King, Queen, Five

Like Erno Goldfinger but I've painted the ladies in silver enamel paint.

Pair of Fives

"So what do you do in your studio?" people ask all the time (OK, maybe two people have asked). Stuff like this is the answer. It's on show at the moment at Transition and Fosterart (you can find the links yourselves) but also reviewed on the BBC website (see I put a link in for that).

Chelsea Embankment

Friday night I got the tube from Whitechapel over to Sloane Square and walked down to the river. I stopped to take a few pictures. From there it was pretty much downhill as I got very drunk (but had a very nice time) with a few of my work colleagues at the BIMA Awards. Between 1997 and 2001 I used to go to loads of these things and they were insane. I hadn't been to anything like this for a while and it was all very low key and subdued. Personally I liked the madness of early nu media UK and the sheer unsustainability of the whole thing. Now it's like an industry do for bankers but without the ostentatious display of wealth. I still wear a black suit and tie as I don't have a "black tie" outfit (if you see what I mean). At least I don't wear brown shoes with it like I used to.

Test Post

This wasn't working. It is now.

Insite Workshops

I spent the weekend, as promised, teaching people how to make websites for the Channel 4 project I look after. A really nice bunch of people who (so they say) got a lot out of the two days. While you couldn't code a website from scratch, if you struck with the tools and teaching you could go on to use something like Dreamweaver because what you would understand things like page structure, accessibility, writing for the web and so on. I made a small site over the weekend to show the team how stuff works. This is it.

Go And See My Work

Q: How hard is it to find classy Christmas presents for the man in your life who already has everything?.
A: Not easy is it girls. Or so you thought.
Ask yourself "Does he have a set of girlie playing cards with all the interesting bits painted out?". If the answer is "No" then you owe it to him (and to yourself) to pop along to Acid Drops and Sugar Candy in Shoreditch and Hackney. Until 18 December.

John Peel Tribute Video

The John Peel tribute video ("Ever Fallen in Love") is actually really really good. You can see it here and if that doesn't work try here.

This weekend, Matthew...

I'll be teaching one of the ORIGINATION INSITE workshops. This is the site I built previously to test out the "site-building" tools (I use the ironic quote marks because it's actually a large chuck of Flash rather than HTML but as I have aged I have less of a problem with this than I would have done in the past. Plus I don't see any other site builders that enable people with very few IT - never mind Internet - skills to make a site in two days.) My site is about my in-laws and has some lovely old photos on it including this one of my pop-in-law and his sister.

Another Chance to see

For all both the fans of my work I'll be showing two pieces at Transition and Fosterart as part of Acid Drops and Sugar Candy. If you fancy a drink up I'll be at the Transition private view this Friday.

Uncle Brady's Homemade Flame Thrower

I thought my good friend Jett Loe was the craziest American out there (not including the ones that are elected on their stupidity craziness)but that was before I was directed to Uncle Brady by my all-new-favourite website Make: Blog.

Jarhead: The Movie, a review

Went to see a preview of Jarhead which is based on the book about Anthony Swofford's experience of the first Iraqi war. It's very very good and succeeds in doing all the macho war stuff in a frightening but very human way: there's a scene when the Marines are waiting in the desert for the war to start and have taken to watching various Vietnam war films. During the helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now they all go apeshit singing and screaming along to Wagner. In the background you can see the film projected and the gooks getting the crap blown out of them. While this is a deeply disturbing scene you can completely identify with what's going on.

The main reason I thought the film was better than the book was that so much of the story: basic training and Desert Shield was about boredom and repetition and while the film captures this in a rich visual way, the writing only captures this by being boring itself.

The desert is empty except for sky and sand with almost no sign on the enemy. This captures both the overwhelming technological superiority of the US forces in their ability to engage the enemy from a great distance and the sense that of this being an empty war about rhetoric and perceived rather than real threats. The film is beautifully edited by Walter Murch and shot Roger Deakins.

Also my wife who took me doesn't normally like war films thought it was great.

Tim O'Reilly interviewed

Bill Thompson interviews tech guru Tim O'Reilly for the BBC World Service's Go Digital.

Text or MP3

My friend Jett Loe

My ex-colleague and friend Jett Loe has taken to producing a podcast from Belfast (Letter To America) where he is currently stationed. His main marketing tool seems to be writing to people in his address book and saying "You get mentioned in Chapter X, check it out buddy" (full transcript below). So far I've listened to 3 episodes on this basis and still no mention. It reminds me of the two rival authors in a Martin Amis book (The Information)where one anonymously delivers a copy of the New York Times (a big fucker of a newspaper) to the other one with a note saying "There's something in here that'll interest you" figuring in his vanity he'll spend days crawling through the columns looking for references. BUT then the first author worries that there might really be a mention of his rival and spends hours pawing over the paper to make sure there are no references. Not that me and Jett are rivals, of course. Chapter 8, the very best one so far, is excellent.


The Transcript in Full:
"went for a piss...man - every second of the show is gold!
forget about episode 7 - listen to episode 8 - think you get a mention
in that too
jt.

On 08/11/05, Paul Murphy wrote:
> maybe you mentioned it when i went for a piss...
>
> you can pause it??
>
>
> ;-)
>
> P x
> On 7 Nov 2005, at 22:42, Jett Loe wrote:
>
> > nope just checked - u mentioned in chapter 7 - (which is the weakest
> > chapter of the bunch by the way - chekc out chapter 8 - it rocks...)
> >
> > On 07/11/05, Jett Loe wrote:
> >
> >> hold on - let me check which chapter u in...
> >>
> >> On 07/11/05, Jett Loe wrote:
> >>
> >>> watcha talkin' bout willis - we discussed at length you post about
> >>> yol's dreams - did u listen to the right ep? + chapter 8 now up -
> >>> maybe u in chapter 6...
> >>>
> >>> On 07/11/05, Paul Murphy wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I listened to the show and there was no mention of my blog
> >>>>
> >>>> ;-(
> >>>>
> >>>> You tricked me.
> >>>>
> >>>> Actually i thought it was pretty good and will be remixing Mr
> >>>> President with an NWA soundtrack
> >>>>
> >>>> P x
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On 28 Oct 2005, at 18:48, Jett Loe wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> hey there buddy -
> >>>>> just lettin' ya know that madeinchina69 was topic of discussion in
> >>>>> chapter 7 of LTA -
> >>>>> all the best
> >>>>> jt.
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Jett "Demon With a Glass Hand" Loe
> >>>>> Listen to the Podcast at http://lettertoamerica.blogs.com"

White Skull

Well the thing has been done now. 'Bout 60 people came through my studio on the Open Studio weekend (I like to capitalise the O and S in 'Open Studio', it give it gravitas) and a few people seemed to like what I'm up to. I'll post some pictures of the studio when I get a chance. In the meantime here's White Skull, a particular favourite with the gothic visitors.