Love Comes In Spurtles

After many entries to the weekly quiz on BBC Radio4's Broadcasting House, some of which even included a correct answer, I have finally had my name pulled out of the metaphorical hat and have won one of the wonderful and legendary spurtles!

A Fistful of Spurtles

For those who don't know, a spurtle is a wooden stirring stick for porridge. (They used to offer a honey spoon, also known as a honey-drizzler or honey-dipper as a prize, but the drizzler went the way of all good things some time ago. "Say 'lavvy'" as we say to the French when when teaching them English).

This week's audio clue consisted of bits of Alan Partridge interspersed with sound snippets from Star Wars and Dr Who. I've preserved it for posterity via AudioBoo; hear it here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1401959-it-s-fourteen-minutes-past-nine

"A-ha!" I thought: An Alan Partridge audio-clip is broadcasting shorthand for Norwich. Therefore, the answer must be the recent story concerning a contretemps between complementary communities at a recent UEA nerd fest. And indeed it was. Not only did I get the answer right, but I also got the wood too!

The winner of this week's quiz ... 

Back of the net!

I also found out that the man who gives BH its wood isn't the lovely Paddy O'Connell (YMMV) but a chap called Mark Allery who reveals all his in his Woodland Antics blog, along with a series of images: http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/bh-spurtle-hq/

(No, that's not him in the picture, that's someone else demonstrating the use of a honey-drizzler in Hundred Acre Wood)

Echoes in the blogosphere

Blogotrice Diana posted about David Parlett's recent public lecture in the UCS Arts & Hums blog, Exposure.

Read the entry here: http://ucsarts.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/fun-in-games/

Non-Digital Games Design Workshop with David Parlett

The UCS Computer Games Design course had a non-digital games design workshop on Wednesday, which was facilitated by award-winning games designer, author, games historian and consultant David Parlett. The theme of the workshop was race games. David is the inventor of the Spiel des Jahres winning race-game Hare and Tortoise and the author of many books and articles on games, including The Oxford History of Board Games.

Not Exactly "Free"

Adobe have put up various downloadables from Creative Suite 2 (aka CS2), along with serial numbers.

Downloadables include the full CS2 package, together with various components, downloadable individually. Among them are Adobe Premiere Pro CS2 (video editing); Photoshop Elements CS2 (image editing -- a cutdown Photoshop); InDesign CS2 (DTP); Illustator CS2 (drawing); Audition 3.0 (sound editing) and Acrobat 8 Pro (create PDF files). 

All the downloads, all the serials, all for free. But apparently it's not "free" as in "free for all", but for something like existing Adobe customers who already ahve the software, but would find it convenient to be able to download it again, with a new serial, for Windows, or Mac, or both.

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/

Other sins may be available

On the subject of signage, a local hostelry appears to have turned to sin mongering. A hand-written notice offers passers-by the opportunity to acquire some anger. I wondered if any other deadly sins were on offer (I proudly envy those who lust after gluttony) but sloth got the better of me.

Try a little trendiness

Voracious culture vulture that I am, I recently found myself at a Street Art event in the East End. Due to the vagaries of the public rail network, I arrived with time in hand [Traveller's Tip: planning your rail journey so you will arrive two hours early is a good way to ensure you will get to the event up to an hour before it starts].
In an attempted act of chronocide I wandered along nearby Brick Lane and happened upon this charming chalk board, bescrawled with witty wordage.
The adjacent establishment, far from being the iniquitous den implied by the board, turned out to be an uber-trendy coffee bar with a range suitably-priced snacks on offer. Refreshment was provided in the form of a shit-storm, which turned out to be a quadruple espresso served in a paper cup for the distinctly un-princely sum of two quid.

Street Cred

Belgian film-student Sofie Peeters decided to make the daily sexual harrasment she endured on the streets of Brussels the focus of a project for her course at RIT. The result was "Femme de la Rue". I read about it in this article in today's paper, and a short clip of the work is included with the article on the Guardian website.

A quick google leads to the full length work, which can be found contained within a Youtube video clip that starts with Sophie Peeters being interviewed on the Belgian televion programme Terzake [To The Point] followed by the "Femme de la Rue" documentary in its entirity. While it may be enlightening for about half the population to see from the point-of-view of the other half what harrassment looks like as it is recorded from Sophie Peeter's miniature video camera and hidden microphone, or from a camera used openly to record Sophie as she walked the vicinity of her flat in Brussels, it's interesting too that the project is presented in a way that emphasies the "I'm not racist but ..." aspect which, if it hadn't been explicitly brought up in the interview, I'm not sure I would have noticed.

One would have thought it sufficient that the footage recorded her experience: that the footage has to be presented in such a way that couches and qualifies her experience so as to carefully negotiate sensibilities of culture and race makes the project all the more delicate in its treatment of the topic. However, the greatest shame is that it had to be made at all.



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