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Camp Hill Awayday

Well it's been over a week since we had an outstanding day up in North Yorkshire at Camp Hill. 

We were amazingly lucky with the weather as it's been pretty much raining for fun lately. We had a beautiful, bright winter day to enjoy our outdoor pursuits of climbing scarily high in the treetops, skidding around on quad bikes and then scaring ourselves silly on the ridiculously high zip wire.

We'll put all of the shots from the day on Flickr, but in the meantime here's a few to keep you going.

The day started with much needed bacon rolls and hot cups of tea. Lovely.

After a morning of envisioning and imagining what the future might be like, we took lunch and then donned the ominously waterproof full body suits. "It's quite wet on the quad bike course" they said. Paul took it all in his stride of course.

Anna, Chloe and Josh prepare for the Chicken Run egg capturing challenge (we got 7 in case you're interested). Anna and Chloe get full marks for imaginative yet practical use of knitwear and matching sweatshirts.

Ian and his helmet.

As I'm sitting here now, I have no idea how i managed to climb the ladder of doom. Of course the photograph doesn't really do the height justice, suffice to say it was high and very frightening for complete wusses like me. Everyone else seemed to get on just fine, however. 

Sabotage from the future

I read something quite incredible this week. The giant atom smashing machine Large Hadron Collider is being tampered with by time travellimg meddlers and this is the reason why it broke down and they couldn't get it to work for months.

Seriously.

This bizaare sci fi theory got my fevered conspiracy theory brain doing overtime. The theory isn't being put forward by some crazed Fortean Times reader, oh no. It's only a highly respected Danish Physicist, Dr Holger Bech Nielson - and it's not just him either. Dr Maseo Maseo Ninomiya has weighed in with claims that the delayed start to find the 'God Particle' is all part of nature 'trying to prevent it being found'.

These eminent scientists have dared to float their out-there theories to worldwide incredulity.  Dannis Overbye in the New York Times said "While it is a paradox to go back in time and kill your grandfather, physicists agree there is no paradox if you go back in time and save him from being hit by a bus. In the case of the Higgs and the collider, it is as if something is going back in time to keep the universe from being hit by a bus."

I love it when the real world and the made up world collide. I think sometimes reality needs pepping up. Suffice it to say when we got talking about this in the studio last week, we had to break off the discussion to get on with some work!

 

The hierarchy of digital distractions

Those of you Twittering, blogging and generally keeping up with the digital Jones' will find a deep truth in the graphic below. I guess the very fact that I found it and decided to Tweet and then blog it validates its accuracy.

It came courtesy of the very cool and highly instructional Information is everything

Temple Works

I spent a fantastic hour wandering around the derelict Temple Works site in Leeds this afternoon.

Temple Works is a former flax mill that is based on the Temple of Edfu at Horus in Egypt (no really) which had a chimney designed as an obelisk (those Victorians). At one point, the main space in there was the biggest room in the world. It had grass on the roof to keep to aid retention of humidity and sheep grazed on it to keep it in check. The world's first hydraulic ramp was invented to get the sheep on the roof. English Heritage said that the building was "probably the finest example of a carved stone elevation in the whole region"

Since 1958, the mill had been used by Kay's catalogues as a distribution centre and its been derelict for over 5 years. There's interesting plans afoot to breathe life into the old girl again as a centre for arts and culture. 

When I walked around the mill this afternoon, it looked like the inhabitants had left a few weeks ago - apart from the fact everything is so old fashioned. It's like a cross between the Marie Celeste, Silent Hill and a future nuclear holocaust - Ben McKenna said Omega Man, and he's not far off. It'll be a shame to see it tidied up, it's very poignant to see it this way. All the evidence of working lives are there to see. The big clock in the main room was incredible - all those eyes worshipping it, wishing it to 5 o clock, day in day out, for over a hundred years.

Thanks to nualabugeye for the shots above. I couldn't resist the humour in the image below which I snapped on the iphone.

Today's reason

That single line poem by Ivor Cutler called 'Spouse' that goes: 'One day you are no longer interesting'

Don't mention the war

I was really inspired by the recent feature in Eye magazine on classic Airfix packaging. It featured the fabulous illustrations on the box fronts that were in fact a combination of packaging and point of purchase in the models shops of Britain.

As a boy, I was obsessed with model kits of all kinds (there wasn't much else to do in 70s Leeds, clearly) and although Airfix was a mainstay, if you were really serious about model kits, then Tamiya was the only way to go.

These Japanese kits were far superior in quality to the British made ones (sorry Airfix) and were at a bigger 1/48 or 1/35 scale. We would spend hours poring over the next kit to buy on a Saturday morning and the amount of time and effort spent on painting every detail was, by today's standards, worrying.

Having looked again at the kit boxes and the fantastic illustrations on them, they really are from another time. The detail lavished on the illustrations wasn't lost on the 13 year old model builders of Leeds where we would even try to emulate the mud on the tires with Humbrol matt enamel. 

Sad, I realise. But even writing this blog has made me think of some excuses to go out and buy a model kit - just for research, obviously.

Let's bring some joy

We wonder if you could help.

 

We're trying the cheer people up. In 2002 (the year after 9/11) the mood everywhere was understandably low. So we decided to try and get people looking on the positive way. We produced a poster to go out on Jan 1st with 'one simple joy' for every day in the year. People really liked it and some people still have it up (usually in their loos) to help cheer them up.

We think the time's right for an update - credit crunch and all. But this time we've decided to do a calendar for the two key summer months (July, Aug) to try and will the weather to be better, get people feeling more positive and do our small bit to turn the tide.

At the moment we're calling it 'Reasons to be cheerful - Part 2'.

This time we'd like input from more people and we'd like to ask if our blog visitors would like to contribute. All we need is one simple jot - something that makes

you happy. Doesn't have to be deeply philosophical, though it can be if you

want. We'd like to credit each 'thought for the day' to the person who

provided it.

 We only need 62 entries but we'd love you to be in there. The difficult bit is, if we're to get them all out for July 1st we've got to get cracking, so if you could reply to the Email with your entry in the next few day, that would be great. Don't worry about writing style - we'll craft if for you if you like. However, if you want to get poetic on us, we won't touch it.

Thanks hugely in advance.

Forget Taxis

We all know how it is. You pop into the pub after work on a Friday for a few shandies and before you realise it, you’ve had 6 pints and there’s talk of disco dancing.

If like me you had driven to the pub knowing full well that you would have to leave the car then pick it up in the morning possibly taking half of your Saturday to do so, the prospect isn’t so hot.

Ah but don’t fret as there is a new superhero in town! Scooterman is the latest craze to hit Leeds (For those of you in our Southern contingent you should be already aware of them)

Scooterman arrives at your pre allocated time on a little scooter. He takes his scooter, folds it up, puts it in a bag and pops it in the boot of your car. Then the fully insured, sober driver drives you home. When you’re home he unfolds and scoots off. Genius.

 

Springwatch

There's something very comforting about the time of the year when Springwatch appears on BBC2.

Although it always seems to me to be more like "Late spring/early summer watch" when it appears, we know that the weather is well on its way to summer and the exhuberant march of our wildlife is unstoppable. It never fails to draw me in and even the humblest of wildlife never fails to amaze. This weeks birds of prey were truly astonishing.

By the time it finishes, we'll be well into summer and the lush promise of early summer will be moving into the rich sleepiness of high summer. It's all ahead of us right now and that's a lovely thought.

Shame this year we don't have the cantankerous Bill Oddy to help us on our way.

Everything's brilliant in Leeds

Was the title of a rather optimistic t-shirt that the 'Chiefs peddled rather successfully a few years back (via the back pages of the NME I seem to remember).

Now it's not far wrong (we are in Yorkshire after all, where the world is right and proper) and I love it when I come across cool stuff happening in the city I live in.

Sky Larkin are just that. A really interesting band based in the city doing something rather fabulous in a 

lo-fi, female fronted indie band kind of way (I had a huge soft spot for Sleeper, and Siouxsie wrote the book as far as I'm concerned). 

Anyway. They are hugely refreshing and blazing a bit of a trail. Have a squizz here, they rockl.

These other guys are very cool too. They designed the Sky Larkin album cover amongst other things,and  they're called Nous Vous. I like what they're doing, it's rare and wonderful. Don't take my word for it, clickety click