My god Greenwich is cute. Described as both a must-see for tourists whilst simultaneously slated as a terrible tourist destination by indecisive people, its a beautiful village. I loved the obsession with selling ‘Traditional British Food’. We sweated about gobbling chips and chinese food in the sunshine and followed it up with ice cream, and then attempted to launch our food-filled selves up a hill (this occurred in stages).

We stopped halfway up the hill to the observatory and somewhat famous meantime line. Looking at the pointy towers of canary wharf looks brilliant, and makes you realise how both central and distant you are at once.

Hadn’t done one of these in a while – here’s my July in 60 seconds. In which I learn sewage history, use Tweetdeck in Starbucks, see Burlesque boobs, and go to Shoreditch.

This weekend was Shoreditch Festival. Mysteriously, whilst taking place at Hoxton – a name I associate with the bar & grill – it wasn’t the skinny-trousered meme-fest I was expecting. This may be because I’m a South London snob. It actually reminded me of a very British fete from my childhood, despite the lack of school field.

The weekend threw rain and bright sun at us, and so it was spent jumping under a huge umbrella every ten minutes. Still, stretching along the canal was beautiful. I think the best part was alongside Punch and Judy that ran about, with small children smacking his rear with a baton, was the man dressed as a policeman with ‘Politeman’ on his back. “Go away” he barked at me.

Here’s some photos, though few the actual Festival itself. The canal was too exciting I’m afraid.

A new sort of river boat.

Oh look! Creative agency Hugo & Marie have just relaunched their work and there’s some wonderful work on it by creative Mike Perry catching my eye.

The inquisitive-looking Fox at the bottom of the mouth is best.

Over on his site, it turns out he was behind the BBDO Starbucks work too. There’s more wonderful jelly people, an obsession with space and geometric penned chairs to catch a sight of. I recommend you have a peer about.

D&AD held one of the last of their Sharp’ner events on Wednesday and had a chat about the future of Blackberry. Joel Veitch suggested hope lies in the youth marker. “[School age kids] all want Blackberries. They don’t want iPhones or Android phones, they all want Blackberry.” Have a look at the video here.

A few weeks ago I was on a train stuffed with school kids, with a group of boys talking about mobiles. Not known for their ability to talk in hushed and muted voices, I started making some notes. When all but two had left the train, I asked how old they were and we had a chat about mobiles. Apparently, after girls, mobiles are pretty high on the list of things twelve year old boys want to talk about.

Some good things came up:
- These kids don’t have apps. Their next phones might.
- They’re more interested in cost of contract over handset.
- They mentioned wanting Nokia, Samsung and Blackberry models. They rarely mentioned models – just manufacturers.
- The phones they do have can’t hold the number of texts they want: “This phone’s rubbish. After 134 texts it says it’s full.”
- Some kids at school have iPads. Or rather, their parents do. “They have them at home – I’ve seen photos!”
- Kids will mock you for buying an iPad 1 now that the iPad 2′s on the market.
- “He could get a Blackberry tablet but he doesn’t want one. They’re £500 – might as well get an iPad for £600.”
- “My Mum works [for Nokia] so I get Nokias from her. But I hate Nokias. I’m getting a Blackberry Curve.

Obviously this is just a group of five 12 year old boys in South East England. It’s not scientific, but it is interesting. And it’s good to talk to people, rather than just do desk research. Blackberry came up a lot and really backs up the point made in the D&AD video.

The best moment was:
- “What’s 3G?”
- “It’s data transfer like bluetooth.”
- “I could swear the iPhone doesn’t have bluetooth.”
- “That’s because they want you to get all your shit from the iTunes store.”

Well, they’re halfway there.

This post appears over on (untitled) London’s blog.