Lucky boy here got a last-minute call up to Wembley yesterday, for the first competitive match in the brand spanking new National Stadium. Sadly not selected for the starting XI but happily took my padded seat in the stands and watched some kids running around enthusiastically.
The England U21s game against Italy was one of a series of minor 'ramp-up' events, where the ground's systems and security are tested with less than the capacity 90,000 spectators, but nonetheless it was a great opportunity for a mosey around the place.
First impressions? Well, it's big. Very big. It feels gigantic. Even from quite a distance the scale of the swooping arch is quite overwhelming.
Up close it's terribly sleek and modern, in signature Foster style. Seemingly hundreds of acres of concrete walkways, gangways, elegantly curved glass walls, polished steel shutters, escalators and handrails.
With its dark marble tiled floors, sober colour palette of greys, whites and black (the idea being that the supporters add all the colour and life), it reminded me of nothing more than a swanky business class lounge in some fancy new airport. Ever-so-slightly corporate, cold and charmless.
Understandably, there were some obvious teething problems - no bins made for very messy sideboards; when moved, chairs vibrated loudly in the hangar-like cafe, and caused a deep echoing din that was almost unbearable, and the staff were all a bit slow and clueless.
One of them, passing by, pointed at my camera and told me they were not permitted. Er...excuse me? No cameras in a sports stadium?
And maybe I'm getting old, but SEVEN POUNDS for a hot dog and chips? (Cold chips, too...)
Anyway, I do the place a disservice - it's generally an awe-inspiring structure, perhaps lacking a little history and soul, but that will come in time. Inside, the views of the pitch are unobstructed and clear, and the workings of the retractable roof are an interesting architectural distraction when the mind wanders from the action on the pitch.
One last thing. Seven years in the building, the most expensive stadium ever built, endless legal wrangles with the FA....and it' still not quite finished:
'One source isn't choice', it says.
Nicely ambiguous, I thought.
And a whiff of subversion, too - lovely.
A rebellious comment on the innumerable London Lite freesheets being distributed there? Or a snide swipe at Starbucks on the corner...?
I hope there's more tomorrow
Cynical football fans often deride underperforming players, and question their selection in the first team, with a little dose of irony. They say "He must be great in training..."
I remember often wondering what the likes of Paul Furlong and Eddie Newton used to get up to at Harlington during the week, to justify their first team places...
Then I stumbled on this little gem on GooTube. Diego may have his detractors, but my goodness, he knew how to look great in training. Enjoy.
Personally I find it terribly hard to behave that well
I was lucky enough to be invited to visit the west coast of Ireland this week, and what a treat it was. A day spent hundreds of miles from my desk, amongst wild, rocky and barren landscapes, criss-crossed with dry stone walls, almost utterly bereft of life. Instead of Parker Tower's airless, light-robbed office, I was tromping along epic cliffs, watching giant weather systems sweeping by - one minute howling wet and grey, the next, sunny and fresh.
After our morning meetings, we visited Dún Aengus on the north coast of Inis Mor.
Built at least 1,000 years BC, little is known of its original purpose, but if it had ever been used as a fort, which seems quite likely, it would have been almost impregnable.
Today we can barely imagine how humans eked out life in those times, but at Dun Aengus it would have been colder, windier, wetter and a great deal more exhilarating than most, to be sure...
(great spot for a rave, too)
OK, so this blog isn't meant to talk about advertising......but rules are meant to be broken
Cracking new work from W&K.
Bold palette, crisp art direction, in a visually-distinctive style - let's hear it for big colourful curly shapes
And the words are good, too
Con-guardian-ations all round
Then along came the extended mix.
Then DJs began to mix one track into another, end-to-end.
Nowadays 'mashups' are the big thing. Mashups take two or more wildly different, but usually well-known, tunes and fuses them together simultaneously, to create something sounding intensely familar, yet obviously different, quirky and fresh.
One of the leading practitoners of this not-so-subtle art is producer Mark Vidler, of Go Home Productions, until recently consigned to (illegally) blending underground audio cocktails, and quietly releasing them for download on his website.
His sublime mixing skills created tongue-in-cheek blends including Madonna and The Sex Pistols ('Pistol Whipped'), Blondie and The Doors ('Rapture Riders'), and Radiohead and Marvin Gaye ('Sexual High').
Vidler's growing popularity, however, brought his skills to the attention of the big record labels. Spotting an opportunity, EMI offered to help him out, negotiating the rights to mix his 'dream playlist' so he could, at last, legally perform his magic.
The long-awaited fruits of their labours - Mashed - is a new release, and although packaged for the mainstream, I think it could later be seen as a significant landmark in popular music's evolution.
Well, perhaps at least as/more significant than its equivalents - overlays and collage - have ever been in the visual arts. Is the ear more easily amused then the eye?
Here's a wee sample - see what you think.
Or so I thought, until I spotted this gorgeous 'Biennophone' radio on the bedside table. It was about the size of a large shoebox, and weighed a ton. Hard to tell, but probably designed sometime in the early 1980s - I absolutely loved its simplicity of design: one metal knob to control Volume, one metal knob for Tone, and seven chunky metal levers for station selection. All of which were fixed presets, with no (apparent) way of re-tuning them.
There's one in the eye for digital proliferation....
Almost the best thing about it was the metal lever on the left, marked zero, which was the Off button. Classic.
I am pleased to report that this wonderbox produced a lovely deep and resonant sound and I fondly remember, more than once, drifting off to sleep, listening to furry old French jazz after an energetic day on the slopes.
