The main piazza in Sorrento is named after Torquato Tasso, the greatest Italian poet of the late Renaissance. Tasso is best known for his 1575 masterpiece, Jerusalem Delivered. Sadly, in the same decade, Tasso developed a persecution mania and died just days before he was due to be crowned by the Pope as the ‘king of poets’. As well as being honoured right in the heart of Sorrento, his name also appears on a very local soft drink – Tassoni. This confident, distinctive bottle has no branding, no label, no nothing. You don’t get much more local and authentic than that. Are there any opportunities to go this local where you live or work?
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Anyone within striking distance of the Edinburgh Fringe should make a beeline to the Royal Botanic Garden where they’re hosting a very special theatrical happening. The brainchild of David Leddy, it’s a play without actors, without a stage and with only one person in the audience. You. So how does it work? Well, you’ll be given a map to follow around the garden and an MP3 player so you can listen to a cross between a radio play and avant-garde sonic art as you go. You’ll hear snippets about opera, memorial benches and botany that fit together into a mournful and poignant story of love and loss which, according to ‘The List’ is "a sensual reinterpretation of A Midsummer Nights' Dream with a contemporary edge".
It’s on every half an hour, 10am – 5pm, until Sunday 6 September. You’ll even be issued with a brolly if the weather’s looking dodgy so no excuses, ok?
Here’s a fun idea from Penguin (the publishers, not the choccie biccie people). They’re printing some classic works of literature but, just for a change, are leaving the covers blank. So if you’ve ever fancied yourself as a book designer, now’s the time to have a go.
You’ll be in good company. Razorlight, Ryan Adams, Beck, Dragonette, Mr Hudson and The Library, Johnny Flynn, Goldspot have all done covers for books, along with lots of other people who’ve taken the trouble to submit their work to the online gallery.
The books with naked covers are only a fiver each, available from the Penguin website. The deadline’s passed for you to submit your completed cover to the online gallery but it’s still fun to check out what other people have come up with.
Ref. http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/mypenguin/index.html
Hurricanes and tornadoes wreak havoc with housing. Straight walls and traditionally shaped roofs mean pressures can build up to such an extent that damage is inevitable. It’s not unusual for those roofs simply to be torn off.
So what about a completely new shape? Dome of a Home has no straight walls and the roof is intrinsic to the structure so even strong winds pass around it.
Mark and Valerie Sigler own the Dome of a Home company. The dome they live in has survived Tropical Storm Isadore, Hurricane Ivan, Tropical Storm Arlene, Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Katrina with no structural damage. That’s pretty good going by anyone’s reckoning.
Ref. http://www.domeofahome.com
The First World War veteran Harry Patch died on 25 July this year. He was the last survivor of the bloody Passchendaele assault. He’d refused to talk about his experiences for 80 years but back in 1998, he took part in a BBC documentary. People say he changed his mind as he gradually realised that he was one of the last links to that war.
So how to commemorate such a life? Radio 4 came up trumps. At five to nine on Wednesday 5 August, they aired ‘Harry Patch (In Memory of)’ by Radiohead. The band had only finished recording it a few days before.
So what’s the song like? The Guardian’s Dan Martin says ‘It begins with Thom Yorke offering a desolate lament over bleak, circling strings that build as the song progresses. The lyrics follow Patch's perspective from his experiences on the battlefield, before moving to a bruising anti-war message: "Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out for themselves." The final line comes from an interview given by a frail Patch to the Today programme in 2005: "The next world war will be chemical, but they will never learn."’
You can listen to the song and learn more about it on the BBC and it can be downloaded from the Radiohead website - all profits will go to the Royal British Legion.
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Held in high esteem by the ‘international set’, Goyard is known for its extremely luxurious luggage. The company’s fabulously French history stretches way back to 1853 but their ‘modern sense of heritage’ means they’ve more than kept up with the times.
The company is soon to open a store at 116 Mount Street, Mayfair. So what were they to do while the builders sweat and travail to make it just so? Well, the usual hoardings simply wouldn’t have cut it for such an exclusive brand. Instead, they decided to put up a giant trunk to keep everyone guessing at the delights being installed behind it.
Ref. http://www.goyard.com
When Good News!, an exhibition at London’s Orel Art opened, people were intrigued to discover two new artists. Yuri and Konstantin Shamanov had a long and detailed biography. Soviet army conscripts who’d gone on to work in secret space labs and as salesmen on Cherkisovski market, they listed other places they’d exhibited. So how come no-one had heard of them before? And why did their publicity photos look a bit iffy?
The mystery was solved when the brothers turned out to be Jake and Dinos Chapman, the ‘notorious and often brilliant’ Brit Art duo, in disguise. Remember, things may not always be as they seem…
Ref. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article6725166.ece
Trust us, says sexybachelorpad.com, you need us. It seems the busy, busy boys of NYC who’d rather work late and party hard than sort out their apartments would agree. Those who’d previously been slumming it with mismatched furniture are flocking to the website to set up a consultation for sexybachelorpad.com to transform their space.
It seems the service is particularly aimed at boys wanting to shake off their bachelor status, though. As one line goes, ‘you got her home, we’ll make sure she stays’. So, any bachelor in the area who thinks the way to a lady’s heart is through interior design might like to give them a call.
Many local newspapers are struggling just now but some are showing real resilience. What’s their secret?
Tindle Newspapers owns over 200 local papers and is Britain’s tenth-largest local-news publisher. It’s run by Sir Ray Tindle, an octogenarian who believes that local news should be, well, local.
When Tindle Newspapers took over the stricken West Wales Observer, Sir Ray changed its name back to The Tenby Observer. He made sure its journalists only covered things that happened in and around Tenby itself. This focus on truly local news, politics and happenings has seen it go from strength to strength.
More on local news in this Economist article - Why some papers manage to stay alive and kicking
When the weather seems to turn on a sixpence, it’s good to know what to expect as soon as you wake up. WoodStation is a timber timepiece that doubles up as your own forecaster. It’ll sit on your bedside table (or mount it on the wall if you prefer) and look more or less like a piece of wood art. Wave an arm in front of its motion sensor, though, and glowing numerals and symbols let you know whether to get set for a sunny, partly cloudy, rainy, snowy or stormy day.
If the icons are a bit tame for you, you can check out the barometric pressure, indoor relative temperature and indoor relative hygrometry data and make your own predictions. And, as you’d expect, the alarm clock has all the usual hour, calendar, alarm and snooze functions.
One review says the face itself is more formica than wood, glorious, wood. But still, it’s an interesting mash-up of traditional materials and contemporary wizardry.
Ref. http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/10/09/divining-rod-technology-rediscovered-in-clock-form/
In this age of email, chat rooms and social networking, are we forgetting the pleasure of real post dropping through the letterbox? ‘Postcrossing’ helps you send and receive postcards to and from random people around the world.
Postcrossing was started by Paulo Magalhães from Portugal as a side project while he was a student. He has always loved to get post, the more random the better. He knew he wasn’t the only one so created an online platform to support this offline hobby. The goal: to connect people across the world through postcards, wherever they are, whoever they are and whatever they believe.
It’s working. Every day, people are cheered by the arrival of a postcard. As one postcrosser says, ‘it’s pure joy and excitement’. At the present count, there are 116,213 members from 198 countries. If you add up all the journeys the postcards have made, it comes to 14,944,417,720km.
Others are taking it further. One avid postcrosser celebrated her birthday by visiting all the people she’d had postcards from. Two others, Geoffrey from Australia and Kati from Finland, found one postcard led to another and eventually decided to tie the knot. (Thanks to Nathan Penlington, one of the readers at our latest poetry night, SoPo, for putting us on to this.)
Ref. http://www.postcrossing.com/
Ever had one of those moments where all you wanted was a Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, but all you could get was regular old Diet? Coca-Cola is addressing the problem by introducing a new beverage dispenser. Heralded as the ‘fountain of the future’, the Freestyle – which was first unveiled under the code name ‘Jet’ back in April – offers more than 100 flavour options. There are traditional sodas, flavoured waters, carbonated or noncarbonated beverages, energy drinks and more. The Freestyle has a touch-screen interface so you can select a product, such as Fanta, and then the screen gives you several flavour options. Make your selection (‘grape, please!’) and the machine mixes the drink for you right there and then. It can even mix flavours in ways that are not traditionally offered. The ‘PurePour’ technology was originally developed to measure extremely precise amounts of dialysis and cancer drugs. Beyond that, RFID scanners are used to match cartridges to dispensers, and the onboard computer confirms everything is in place. Existing soda fountains use five-gallon concentrate bags and lots of backroom labour. Now all that’s required is a highly concentrated 46-ounce cartridge inside a self-contained machine. The Freestyle’s dispenser even sends business data back to Coke’s headquarters in Atlanta, including data about beverage consumption, peak-use times and popular locations. Coke can also talk back to the machine and let it know if a particular flavour needs to be discontinued or recalled, which the machine will then immediately stop serving. Freestyle machines are currently being tested in Georgia, California, and Utah, and there are plans to place 60 test dispensers around the country by the end of the summer.
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Nike, the Livestrong organisation (the ‘global movement to end cancer’), Standard Robot and Deeplocal all got together to build Chalkbot. The device was towed by a truck at the Tour de France, leaving Livestrong’s inspirational messages chalked on the roads of the cycle route for all the world to see. It’s definitely a great way to inspire people as well as raise awareness to the cause of Livestrong. (Thanks big Nick for this one.)
http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/livestrong/en_US/chalk_messages
Greg Taylor
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