Tuesday, December 29, 2009

tweets of the year

This has been the year of twitter for me. I joined in January and rapidly succumbed to a severe addiction. Twitter informed me of breaking news faster than anything else, made me more politically aware and involved, made all my hobbies and interests much more interesting, turbo-charged the entertainment factor of television a thousand-fold, and helped me meet some great people. Here is a selection of my favourite tweets from 2009 - the good, bad, ugly, witty, profound, frivolous, and controversial: *

diamondgeezer RT @ElizabethRex2 : Dearest Charles, could you pop into the drawing room and explain how Twittering works? One needs to network...

jkottke How many innocent blogs have died so that Twitter may live?

jkottke I am now a locavore. I will only eat food located within an arm's reach of my mouth.

susanorlean No matter how many books you've written, if you're a writer your parents will always wonder when you're going to get a job.

susanorlean Mother's Day gift from 4 yr old son: I got to choose whether to watch Jurrasic Park 1 or 3 during breakfast. It's the thought that counts.

miketd It's my time. It's my time. My moah-ment. I'm not gonna let go of it

rolytaylor RT@DarkPianoIt took the universe billions of years to produce the moment you call "now." Strive to see the perfection in it! :)

edwardclarke It's heartbreaking in this day and age that at the funeral of a gay man there is zero acknowledgement of that fact.

thoroughlygood Is Patricia's dress "under construction" ? #eurovision

Wossy #eurovision I am with Peter Tatchell. Figuratively. Go on Graham, say it ! They are backward fascists. Dumb ass russians.

kvinnesland #eurovision UK has entered the wrong contest. Beautiful song, but do they expect to win without a stupid show and silly pants?

style_therapy The UK putting in a halfway decent showing at Eurovision? That's just not on. I feel kind of cheated.

davidschneider: The Norwegian boy might lose his virginity tonight. The Albanian dwarves have their eyes on him

owenblacker OMG Sookie. You have eight kittens upstairs, still blind. No, I am not gonna let you out so you can find more cock!

adventuresofboz Up in your spot like a tasty pastry treat, world!

edwardclarke Horrifying ENO surtitle fail - used 'discrete' when meant 'discreet'. We are truly living in decadent times.

frala_fontaine really need to stop opening Twitter and Facebook first thing. Though I did get distracted by some work..

AndrewOrange New life-as-a-writer progress report: Haven't actually written anything yet but at least I now have a printer in case I ever do. Baby steps.

AlextheFly @YHBW The 456 want our children. Are we sure it's not Madonna in there? #Torchwood

edwardclarke@sarahbrown10 RT @RedMummy: @edwardclarke Am bad person - I like veal. Ask SB to save her unwanted portions for me.

robfahey Every bit of pent-up nastiness from years of writing a show that's forced to pander to a kiddy audience came pouring out. #torchwood

dzhimbo Emphasis on medium draws attention to the structure of the piece, however, creating metadiagetic commentary on its meaning(s). #artchat

RedMummy@edwardclarke To Flybe I promised I'd always be true, but Virgin don't charge me for using the loo.

Shoq: We need public media; a BBC or CBC, or you can kiss the American experiment goodbye. Nice concept but the rat died. Sorry!

samuelpepys Sir W. Pen and I did dig another pit, and put our wine in it; and I my Parmazan cheese, as well as my wine and some other things.

stigblog Weather outside too horrible. Weather in bed too lovely.

mrjohnwilkes: My warm Congratulations to Mr. Van RUMPOY. I can't recall voting for you, Sir, but I may have been PISSED.

jenblower hurrah! You're all void of class, baileys coffee from the tester bottle it is then! :D

karmachord The world is so painfully beautiful. Every single atom is poised on the edge...ready to implode or explode with blissful agony.

stigblog@JamesMW78 hmm. Chocolate + alcohol are only two of your 3 food groups. Takeaway is 3rd. You need all 3 to survive and thrive properly!

jonreed #frankieboylecrackermottos we're all highly evolved monkeys clinging to a piece of rock falling through space, and the rock itself is dying

edwardclarke Well, according to wikipedia Portillo is still up to his neck in oil http://is.gd/5iPi2 Come clean, #thisweek?

zefrog: am with @Hampstead_Heath (who should know!): Vote George at #xfactor! (or have we got it wrong?)

AJ_Scroxton: How can this final be two hours long? Even accounting for 72 minutes of commercials it just doesn't add up. #xfactor

CherylKerl Joa's takin te bein a stah leika duck te woata! Ah cudden get inte his dressin room te congratalate im coza aall his mindaz.

tomsimnett: A sperm has 37.5MB of DNA information in it. That means that a normal ejaculation represents a data transfer of 1,587.5TB

jonreed actually, I am panicking slightly. one week to go and I still haven't gilded my pears (what would @KirstieMAllsopp say?)

jonreed oh the weather outside is frightful/& the planet so igniteful/but since #cop15 won't learn/let it burn let it burn let it burn!

EvilKimau "All those moments lost like tears in the rain... time.. to die" SO sad but so true... I love that moment #bladerunner

jonreed and Hamlet on Boxing Day? BBC, you are spoiling us with the Twelve Days of Tennant!

edwardclarke BBC headline: "Eurostar train leaves Paris"

edwardclarke RT @themanwhofell: I'm very pleased that Lady Gaga was Chanukah No.1

adamfishpoet@edwardclarke I too am pleased for Milady GAGA, Master CLARKE; but reserve my strongest sympathy for Mr MORELLO's band of BRIGANDS.

themanwhofell The worst thing about yesterday was that it struck another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of heterosexual marriages.

owenblacker:D RT @homotweets: When it comes to exploring the sea of love, I prefer buoys.

jonreed one can only hope that I shall be visited by three spirits in the night (gin, vodka and tequila pliz)

jonreed experiencing Tennant fatigue. God I hope he's not in the Celebrity Big Brother house...

* Tweets of the year © and ™ boz

Sunday, December 27, 2009

photos of the year

A selection of my best pics of 2009, mostly taken from my flickr stream.

culture










night






eat and drink







nature






portrait



Saturday, December 26, 2009

Merry Christmas

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Salt dough goodness inspired by Kirsty Allsopp's homemade Christmas! I used satin finish white spray paint from Paperchase to coat them. Was going to finish them off with silver doodlings, but felt they look quite good as they are!


More homemade Christmas - Nigella's iced Christmas tree decoration biscuits and a festive batch of Christmas fudge!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Christmas Carols

I went with my twitter friend @banerji1 to the GLA’s Christmas Carol service at Southwark cathedral last night. The guest choir was the London Gay Men’s Choir, and our friend @zefrog was singing.

I’m not religious at all but I still like church ceremonial and choir services are such happy occasions. I realised that this one was actually the first I’ve attended since coming to London over 20 years ago!


The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson was attending the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen so we didn’t see him. However, there were lots of London worthies, especially from the emergency services. In fact, the theme of the event was 'Service to Londoners', in recognition of the work of the police, the fire service, ambulance and nursing staff, as well as the armed forces – all of whom were represented at the service.


Those Gothic builders really knew their acoustics - the choir was on great form and sounded and looked absolutely fantastic in the space.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Last Day of the Anish Kapoor Exhibition, RA

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Anish Kapoor at the RA has been quite the autumn sensation - I've been three times myself and each time the RA has been more crowded. I think they were very wise to end it on a Friday rather than the more usual Sunday - it would have been a riot! Photography was not allowed, but the rule was being comprehensively flouted so I joined in. I'm rather pleased with this mobile cam shot.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Carnaby Street Lights

Goodness I knew I'd left my blog around here somewhere!

And now Christmas is very much speeding towards us. This year, and indeed this decade, end in a few weeks' time.

Boz reminds me I saw the Carnaby Christmas lights get switched on:





The decorations wittily reference the Swinging London decade of the 1960s when the street achieved world fashion domination. It's coming up for Swinging London's 50th Anniversary. I was so excited by these lights I reported on them for Londonist. More photos on my flickr stream.

Carnaby celebrated with some groovy 60s style dancing:



In the National Portrait Gallery's current exhibition Beatles to Bowie there are early fashion photos of David Bowie (before he was David Bowie) shot on Carnaby Street (before it was Carnaby Street). Here is a video of Carnaby Street in its late 60s heyday:



(Thanks to Jan at Race of Style for the links to the videos)