By Rail

Last weekend my parents travelled back to Auckland from Wellington by steam train. I wish I had done that before I left New Zealand. What a majestic beast.

Times, they are a-changin'

The seasons change, and autumnal winds slow my cycling and whip my hair into tumbleweed, and it starts to darken at 8 o'clock instead of 11. I remind myself soon I will have to check when daylight saving is due to end. Before I was always confused as to what I was meant to do at the change over - in what direction was I meant to wind my clocks, and no one I asked every seemed completely certain of their answer.
Now I have a clever little saying in order to instantly recall this vital piece of information, and will be admired everywhere for being able to pass on this knowledge.

SPRING FORWARD / FALL BACK

(admittedly I never call Autumn "Fall", but 'Autumn back' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.)

As found in 'Kissing the Gunner's Daughter', an Inspector Wexford mystery, by Ruth Rendall.

First Test 1904

a never-before-seen photo of the first All Blacks home test.
All Blacks v British and Irish Lions, Athletic Park, 1904.
Chas W Martin.
via

Clubhouse HQ

via

MEMBERS ONLY

Trying To Make a Dove Tail Joint - Yeah

Florence Wild
DOVE TAIL JOINT 30 July-22 August 2009
Enjoy Public Art Gallery
Wellington

First House

First House (1950) designed by Group Construction Company, later 'Group Architects'.
via the Architecture Archive, University of Auckland

Affectionately known as 'the Group', they are now the subject of a new book Group Architects: Towards a New Zealand Architecture (Auckland University Press, October 2010), edited by Julia Gatley, also responsible for the acclaimed Long Live the Modern: New Zealand’s New Architecture, 1904-1984 (AUP, 2008).
The book will be launched with an exhibition of the same name during Auckland Architecture Week 2010 at Gus Fisher Gallery. The exhibition combines drawings, photographs, models, furniture, paintings and sculpture by members of the Group. Houses, the building type for which these modern architects are best known, are depicted in photographs and models.

I wonder if 'Allan Wild and Colin Wilson in Conversation' (reproduction plywood chairs) 2008, will be included.

Three Chairs

Similar chairs - first designed by my grandfather Allan Wild for Group Constructions 'First House', in Takapuna, New Zealand. Seen in situ above, with matching plywood table and kitchen furnishings.
From Auckland University's excellent Architecture Archive.
Allan Wild and Colin Wilson in Conversation, 2008, reproduction chairs built by my father and I, part of the exhibition 'Modern Love' at rm 103.
ROLU Furniture, found here.

On the Outskirts of Malmö

Went for a cycle to Jägersro, on the 'outskirts of Malmö'. Filled with interesting sights, including Jägersro Tower(Malmö's television and radio tower), Malmö Mosque (the second oldest in Sweden), and spotted a handsome water tower. Also home to 'Jägersro Trot and Canter' - Sweden's oldest horse racing track, featuring a buffet restaurant open daily. Their special pea soup is a winter favourite.

CLUES

"ALL SOLUTIONS AND NO CLUES, THAT'S WHAT THE DUMBHEADS WANT. THAT'S WHAT THE BLOODY NOVEL IS: ALL 'HE SAID, SHE SAID', DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SKY...I'D RATHER IT WAS THE OTHER WAY ROUND, ALL CLUES, NO SOLUTIONS, THAT'S THE WAY THINGS REALLY ARE. PLENTY OF CLUES, NO SOLUTIONS."


Philip E. Marlow, writer of detective stories

The Singing Detective (1986)
Episode 4: 'Clues'

Interior / Exterior

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, Berlin

Love Letters

Complete set of lead type at Ri Xing Typography, one of the last factories in Taiwan to produce traditional Chinese type.

But in practice, it was not suitable for Chinese—a language with over 45,000 unique characters. Typesetting in Chinese took “minding p’s and q’s” to a whole new level, and accuracy was challenging when characters were essentially compounds of many radicals and ideograms. Running a Chinese letterpress shop required an enormous storage space and basic literacy of at least 4,000 commonly used characters.

read more about the demise of movable type in China

FreeCell

Perhaps not a good as spider solitaire, but definitely worth it for the celebratory King at the end, resulting in a great feeling of accomplishment.

Buzz cut with pipe

Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray
Tonsure 1921

MOMA: THE ORIGINAL COPY

B & D

I can now be found on last.fm under the name brucenddeirdre.
However the above photo does not portray either Bruce or Deirdre. But I think they know of them.

Baskervilles Hund!

Possibly a drawing taken from the Swedish poster for the 1959 film 'The Hound of the Baskervilles', with Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes and Christopher Lee and Sir Henry Baskerville, which I watched last night.

Moonlight Swim

from

Anthony Perkins.

also known for his hit song 'moonlight swim' of 1957, when it reached #24 on the Billboard Hot 100, under the name 'Tony Perkins'. The song was later recorded by Elvis and included on the Blue Hawaii soundtrack.
Now with the knowledge of Anthony Perkins' musical prowess, I feel a Norman Bates breaking into song in some not so crucial scene would have worked rather well.

Chess & Wallpaper

Tempelhof Airport 1984

BERLINGERING

five days in Berlin, wandering around, catching trains and trams, eating cheap pizza and drinking cheap beer.
i want to make my photographs into a set of postcards, or an accordion book, somehow a digital memory of it doesn't quite seem adequate.