Please stare

June 1, 2012

Stare.

It is the way

to educate

your eye,

and more.

Stare, pry,

listen, and

eavesdrop.

Die knowing

something.

You are not

here long.

Walker Evans

The beauty of pointless endeavour

May 30, 2012 — 1 Comment

Mick Sheridan is an upholsterer who lives in Mid West Wales. He says its not much of a living but he likes re-interpreting old chairs. He’s started putting them in bus stops and leaving a note saying “Take the weight off your feet”. Of course, within a couple of days of placing a chair at a bus stop by the Pen-y-banc turn-off on the A40 near Llandeilo it was stolen. Mick’s pal Rhodri Marsden writes a column in The Independent called Life on Marsden and his view on the theft of the chair was this “…that only made Mick’s efforts more heroic. Too often we find ourselves dismissing ideas by saying “there’s no point”, when that’s precisely why we should press ahead. So yes! This week, please expend huge amounts of effort on stupid stuff for minimal reward”.

There is a beauty in such pointless endeavour.

Fika Time

May 29, 2012

American writer Bill Bryson in his book Notes from a Small Island found it hilarious when he observed British people about to eat cake. Usually it entailed a ritual involving denial, guilt, reluctant acceptance  followed by consumption in a glow of naughtiness and a cry of  ”ooooo I shouldn’t really”. In Sweden there is no such guilt. They engage in the daily ritual of Fika – stopping work and taking coffee and a cake, often a cinnamon roll, with a friend.

No if’s, no but’s, pure pleasure.

Invite a friend for a Fika date today and just enjoy it.

Charming

May 28, 2012

Forget The Sunday Times Rich List. That’s just about counting money. As an alternative, the magazine Monocle compiles its annual charm index. It lists the people, places and companies that try to add a little delight to our lives. Here’s my nomination The Treacle Mine in Wem, Shropshire. Not only can you delight in browsing the sweets that you haven’t seen since you were a child, they will also make you a bacon buttie and a cup of tea.

It makes you feel all warm and cosy inside. Charming.

Count your life in dogs

May 22, 2012

Struggling for time? Life been a bit of a disappointment? Take the advice of French psychiatrist Francois Lelord. He says that one antidote is to count your life in dogs; that is, the number of them you still have time to own, one after the other. It’s not meant to scare you, but simply to remind you how lucky you are to have been born human, and that you should make the best of the time left.

Walkies anyone?

Rib tickling oxytocin

May 21, 2012 — 1 Comment

Try this one today. Don’t bother shaking hands when you greet someone. Instead, gently rub your fingertips between their ribs. The release of oxytocin that this stimulates causes people to relax and feel safe.

According to scientist Paul Zac writing in his book The Moral Molecule oxytocin levels account for why some people give freely of themselves whilst others are cold hearted; why some people cheat and steal and others can be trusted with your life; why some husbands are more faithful than others; and why women tend to be more generous –and nicer- than men.

Warning: Ticking somebody’s ribs may make the world a better place.

Dance your PowerPoint

May 18, 2012

We all know what it is like. Death by PowerPoint. That feeling that you would rather be somewhere else….anywhere else. John Bohannon, a scientist by background, reckons that the best way to explain complex things, is to simplify them as much as possible, even to the point of doing away with words if you can. He makes a case for replacing PowerPoint with dance, he even runs an annual ‘Dance your Phd’ competition. Remarkably he calculates that the US loses $100 billion a year to death by Powerpoint.

If you’ve a presentation or conference call today, what about it? Just dance as if nobody is watching.

The library of lost books

May 17, 2012

Old books never die, they just become works of art…..literally. The Library of Lost Books is taking old, unloved and unwanted books from Birmingham library and sending them to a select list of artists to be re-made as a work of art. The finished artworks will be exhibited in the brand new Library of Birmingham opening in September 2013.

A heartwarming tale.

Create a city in your head

May 16, 2012

Cities are hotbeds of new ideas and innovation. Studies have shown that on every measure of creativity and innovation – number of patents registered, supercreative professionals, research & development budgets – size really does matter. A city that was ten times larger than its neighbour, wasn’t ten times more innovative; it was seventeen times more innovative. A metropolis fifty times bigger than a town was 130 times more innovative.

This is down to cross-fertilisation of ideas and contagion as people bump into each other and set off new trains of thought. You don’t have to move to the city though if you want to be more creative. Widen your reading, go to places you don’t normally go, listen to different people and use Twitter follows and blogs selectively so that they become your desktop research team.

You can create the hothouse effect of the city in your head. That way you can take the time to smell the roses.