Some more merry conclusions from my holiday. I went to Rome for a bit. Things I have concluded:

• Should investigate concept of smooth braking
• 1980s sci-fi post apocalyptic style music pumped into the metro stations
• Peculiar small cars everywhere.
• Ice cream comes in trifle flavour though this isn’t necessarily good.
• Striding traffic light men very jolly
• Brilliant Vatican signs: illustrated people seen either wearing swimming trunks or limbs are falling off.
• Ability to find an Enid Blyton book in any part of the world is completely excellent. As was book summary (above).

After a short fight with iPhoto, flickr, and laziness, I can state that at the start of July I went on a top-notch trip to Spain, primarily to dance badly at a wedding reception in Barcelona. And then I went to Italy which was all very well and good.  Here are my conclusions on Barcelona, Spain:

• Many italian sex pests
• Less full of drunk brits than prior snobbery and Easyjet flight suggested
• Beach quite opposite of above statement
• Excellent use of witches street cleaners with broomsticks
• Small green birds made thrilling addition to the town

Today was Ben and Jerry’s Summer Sundae on Clapham Common. I may be interning for Cake, the company behind the B&J PR but this report shall be wildly unbiased.

There was free ice cream.

I ate six. I may mean seven.

Here is Mr Super Furry Animals* holding a sign. This made me happy.

There was also band Marina and the Diamonds. Everyone raved about how Florence + the Machine played this slot the year before. (And before this, Lilly Allen) Maybe they will be big next year. She was skinny and had an 80s jacket and some silly but slightly staged dance moves – people seemed pleased by them.

I was with the photographers in the pit at the front of the stage so couldn’t take photos. Not a bad place to stand though.

*Gruff Rhys

Strange advertising by Sony on Tottenham Court Road this morning. No ice creams I noticed. Also no electronics, mostly pamphlets.

Not as good as the Police charity volleyball beach outside Liverpool street station two months ago.

Last day of (untitled) ends at the pub. I cycle merrily away 20 metres down the street and chain my bike up outside Aldgate East and head off to a pub somewhere else. Helpfully some fool tries to tamper with my bike lock and has a successful jamming session with the combination.

The next day I am lurking outside Brick Lane 118-ing my heart out for a handyman. The handymen are not by their diaries, and whilst my father offers to leap in the car with bolt-croppers and drive up from Reading I politely decline this and wait for alternative help.

Hello said I, popping into the Free Range art display. Hello said Loughborough textiles. We’re soft and pretty, stroll around and take photos of us. So i did. I also touched when I wasn’t meant to. Sorry about that.

Nice things by Jenny Appleton; Stephen Fry and Gherkin prints and a witty table. Said witty table opens with a drawer concerned primarily with sodding tea and biscuits (see first photo).

Then in T2 or some other slightly more arty (read lofty and poorly lit) warehouse I discovered some art. Ingeniously putting the most confusing work downstairs in some effort to either make people shuffle quickly into the building in or to dissuade those not seriously into art, upstairs had some interesting things.

It also had rogue animal farm-esque chickens sprawled on the floor by walls and pillars. I liked the installations which were mostly odd and included a space ship.

There were some giant WTF, OMFG, and LOL letters, and some laptops sitting in front of them which played a giant selection of youtube clips. Commentary on society no doubt, but appealed to me mostly through the appearance of Keyboard Cat on a laptop. This is significant because I like Keyboard Cat and his piano music-making is my ringtone.

Here is a link to the ’100 most iconic internet videos today’ and although I have not yet fully investigated this gem, I see that Noah, Charlie and Powerthirst are there so it must be reliable.

Here is a link to keyboard cat as Dizzy Rascal falls off the stage. Plink plonk.

There was also a ‘Box of Not Knowing’ with bars of soap with life’s terrifying questions on them. Each one essentially a premise for ‘sex and the city’.

I also liked the free rock and took two. Sorry about this also, although there was no sign or candy attendant. Perhaps something to look into.

A sign I liked.

A blog in which I make obvious my like of the word hyperbole.

At some point a few weeks ago (can be ratified) Central St Martin’s college of the illustrious University of the Arts London held a design show (University of the Arts; a place my father frowned at and said in a very father-like voice that it was not somewhere he had heard of) . I went because design shows I figure are better than reading prospectuses, and I’m quite interested in the digital design course.

Ground floor was art which I chiefly ignored and took a few photos of bright things and of some knitted food.

Digital media was downstairs. It was very nice, but didn’t hold attention and I was mildly disappointed. There were some nice uses of technology; A video with hanging strips of blue and red in front of it which produced a slightly different video depending on where you stood. It might have stretched the suggestion that each video gave a different viewpoint when they were really quite similar, but It got the audience to jump around between screens which was nice to play with. There was also a podium which displayed different ‘layers of lives’ (video fragments) which played depending on which sensor hand hovered over. Someone had a play making an augmented reality shopping assistant which was good for a wave around.

Upstairs, after some nicely rickety wooden staircase was photography. A guy [Fen Yu Jen] had done some photo adventuring around the UK taking photos of people who serve tourists as their job. I liked the photos. Using a button trigger, the photos are nice; really serene in a simple sort of way.

I found some illustration work by Kelly Joy Sandall. Blurb:

“Anxious by the passing of time compounded by a personal sense of loss and absence, I set out to capture illusive moments. The personal became a vehicle in which to express this loss. The balloon can be used to celebrate, mask, burst of reveal. It can hide a moment, it can create a fleeting moment, it can be erased completely in an attempt to peel back time.”

Sure I like pictures of balloons. I wondered if in finding a dissertations theme whether this just creates philosophical hyperbole. Work should impress first and be supported by words – and if there’s art and philosophy behind it that then wonderful, lovely. But when it seems as thought short paragraph of art hyperbole is what drives it then the product seems to take a dive. I overheard a girl telling her mother how a friend had made an awesome book where as you turned the pages, the overlapping of pages moved from predominantly light to predominantly dark, not only representing the light changes during a single day, but also through a year. Very clever, thought I, viewing the book in a new light.

Maybe that’s my problem. I want to see digital design that uses new technology, makes sense and is interesting, and doesn’t set out a hyperbole alarm off.

Sidenote: I like the first photo a lot because it reminds me of photos by my friend Bob.