Bubbles has retired.

Bubbles has retired.
Michael moonwalks in limbo.
Cash tills keep PINGING!

Bathing apes decide
to set sail away from snow.
Pirates spring hotly.

Going postal, chimps
GOBBLE up correspondance,
peeling envelopes...

Who hung the baboon? -
Not us, say the BBC,
knotting lianas.

Gibbons, marmosets,
gorillas, chimps, orangutans ...
question baboons.

Autumn sets in hard.
The muddy piggy sneezes.
The chimp avoids snouts.

All bananas gone.
Stuffed into cheetah's fat face.
Raid the town larders.

The balloon CRASHES! -
a leaf sticks to the monkey.
A gorilla moans.

These are all examples of Illustrated Ape Daily Haiku Facebook Challenge.
Find more on Facebook. Search for 'Illustrated Ape'.

People Harry Knows

Hey all,

Just a quick note; my esteemed art-pal Harry Hasson has started a sister blog which hath sprung from the loins of his design based scribblings ... Design at Harrys.

Thoroughly worth a look, People I Know exposes many creative types that this home-boy has 'rubbed shoulders' with - I predict a featurette of Hamford in the near future!

Good to see more creative bods being passed around the internet like pokemon cards or something much cooler.

All power to the engines,

Steve

Blog 1: http://peopleharryknows.blogspot.com

Blog 2: http://www.designatharrys.com/blog/

First thoughts on the digital classroom

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who would wish to read one."

Never judge a book by its cover. Digital Classroom is suprisingly good. In the introduction alone contains some great quotes ("all technological innovation is a Faustian bargain" POSTMAN, 1994) and even throws some 'ology (but which one?..) in there - did you know that 'techno' derives from the greek for art or skill?

Finally, anything that starts a paragraph with: "Imagine a party of time travellers, among them a group of surgeons and a group of school teachers..." it can only be good, right?

water and the golden arm

"A man is like a river... forever changing and flowing, broad, clear, cold, muddy or warm - and everyone embodies all the qualities there are."
George Watson

***

I am listening to anything from The Company with the Golden Arm. It is all good.

http://www.myspace.com/thecompanywiththegoldenarm

voice

"We know that tomorrow will not be like today. That is one of the few certainties of the present period."

My own aim is simple enough. I would like a future for my children in which they can lead productive lives, in a society which is positively engaged with the challenges of its time, and in which despair is, at least, balanced by hope, difficulty by pleasure. I happen to believe that the possibilities of communication are an essential foundation for that. ... I think that the meaning-making practises of the young humans which I have observed are a good starting point for that rethinking...

Gunther Kress, Before Writing

I love kids drawings. They are great: free expressions that are rich in thought and feeling on the page. Perhaps we need to look at how "the kids of today" are making meaning; whether this is blogs, graffitti, LOLcats, I don't know. Once we deconstruct these literacies, we finally have something to work from which everyone can relate to.

Kress addresses a couple of things that were / are "challenges of the time" like globalisation, economy, the media, cultural and political developments and there is a lot of stuff that we still have to deal with ...

There is a load more great stuff here. It is a very inspirational text, written with intelligence and character. I love the last sentence.

Much love to all humans

Steve

chatrooms of the apocalypse

From the 'Gunmen of the Apocalypse' episode of Red Dwarf.

"Cyberspace has been likened to a modern-day Lord of the Flies and the Wild West of modern times." Donna Kernaghan, T.E.S.

Brilliant.

These are no doubt loaded images. As cheesy as this sounds I do argee with this statement.

There is the potential on-line to create your own society away from adults, teachers and law-guardians ... but as we all know, it is only a matter of time before there is a paradise lost-style fall from grace. Or the bandits show up. Or the food runs out. Something bad happens. Then it is up to the kids / the sheriff's brother / a mysterious stranger with a troubled past to sort it out for themselves.

That is how the adventures happen: people grow / fight / learn / get knocked down, get up again.

That is how the West is won. Right?

Forts on Teaching

I was just going to write 'WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONCIBILITY' and leave it at that.

This is true. THEN I got thinking about how learning to teach is like discovering and developing a superpower. It comes in accidental spurts, sometimes it gets messy and sometimes it is embarrassing: you always have to get over your ego and (thank God) every day is a new day.

Sometimes people get hurt

but hopefully you will save someone one day.

I'm always learning: working on my weaknesses and toning my strengths.

I'll get there; I just hope I don't have to fight too many big bosses on the way.

P.S. Just started a new prayer triplet which makes me very happy.

Freeze! Vegan Police!!

Hey all!

Have you heard of the Vegan Police?
You don't see or hear much about them.
If you break Vegan Law* they'll be onto you like SNAP.
What an interesting concept -- I love it!

Ok, I'm not a vegan but I do respect someone who thinks about what they are eating.
A bit like those celebs in the Morrisons advert.

I just like to be inclusive.

Much love,

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism
http://www.vegansociety.com/home.php

Big Girls Don't Cry

I'm watching the million dollar movie. Some cheesy John Payne western. He hauls off and smacks Rhonda Fleming across the mouth and says, 'What do you think of that?' She looks up at him defiant, proud, eyes glistening - and she says, 'Big girls don't cry.' ...

(Bob Gaudio, taken from Jersey Boys)

The Film was Tennessee's Partner (1955) starring cowboy US President Ronald Reagan would-you-believe-it. So there we have it, the creation of possibly my favourite Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons song. The chorus is dang-good, it kinda has a ska flavour to it - definitely a black influence - really feel good music. However, the real punch (literally) comes from this darker subject matter that the idea sprung from; that incidence of domestic abuse and female heroism, a comment I'm sure on the partiarchy of the real west ... and the 1950s ideology in general ... maybe ... But for me the concept of taking an idea from the TV and shaping it to craft a seperate piece of art in it's own right is a phemoninon that revelutionised my own creative thinking, and it's nice to see that they were also doing it back in the day and produce some really sweet material.

For your information, Rhonda Fleming is the ginger (see below).

What is Jersey Boys?: http://www.jerseyboyslondon.com/

What does 'Big Girls Don't Cry' sound like?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVBvy2cc0Io

Tennessee's Partner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZifDG9V00E

Blogs really can change your world

Hey all!

So I was checking out Ham's new website and there is a link to a real and true magazine article telling the story he got to work on The Mr. Men Show in mutha-flipping LA:
http://www.samdransfield.co.uk/news.html

So it seems that the cheeses in charge got hold of the blog in question (http://hamuelo.blogspot.com/2008/05/id-like-piece-of-meat_22.html), saw Ham's arch-intelligent critiques, recognised his passion for animation and asked him if he wanted to work on the project!

Think about that for a second: it shows the power that the humble blog has to project the writer into the wider world of inter-web and beyond! Immence!

I wonder where that leaves me and my blog, which is essentially half-formed blabbing with lots of colours and pictures, maybe a little bit of passion every now and then.

Think-think about it.

Much love

Nut-log #1

I'm thinking of changing my blog to 'Nut-log'. Good eh?

***

It is interesting to me that 2 of the blogs I've been following have commented on conferences.

Simon has been describing his experience of US security: http://merrettinnewyork.blogspot.com/

Whist The Space Hijackers have been commenting on the spate of police brutality in responce to the G20 confrences in America: http://www.spacehijackers.org/blog/2009/09/usa_g20_arrests.html

To put in my two pennies worth, Cat, Kit and myself witnessed masses of protesters along Brighton seafront last weekend. All the hoo-ha was to catch the attention of the suits attending the HUGE Labour Party Confrence at the Brighton Centre.

He were having a barbeque on the beach and the ravings of the megaphoned mob mixed with The Police cover band playing at the beach-bar down a small way down the road.

ANYWAY, I thought that I would address the issue of police/protester violence in a piece I like to call

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Example 1:

Example 2

The moral of the story is there whatever happens, there is always a dude with a camera.

ALSO

Derren Brown sounds like a girl,

Peas out, y'all.