Your Soul vs. The System FINAL nine eleven

China Central Television Building (CCTV)

I took a taxi ride out to the new CCTV building over the Christmas break. They have recently connected the two main pillars in a feat of engineering that can only be truly appreciated by standing under it, walking around it and hopefully the next time I go by sneaking into it.

Architecture for me is a love affair and I've been folllowing the Dutch mastermind for the CCTV building in Beijing for a while now. His name is Rem Koolhaas and this latest project is truly the only building since the the Guggenheim in Bilbao, which I've felt has challenged and then extended my appreciation and meaning of the building form. I was close to trembling while standing under that huge overhang - but maybe that was the hangover too. Its all steel and feels like a Airbus A340 is suspended over your head. Here are the pictures from my N95 mobile phone camera that really don't do it justice.

It appears to defy general gravitational and architectural balance guidelines. I'd really like to hear what Owen Hatherley of Nasty Brutalist and Short thinks of this design. I feel that this qualifies in some respects as as good example of brutalist with other design nods and dimensions that I'd love to hear Owen's erudite (and quality socialist I might add) views.

The shot below is really pushing the zoom feature on the N95 to the max. The slightest movement shows up on the final shot but I think it starts to give a feel for all the safety netting suspended underneath the overhang as it was conjoined recently.

I couldn't help but look at all the lovely media space waiting to be made beautiful. Or at least let Beijing use it as a graffiti space. Its huge and rusting at the moment.

It needs to be walked around to appreciate all its angles.


If you look really hard. You can see the construction workers walking on a little horizontal section at the point where the sky meets the upper part of the joining section. Or put another way the other side of where the sun's glare is.


Just seeing this building means I have no choice now but to buy a decent camera. Any suggestions very much welcome. You might be able to see what I'm trying to capture. Expect more Beijing architecture. There are some amazing pieces around the city for the Olympics.

More out and about - London: Swinging Sixties?

Spotted this sign on the way back from the creative geeks drinks at The Endurance, and thought it was a must have addition to the blog. I'm still having trouble remembering if it's the Endurance or the Endeavour but there's only one pub on Berwick street market isn't there? Going back a day or two I saw this while out and about with Charlie the other week.


You can't beat a bit of complex pipeworkery can you? Yahoo Pipes should sponsor this immediately. Is anyone using this yet on a regular basis.


And looking upwards a bit, The Gherkin is definitely the 21st century archictectural landmark of London. You can see it all the way from Brixton, and features in that brilliant 'We live in Financial times' poster which is so so true.


More Creative Geeks action down The Endurance. Curiously we were talking about Tunng during the day as a friend is touring with them around the States.


Dead insect came along which is great because Anthony is just brilliant, a creative and digital planner bursting with ideas and now working freelance around London after a few years at Glue.


And Fiona tipped up with her boyfriend Richard of Creative Apes. I heard she has started blogging again which is always good news to hear. Fiona is half Indonesian and half Scottish. Quite an exotic creature, and a really nice young lady too. Keep up with the Blogging Fiona!


And no get together is a proper one if Sam the man from Adlads and Adgrads doesn't turn up. Check his Ali G impression for off the cuff grown men knicker wetting. Me like very much....Don't say I didn't tip you off about the headphone look Sam :)


And not many days later there was that Octopus twitter from Johanna and Amber. Later that day Richard and I came across this at an art gallery exhibition opening in Shoreditch.


Proving some trends are Global, but the piece that looked most provocative was this


Then we popped into The Owl & The Pussy Cat confirming my suspicion that I think is about to burst on a wider stage, which is a sixties revival in London. There was even a Beatles mop top haircut in this pub. Don't say I didn't tip you off about that swinging sixties revival first, although my friends tell me that Beijing is closer to the real thing for atmosphere; now that drugs and sex are quite common over there. I'll be clutching my Gideon Bible close to me at all times then :)


The next day Richard and I took a stroll around Lewisham where we noticed this incongruous couple from the bridge crossing the river.


I have no idea what the scooter and the pineapple were doing there but it felt like the start to a great novel or the middle part of a Morse episode. I should at this point include a clip of Richard playing in his band The Rank Deluxe from the night before. They play 'sewage music' according to their site. Gulp!

This clip is on the N95 again (as indeed is all this photography/video) and I think its quite good for the conditions although the sound recording is terrible. Not bad for a phone though.

I've always been fond of markets. All around the world if you want to get a feel for the people and skip the tourist hot spots, just get down to the market and you'll figure out quickly enough if the natives are good or not. I really like these old carts which still serve their purpose in the 21st century and have loads of character. Here's my local one packing up that saturday night.


I'm slowly but surely catching up with the media files on my camera and I expect very shortly to be blogging pictures and video that are almost real time. Which should make my posts a bit more interesting than this one.

Nokia N95

I'm road testing the Nokia N95 which means I get to take a load of pictures and videos so here's a sample of the what I've been up to. (Update: Few format probs to sort out here)

First I went to Oulu in Finland 200 Kilometres south of the Artic Circle.


But it wasn't snowing so it looked like this really

and this

The we paid a visit to the Nokia Future Labs where they get to play with lots of cool shit like M does in the Bond films.

And I was so loving this dog that I forgot what the connection with mobile phones was, but it must have been good right?

And a phone that can sort the shopping out for the fridge can't be all that bad a replacement for shopping lists can it?

But with so many toys around the joint there's a serious charging job to do.



And of course you need some kick ass remotes as well.


Not to mention some heavy duty mobile command telescopic spying devices


The engineers enjoy a certain genre of postcard. I couldn't figure out the name though.



And of course testing those phones means they have as many chargers as we get lumbered with


But it's OK for them because after all that 'where's my charger' action the Finns take their saunas quite seriously (it's a religion I overheard), and they are all over the work place, like here on the third floor


and here on the fourth floor in case you need to relax on the way up the stairs ;)

But they are into the coolest stuff


Which is ace by me because those software scientists and Nokia guys are developing the killer app to end all killer apps for people like me who are learning to speak Chinese but will probably never be able to read it well. A phone that can translate Chinese text on the go. Awesome!

There was loads of other stuff too that I can't talk about, because if I did I'd have to kill you or send over one of my Ninja guys to take care of things if you spilled the beans. You know how it is. More on that review later because I've got a whole lot more to say on the N95 and it aint gonna win me brownie points.

Disco Diva - Finnish Dance Moves

Finnish nightclub dancing emerged during the Boney M debate and this morning, in an attempt to get some energy into a NOKIA conference/induction thingy I'm attending, I was summoned up front to do some Finnish Disco dancing. 

It's too coincidental not to blog so here it is. Stuff like this just cracks me up.