FLETCH.CX

I have now lived in London, and indeed worked at the same company for five years. In November 2006 I came down for an interview one afternoon and didn’t go home for weeks.

Here are five pictures from each one of those five years.

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

I like to hear music I haven’t heard before or at least be reminded of tunes I haven’t heard for a long time. Here’s a roundup of music that I check out every week. Either podcasts/shows that get regular play at PJ Towers. Check them out:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/huey-morgan Huey Morgans show This is on Radio 2 at midnight on Fridays, so really every Saturday morning. Tune in, it’s described as Huey going through his own record collection and I can believe it. Really good old and new music, this week I heard Alvin Cash and the Registers (old) and Kill it Kid (new). Get it on iplayer if you’re not awake.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/robdabank/ Rob Da Bank. Rob does a brilliant early morning Saturday show on Radio1. It’s 5AM start so I’m never up to listen but I always put it on a few hours later when I’m mucking about in the kitchen. It’s entirely new music, ranges from electronic to guitarry folk stuff. Always has a guest session from an unusual artist. Again, iplayer.

http://solidsteel.ninjatune.net/ Ninja Tune have a mix every week, always awesome. Mainly electronic stuff, lots of hip hop. The likes of DJ Cheeba, Hexstatic, Kid Cudi, DJ Food, Redrum, Coldcut, DK, Moneyshot, Strictly Kev.. you name it. As a bonus you’ll often find a video mix in there too that you can stick on your plasma and have a rave to.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/huey-morgan the other Huey show on 6 music, don’t often discover new stuff here but this week for example was a film soundtrack special that was pretty err special.

Shops like http://bleep.com/, http://www.7digital.com/b/ and social music sites like are always worth a poke. I like to listen to electronic stuff that’s not always my bag on Bleep, then head over to what’s basically pop musc on 7digital. Often end up buying something from both of them.

http://last.fm is a site that recommends you stuff based on what you already listen to, however it manages to do this without pigeonholing you so it’s good for discovering things that might be right on the edge of what you enjoy.

http://www.mixcloud.com, a mixture of amateur and increasingly professional accounts on here, just basically loads of mixes. If you’ve heard of a new genre and want to check it out then someone somewhere has done a mix on here. Something to listen to every week. Foreignbeggars have a good channel here, so does MaryAnneHobbs but there’s lots of exploring to do.

Must be tonnes more…. might update this in a bit, see how you get on.

I love seeing old photos, especially of places that are familiar to me now in the present. Its great to think of people documenting things fifty, sixty years ago that would have been properly exciting at the time, even if they might be fairly mundane now.

Take this photo of my Grandad on a cruise.. I think sometime in the early 1960s, looks amazing. I think it’s emotive, he looks pretty proud I think.

Here’s my Dad in Trafalgar square, also quite a few years ago. Nice shorts old-man! Funny to think I’ve walked across that exact place loads of times but there he was 50 years before me feeding the pigeons.

Anyhow, before I start to go down memory-lane.. the reason for this post is because I’ve come across a few old pictures of London in 1952. Yes, the year of The Great Pea-Souper! - When the smog in the city built up and enveloped the whole place in a dirty blanket.

Interesting short read I think. Go and check it out by clicking here: http://www.nickelinthemachine.com/2008/11/a-proper-pea-souper-the-terrible-london-smog-of-1952/

…Also, lets bring “pea souper” back. My Auntie Elsie used to use it pretty frequently to describe the weather in Bolton and I always liked the phrase.

Excellent little site: Drinkify!

I have talked before about backward technologies you know, advances that are actually not advances.

Well since starting a new job I have been reminded of another one of these and although it’s not quite a ‘solution to a problem that doesn’t exist’ because the problem does exist, it’s just that this doesn’t fix any of them.

I introduce, The Dyson Airblade.

Hand-dryers in public toilets are shit, they take too long to use because they’re not hot enough and they don’t shoot out enough air. The ones with buttons are unhygenic and the automatic ones are always configured by tight breweries and landlords to only stay on for 3 seconds.

The Airblade attempts to solve this issue by directing the air at your hands in such a way that all the water is squeegee’d off them, kind of like a windscreen-wiper. Amazing! Have you ever used one though?

1. UNBELIEVABLY the jet doesn’t stay on for nearly long enough. What a rookie error. I’ve never used one that that has been able to shoot all the water off the end of my fingers. I always end up going back in for a second dip.

2. Your hands get blown into the side of the device unless you’re ready and braced for the thing to come on. So it’s unhygenic. This is because it’s a 400MPH wind-razor, how is anyone surprised?

3. They’re awkward to use. you kind of have to position yourself to get your hands in at the required angle. The height it gets mounted at is way more critical than it is for a standard hand-dryer. I mean look at this:

How bent are these wrists?

How weird does James Dyson look here?

The solution to the problem of shitty hand dryers is to send them out from the factory with a single setting and make them hotter and make them faster. That’s it. Job done.

It’s a cool gadget and has some great ideas but in practice, it does nothing better than what we currently have. How human.

I’m not going to say what it is yet, but something quite fun is all being worked out at the moment and if it comes to fruition in the next couple of weeks as we’re planning it’ll be awesome!

:-)

Watch this space.