Thompson Brand Partners

Stitch and bitch

Check out these beautiful embroidery patterns on www.sublimestitching.com. 

I'm ordering mine now for the inaugural Thompson Stitch and Bitch session next week. Results to follow.

Rach x

Olympic Dillon

Delighted to see that Fontsmith's FS Dillion has been implemented as a signage font for a number of key venues at the London 2012 Olympic park, and it looks fantastic. Well done guys!

Take a look over at the Fontsmith blog.

House of Cards

I went a briliant exhibiton at the V&A a few years ago called 'Decode'. It was all based around digital and interactive media, it still remains the best and most engaging exhibition I have ever been to. Radioheads video for 'House of Cards' was included in the exhibiton. Not only does it look super cool, but you could touch the screen it was being played on and manipulate the video using touch screen. I had fun spinning Thom Yorkes head around. Even without that fun element, it's still a really interesting video, and of course, a brilliant track.

 

Niceness

This is pretty and you should watch it. Right now.

Spherikal from Ion on Vimeo.
–
Adam

Music, comedy & funny coloured sheep

Have you seen the 2012 summer festival line-ups? Some cracking stuff going on. I've thought long and hard but my festival of choice this year is Suffolk-based festival of music, comedy, arts, coloured sheep and general strange-goings on, AKA Latitude. Check it out.

Rach x

The Boys Book Club

On t4th Feb 2005 the first meeting of The Boys Book Club took place in
the Victoria pub in Leeds City Centre. Little could I have known when the
meeting began what significance it would have in my life. By the end of the
meeting, however, I had a hunch that something important had started.
The book was ‘Ring Road’ by Ian Sansome. It was shit actually, but the book
was hardly the point. What took place was a kind of blokey confessional that
was part mid-life crisis and part a realisation that men just talk about
themselves in a personal way. And why should they? Men
just don’t do that sort of thing. And of course, it’s only women
who have book clubs.

But the truth is, it’s been amazing – one of the most consistently positive
events in my recent life. We argue -I mean really argue – proper
confrontation about all sorts of stuff (usually under the cover of the book
review). But, it’s one of those rare situations where nobody takes it too
seriously or takes the hump. Most of the time, it’s just really positive.

We seem to have defaulted to rules that have been described as Draconian,
but what would you expect from a load of blokes? We score first, then go
round in order and give our reviews without interruption, however long we take (and it’s usually a minimum of about 15 mins each). Then we have a free-for-all at
the end. There’s no talking about the book in the weeks beforehand and no
wiki-cheats. We’re not allowed to research the book or the author. So far so
good.

The trouble starts in the choosing of the next book, which is organic at
best. Everybody puts up books and the two biggest lit-snobs try to pretend
they are part of a democratic process as they manoeuvre the conversation to
their choice. Having said that, it usually works and Statto who keeps score
has clearly established that the book choices are better spread than we
might think.

But, much as I’m painting a bleak picture, we’ve had some amazing times. We
also do a trip abroad in October to review a book. We’ve done Palma,
Valencia (which was excellent), Madrid, Nice, Rome and recently Malaga.
Here we are in Rome at the amazing new Maxxi Gallery designed by Zaha Hadid. Phil, who is also a member is not here ‘cos he took the picture. A fine image of
mature manhood I must say it is though.

It was Rome where we first tried the idea of doing our own writing and
reviewing it on the weekend. Despite the sometimes tough line we take, it was a
wonderful experience – some great writing and very sensitive and skilful
reviewing.

After a book a month for over six years, we’ve really done some reading and
got to know each other incredibly well. We did, however have our first
drop-off in 2011. One of the founder members left in a huff after he’d tried
to get Jonathan Frantzen’s ‘Freedom’ read for about 3 successive meetings
(up ‘til then he was used to getting his own way). The truth is, he was ready
to go and it’s worked out well for everyone.

I can recommend book clubs heartily for any blokes who are wondering but are
put off by the sheer girlyness of it. Boys will be boys, so the same dynamic
that prevails in the more prosaic poker nights or Fantasy Football Leagues
is still there in force, but with a significant extra ‘edge’.

Give it a go – get in touch with your sensitive side. Have a scrap, get
pissed, swear – whatever does it for you. Book clubs are the new Football.

Top of these books by the way were Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’, Bukowski’s
‘Post Office’, Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankensein’, a weird book by Salvador
Plascencia called ‘The People of Paper’ and  ‘Maus’, a famous graphic novel
by Art Spiegelman.

Ian

These are dead nice

What better way to make your nicely colour-coded and size-ordered book shelf look even lovelier?! 

You can get these bookends from Goodwin + Goodwin

Sarah

Wes Anderson is the man

Having seen the new ad for Sony Xperia, created by Wes Anderson, it reminded me of his genius and wonderfully unique style.

 

A style also seen in his brilliant version of The Fantastic Mr Fox

It's not the first ad that he has done...

Not only does he do stop frame animation well, but his other films, such as Rushmore, are well worth a watch too.

If you are not aware of his work, or even if you are I would implore you to check out his work. It really is brilliantly weird and wonderful. – Guy

Guilty conscience

We’ve been looking around for some egg-xtra special Easter eggs for my daughter (we accidentally ate hers the other night after a couple of glasses of wine)

Here is my favourite by product designer Donna Wilson

 

 

What’s not to like... eggs, chocolate and an owl – twit twoo!

Greg Proops