Special Editions

The FlipFlopFlyin site, one of my faves in cup-of-tea moments at work, has a great photo collection of special editions – cars which seem to be a ‘special’ model of some sort. These seem the norm now rather than the exception, which sort of makes it all a bit funny.

One red paperclip – a story of someone trading things in order to move up in the world.

Great story on this blog….


On July 12th, 2005 I posted a picture of
one red paperclip
on this website. I traded my one red paperclip with Rawnie and Corinna for
fishpen.JPG
which was exchanged with Annie for
knobt.JPG
that Shawn saw and bartered his
coleman.JPG
that was then swapped with Sgt. David J. for
generator.JPG
that Marcin eyed and switched it for
one instant party
that I traded Michel Barrette for his
skidoo2
that Jeff upped to
yahk2
and then swapped with Bruno for
Cintas  Cube Truck1995

that Brendan upped the ante with
one recording contract

that Jody traded for
phoenix

I’m going to keep trading for bigger or better things until I get a house

Web 2.0 – it’s a great era and now we’ve got the validator

Thyere’s loads of stuff come to the fore over the last few months since someone somwhere coined the phrase “Web 2.0” – I can’t deny that the concept excites me. This article by O’Reilly sums it up really, especially the first page or so of it (it’s a long read).

In basic terms, the Web 2.0 concept (forgive me if i’m patronising you here) is about the new era the world wide web has now entered, and how bloody exciting it all is. “Web 1.0” was all about static info being pushed out to people – personal web sites, companies marketing things to people – but suddenly (it seems) the web’s turned very interactive and personal sites have now been replaced by blogs, online dictionaries have now been replaces by Wikipedia, Directories (Taxonomies) have now been replaces by Wikis (Folksonomies).

Anyway – the point of this post is just to say that I’ve stumbled across a brilliant Web 2.0 Validator – a way of testing whether your site (or any site) is of the new breed…. as if you didn’t know already! Optimistic times.

A clampdown on the freedom of artistic expression

Birmingham New StreetYes – I’m afraid all my paranoid fears are coming true. I was filling in time whilst changing trains at Birmingham New Street station by taking some photos of peoplle moving around the station, when I was ‘picked up’ by two undercover police officers interested in what on earth I was doing documenting a potential terrorist target like Birmingham New Street station. They took down my credentials and had a look at some of the photos. I didn’t even have time to edit the images and apply all the necessary filtering and cropping to make them look good – so slightly embarrassing on that score. I was a bit upset that they didn’t find my photos suitably controversial to censor them. Thast would have made me a more robust and convincing artist, but at least it means I’ve formally struggled to defend my art in the eyes of the law. Sort of.

Frozen barbed wire


Frozen barbed wire
Originally uploaded by Dave Haygarth.

Strange things afoot in Helmshore today. Ice winds and driving sleet and snow combined with a temperature above melting point – all the trees and fences had this layer of ice on them and thre trees made a crackling sound in the wind. Chilly. Background is our house in the distance.