If you haven’t already, you should definitely download the Yahoo! Weather app (iOS / Android). Being British, I obviously spend a lot of time talking about the weather, so I’m constantly checking for updates on my phone. I used to be happy enough with the bog standard iOS app and despite the massive amount of alternatives, I was never really fussed about changing. It’s the weather. In app form. What more do you need(?)

Photos are what you need, as it turns out. And that’s what this app gloriously provides. Well, most of the time it’s glorious, but sometimes you question their quality control techniques. All of the images are taken from a corresponding Flickr group, which features (in theory), only the better photos submitted. I can say that, because I’ve had about 20 photos accepted, all of which are of course, amazing. And that’s the actual reason that I got the app: just to see my own photos in situ. If it’s slightly cloudy in Atchafalaya, fair weather in Messina, or cloudy and near dusk in La Crosse, then it’s my photo that you’ll see on the app.

The more popular locations have more images to randomly choose from, so there are plenty of photos that I also have in the group which I haven’t seen used yet (I’ve been checking hourly). LA, Las Vegas, London, Paris etc.. I’m sure they have thousands to choose from. But if you happen to be checking the weather for the obscure mountain town of Enna in Sicily and it’s ‘mostly cloudy’, then you get to witness my mad photography skills, and that’s enough for my ego for now.

January

Bit of a slow start to the year, with nothing but a quick walk around the Dorset coast to choose from. It’s not the best way to kick of a collection of my favourite images, seeing as I don’t particularly like it much but really, this was as good as it got in January.

February

Thanks to a hectic weekend in Berlin, I ended up with some nice wintery shots (which you can see all of here), the best of which I think is this of the Siegessaule. We made it to the top (up some seriously spirally stairs) but while the view was nice, it didn’t really compare to this view from the subway below it.

March

I went across to the South East of England for the first time ever, and spent a pleasant weekend in and around Rye. It’s very flat around there. Until you get to the coast of course, where it’s sheer cliffs and a distinct lack of fences. This photo is from a stop at Beachy Head, where I spent most of the time worrying that I’d be swept off into the sea. They say it’s a suicide spot, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of those were accidental.

April

Another quiet month (it does get better later I promise), with a short trip to Lacock Abbey as the only real highlight. It’s where they apparently filmed bits of Harry Potter. There’s not much else there to be honest, but it’s a pleasant enough place to idle away a couple of hours.

May

Taking a brief dip into my instagram feed for May, with this from Hurst Castle. It’s a fort on the end of a very long spit jutting out into the Solent and if you’re planning to visit – which I do recommend – the only thing I’d say is: if you’re going to walk along the spit, try to pick a day when it’s not windy. It’s so exposed there, it’s ridiculous. Worth it though, because the castle is actually a collection of various military structures from the last 500 years all rolled up into 1 and it’s actually very interesting to explore

June

Cometh the summer, cometh the holiday (and photos). We started our Mississippi River Road Trip at the end of June, and I quickly lost count of the number of photos I took. There are hundreds in this flickr collection, but that’s really only the tip of the iceberg. I’ll get ’round to sorting them out properly at some point. Anyway, it’s always hard to pick just 1, but I thought that it had to feature the river really, so I’ve gone for this one. The Ford Parkway from Lock & Dam #1, south Minneapolis. Probably my favourite city from the whole trip, and this was one of our first activities in it, so this photo has a certain amount of sentiment attached to it.

July

The trip continued into July, and again, it’s difficult picking a single photo, especially bearing in mind the range of places we visited. This one though, of Beale Street in Memphis, has always stood out to me for some reason. It’s a fairly empty, normalish street in the day, but in the evenings, it’s a self contained playground of music, alcohol and people (so many people). Sort of similar to Bourbon Street in New Orleans (which we went to at the end of our trip) but without the obscene tackiness and nasty smells. My wife was pregnant at the time, so there was no heavy drinking involved, but it that didn’t stop us from having a great couple of nights soaking up the atmosphere.

August

I felt obliged to give my camera a rest after the previous 2 months, so again, this is a measly iPhone contribution. Durlston Castle, near Swanage is rather expensive to visit for what it is, but it does provide a nice starting point for a walk along the glorious south coast. There’s also this globe.

September

After many failed attempts to get tickets for the Olympics (other than a bit of football at Wembley), we managed to get into the Olympic Stadium to catch one of the last days of the Paralympics. If you didn’t get the chance to go, then really, try harder next time. I’m not an athletics fan by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn’t remotely about that. Just the sense of occasion and feeling part of something extraordinary made the whole day something to remember. And I will. With good memories. Unlike perhaps, this poor Spanish relay runner who dropped the baton in the final.

October

This month, we spent a long weekend in the Cotswolds (Cheltenham to be specific), an area of the country I’d driven through a few times but never spent any time in. The official tourist board for the region like to say it’s ‘more than just a view‘ and while that’s true-ish, the views are pretty much the best thing about the Cotswolds.

November

Another month packed with National Trust visits, the highlight of which was Barrington Court – the very first National Trust house. It’s devoid of furnishings but is still a very impressive house. I’d live there. Or at least, I would if it didn’t have the creepiest gallery ever running along the entire top floor. They ought to run ‘fright night’ style trips there; it’s perfect for it.

December

Last, but most certainly not least.. My baby daughter arrived on the 22nd of December, and I’d be failing in my duties as a parent if I didn’t choose this photo. Taken a few hours after she was born, when she was still tiny and quiet and I had no idea of what the following months would bring (lots of joy and fun, obviously).

I’ve already noticed a distinct lack of camera action since she was born. Or rather, I haven’t taken photos of anything except her. So I may have to change this annual post to ‘my favourite baby photos of 2013‘ but we’ll see. There’s plenty of time left for me to get used to carrying a baby and a camera at the same time!

Rather than waffle about it here, I’ve made a special page for it where not only do I waffle, but I include plenty of photos that were taken on the journey. There’s also a video that I made, comprised of short clips filmed on my phone throughout the whole trip. It’s a lot of road, but that ought to be expected a little from a trip like that. Anyway, go and look at the site – if you’re on a nice browser, you should see some animated stuff with the background map. If not, your loss yo! Or of course, watch the video below here, or look at the photos on flickr in my ‘mississippi river road trip‘ collection.

Mississippi River Road Trip from matt northam on Vimeo.

Visit my Great River Road trip microsite at http://www.mattnortham.com/mississippi/

Since then, I’ve been to the midwestern states of America during a heatwave (I like to travel during extreme weather conditions apparently), and it was during the sorting of those photos (from the US trip) that it dawned on me that I’d hardly looked at the Berlin photos since I took them. So I did. And I thought I’d share some here.

We stayed near Potsdamer Platz, which, like a lot of the city, has a bit of history to it. I’ll always associate it with nearly slipping over personally, but that aside, it was a good location to explore Berlin from.

Nearby is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (or the Holocaust Memorial).

I’ve been to a lot of German cities before, but it’s only been in Berlin that I’ve really felt the residue left from the World War II. It’s unescapable & odd and yet, appropriate. I think I’d find it strange and a little overbearing to live somewhere (as a German) that is so associated with such an awful period of time but then I suppose there are a fair few English cities that have a few blemishes on their record too.

That said, it also definitely feels like a contemporary modern city too, and it’s a great place to wander.

One quick tip: try not to get caught up in a protest surrounded by riot police. I had no idea what was going on as this mob of people charged down the street toward us, but it turned out that they were protesting against ACTA so y’know, more power to them.

If you’ve never been, I’d wholeheartedly recommend it. Go for tea and cake in the Reichstag. Visit the Bauhaus museum. Have a schnitzel. Maybe even go during Berlin film festival like we did, but book tickets in advance like we didn’t. Or you might end up seeing some sort of 1960′s counterculture piece of tripe. Like we did. Oh, and maybe go when it’s warmer. The snow was fun, and it made the place look nice and pretty but losing feeling in your fingers is never a good thing.

Lots more photos over on Flickr in my photos of Berlin set.

So, in a bid to keep the online representations of me more up-to-date and relevant to what I’m doing, I’ve decided to make more effort when it comes to sharing the fruits of my labour. Starting with this.

Pantone Pickr (I dropped the ‘e’ because it’s quirky) is an online tool for selecting the Pantone value (and RGB & HEX values) from an image on your computer. It started life as a bit of experiment in Flash a couple of years ago as the basis for a potential project that never got off the ground (or at least, not with me). These files languished on my hard drive for far too long, until last week when I got a bit bored in the evening and stumbled on my ‘pantone picker thing’ directory while tidying up some old files. I nearly just deleted it, but thought it’d be a waste to get rid of completely. Despite the fact that it was very much just a hastily put-together proof of concept, I’d put a bit of time into getting it working and there were elements that were worth keeping (the database of Pantone colours being one).

The Flash needed to go though. Much as I’m a fan of Flash, I can accept that people are wowed by things that have HTML5 branded all over them, whether it’s right or wrong. Never one to ignore a bandwagon, I thought I’d give it a go at converting my Actionscript into a html / jQuery version. A quick google gave me some starting points – namely, these two pages:

• ‘HTML5 File Uploads with jQuery‘ by Martin Angelov on Tutorialzine
• ‘HTML5 Canvas Image Color Picker‘ on Script Tutorials

Those two tutorials formed the basis of my efforts, and are worth looking at if you want to achieve anything similar. Getting them to play together, and integrating my patented Pantone Pickr processing power wasn’t too difficult, and after a few hours, I had a working version. (The wealth of information on the internet never ceases to amaze me.. making this would have taken me AGES in the olden days). All it needed was some tidying up (cue second night), a little bit of testing, a catchy name and voila! Pantone Pickr was born.

You should go and play with it and then tell your friends. There’s still plenty to do with it, but all things considered, I’m quite happy with it at the moment. I’m more than happy to accept tips / comments below if anyone has any thoughts on it. It’s know it’s far from perfect, but it’s not gone through any testing outside of my laptop whatsoever, so i’m blissfully ignorant about how it works for other people. Not that I’m too fussed to be honest. It’s not getting released anywhere other than here, and it’s an experiment first and foremost. If you want to give me some ££ to develop it, then feel free, and I’ll make it more robust. ‘Til then though, if you need to grab the Pantone value of an image on your computer and can’t be bothered to open up Photoshop, you know where to go!

January

Embarrassingly, I have to start this selection with a photo that I actually took at the end of December 2010, because I didn’t take any photos in January that are very good. Not that this is great, but it’s better than the Jan options. I’d like to say this was taken whilst trekking around Tibet, but it was actually at Marwell Zoo during one of our bi-yearly visits (it’s a great zoo, highly recommended btw ). I don’t know what this Snow Leopard was growling at, but even from behind the fence 20 foot away, it was terrifying.

February

Another quiet month for photos means that I’m forced to go with something that I’m not a massive fan of, but meh. Casual stroll on a brisk winter’s day, around Avon Heath where there were a fair few flooded paths. My feet got wet.

March

I went to the Carnival in Venice and somehow, amidst the madness, managed to get a fair few photos that I could’ve happily chosen for here. I’ve gone for this one of a cloaked couple disappearing down one of Venice’s many (many, many) alleyways.. It was a quick shot as we stumbled around ourselves, and despite not having the time to prepare for it properly, I’m quite pleased with how it came out.

April

At this point, I was still managing to keep up with my 365 project, and this photo comes from that. I eventually got bored of the shit quality from my iPhone, and also just forgetting to do it, so stopped.. But I do like this photo from Sandbanks ferry. I wouldn’t pay millions to live there, and I still don’t understand why people do, but it is nice for a day out.

May

Seem to have spent a lot of time at home in May.. Or at least, didn’t take my camera anywhere else, because the only photos I have in Lightroom are of cats and chickens. This is one of our cats, ‘Wack’. He’s a cat of simple pleasures. Here, he’s transfixed by a piece of paper being dragged across a bed. Oh to be a cat. Life would be so much easier.

June

June and July were always going to be difficult to narrow down, as they’re the standard holiday months, and I definitely took more than my fair share of photos. None that I like as much as this though. We stayed at Crater Lake for a night – just a couple of weeks after the road to the lodge had re-opened after the ridiculous amount of snowfall they have every winter. So, the snow was very much still around, and it made for a glorious setting as we enjoyed being cut off from pretty much everything. Watching the sun set over the deepest lake in the United States, surrounded by snow, with a cocktail, is one of my favourite memories of the trip and though this photo doesn’t really do it justice, it’s the best I could do.

July

We ended our trip in L.A. and got lucky enough to spend the first week of July in one of those houses in the Hollywood Hills that you see in films. The first thing I noticed when I walked into the place was the view.. and to be honest, from that point, it was the only thing I noticed. Waking up to that every day is definitely something I could get used to and as much as I like my house back here in Bournemouth, I have no problems admitting that the view from my bed doesn’t quite compare.

August

Went along to a wedding to take some additional photos for Saeed Rashid and decided that taking pictures of people really isn’t for me. Or rather, weddings or studio shots or anything like that isn’t for me. There’s an art to it that I can’t be fussed with learning, and it’s not that interesting to me. But it was a decent experience and if nothing else, reminded me how much I like being able to take photos for myself, without worrying about pleasing other people because I’m getting paid for it.

September

Seemed to end up in London a few times during September, the most memorable of which was for the ‘Future Cinema’ showing of The Lost Boys at Canary Wharf. Complete with a recreation of the Californian beach town of Santa Carla (i.e. Santa Cruz) and 80′s vampires running amok, the event was one of my highlights of the year. I went dressed as a Frog Brother by the way.. Death to all vampires! Scariest bit of the night though wasn’t the fully decked out vampires lair, or eating worm noodles.. It was this big wheel. I’m so bad with heights that it’s a wonder I managed to take this photo, but I’m pleased with how it came out despite having my eyes tightly closed.

October

For the second year in a row, the house at Kingston Lacy appears on my list. I don’t know what it is, but I find it immensely photogenic. This year it even inspired us to get National Trust membership, so expect a few more photos in this vein over the next year.

November

After several years of talking about it, we finally decided to just go for it and venture into deepest darkest Devon for the annual Tar Barrel mentalness at Ottery St Mary. I can’t dwell on the details because it’ll trigger the PTSD but I managed to get some photos despite nearly dying – none of which come close to capturing the fear, but they do show the flames.

December

Ended the year with a weekend jaunt to Brighton for my birthday. Really, if I had to live anywhere else on the south coast, it’d be Brighton in a heartbeat. Even though the beach is a bit rubbish, the town is really great. Visiting in the winter is a bit odd because it obviously thrives on the summer trade, but if anything, I prefer it in the winter, away from the throngs of people that pack the lanes.

And that’s that. Plenty more where they came from over on my flickr page.. See if you prefer any of my other photos from those months. Especially in June/July, there’s plenty of contenders if I do say so myself..

Wikipedia’s brief ‘history‘ of the carnival says;

Carnival started as a time for celebration and expression throughout the classes, as wearing masks hid any form of identity between social classes. During the 1970s, the Italian government decided to bring back the history and culture of Venice, and sought to use the traditional Carnival as the centerpiece of their efforts. Today, approximately 30,000 visitors come to Venice each day for Carnivals.

That’s a fairly decent, if not really short, description of the event but there’s no mention there of pizza, street raves, cheap alcohol, Dr Zoidberg or the incredible powers of paracetamol. Those’ll be the things I remember.

Fans of my life might recall that I went to Venice last summer and had quite a bit of fun. So much in fact, that about a month or so after coming back, we’d sorted out this trip back to Venice for the carnival, dragging along a few friends to spread the mirth (and the cost of the water taxi from the airport).

Being there in June/July, all I really remember vividly was the searing heat and the feeling of actual melting every time I ventured out of the tiny backstreets overshadowed by the imposing (and impressive) crumbling buildings. Being in St Marks Square, surrounded by throngs of tourists, all sweating everywhere and not really knowing where to look or what to photograph next was a little bit hideous. I mean, I enjoyed the trip and the city, but fuck me, it was hot. Knowing that the carnival would attract its fair share of tourists too, I was slightly apprehensive about venturing into a similar situation but thankfully had no such issues.

Venice in July is easily a full 40°C hotter than England. Venice in March is about 1°C warmer. Despite the glorious sunshine (it really was glorious), I was layered up with jumpers and coats and still a little nippy occasionally. Gloves wouldn’t have gone amiss on the Friday night; it was that cold. Well, I say ‘cold’ but during the days, it was ideal for walking around and soaking up the atmosphere. Not too hot, not too cold, just crisp and sunny and lush.

I’ve never seen so many masks in my life. All the shops sell them throughout the year – I bough a couple back in the summer – but I didn’t seen anyone wearing them last time. Carnival though = masks aplenty. To the point where you stood out if you weren’t masked up. Sufferers of maskaphobia be warned, Venice is not for you. Obviously I joined in, with a neat little all black number that complemented my outfit nicely. Bang on trend.

But anyway, we arrived on Friday afternoon and left on Sunday afternoon. 2 full days and nights of exploring Venice and the delights of carnival. Details wont be shared, partly because they’re trivial, partly because they’re embarrassing, but mostly because the whole weekend went by in a blur and I don’t remember too much. Few tidbits though: I was rather ill on Sunday; drinking ‘found’ drinks is not clever; the markets on the west side of the Rialto bridge are a perfect party venue; and the Molino Stucky Hilton hotel normally has a great cocktail bar with awesome views, but during carnival, has wanky rude staff and is closed to the general public. Twats.

All in all, I’d recommend it to anyone. It’s not too expensive. We got flights and an apartment (+ a couple of hotel rooms) fairly cheaply by booking early last Autumn and the food and drink definitely isn’t as expensive as everyone says. In fact, it wasn’t even as expensive as I remembered it from last year. You can get a decent meal and drinks for the same sort of price as in England which was fine with me.

I’ve got plenty of photos that are making their way onto my Flickr page but for now, here are a few to tide you over.

According to my Flickr comments, this is Massimo Eleonori and his friends. The effort that some people put into their costumes was amazing. Next time, I’ll be taking more than a mask and a suit.

You had to wait til around midnight for the traffic of people across the Rialto bridge got quiet enough to make the crossing bearable. The Grand Canal is so peaceful once all the boats have stopped.

The DJ on Friday night. I couldn’t work out if he was supposed to be Pan or just a generic horned beast type of thing.

It’s a photographers heaven, though I wonder how many thousands of people ended up with the exact same photo. Not that I was any different mind. It’s impossible to resist taking photos of people in such extreme costumes. They deserve a little bit of attention.

About a year ago, I stumbled on a track called ‘Seven‘ by Tyler the Creator. I can’t remember how I found it, because it isn’t really like anything else I normally listen to (not that it matters), but I vaguely liked it and that was that. Fast-forward to the weekend just gone and Tyler is spazzing out on prime time television (not spaz meaning spaz but spaz meaning good), jumping on Jimmy Fallon and rocking over The Roots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_TAeKv5HIE

Not that it came as too much of a surprise. Though I didn’t really get too into Tyler when I first heard him, during the summer last year, I heard a couple of other tracks from within the collective that get me a bit more interested. The standout by far being ‘Earl’ by Earl Sweatshirt.

[audio:http://www.mattnortham.com/blog/wp-content/images/2011/02/02-Earl.mp3|titles=Earl]

It’s a dark track, with an even darker video, but the raw quality of it is undeniable. Earl is currently out of action due to parental interference so there’s not much music available from him outside of his eponymous debut album (which is dope) but he’s, in my opinion, the one to look out for from the group. Partly due to the absence of Earl, mixed with the fact that Tyler pretty much produces 90% of OFWGKTA’s output and also has a slew of quality solo material to his name (not to mention an abundance of swag. Yeah. Swag.); Tyler the Creator has become the most vocal member of – Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. He’s like the RZA to Odd Future’s Wu-Tang. Actually, if you’re into allusions to popular vaguely similar hip-hop collectives, the comparisons with Wu-Tang don’t stop there and are mentioned frequently whenever Odd Future are brought up. But I wont bother with them because it’s actually annoying. All that matters is OFWGKTA make good music and they’re steadily blowing up.

They got a Guardian article at the end of last year after their first London gig, that describes them as:

… a dozen or so teenagers, calling themselves things such as Tyler the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Domo Genius and Hodgy Beats. Hailing from the Crenshaw district of LA, they’re suburban rather than ghetto kids, but no hint of a comfortable upbringing has made it into the music, which is dark as hell and has little to do with any prevalent hip-hop trends.

I’ll happily steal that description.

When I mentioned Earl’s parents up there, I wasn’t joking. These kids are actually kids. Just in their late teens / early twenties depending on who you’re asking, they’ve managed to create a movement of sorts that has seen them go from homemade videos of them just fucking around in L.A. to national television coverage in a ridiculously short space of time. I don’t deny that they’re putting in the work, but I’m sure even they would admit that the buzz is bizarre. They’re far from being international platinum selling Jay-Z’s / Drake’s / Wu-Tang but of course, Wu-Tang weren’t Wu-Tang overnight. It’s been really dope to witness (not first hand obviously – they’ve not hit Bournemouth yet) their rise over the past year and it’s exciting to hear the music and see the moves they’re making. Don’t get it twisted, I’m not a fan of everything they’ve released, and some of the content definitely isn’t catering for the ‘white, pushing 30 and married’ market that I fit into but as a fan of rap, I more than appreciate what they’re doing. Also, from a more aloof, non-fan like vantage point, what’s really interesting is how they’re getting their music out.

They’re a self contained unit not only in terms of music production and rapping, but also with their artwork, videos and general online presence. Who needs a marketing department when you’ve got tumblr, youtube and twitter(?) As far as I can make out, they’ve not actually charged any money for any of the dozen or so albums that can be attributed to the collective, opting instead to release them for free via zshare/megaupload/etc on their website. I might’ve just exposed myself as the pirate that I am but I’m pretty sure that every download I’ve got from them has been sanctioned and is legit. I’m curious to see what’s going to happen now that they’re trending on twitter and charging for stuff on iTunes – but I’m sure they’ll do alright. Tyler just signed a 1 album deal with XL Recordings and I doubt that’ll be the end of their record label adventures. Go and jump on the bandwagon before it’s too late. Get the music while it’s free and interesting and dope. And if you heard it here first, thank me this time next year when Hodgy Beats bumrushes the Grammys and gets his ODB on.

Golf wang.

I don’t know when it started but for as long as I can remember, I’ve slightly obsessed over the lyrics of songs by artists I rate. You know what it’s like. You go to gigs and and look down your nose at the people that don’t know the lyrics. Singing along at the top of your voice is a badge of honour to show you’re a ‘real fan’ and thus, more of a fan than the person that just mutters along to the chorus. It’s weird. Why can’t you just enjoy listening to it(?) The people on stage are undoubtedly doing it better than you are. Also, when they occasionally switch up the delivery of a line, you end up sounding stupid.

When I was younger, I actually used to spend a decent amount of time transcribing lyrics to various songs for the Original Hip Hop Lyrics Archive (OHHLA). Back when I first discovered OHHLA, there weren’t really any alternatives online for finding complete lyrics to songs. It was amazing. Before then, I used to write them out in notepads. With a pen. On paper. Imagine that. I’ve still got entire A4 binders worth of sloppily written down Wu-Tang lyrics.

This was also before mp3′s really kicked off, so if you were going to transcribe the lyrics to a song, you pretty much actually had to own the song. I was really into Chino XL around then, and NONE of his tracks were anywhere on mp3. Or even in Real Media. Nor did they stock his music in the little old HMV in Plymouth. I spent literally tonnes acquiring his back catalogue via eBay and off of people from various forums. I seem to remember paying upwards of £40 for the promo 12″ of ‘Purple Hands In The Air’ (it was purple vinyl!) because I’d never heard it / even seen it anywhere else before then; but I’m trying to block out that memory because, it really really wasn’t worth that much money looking back at it. Ah well. It was dope at the time. The b-side, ‘Dark Night of The Blood Spiller‘ killed it.

Anyway, the point is, I had these copies of things that most people didn’t have, so I felt it was my duty to contribute to the world wide hip-hop community by writing down the lyrics to those tracks and sending them to OHHLA. A lot of the lyrics I submitted are still up there. In fact, nothing much has changed about OHHLA at all in the years that have gone by. But that’s another story.

At the time, I thought that my contributions were valuable. There were occasionally bits that were unintelligible on some songs (especially those early Chino records.. he went in for that double time Fu-Schnickens esque style), but generally, I thought I did a good job. It wasn’t until years later that I looked back at them and realised that my versions were sometimes really off. (Just like most of OHHLA actually). A lot of those hip hop lyrics rely on a good grasp of pop culture and/or a specific region or scene. A grasp that 15 year old from Plymouth such as myself just couldn’t have. Age has given me wisdom, a wider knowledge of the world, and a sense of embarrassment of my younger self. Little things like mistaking ‘going out like the USFL‘ for ‘going out like DUSFL‘. I had no idea what either of those were, but now I get the reference to the short lived American Football league. There’s plenty of other, more shameful examples that I wont share.

I’ve sort of lost track here , but to summarise:

• I used to get annoyed when people got the lyrics wrong to songs
• I thought I was really badass at getting the lyrics right
• It gave me an enormous sense of wellbeing
• Then I realised I was fallible. I was crushed
• So then I gave up caring if people get the lyrics wrong. It’s irrelevant really

This little trip down memory lane came about because yesterday I got picked up on a getting a lyric wrong, by the original artist that wrote the song. So ashamed.

Since the proliferation of various other lyric sites online, there have been more and more people contributing incorrect lyrics to them. No more so than with hip-hop lyrics. Or at least, that’s where I notice it the most, because that’s what I listen to. I don’t really look at lyric sites anymore, mostly because I don’t often need to / care that much about learning the lyrics, but also because they’re just awful most of the time. But when I do see them and I spot a mistake, the mistake sticks in my head as source of mirth and I sometimes purposely sing the wrong lyric because they’re frequently so stupid that it’s funny. Such is the case with ‘Deep Space 9mm’ by El-P. Great track. Though I don’t know it all word for word, I do know that in the hook at the end, there’s a line that says “my generation just sit like ducks”. Because y’know, it refers to the idea of a ‘sitting duck’, get it(?) However, most lyric sites claim that it says “my generation just sit like dust”. Alluding to that concept of a sitting dust. Obviously. Because that makes sense.

While it’s clearly wrong, it’s always stuck with me. So when I tweeted about the video to ‘Deep Space 9mm’ yesterday, I casually threw in the ‘sit like dust’ line and thought nothing of it. People that know me and know the song would get it and it might cause a small smile. I didn’t expect to get the reply that I did.

That’s the actual real El-P picking me up on misquoting his lyrics. The shame! I even knew the correct lyric!

From here on out, I’m resuming my lyric snobbery and shouting at people who get them wrong. It’s much safer that way.

(Final confession: for far too long than is forgiveable, I genuinely thought the chorus to ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?‘ went “people, ooo-oo!” (as opposed to “feed the wooorld”). Really. I still sing my version.)

Loving this new Google maps (sort of) project that lets you go into museums around the world and explore. Not only that, but at ridiculous levels of detail. Really great stuff.

With Google Art Project, users can wander around 17 of the world’s top galleries and museums and view 1,061 artworks. There are also 17 special gigapixel images – one for each participating institution’s most treasured piece, allowing viewers to zoom right in to brush-stroke levels of detail.
Over the past 18 months, a Google team has been zipping around the likes of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Palace of Versailles using trolley mounted cameras to photograph corridors and galleries. Users can explore each gallery from room to room or create their own collections of masterpieces.

(via)

I’ve been a big fan of Google maps / street view for ages and it was only a matter of time before they started going into buildings too. I for one would welcome them into my house; though I’d definitely need to hoover first.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GThNZH5Q1yY

Written by Liz Jones (‘femail’ journo, diarist, celebrity commentator and international fuckwit), it’s basically a ‘the last steps of Jo Yeates’ piece. I say ‘written by’, but I mean ‘spewed out like the concepts of good writing, relevance and compassion are as alien as the idea of taking a flattering photo for the masthead of your column’.

It’s Friday night and Liz is in the Ram bar where Jo “spent her last evening before she set off up the hill, past all the twinkly shops and bars (a Habitat, a Space NK beauty emporium; Bristol is nothing if not upwardly mobile) towards her death.” Hmm. OK, I’ll ignore the throwaway namedropping and the pretty twinkly shops. Also, the subtle and tactful ‘toward her death’ punctuation. She’s only getting warmed up right(?) I’m eager to find out what amazing insight that being in the same bar could possibly bring to the story(?) Will the shared location bring about some intense feeling of empathy(?)..

I wish she had spent what were probably her last hours on earth somewhere lovelier. The food is awful (I ask for a veggie burger and it comes without the burger – and without the bun!) but the young women behind the bar are sweet with huge, wary eyes.

Oh. There was no burger or bun. Fuck me. I say ‘fuck me’, but I mean ‘fuck her and her retarded idea of a story with a big sharp stick’.

The whole article is full of shit like that. It’s really quite superbly awful. I’d say that it’s Brass Eye-esque but you really couldn’t fake it. Somewhat reassuringly, the comments on the story are mostly highlighting the fact that’s a shocking piece of writing, and there’s no shortage of criticism from other outlets. But Liz Jones perseveres. The Daily Mail lives on. Oblivious.

Also in the news:

Statistics show that school uniform does not make pupils learn more

I’m sort of surprised by that actually, but I get that wearing a blazer and tie wouldn’t necessarily mean you get clever. It didn’t for me. My college uniform of hoodies and jeans > my school uniform of hideous green blazer and stripy tie. That said though, I think there’s something to be said for a ‘smart’ uniform. There’s a school I drive past on the way to work that used to have embroidered polo shirts as their educational attire, but switched to blazers and whatnot last summer. I now no longer harbour a desire to run their students over every day. Or at least, it’s lessening. They look less chavvy and feral, and genuinely seem to behave a bit better. I don’t think I’ve had an incident of sauntering in front of the car since the change (and that used to happen a lot because they’re cocky little twats).

Ricky Gervais was funny at the Golden Globes

He told some jokes, in the style of Ricky Gervais. What did they expect? It could’ve been worse(/better) apparently. I mean, I would have probably felt awkward if I’d been Tom Hanks, coming on with Tim Allen after the introduction he got, but it was funny. Tim the Toolman has no sense of humour. As demonstrated by The Santa Clause 1, 2 and 3.

Cutting sharks fins off for soup is fucking vile

Gordon Ramsay presented this documentary on Sunday night called ‘Shark Bait’ (watch in on 4oD here) that looked at the business around making shark fin soup. I’ve always thought it sounded disgusting as an idea but some of the footage that was shown of sharks being hacked up was utterly horrendous. Some of them get thrown back into the sea, alive, after having had their fins cut off. I’ve seen some horrible things online before but seeing that was really upsetting. All for a fucking soup. http://www.stopsharkfinning.net/

‘move_lachine‘ (aka Thomas Birke) doesn’t actually have that many photos on his flickr page, and doesn’t seem to update all that regularly but some of the stuff there is gold. Specifically, a batch of long exposure light trail type of things are what’s currently floating my boat. Behold!

Makes me want to go out to a bustling metropolis and take photos. Shame I live in Dorset really.

There’s also some more ‘ordinary’ shots in there, as well as ones from Tokyo and Paris. He gets around a bit. I’m a fan.

It looks like the 90′s all over again, with a few extras because of the Reading Festival that would never normally crop up.

1. Atmosphere (467)
2. Sage Francis (362)
3. Cypress Hill (225)
4. Wu-Tang Clan (209)
5. Eminem (207)
6. NOFX (204)
7. Ras Kass (202)
8. Nas (191)
9. Raekwon (186)
10. Ice Cube (158)
11. Gang Starr (146)
12. Ghostface Killah (116)
13. Eyedea & Abilities (101)
14. Jay-Z (98)
15. El-P (97)
16. KRS-One (93)
17. GZA/Genius (91)
18. The Roots (90)
19. Guns N’ Roses (88)
20. 2Pac (85)
21. Queens of the Stone Age (84)
22. Biffy Clyro (84)
23. Killah Priest (82)
24. Weezer (79)
25. blink-182 (79)
26. Method Man (76)

January

During the ‘big freeze part1′ at the start of the year, the sunny holiday resort of Bournemouth got a fair bit of snow. I went to the beach. It’s what you do in Bournemouth. I wasn’t letting some snow stop me.

February

Looking at Flickr, I hadn’t actually uploaded any photos that I’d taken in February, so I had to take a look back in Lightroom for some stuff. This cup game (quarter final no less) was pretty much the only thing I’d taken photos of that month. We lost, 3-0.

March

On the National Trust ‘free’ weekend, we went for a champagne picnic at Kingston Lacy. Lavish.

April

I found this game of Operation under a pile of books at a guesthouse up North somewhere.. It’s much harder than I remembered, but massively addictive. Who needs Xbox(?)

May

Keeping chickens seems to be full of moments like this. I’ve gotten fairly proficient at nursing hens when they’re ill.. This was Big Skye, who as it turned out, had a nasty tumor and sadly died a month later. But I’m sure she appreciated being warm and spoilt for those last few weeks .

June

I got this as we were boarding a waterbus from Giudecca to San Marco in Venice and I like the idea of the pigeon just soaking up the last rays of the sun, oblivious to the throngs of tourists in the city around it.

July

I spent the first few weeks of July around Italy so it was hard for me to narrow down a selection to just one. So I’ve gone with 2. (There’s plenty of other ones I could’ve chosen though).

Firstly, we have a stereotypical Venice photo. I like it though because I managed to get it whilst crammed onto a fast moving boat with at least 600 other people. I could barely move to get my camera out, let alone frame the photo, so it turned out quite well I think.

Second, this photo from the top of Monte Baldo overlooking Lake Garda. One of my favourite days from the whole trip was spent soaking up these gorgeous views and eating sandwiches.

August

Another hen photo, this time of Nigella and Sindy. These two had a pretty stressful year and by December had both gone to the big chicken coop in the sky. This was actually taken while we were trying to keep them separate due to various health reasons, but we thought it was good to give them some supervised ‘together’ time as much as possible. They are social animals after all!

September

I spent a week up North in September, around the North-East and then in the Lake District. It rained. A lot. I got this photo after walking for what seemed like miles and miles across some fields through massive gales and freezing temperatures to get to the side of this training circuit. We’d missed most of the horses as it turned out, but just before we left, these last 2 came steaming toward us. I’m not a fan of horse racing at all, but there’s no denying how impressive and powerful these animals are. Getting so close to them galloping past was actually quite terrifying.

October

Halloween brought an excuse to make lots of spooky themed food, like pumpkin pasties, mummified sausage rolls, skewered lychee eyeballs and scabby fruity skin flakes. We feasted like kings! Childish, goblin-like kings, but kings nonetheless.

November

I literally didn’t pick up my camera at all in November. So instead, here’s a photo from early December. It’s cheating, but it’s better than nothing. It took me ages to even see this poison-arrow tree frog (at the Blue Reef Aquarium, Portsmouth. Not in the wild. Obv.) because of it’s size, and then even longer to get any photo that was actually in focus through the glass and the darkness. It turned out alright. I think tree frogs are awesome.

December

Finally, I ended the year as it started, with bitterly cold temperatures and snow. In fact, it’s been much colder here than I ever remember. I was hesitant to take my camera out at all, but made a makeshift protective sheath out of sandwich bags and ventured out into the blizzard to get some blurry shots.

And there you have it. 2010 in photo form. There are literally hundreds more on my Flickr page so feel free to go look and pick your own favourites. I’m sure you’ll have plenty

Not really. I just wanted to say I was so I could fit in.

It’s odd. I seem to know a fair few people who have recently added / are currently adding / about to add ‘author’ to their CV. I don’t know if that’s because I’m moving in circles of clever people at the moment, or whether it’s just piss-easy to write a book these days but I do know that no-ones asked me to write a book. And that’s a good thing.

It’s not that I couldn’t write a book. I’d be great at it. Obviously. It’s more that I don’t think I’d actually want to. Clearly, I wont know if that’s really true until someone asks me, but for now, the thought of spending months slaving over drafts and edits and page after page after page of text really doesn’t appeal to me. My esteemed colleague at BU – Will Goldstone – recently wrote Unity Game Development Essentials and even witnessing from afar the process he went through was tiring. (That sentence doesn’t flow very well does it? Maybe it’s just as well I’m not venturing into authoring). I’m sure he probably looks back at those months with glee-tinged glasses (that may or may not be true), and I definitely think that it’s a cool thing to have under your belt, but I wouldn’t want to do it.

Actually, I should clarify; I wouldn’t want to write a technical ‘how-to’ tutorial type of book. It’s true that the bulk of my working life is geared toward teaching students how to make stuff, and I enjoy doing it (most of the time ). But I don’t like writing about it. I don’t know why it is, but I find it fairly tedious writing guides to things. Talking / showing = fine. Writing = dull. It’s an acknowledged failing of mine as a ‘teacher’ and one that I should probably overcome but it just doesn’t appeal to me. Don’t get it twisted, I do write notes / guides now and then.. In fact, I do enough of them to allow me to say with confidence that it’d take a lot of effort to bring myself to do it a for a whole book.

What I would like to do is write a novel, or a book about hip-hop, or an auto-biography, or a collection of random articles about stuff. You know, something worthwhile that’d stand the test of time and not be completely outdated within a year of publishing (zing). I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but I started trying to write a ‘novel’ when I was a teenager. It was awful. I think I got about 4 pages in before admitting to myself that it was shit. These days, I like to think I’d be able to take a better stab at it. I mean, there are apparently over 200,000 books published every year in the UK. That’s nearly 550 every day! If they’re allowed to do it, why can’t I(?) It doesn’t matter if no-one ever reads it – I’d just like to be on Amazon. Even Chris fucking Moyles has books out! That right there, is hope for any of us.

So basically, what we’ve learned is that I’m actually massively jealous of people who have books out, but I’m hiding it under a veil of distaste for the printed medium. It’s a charade. Kudos to people who write books. Penguin – feel free to offer me a publishing deal. Just know that the only Flash I’d ever want to write about is a Grandmaster with a Furious Five. That’ll be all.

For what it’s worth, I thought they were alright. Their ‘Kurt’ – Jonny O’Connor, an Irish guy who used to be the lead singer for the Nirvana tribute band ‘Breed’ but then joined the bassist and drummer from ‘Australian Nirvana’ to form ‘Nervana’ then the guitarist from ‘Breed’ joined forces with the singer from ‘Teen Spirit’ to form ‘Nearvana’ and the drummer started a side project tribute called ‘Moo Fighters’ or something – does an uncanny job at aping the style of the actual Kurt. And his voice sounds bang on in my opinion, though as I said, I’m not necessarily the best judge of that.

The crowd (all 50 of them) seemed to like it. I counted at least 6 people jumping around and 2 separate, unique incidents of what I think is called ‘head banging’. Seriously, it got all mosh girl up in there for a minute or so.

Most people watching did seem a bit stunned at the end after the band went on a mini (read: mini) rampage, throwing mics and guitars across the stage in their best impersonation of.. err.. Nirvana(?) in the 90′s. I read somewhere once that Kurt Cobain used to do it on a nightly basis and then spend the next day fixing his guitar ready for the following show, where he’d do it again. Rinse, repeat. I wonder if fake Kurt is as adept at on-the-road guitar repairs.

The whole thing got me wondering about what the point of tribute bands is. The kind folk over at urban dictionary have ‘tribute band‘ classed as;

A sad waste of space ‘musical’ combo who so despirately want to be like their musical heros they try to impersonate them and ended up being paid far more than their worth for doing it.

It sounds harsh but I’m inclined to agree. I think that was actually the first time I’d seen a tribute act. I don’t really get it. I mean, I understand that people like the music of certain bands and if they can’t see that particular band (if for instance, the lead singer shot himself in the face), the only way of getting that ‘live’ experience is to see a group of other people play the songs. But is the ‘live’ experience even up to scratch? Last night, the crowd seemed like they liked the music, but they were definitely pretty subdued. In fact, I think it was the most casual gig I’ve ever been to. Most people looked like there were there for the music, not the band (obviously), and that was reflected in the lack of audience participation. I reckon there would’ve been a better reaction if it’d just been a club night that played Nirvana songs for 2 hours. I dunno. Maybe ‘Nervana’ do shows where people go mental like it was the real Nirvana, but there was little of that on display last night. They played the songs really well, they sounded like the real thing, they sort of looked like the real thing, but they lacked any of the spark of the real thing.

I wonder if I’d feel differently if it was a band / genre that I liked more. (My wife definitely enjoyed last night more than I did, but even she was quieter than when we’ve gone to watch actual real life bands that she likes.) I’d be curious to find out. The venue (Mr Kyps, Poole) seems to specialise somewhat in tribute bands, with the next couple of months seeing visits from ‘The Bowie Experience’, ‘Fleetwood Bac’, ‘Oasis + Stone Roses Tribute’, ‘P!nk goes Gaga’, ‘The Fillers’, ‘Purple Rain (Prince Tribute)’, ‘Beegees Fever’, ‘An Evening With Suspiciously Elvis’, ‘Apart From Rod’, ‘Kings Ov Leon’, ‘Legend – Bob Marley Tribute’, ‘Definitely Mightbe’ and ‘The Rat Pack’. That’s just up to the end of December. Seriously.

Unfortunately however, there’s a distinct lack of any hip-hop tribute acts there. You might say ‘that’s because no-one wants to listen to hip-hop!’. Yes. That’s why. No-one listens to hip-hop. In fact, I’ll have you know that despite Mr Kyps’ impressive forays into race relations and diversity, there are hip-hop tribute acts out there. Sort of. A cursory glance at that google came up with ‘Too White Crew‘ and ‘The Black Eyed Teas‘. The former are like a touring version of Mr Schuester from Glee, with questionable ‘hip-hop classics’ by Tone Loc and Snow. Their set list seems to have been taken from this article on ‘Glee’s Ten Most Cringe-Worthy Rap Moments‘. No lie. But at least they have the occasional Cypress Hill, Eric B & Rakim or Public Enemy moments so they might be quite good. ‘Black Eyed Teas’ though… Deary me. Why anyone would think that the Black Eyed Peas needed to receive tribute, I have no idea, but at least they look and sound exactly like the real thing. Oh wait.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUGUTqANOIM

Words fail me.

The lack of hip-hop tribute acts must go back to the unwritten rule that you don’t bite. Even using a line that someone else has said is sort of frowned upon (if you do it too much. The occasional nod is perfectly acceptable), let alone stealing entire catalogues and making money off of ‘touring’ somebody elses work. It’s odd actually, that an artform that relies so heavily on samples and re-appropriation, is so underrepresented in the tribute arena. There’s a gap in the market there. ‘New-Tang Clan’ anyone?

Nah, I’m more than happy to listen to a CD or watch a video in lieu of seeing some randoms cover my favourite group’s biggest hits. Yeah, it’s not the same as going out, watching live music, enjoying the atmosphere etc.. but neither is watching a tribute band. It’s basically paying for the privilege of listening to a badly dubbed tape in a crowd of people. Give me the real thing any day.

Currently, you can see photos from Sirmione and Malcesine (Lake Garda) and a bit of Verona and Bolzano, all in the latest set here. It’s roughly two-thirds of the holiday in case you were wondering how much more there is to come.

The bulk of the ‘mountain’ photos were taken on one of my favourite days of the whole trip. We went on a hike around the peak of Monte Baldo (which is the mountain that looms over Malcesine) with some picnic stuff from the local Spar crammed into my bag. The cable car trip up is an experience in itself but the view from the top is just amazing. You could just about see the peninsula of Sirmione down at the other end of the lake. That’s about 25 miles away. Stunning.

Plus, there are massive herds of alpine cows, complete with clanging cowbells. It’s slightly surreal; the ringing of the bells gets so loud when dozens of these cows are surrounding you. But they seem harmless. Thankfully. Because they’re huge.

The altitude also did funny things to our crisps. The noise when we popped the bag was disappointing.

The other mountain type photos were from the peaks around Bolzano. We almost didn’t manage to see anything because we visited during a public transport strike which meant that the cable car was only running for a few hours a day. So instead of a leisurely amble around the Dolomites, we had a vigorous walk/jog with a brief lunch stop so that we didn’t miss the cable car back down the mountain. On the plus side, it meant that the cable cars were empty apart from us, so no-one was around to see my fear. I’m not great with heights, and that cable car ride went on forever, over the type of drops that are normally only seen via helicopter. It was awesome, but terrifying.

Like I said though, there are also plenty of photos from Malcesine and Sirmione, as well as the ones from our brief jaunt to Verona. Go and look. There’s still more to come!

Lake Garda set on Flickr

I’ve made no bones about my ongoing desire to live in Los Angeles since the first time I went there, but it’s mostly been a pipe dream. We looked into it seriously a few years ago but it’s ridiculously hard to get the permits and all that. One day though. One day. If Nadine Coyle can do it, then anybody can. Although, I’m not going to marry an American, so perhaps she’s not the best role model. Anyway. ‘Til I manage to get past the immigration issues, the only viable option is to buy a summer house over there. Something small and manageable. Like Dennis Hopper’s old house (or, the ‘Hopper Compound‘ as it’s apparently known).

Located a few blocks from the sea in Venice Beach, it’d easily be keeping in line with my ‘can’t live more than 10 miles from the sea’ mindset. I realise that Venice doesn’t have the best reputation, and I’m sure that it has it’s moments, but the couple of times I’ve been there have been untainted by gang violence. Or indeed, crime of any sort. In fact, they’ve been fun and despite the mentals, rather enjoyable. I bumped into Danny Trejo down there. True story. I reckon there are nicer places to live in L.A. but I’d happily slum it for a bit in this place. It’s not all bad.

Parts of it were designed by Frank Gehry, if that makes any difference. I think that’s cool, but it’s not the be all and end all. I’m more impressed by the open plan awesomeness in general. The garden is a bit small, but there’s a pool. You can’t have everything.

It’s only $5.194m (£3,225,079.89 according to xe). Pocket change considering what you get for your money. Shame I could only live there for a month a year. I wonder if there’s scope for getting another 11 people interested in some sort of timeshare(?) Hit me up if you’re down..

Not that I’m saying I’m brilliant at it myself, but I like to think that I can come up with a list of good or bad things about a project, and articulate them in a fairly decent way. Maybe not. I actually find that it gets harder to give decent criticism when no-one else is because the smallest negative thing you might say automatically sounds really harsh against the backdrop of silence. Conversely, you start to think that the things you thought were good points aren’t actually that good, because no-one else seems to have noticed them.

I get it though. No-one likes doing presentations (apart from Peter Sage. Obv.) and no-one likes to say they don’t like someone’s work to their face, cuz like, they might not be bezzie mates anymore. But it’s much more damaging and less helpful in the long run to let someone go on thinking that their work is amazing. I barely had any ‘crit’ experience when I was at uni, and the little I did get, was pretty similar to the stuff that happens with the students now. “I like those colours” – “That band that ‘inspired’ you is really good” – “I like turtles” etc.

I wish I’d been subjected to more realistic and relevant comments because I’ve since found firsthand that when you’re getting paid to do work, and it doesn’t match what the client wanted, they’ll definitely tell you. I’m sure that anyone who has delivered substandard work for whatever reason knows that horrible feeling you get when someone starts questioning why that game doesn’t work properly, or why that animated moose looks like it’s been done by a child. It’s not fun. (Not that that’s ever happened to me; my work is always stellar. Contact me for quotes!) But while it makes you feel a bit shit, it’s very necessary. Taking aside the ‘getting paid for work’ scenario, why anyone would want to deliver / hand-in / show off work that isn’t as good as they can make it, I don’t know. It’s a personal pride thing surely(?) Granted, it’s hard to stand back from your own work and evaluate it – which is why crit sessions (or at the very least, some comments from a couple of other people) during the production process are really useful.

Or rather, they can be really useful. If only people would get more involved.

I found a list of possible questions to ask yourself (as a ‘critic’) that I think provides a decent starting point..

• What are the user scenarios the site is designed for? Walkthrough how each design would enable those scenarios.
• What known usability / design / business issues are these sketches trying to solve?
• What is the intended style of the design, and is it appropriate for the target audience?
• What is the intention of the style, and does it achieve the desired effect?
• Are there standard brand elements that should be used, and are they used appropriately?
• Are there similar software products or features that these designs should relate to?
• What usability heuristics does each design support well? (or not?)
• Where in the design are the most likely places for users to have trouble? and why?
• Are there reasonable design changes that might avoid these problem points?
• Does each design idea take advantage of things the user might already have learned?
• What are the pros and cons of each design idea, relative to each other?
• Are there any hybrid design ideas that are worth exploring, based on the designs in the room?
• What open issues might best be resolved by a usability study or other research?

I’ve highlighted the ones that I pretty much always ask myself when looking at bits of work. Obviously, the list needs tweaking slightly for different types of work but if you’re asking yourself those questions, and can share the answers you come up with, then you’re potentially helping. You’re definitely helping more than if you just sit in silence and occasionally murmor vague approval of everything. It’s not just about “I like it” or, “that looks good”. It’s about establishing the meaning of the work and objectively deciding if it works. For instance, if someone tells you that they’ve made a game that is meant ‘as a quick timewaster type of thing, aimed at pre-teens’ but the set of instructions accompanying the game is a War & Peace epic, then you can fairly safely suggest that the intentions of the game have failed. It’s got nothing to do with whether you personally like games for people with short attention spans, it’s whether the end product has met the imposed criteria.

That said, being critical doesn’t mean being negative. If something’s good, then say why it’s good. It’s always nice to be told nice things, and more importantly for the creator, to know that your work has been successful. A list of nothing but negative points and ‘improvements’, while it might be intended as helpful, is nonetheless disheartening.

I’m sure that for some there’s an underlying fear that by commenting on other people, you’re losing friends and leaving yourself open to retribution when it’s your turn to stand in front of everyone. But that’s really nothing to be afraid of. As long as you’re being honest and can explain your reasons for criticism, you’re doing them a favour. And when it comes to your turn in the stocks, you should take on board what others have to say if they have valid reasons for their thinking. I dunno if there’s also a slight element of inferiority complex type of thing going on, whereby people don’t feel like they’re able to comment on other work because they don’t hold their own work in a high regard. But you don’t have to be an expert on something to have an opinion on it. Yeah, it helps if you can properly explain your stance, but look at Brian Sewell. He’s an absolute fuckwit and yet his views on art are apparently worthwhile. Pot, kettle & black are words that have no place in crit sessions, so long as you can justify your thoughts.

I dunno. Maybe I’m completely wrong. But I really don’t think crit sessions are the nightmare that some people view them as. They should be helpful, you should welcome them, and you should definitely, 100%, actually speak in them. It’s silent crit sessions that are awful. For everyone involved. Speak and be spoken to! You’ll appreciate it eventually.

Elsewhere:

• “We creators need to be in a place where we can question our own work, and be able to do that in a somewhat public environment.”
• Criticism for dummies
• Handling criticism
• Criticism vs feedback

The winner is this photo of ants by Bence Mate. The ants are nocturnal, so as well as marvelling at their cutting skills, I reckon Bence should be commended for his use of the flash. Not too shabby.

There’s plenty of other photos that didn’t scoop the big prize but are still well worth looking at over on the awards site. Few of my favourites below.

Black Rhino by Greg du Toit.

Birds off the Falkland Islands by Ben Cranke.

Kestrels by Lucas Marsalle. Lucas is in the under 10′s category. Under 10 and he has a Nikon D300. Definitely spoilt.

Some of the ones in the photojournalism category are hideous, but definitely need to be taken to highlight the horrendous stuff that goes on every day – like this tiger circus photo by Mark Leong.

All the images are on show at the Natural History Museum until March next year.. I’ll be popping in next time I’m idling around London I think..
More information on the BBC news site.