Claire Tayler, or just Claire. Works as a social media writery type. Sometimes words make it onto this blog too. Her own views obviously. It would be ridiculous to have a blog otherwise.
Likes digital media, tech and advertising. Also likes adventures, music, making colourful food stuffs, and knitting socks, so content's a mix.
In her other bits of spare time, writes things for Bitchbuzz and Bored of Brighton, a one-a-day guide to Brighton.
Part of me dies when the word Twitter comes up in conversation, regardless of how much I like it. This spoof of the Facebook film is very good though. I’m going to stomp around office cubicles bellowing “HASHTAGS!” now, so excuse me.
After a weekend of drinking fizzy wine, vigorously baking cupcakes, and hanging up bunting and garden lantern lighting paraphernalia (which looked beautifully festival-like in the evening), Jamie’s attempt at having two birthdays in two weeks is over. Staying at a friends for the aftermath, we spent Sunday on a walk through fields and woods; me with inappropriate gripless shoes and hungover muscles. “Well, you’re hardly Indiana Jones,” I was told as I failed to pull myself over a fence on a minor incline.
We also went to an art gallery, Spacex, that trod a brilliant line down a mix of installations, photography, video and drawings – without being up its own ass – and wonderfully avoided any nonsensical art which hinged on enjoying gallons of pseudo-intellectual art blurb. I suspect that Brighton is sometimes a bit guilty of pseudo-intellectual blurb (I know it is). It was refreshing.
I liked the squid that attacked a submarine, turning on every fifteen minutes and reacting with motion sensors to terrify everyone around it. Perhaps I just like bright electronics and fuzzy fibre optics. It also had a submarine pinging noise to press with a satisfying big red button. I tested it a lot. Here I can be seen not only demonstrating the glory of the Squid Submarine but also doing a loud sort of Cartman/Weebl & Bob impression for unknown reasons.
Straight from the pages of Jules Verne – a motorised model submarine by Cut and Scrape lurches about in the clutches of a giant squid.
Amongst other pieces the slightly porny ink drawings of sea creatures looked like the animals out of George Orwell’s 1984 that used to scare me as a kid.
It is 6am. Behind thick set curtains rain has been falling for an hour or two and dark light of the morning has begun to sneak in around the edges. Though Exeter is far from the coast, seagulls are making seagull noises, sharp and pleasant in the empty morning. A cooing pigeon chimes in for a second, sounding like the woody village – the place where home is always home, regardless of where I move about to.
I have not slept, and have been reading Lucy Mangan of the Guardian. I have decided I like journalism. If it continues this way, I could easily begin to regularly read the Guardian. I could even begin to wear brown corduroy as I hear Guardian readers do. I could, I suspect, be very good at both.
Lucy Mangan has written about the Famous Five, and today has also written a brief James Bond play which centres around a picture. In the picture is a cat that looks suspiciously like a pretend cat I have been making up stories about as of late (also looks much like this). There is also another cat in the picture who looks like a black bear (right).
It is a rather good screen play, and it is not just about cats. It is not something I would usually read, but I have been reading it out loud, amongst tears falling down my face and hissy, noisy sniggers that stopped me talking. Perhaps I was delirious. You can read it here, and I hope it makes you smile if you do. Now I am going to play about with blogging calendars and watch Sherlock Holmes gleefully.
I am two weeks behind the trend but I very much like Sherlock, the BBC’s new Sherlock Holmes. This runs with a love for the original Holmes, clue-based logic, a secret adoration of the bumbling Jonathan Creek, and rude but witty dialogue. I’d put the trailer up but it takes the good bits out of context and plonks funky music over them, so you’d probably loose all respect for it immediately.
I have written a sterling Bitchbuzz article about it, including the words ‘detective-icity’ and ‘wankerness’. Find it here, and the show is online via the BBC online.
The Phoenix Gallery ran an exhibition called Dream Home last month. We went along on a minor grand day out. On entering, there’s a small web of corridors to pick your way from, filling the space with archways and doors to go through, each entering a new room with a different theme. It’s a nice space.
We sat for a while on an old sofa in a 40s style room, with old music and war reports playing, wondering what the world used to be like.
They created a simple room that was one of the most interesting by blocking up the door. Rattling the door handle you can’t get in through, you’re forced to peer through a slit window or a small peephole around the corner at kneeling level. Peering through the tiny hole gave an angular look into the room, craning about to see a glowing yellow room with a chair and a bit of paper. Through a peep hole, we learned, everything is more interesting.
Mostly though, I liked the story that comes with this red cardboard house. It is simple and an indecisively laboriously journey. I like most that the inside colour is a mystery, but only because of the story.
In other news, there was also a minimal and inconsequential picture of a nice bird and some lightbulbs.