Bristol fashion - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Chairing a session on cross-platform commissioning with Alan Hayling of Renegade and Paul Canty of Preloaded using Picture This as a case study - at Just-B's Crossing the Void in Bristol

The rhythm of the train

Sitting by the water near the Watershed, Bristol

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Speaking on a panel chaired by Mike Bolland (original Channel 4 commissioner of shows like The Tube and The Comic Strip Presents) about the history and future of Channel 4

Encountering a Dalek at BBC Birmingham

Seeing the Selfridges pin building in Brum

Why are heads round?

"Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction."
Francis Picabia, painter and poet (1879-1953)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching N's rugby team win 56-5 on a bright winter morn in Watford, especially his terrier-like tackles

Watching Saracens beat Bath 26-20 at Vicarage Road with N and neighbours

Watching Captain & Commander with U, reflecting on the sea and other stuff

Track of the Day

Last of the Famous International Playboys - Morrissey
as performed live at the Roundhouse

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Hearing Morrissey sing International Playboys (before he retired sick, at the Roundhouse, with Paul Miller)

An evening visit to Black Gull Books

A chat with James Cherkoff about all things blogging

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Empire's Children winning an Interactive Media Award in New York



Visiting the Arts Club in Dover Street and checking out the art round its walls



Walking through St James's and the eponymous park in the afternoon sun (with Ewan Mcintosh)

Track of the Day

FM - Steely Dan



NO STATIC AT ALL


Give her some funked up music she treats you nice
Feed her some hungry reggae she'll love you twice

Track of the Day

You've Got to have Freedom - Pharoah Saunders

Image courtesy of Lyn Rodden - www.lynrodden.com

Good medicine - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching the first episode of Medicine Men with twin docs Chris and Xand as the accompanying Medicine Chest site goes lives with tales of cobwebs and baking soda



Spurs beating the crap out of the Woolwich Wanderers



Looking in the night window of Black Gull Books + reading around (literally) Smith Square [Everything is Illuminated]

Dot Comedy

Some favourite quotes from Dorothy Parker:

* Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

* Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

* You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

* You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

* She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

* If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

* Salary is no object - I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.

* Take care of luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

* This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

* I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

* All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.

* It serves me right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard.

* That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

* I don't care what is written about me, so long as it isn't true.

And, to celebrate the 40th anniversary this month of the Prague Spring, a new mash-up from me:

* The two most beautiful words in the English language are “cheque enclosed”. The two most beautiful words in the Czech language are “Czech freed”.

Mac weather - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Pic: Mill Hill off The Ridgeway


Watching the B&B scene in Borat culminating in throwing the dollars at the beetles - satire of Kafkaesque proportions

Setting a shiny new iMac up for Ma and getting the little darling on-line - despite Virgin customer service in India trying to throw me off the scent

A leisurely drive home in the rain along the Ridgeway (Mill Hill) with the enfants terribles

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finishing Justin Cartwright's The Song Before It Is Sung on our new sofa

Walking down to the library and picking up a couple of books for each of the enfants terribles

Being bought a slice of cake

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Coffee with Terry and Gaby Braun, chewing the fat about sonic stuff

Dub reggae - and iPodding my way home generally

Friday evening - always loved it (since the days of Roundtable and reading comics stretched out on the carpet)

Human Behan - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Adie Dunbar's barnstorming performance as Brendan Behan in 'Brendan at the Chelsea' (at the Riverside, Hammersmith til 3rd Feb)

Outstanding vegetarian dinner (with U, Joan & Paul) at The Gate, Hammersmith -based in painter Frank Brangwyn's house

Thinking about Public Value at the Oxford Media Convention

Track of the Day

Chatti Mouth by Creation Rebel

Too much licky-licky...

Guardian Angel - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finding out that Big Art Mob has been shortlisted for the inaugural Media Guardian Innovation Awards

Finding out that Picture This has 11.5% of its users spending over half an hour per session on the site (and 4.7% over an hour!)

Meeting Zoe Margolis (Girl with a One-track Mind) in the flesh at the climax of the Cultural and Creative Leadership Mentoring Programme at the ICA

Picture This - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Hanging out at the Photographers' Gallery with Picture This folk including Martin Parr, Alan Hayling, Brett Rogers, Liz Gordon, Joy Gregory, Ed Thompson, and the Renegade posse.

Walking home in the wee small hours

Walking N half-way to skool

Photo courtesy of Lucinda Chua

Track of the Day

Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters as performed at The Last Waltz with The Band

I can make love to you woman
...in five minutes time

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finding out that Lost Generation had the highest average pageviews per session in 2007 of any site on Channel4.com

D on being banned from DS and PSP for over 60 days: "A bit harsh."

Juno, particularly Ellen Page's performance

Track of the Day

My Generation by The Who

Creative Accounting #2

Ellen Page (Juno - b. 1987) = Jane Fonda (b. 1937) - half a century

Star spots #554

Griff Rhys Jones
Stephen Bayley, design geezer

yesterday:
Richard Hammond, Top Gear

Terminated

Notes for a movie by Albert Camus & James Cameron





We are biological machines programmed only to survive.


We are born condemned to death.


To survive we must not take that ludicrous condition lying down.


We must rebel against it with kindness (as in 'mankind').


We need to learn to live in the present to maximise our own happiness.


That happiness must be available to the whole of our kind as a context for our individual happiness.

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

A chinwag with Andy Taylor of All3Media

Meeting radio drama director John Dryden of Goldhawk

Roast potatoes

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Picture This doing really well - 15.5 page views per session

lunch and chat with Steve Moore, always good craic

making up absurd versions of Quentin Blake's The Clown for the enfants terribles - all the females in New York are toy killers

Old friends - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Meeting up with Nick Golson for the first time in over two decades, over a leisurely dinner at the Wolseley in Piccadilly

Chicken soup

Walking across St James's Park at night

yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Practising drop kicks with N & D in Golder's Hill Park (on a triangle of grass where I played once with my terminally ill dad)

Chatting to an old kite man (by the duck pond where I walked once with my loving grandmother)

Chewing the fat with my old school friend Alan and my neighbour James (on the touchline of Finchley Rigby Club)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading Justin Cartwright's latest novel on the tube - The Song Before It Is Sung

Listening to Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo's Radio 5 movie review podcast in the gym (Christmas review of 2007)

Playing Shrek game with the enfants terribles

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing Uncle Johnny again after a long time - shades of my dad

Talking to my mum about how she met my dad - after buying her a new Mac

Mill Hill antiques fair on the Ridgeway - finding an art deco bakelite cigarette box

Live life to a different beat - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Roy Ayers' fantastic young drummer - Jazz Cafe for John Grounds' birthday

Seeing Tanya Stone gain after over a decade - a long walk out at South Mimms

Cholla

Home life - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Putting up Pop's old bookcase

Teaching N the facts of life with U

Doing D's first chemistry experiment - making a solution of Copper Sulphate

Track of the Day

Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan - heard today in the movie I'm Not There

I ran into the fortune-teller
who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven't known peace and quiet for so long
I can't remember what it's like.
There's a lone soldier on the cross,
smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door,
You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done,
in the final end he won the wars
After losin' every battle

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing Rapunzel at the Queen Elizabeth Hall as produced by Cornwall's Kneehigh company and written by Annie Siddons, with the enfants terribles, U and me Ma

Listening to My City of Ruins with N and having a detailed discussion about it

Walking over Hungerford footbridge and looking downstream at dusk

Track of yesterDay

Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs as performed in most lively fashion on Jools' Hootenanny - the first song I heard in 2008

Out of the mouths of babes...

N (age 11) on graffiti tags: "It's like dogs pissing on walls"

Goodbye 2007 - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Listening to the mayoral candidates on BBC London radio - Red Ken whilst jogging round St Pancras cemetery, Brian Paddock over a late breakfast, Boris when still sleeping in

Reading under the Translinear Light (a 1950s art deco lamp)

The tranquility over the night allotments from the balcony

Hallo 2008 - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

[RIP Reckless - still lying empty]


Robert Elms' show on BBC London Radio reviewing the best music of 2007, with the usual London slant - listening whilst clearing up the party from last night

Mooching around Islington with the enfants terribles - bumped into Technokitten Helen Keegan and Boyd Hilton

Kissing my way into the new year, alone quietly with U - ETs sleeping peacefully up above