

But with this solution arrives a big problem: each manufacturer uses a proprietary fitting system, that is often not even compatible between different models of the same manufacturer. So if you ever want to take the light onto your second/friends/new bike you’ve got a problem. You’ve got the lights but no way of fixing them. Plus, most fittings are constructed so poorly that they will rattle loose which leaves the bikes either brightening up the night sky, or the floor beneath the handlebar – both options are neither safe, nor an excuse that’ll get you out of a fine if the old Bill stops you.

So I came up with a very effective solution: A small piece of 5mm bungy rope, tied into a loop. Stick the end of the light through the loop, feed the doubled-up strands underneath the handlebar, and slip it over the front of the light.

To secure it all, feed the end of the loop with the knot underneath the opposite loop, and your light fixed rattle proof, removable and reliably to you bike. I’ve been riding like this for over two years (nearly daily) without a hitch.

I’ve even mounted my Exposure Flash to my helmet this way, avoiding the pricey helmet mount. This should work with pretty much any front or back light that is more or less cylindrical in shape.

#PHNAT

So I was out taking a time-lapse sequence in central London yesterday afternoon. On a public highway (footpath away from privately owned land), taking a time lapse of a well known (may I say mildy iconic) building (cardinal place) a stone’s throw from Victoria Station.  I set up a time-lapse, which was running for about 5-7mins, when two private security guards working in the building I was photographing walked over and stood in front of the camera.

I asked if we could have the discussion while they were not standing in front of the lens, but they refused, so I can only interpret their behaviour as a wilful act. After all, I was working, so their harassment (on the public footpath) costs my company money.

I kept calm trying to explain, that what I was doing was legal, that I was on public land (and they were not, – outside their jurisdiction so to speak) but they were adamant.

You can’t take pictures because we tell you so – it’s our building and therefore you are not allowed to photograph it.

By that logic, you can’t photograph anything in the UK, because the chances are, that something which is private possession is in view. Irrespective of right and wrong, Landsecurities won with their bullish behaviour that day, because having my frames obstructed by two of their security guards ruined my time-lapse. This is nothing short of corporate harassment, a wilful act of making your own laws, because you know that legally, I can not do anything about it.

They guards stated that they don’t care, but they have been instructed to act this way. So I asked them for their names as I wanted to take this instruction up with their employer. After all, if Landsecurities learns a bit about UK law, they’ll have fewer complaints, and the guards won’t have to enforce bogus law (and potentially opening themselves up to litigation). Alas they became very twitchy about their identity, (but feel free to indulge in their mugshot) which begs me ask – Under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, is it not mandatory for them to wear identifying badges? Did they break the law?

I was in Uxbridge this week, taking pictures for work. I’m an architectural visualiser, so taking pictures for montages is half the rent. So I spend the first 3/4 hour taking pictures on the north side, before moving to the next spot. As usual, I set up the tripod on a public footpath, levelled the camera with a spirit level, focused the manual lens, and double checked composition and exposure before squeezing the button a few times.

So a lady in a private security companies uniform strolls over from her office and ask me what I was doing. Disruptions are a common (if legally questionable) to all sorts of people with cameras, photographers, press, tourists alike. It is as ineffective to try an reason with these people, as Don Quichotte’s attempts to defeat the windmills – I have every right to do what I do, and that my camera poses no threat.

So in an attempt to keep my humour I pointed out the obvious, that I’m taking pictures of the big white building (from which she emerged). Her reply:

“Yes, people in the building have been wondering what you are doing and getting a bit panicky.”

Panicky? Are you messing with me? Panicky, really?

If, and that’s a very big if, people are getting panicky because they believe that a photographer who’s setting up in broad daylight poses such a risk that the best reaction is to loose your head and become panicky – would they not be far better of hiding behind their desk and maybe call the police? Engaging the reason of their panic directly surely is the least safe option, no? The thread in this scenario must be clearly be coming from me, because my camera (unlike their very own CCTV cameras) hardly can be said to instil panic.

So please you G4S, This and that corporate bullies, please for the love of peace and the holy spirit of common sense, engage your head and realise that if I wanted to get up to no good, I’d hardly choose Uxbridge.

On my way back from lunch near Clissold Park yesterday, I spotted this awesome shop front entirely made from old computer main boards, glistening and shimmering in the low autumn sun.

I couldn’t tell you if this was an environmentally sound way to make use of electrical waste, but it is surely displaying the fascinating beauty that the physical reality of computers hold, albeit normally hidden from view and at best covered in a layer of dust.

Close up of the shop front, they almost look like functional art

I’d love to see a few lonely LEDs glowing on them at night. “There’s still juice in the batteries, you CMOS options are not lost yet…”

This Poster that is currently used to advertise Jack Daniel’s Old. No7 really winds me up.

I’m sorry about the picture quality, my ageing pre-smartphone mobile only has a low quality camera built in.

Here is what they have to say:

THE INVITE SAID BRING A FRIEND

It may not be what your hosts were expecting, but it will be a welcome guest nonetheless. After all, Jack Daniel’s in enjoyed in more than a few social circles because of it’s remarkably smooth character – the result of steadfast loyalty to its original 1866 recipe. Indeed, based on those qualities alone, you could hardly do better in choosing a friend.

Your friends at Jack Daniel’s remind you to drink responsibly.

So the invite to a social gathering said to bring a friend, and JD’s marketing agency believe that a bottle of bourbon makes for a suitable substitute. No, actually they say that a common ingredient for mixing drinks is a better choice than human company, because of it’s ‘remarkably smooth character’. Well folks, I don’t know how anyone who is swayed to believe that booze makes better company than a friend can possibly still drink responsibly, as such an individual would do well to instead confide their troubles to experienced councillor than a bottle.

On closer inspection still, I pose the question what sort of a euphemism “a few social circles” is for party crowds with a devotion to quantity, not quality of intoxication liquor, who by and large strive to do everything but enjoy the beverage responsibly.  I certainly have never heard of a “Lagavulin and Coke” or a “Scapa and 7Up”.

So as a host, I too, would raise an eyebrow if someone offered a cheap booze is lieu of a friend, and tried to justify it by exclaiming that what scratches that throat with 40% ethanol, is redeemed through its smooth character.

So you’ve come across barefoot shoes,  you’re interested in minimal foot-ware or you are simply health concious.  Maybe you are on this page because I gave you a link to it. Actually I am only writing this, because I wanted to give you a link to it and because I can’t remember all the interesting things about bare-foot/minimal shoes, gait, all the research and scientists behind it. And I need to remember all that, because I’ll gladly have a conversation with every-one of you who have asked me over the last days, weeks and months about what’s on my feet.

It usually starts when you and your friend stick your heads together start whispering. Or you’re one of the genuinely delighted people who literally jump at the sight of the shoes and start asking high pitched questions in sheer delight. That makes my day, too! Those things are Vibram Fivefingers, and they are very very comfy shoes, if you ask me. My Fivefingers are actually the first pair of shoes that I don’t take off when I get home after a long day at work. With “smart shoes” as the fashionistas tend to call those pointy high-heeled pinky-crushers, my natural urge is to is to push them off my feet without even opening the laces as soon as I’m through the door.  The arch of my foot hurts, there a spot on the heels where the socks are wearing thin and my toes feel as if they were a single fused appendix of raw soreness. But not so with my thin-soled toe-shoes, and it’s not that to don’t take them off because I like wearing them so much, but because I forget that I’m wearing shoes in the first place. That comfy.

That is one of things we probably didn’t have time for when we spoke on the underground, or through the closing lift doors as it happened today. I also probably didn’t have the chance to tell you why they are so comfy. They are so comfy not because these shoes are great, but because they allow me to use my feet in a way which I have never used my feet my whole life. And I am 35 years at the time of writing this. The trick that I am learning be a lot more concious about putting my feet down when I walk and rather than using the heel as a contact point to use the forefoot to make contact. But don’t let me spell out what so many people have described so much better, I’d rather give you a few links and you make up your own mind. I am very excited (still) about my recent (2 years) discovery that takes the pain out of my walks, but I’m not trying to tell you what’s good for you, or what you should be spending your money on. It’s always good to read more than one source so here are few pointers to get started:

Daniel E. Lieberman et. al. on biomechanics of foot strikes: http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/index.html

And the same story rounded up on Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134241.htm

Barefoot Ken Bob’s pages. He’s been running for years without:  http://therunningbarefoot.com/begin-here/

Barefoot Ted’s homage to “the book”:   http://borntorun.org/

And “the book” Chris McDougall: http://www.chrismcdougall.com/barefoot.html

Also feel free to search for “why barefood is bad for you” It’s good to get alternative stories.

As a last piece of advice if I may. When you buy some five fingers, don’t forget to buy some finger socks. You old ones won’t fit! My favourite are Injinji wool socks. Sooo soft and durable!

Fun things to do when you have minimal shoes:

• give yourself a foot massage every time you wait on the underground or a pedestrian crossing. The tactile paving (knobbly paving, often brightly coloured to aid visually impaired people) makes a tantalising foot massage when you rub the thin soles of your minimal shoes over them.
• you will get a lot of attention. Even months after first going to work in my fivefingers are they still subject of questions and debate.  Strangers will pounce on you in unadulterated excitement. Teenage girls will giggle. Mutters of disbelief be heard, fingers pointed. Blog about it!
• You will talk to strangers for no reason other than that they too, are wearing fivefingers.
• You will puzzle bouncers in clubs who can’t work out if you’re wearing smart shoes! Think about it, for a change these are really smart shoes!
• You won’t have to take them off at airports! Looks of disbelief, yes but not showing off the wholes in your feet.
• learn to wiggle your toes, and show off the skill when ever a fellow adult’s stare is transfixed on your foot. Works a royal treat with kids, too!

I thought I’d explore the UK’s south coast on foot this year, as I really enjoyed the BBC series “Coast”, I like being near the seaside, and the south coast is in easy reach with train services providing easy and convenient access.

But this walk from Brighton heading east, quite frankly sucks. Heading out of town and towards the marina, your feet and soul begin to ache at the sight of a generic out of town shopping/entertainment mall where the pedestrian access along the rising chalk cliffs should be the main attraction, but instead is marginalised and funnelled through a maze of concrete. The footpath winds through the left over spaces that emerged when the quickest (and laziest, in terms of imagination and planning)  vehicular access route from Brighton into the marina was designed. Or shall I say, engineered. The road comes high from the cliff tops, and its propped up lanes cut through the landscape with no regard to topography, landscape or urban design. Effectively it is a high-level box-section bridge that rests on cylindrical posts and slopes wearily down to the shopping/cinema complex, dissecting cliffs, beach and sea.

The trail crosses extensive car parks and a bland, repetitive cluster of predictable apartment blocks before the ending a shabby industrial section of the marina, where pedestrians are forced to double back on themselves because fences and a boat park obstruct clear access. From there on, you have no choice but walk for miles along a concrete enforced coastal path, that is more reminiscent of dismal military enforcements than the liberating junction of sea and land.

I shall certainly not return to this stretch of coast.

Today’s statistics on WordPress exclaims that there are 60,734,473 blogs using wordpress. This is one of them.

The statics go further to exclaim that “Over 303 million people view more than 2.5 billion pages each month.” and that “WordPress.com users produce about 500,000 new posts and 400,000 new comments on an average day. “WordPress.com users produce about 500,000 new posts and 400,000 new comments on an average day. ”

These are the stats for the WP hosted blogs, there are no stats available for all the WP run, self-hoststed blogs out there. But let’s make a crude assumption. Let’s assume that this statistic is roughly the same for most “one person” personal blogs of which there are millions more, each one being eaqual to one person. Even if as a statistical exercise we can not extrapolate to the majority of blogs on the web, it still means that for each of the 303*10^6 viewers to WP hosted blogs there are  8.25 page visits per month or  0.27 per day. It means, that for each WP hosted blogs, one in 151.84 blogs receive one comment per day, or around comments 2 per year.

In the four years that I ran coffeemoon, I have collected eight comments that have been written by humans, not spambots. Actual visitors that read a blog entry and left a comment. One of which was someone correctioning me on punctuations. Eight comments, four years, that makes two per year – I’m bang on target. But what this means is that for the hundrets of hours of work that have gone into this blog, I probably accumulated 15 mins of meaningful interaction with the the “outside world”. Maybe twice that, it doesn’t really matter. The time I spend in front of this computer, that I spend going to take photographs that help to decorate blog entries with pictures, reading about blogging tips, styling tips, time spent researching and learning plug-ins, coding styling tips, and debugging css stylesheets is time I spend alone, in front of this computer, rather than with friends. No doubt I am not the onle person out there doing this, there is a good indication that at least 60,734,473 other people are spending just as much time on their blogs as I do on mine. 60,734,473 people who’s blogs are a labour of love, an attempt to create something meaningful. For 0.27 visits per day, and 2 comments per year.

And this is just the statiistics for the WP hosted blogs, not for the entire bloggosphere, where a few shining beacons get all the attention. Boingboing.net no doubt does not have these worries. But for me, one of seven million people in my city it is. Because for me, this is a tangible statistic on lonliness. The more time I spend on this blog, the less human contact I get. The harder I try, the less I succeed.

Back when I started coffeemoon, I was enthusiastic, thought that running a blog would be fun, sharing what excites me, being part of that vibrant on-line community who fully embrace what this increadible technology has to offer to us. Sure there would be a lot of spam, and the odd troll, but it would be worth it. Worth it, because I would connect with a few people from around the world who might leave a comment or who have the same interests and passions, a kindred spirit who might share what they have to offer with me in return. But four years later, and hundreds of hours invested in this blog, I know better.

The statistical plug-in I run tells me all that I need to know.

Average time spent on the site 0-30 seconds. Statistically, you will not get this far in the post before moving on. Most popular post I ever created: The home made knife block I made for my brother. Courtesy a good SEO techiques a popular item with google images.

So for me, I should learn from my conclusions, and heed my own advice. Spend less time on-line, whether here on coffeemoon, reading some-one else’s blog (and thus ruining their statistics)or dating sites, and more with real people. After all that is the advice I read on all the sites that talk about loneliness in london, such as the happiness project.

But I have one question for you: If you are already lonely, if you use your phone only to call your bank because there’s no-one but work contacts in your phone-book, if you already spend your free days on trips going out doing what you enjoy, such as photography and learning to play and instrument, if you already do your own art projects, have hobbies and past-times, if you already spend every waking moment being active and doing things, how do you actually get to meet more people and spend time with them?