Category: Business

Avatar My Morning Snap-It

I love blurry photos. For some reason they really resonate with me and even though you may have spent ages keeping your hand steady to get that perfect shot only for it to look as though my eyes have photographed it for you (my sight is really bad…) it still makes me titter like a dormouse.

Yesterday Siobhan and I drove 175 odd miles to Manchester to watch My Morning Jacket. I took a handful of snaps of the gig but this in particular is my absolute favourite:

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It made getting back at 2:40am all the better for knowing I had this photo saved in my phone and in my heart.

It’ll never be on the front of a Hallmark card, which is for the best really… you’d feel fairly unappreciated if you received a birthday card with this on the front.

Avatar Shatnerlink

In these tough financial times, we can’t expect our public services to run the way they always used to. The days of government subsidy are over. Hospitals, schools, old people, making George Osborne’s hair look like the plastic helmet hair of a Lego man: all these things cost money. There isn’t enough to go round.

That’s why, increasingly, public services are being run as public-private partnerships, where stakeholders outside the public sector are brought in to invest and improve our services. One of the latest examples of this, and the most innovative, has been the pairing of Manchester’s tram network with celebrity spaceman William Shatner.

Shatnerlink logo

Shatner has pledged to invest £2.3 billion in Manchester’s trams over the next fifteen years, renewing the vehicle fleet and upgrading passenger information services. In return, he gets a major boost to his profile, with his face adorning the new tram livery and his voice used for automated announcements. To complete the effect, his unique style of speech has also been replicated in writing.

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The dawn of the Shatnerlink era is just the latest step in the long-running association between trams and space travel, and looks set to ensure that Manchester continues to have a world-class transport network and that William Shatner remains reasonably famous.

Avatar Plopp

As a serious artist, a lot of people question my integrity when it comes to certain projects. Just because I see the world in a different light, from a different angle, does not necessarily mean that my work is any less important than others working in the same field. Art is defined by interpretation; what means “life” to someone may mean “death” or possibly “tin foil” to another. It is an open world environment where anything and everything goes. It is the bag for life, full of life, packed with death.

So when it came to my current ongoing situation I decided to try something a little more obtuse. Of course I was never going to please the mass market, the traditionalists, the modernists, those with eyes. But to them I ask them one question: “when was the last time you witnessed a piece of art that really challenged you both emotionally and subconsciously?”

I give you Plopp. When you look at Plopp you could see a myriad of images. You don’t only look at Plopp though, you feel it deep within your bones. It’s a feeling sweet as a yoghurt-covered lollipop. I’ll say no more though as the scene speaks for itself.

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Avatar Welcome to 2005!

Welcome to the scary new world of 2005, George Bush has just been re-elected over in the USA, Former Nazi Pope Benedict has been elected the new Pope, Charles and Camilla are to marry and a new video service called YouTube is launched.

Being at the forefront of all that is technological here at the ‘Beans, we now have our own YouTube Channel, replete with  (count it…) ONE VIDEO!

More will follow very soon. Here’s hoping that moving from the relative obscurity of Vimeo, we might actually get someone to watch our videos (yeah right).

PouringBeans on YouTube!