DerrenWilson.net

In the spirit of just getting out there and doing it, I’ve spent about fifteen minutes (don’t worry, it shows) photographing some of the print work I’ve done over the last two years. Some of it I like a lot, some of it I would probably like if I hadn’t had to experience their tortuous gestation. Anyway, they are all up on flickr as a group called Derren’s print work.

While the ink dries, there’s a few more web things coming on-stream soon. One is done, just needs some google-juice. You know, if I was going to rent an apartment at Los Arqueros Golf and Country Club, I think this is the apartment in Spain I would choose. It’s a lovely apartment near Puerto Banus that has all modern conveniences. Hey, if I could, I’d probably buy an apartment at Los Arqueros Golf and Country Club. And it’s probably the only Spanish apartment site built with web standards, ever, so please forgive the multiple links to it. Thank you.

So now I’ve been to a real live web conference, atmedia. And it was pretty interesting. London was showing off its best side, as it was warm and sunny. Walking down the sidestreets from the hotel in Pimlico to the conference venue, the QEII building in Westminster revealed fine Georgian squares and churches. A trip out to the east end to meet friends meant I could wander around a bit there too – I found the Finsbury Health Centre as I was wandering around. It is getting very neglected. And there was a chance to test out the ambient world cup theory – thanks to the cheers I knew exactly when England scored, without being anywhere near a pub or anywhere with a television.

I was a bit nervous about the conference because I didn’t know anyone, and having a lack of networking skills means by the end of the conference I still didn’t know anyone, in fact hardly talked at all for either day (except to win a book), but the content was worth it.

I though Jeffery Veen and Molly Holzschlag’s talks were particularly good. Most of the conference was divided into two streams, and I would like to get transcripts or podcasts of the ones I missed.

I’ve been a bit ambivalent about web vs print for the last few months – sometimes it seemed like print might have been winning – but I think along with dealing with printers, atmedia has helped make me want to get back into web design properly now.

So I’m going to get on the train to London in a few hours to go to atmedia, yay, but Laura, who’s got the day off today, is taking the car along the A6, through Doveholes, into Buxton to go to the new Waitrose supermarket that’s opened in the town, apparently the first one in the North, which has been doing rather well. There she will peruse the comestibles that have been but a faint, sweet memory since we moved up North, and at my special request buy some of that tuna that comes from Portugal in the yellow tin. Part of me (the fat belly part) wishes I could go with her.

The faint possibility that we might have to drive to Buxton (about twenty/thirty minutes) every time we do a grocery shop became more likely this week, when we went to Morrissons and they didn’t have any english strawberries. Not a single berry. They were all American, flown thousands of miles to end up in Chapel-en-le-Frith. No organic, no ordinary, no. English. strawberries. In one of the best months for strawberries in the country. So we bought some doughnuts instead. Ha!

Last night, halfway through Deal or no deal, just as Noel Edmonds was building the tension to a fever pitch you could cut with a knife, the television screen dissolved into static. Flicking around the stations made no difference. The telly was dead, again. But then we do live nearly ten miles from the third largest city in the UK, so why should we expect any sort of television reception at all?

So the laptop was unzipped from the case and we headed for youtube. If we can’t get telly the normal way, we’ll get some from the internet. We watched a short film starring the Mighty Boosh. We watched Alan Partridge on the World Cup from twelve years ago. We watched Fernando Alonso advertising things in Spanish. And then there was a fine range of Deal or no deal visuals, including the Dutch version of the show, which made me a bit ill with all the flashing lights.

Give it a few years and I’ll be moaning about hard drives, video iPods, subscriptions, DRM, and wishing we could all go back to when you had a telly and a laptop and it was all simple and just worked. As long as I’ve finally got an iPod by then.

This Wednesday night I’ll be getting on the train and heading back down to London – where I lived for about seven or so years – for the atmedia 2006 web people’s conference. I’m sort of excited by this, though I’m not very good with crowds of people I don’t know, and it also looks like I won’t have a chance to get to see the V&A’s Modernism exhibition. I am dealing with this by hoping that there’s a lovely bookstall selling cheap copies of all the books I haven’t been able to find in the University library (best discoveries in the last few weeks – Funktion und ihre Darstellung in der Werbegrafik (Visual Presentation of Invisible Processes) by Anton Stankowski and Geometry of Design by Kimberley Elam).

Anyway, it’ll be another interesting experience. If you’re going to atmedia, then feel free to say hello – I’ve got nearly sixty business cards to give away. In Akzidenz Grotesk.

It is rather warm in the UK at the moment. I’m not saying it’s unpleasant or uncomfortable. On the weekend the light was harsh and the sky a really bright blue as we cleared the back garden of all the weeds that had grown while we were away in Australia. The soil started to dry out and turn to a grey powder as we ripped at the thin strands of plants who’s only crime was to grow somewhere we didn’t want them to.

My favourite sort of summer day in England is late summer, around August or September, when everything is parched and there’s a kind of sweet-smelling heat haze over the grass. Usually days like this involve a visit to some sort of historic house or garden, pork pies and crisps.

The World Cup is taking over everything here too – it’s like a six week holiday, when everyone can drink beer and eat curries because ‘the World Cup is on’, and there are too many games and not enough time to get up from the couch and make something to eat. And, of course, because all the supermarkets have cheap beer and curries because the World Cup’s on. I was thinking yesterday that you could do an experiment and sit out in the garden, away from the tv, when England were playing, and just listen for the cheers – frequency, length, attack – you’d soon know how the team were getting on. Australia are playing later today – in the same group as Brazil, they have no chance. Or so all the English people believe.

If Australia doesn’t win the World Cup, they can still take comfort from You Am I’s seventh studio recording, Convicts, which I’ve been enjoying quite a bit – you can listen to all the songs off the record if you like. I’d recommend Secrets, Sweet Life, Friends like You, and the best song the Replacements never wrote, I’m a Mess.