I feel sick...

This is absolutely amazing. I've just watched it twice and now I feel sick. Watch in full screen for the best effect.

Weird, but wonderful

Records of 2010

I've enjoyed my music this year, mainly down to the wonder that is Spotify. My records of the year are as follows:

Albums

1. The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
   
2. Ali & Toumani - Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté
   
3. Heligoland - Massive Attack
   
4. Queen of Denmark - John Grant
   
5. The Archandroid - Janelle Monáe
   

Tracks

1. Fuck You - Cee Lo Green
2. Modern Man - Arcade Fire
3. La Iguana - The Chieftains featuring Ry Cooder
4. She Needs Me - Fyfe Dangerfield
5. Fireflies (Tommy Sunshine 5am Edit) - Owl City
   

Empire State of Mind

We've just returned from a holiday to New York. It's been a few years since our last visit and a few things things have changed. Here are some random thoughts:

• New York really is a city that doesn't sleep. They seem to accept sirens going off at 3 or 4 in the morning
  
• The subways are much better than they were 20 years ago. However, they're incredibly dirty, and the signs to tell you where you're going are almost non-existent
• Cars have got bigger and smaller. Whilst many New Yorkers seem to be downsizing their vehicle, others seem to want the biggest, most obscene vehicle they can find (the Escalade is particularly hideous)
• The habit of young Americans to punctuate their sentences with 'like' is very noticeable and really got on my nerves ("OMG, that's, like, really cool"). On a couple of occasions I was very close to saying something which would have seriously soured Anglo-American relations
  
• The Wellington boot is a fashion statement. I couldn't believe the number of very smartly dressed women who, at the first sign of rain, wore something I normally wear in the garden
• The 'have a nice day' attitude of the Americans can come across as being a bit false, but it's much more preferable to some of the miserable buggers you get in the UK
• If you're going, visit Mary's Fish Camp in Greenwich Village. It's a small, local fish restaurant, the food is superb and the music is brilliant. It couldn't be any more perfect.
  

Birmingham. Who loves you baby?

A film about Birmingham. Narrated by Telly Savalas

My Dad

My Dad passed away a couple of months ago. He was 84 and died of a very aggressive cancer (Metastatic Angiosarcoma, if you're interested). I know I'm biased, but Stan Sydenham was a great man. Everyone liked him and he was the very embodiment of 'the life and soul of the party'. I loved him very much, I was very proud of him, and I miss him a great deal.

Two months after his death, the thing that really strikes me is that I feel I've, all of a sudden, grown up. I'm not in the first flush of youth (or even the second), but I now realise that I've spent the past 30ish years of my adult life, thinking that I'm still a young man and my Dad will always be there to help and support me. Now that he's not around, the added responsibility I have of being there for my Mum has put an extra wrinkle in my brow and a few extra gray hairs at my temples. I'm sure this is the normal reaction to a loved one's death, I'm sure, over time, life will settle into it's post-Stan normality, but just at the moment I feel every one of my 52 years.

New York in minature

Click on the HD button and watch it in full-screen for the best effect.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Stunning Oscar winning animated short

Logorama, an Oscar winning animated short by François Alaux and Herve de Crecy of H5 featuring over 2,500 company logos.

The Weather

I’d just like to say I’m getting really fed up with the weather.  Thank you.

Harold Budd kept me sane

It's been a gloomy week this week. Apart from the rain and wind, my PC decided to call it a day (I had backed everything up the day before, thanks for asking).

So in need of a bit of cheering up where do I turn? Lady GaGa? Pet Shop Boys? Lily Allen? Well, all of these actually, but the music that really did the trick was Harold Budd and his neo-classical doodlings. Along with his mates Brian Eno and Andy Partridge, it's been just the right sort of music to wash over me, allowing me to get an important report written and forget about the most depressing month of the year. I commend Mr Budd and his works to you.

National Geographic

I'm a big fan of National Geographic Magazine for the quality of their articles and the brilliance of their photographs. This month's issue is well up to standard and I was very struck by one picture by Monica Szczupider of chimpanzees mourning the death of one of their number.

Cameroon—At the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, more than a dozen residents form a gallery of grief, looking on as Dorothy—a beloved female felled in her late 40s by heart failure—is borne to her burial.

Original Jake and Dinos Chapman art

I've been having a bit of a trawl through my database (it's nice to have a tidy up occasionally). I came across the following artwork which was given away, I think, by the Guardian website. It's by Jake and Dinos Chapman and I thought that you out there in the Blogosphere might be interested.

Birds on a wire

I saw this photograph in National Geographic magazine and it made me smile.

London tourist tube map

With all the fuss about TfL removing the Thames from the tube map, lodonist.com have come up with a new simplified map for tourists.

Nice fretwork, sir!

Cross dressing, a thumping bass and glasses of milk (towards the end). What's not to like?

Wonderful projections

It's a great shame that someone decided to switch the light on in the west wing about half way through.

Shoe Fetish?

It's not only the ladies that like a nice shoe. I've just bought some of these fabulous black leather George Cox shoes from the British Boot Company in Camden. The chap behind the counter told me that George Cox shoes are more popular in Japan than DMs.

These beauties will form the basis of my outfit for an upcoming 50s night that's being run in the local Village Hall. All I need now are the appropriate trousers, shirt and jacket. That shouldn't be too difficult, should it?

Queen are alive!

The new Muse album is released today and jolly good it is too. The thing that strikes me on first hearing is:

1. There are large chunks of it that could have been written by messrs Mercury and May
2. There are large chunks of it where there's so much going on, I'd swear I can hear the sound of a kitchen sink being played

Each of these points on their own would be A GOOD THING, but together they make A VERY GOOD THING.

Not sure about Twitter? This is worth a look.

Graham Linehan (Father Ted and The IT Crowd writer) is something of a star in the Twittersphere (he kicked off the #welovethenhs campaign in response to the US criticism). One of his pet gripes is the media knocking Twitter and how it's used, when they don't really understand it. He's just posted this on his blog. It's worth a look.

Jeremy Beadle lives! And he's French