iainclaridge.net

I agree with Daniel. With a little insight and some care and attention, much neglected Stonebow House in York, would appear to have all the potential to become a proud example of brutalist architecture, as opposed to remaining empty, unloved and in danger of demolition.

With thanks to Daniel for the heads up.

It was two weeks ago I finally gave Firefox the push due to it’s processor sapping qualities. I gave Camino a go for a while, which made for a better browsing experience but under the advice of Netsight colleague, Matt, I have upgraded to the latest version of Safari for casual browsing and I am now cruising the interweb at a blistering pace..!

I have finally lost my marbles - well specifically the spinning marble of doom that normally accompanies crashing applications on my Mac.

Fed up with having Firefox suck the life out of my Mac’s processor performance I have finally decided to ditch it for casual browsing and move over to the leaner Mozilla browser, Camino.

That once sleek and wiley old fox has become far too bloated and flabby with features for my liking, greedily feeding off the increased processor capacity of today’s faster computers. Most of the time all I want from a browser is to load a site and let me browse forwards and backwards through it’s pages - it’s not a big ask.

I am now cruising down the information superhighway (showing my age now..!) in my El Camino with the top down, wind in my hair and smile on my face whilst the bloated old fox is still back at the start loading up his saddlebags.

From now on I will now only use Firefox as a development tool making use of the excellent Firebug extension.

Hmmm… I know what you are thinking.

That’s a nice, high quality, minimal looking shower fitting, bet that ain’t cheap.  Well it wasn’t cheap but don’t be deceived by it’s sleek understated good looks and beautifully engineered knurled height adjustment knob, like I was.

The other day I contacted Bathstore, who supplied me with this Techno 65 shower kit just over two years ago, in search of a replacement shower head bracket. It is the small plastic fitting that attaches to the slidy bit that moves up and down the rail and mine had broken through normal wear and tear.

It is only a small, easily removed and I would imagine, relatively cheap piece of chromed plastic that you would think would be readily available as a spare part. Well apparently not.

I received this reply from Bathstore:

“Good Afternoon.

Unfortunately, I am unable to offer much help with your query. The item
you have broken is not available as a spare part. If the item is still
within its 12 month warranty period, then the store would have to
replace it for you.

Sorry I could not offer more constructive advice.”

Well unfortunately the item is out of guarantee, apparently leaving me to have to fork out for a completely new showerhead rail kit complete with showerhead and hose.

Needless to say I won’t be going back to Bathstore to buy one.

I have heard it rumoured that beavering away deep in the heart of Volkswagen’s R & D department, behind a door with a sign that reads ‘QUIET PLEASE’, is a guy who’s sole responsibility is to ‘design’ and engineer the sound in a car door as it is slammed shut, for every vehicle in the VW range. His job is to make sure that instead of a jarring ‘clunk’ or a disappointing ‘thud’ you get a reassuring ‘phwoomph’ as you close the door.

It won’t make the cars faster, or help with their fuel economy but it will, on an almost subconscious level, give the driver a sense of security and reinforce the feeling that he is the owner of a quality automobile.

So when I feel compelled to explain and justify to the technical teams I work with on web projects why I make such a fuss about seemingly unimportant aesthetic details, I tell them the tale about the little man in the white coat in Volkswagen’s R & D department and hopefully it helps them understand.

Phwoomph..!

My inability to be neat and organised has been a source of mild anxiety to me, not because it hampers my efficiency and productivity (in fact quite the opposite) but because of the pressure from my peers to be organised. Why does everyone else appear to have neat and tidy workspaces, everything hidden away in cross referenced filing systems - I put it down to not having enough work to do..!

My working desk is a pile of ideas written on scraps of paper, tearsheets of inspiration hastily torn from magazines, randomly scattered post-it notes of things to do - I could go on but it will give me a headache..! This real world anarchy is mirrored in my virtual space where my mac desktop is as crowded as a Costa del Sol beach in July, with folders and files fighting for any available space.

People who are familiar with my work are surprised at this as most of my design features pared down simplicity with an emphasis on functionality - devoid of anything superfluous.

Well apparently it’s ok - I need worry no more nor feel shame as there are others who feel the same as me about this unhealthy obsession with neatness. The evidence is to be found in this article in the always excellent Jugglezine — I quote:

“Cognitive scientists have theories about why messy is sometimes more productive than neat. Psychologist Alison Kidd suggests that piles of paper and other objects arrayed on a desk or other surface may represent ideas that people ‘cannot yet categorize or even decide how they might use.’

Observational studies find that people who file away their papers tend to amass more information of questionable value and to access their documents less frequently than people who pile their information on desktops and other surfaces. In their zeal to keep their desktops pristine, neat freaks often archive information before they are sure it is something they need to keep and before they know how and when they might use it. Without a clear idea of why they might eventually access documents, filers tend to categorize them in ways that later make it difficult to retrieve them.

Pilers, on the other hand, seem to have easier access to information they need because frequently used documents tend to move to the tops of their piles, while less relevant material moves down and is eventually discarded.”

I have to concur with this. When I do occasionally have a blitz and file stuff away I can subsequently never find anything and I find a neat and bare working environment somewhat uninspiring. It’s as if I need the stimulation of being surrounded by random notes and ideas to be creative. Stumbling across a forgotten tearsheet can spark off an idea or a train of thought that can break the occasional creative doldrums. Neatness is the enemy of serendipity.

I think D H Lawrence summed this up nicely in this passage:

“Man fixes some wonderful erection of his own between himself and the wild chaos, and gradually goes bleached and stifled under his parasol. Then comes a poet, enemy of convention, and makes a slit in the umbrella; and lo! the glimpse of chaos is a vision, a window to the sun.”