whipplesqueezer

It’s OK.

TFL are on the case.

Snail Rail

More fabulous new work here from Slinkachu, the God of Small People.

If you love things that play with scale like this then you might also be interested in Twinny Jewellery - it’s Slinkachu meets Tatty Devine, and it’s ruddy brilliant.

This, on the other hand is Slinkachu meets Nigella. Tiny people, living in food. How long before Seattle-based artist Christopher Boffoli‘s work gets used in an ad, I wonder…

(Thanks Stuart for spotting it)

It’s always nice to end the week with a little bit of Queen. So before you shut down tonight, watch this. From the lovely and clever people who brought you Common People back in 2010.

Don’t Stop Me Now

If  you’ve ever been to Shakespeare & Co in Paris… or read ’84 Charing Cross Road’ …or stood in the beautiful library of Trinity College Dublin and marveled at the majesty of books…or you’re simply partial to a bit of book porn…

…then you’ll appreciate this lovely memoir about second hand bookshops, written by a fellow book-loving copywriter, Matt Gilbert.

It’s a poignant reminder of the joy of browsing (the oldskool way, that is).

In the future, will people know what a book is?

You know, the actual object that gets dusty and smells a bit like old coats. Not the virtual file that you load onto your digital reader.

It’s a weird, slightly scary thought, and one which is played with to great effect in this lovely new children’s book, It’s a book.

It’s a very quick read,  but one which reminds you that for all the tweeting, blogging and ‘surfing’ you can do, sometimes it’s far nicer to just get lost in the world of a book.

Released to coincide with World Book Day, the only thing that made me feel a little sad about this book was that on the press release it said to go and watch the book’s ‘award-winning book’ trailer. I (Lol) got excited because I heart book trailers and the potential they have for capturing the essence of a book and leave you wanting more (as I’ve rabitted on about before).

The trouble with this trailer is that it spells out exactly what the book says. It lets you watch/experience 90% of the book for free; leaving hardly any reason to then read or buy the book. Not only that, it animates it for you, with nice voice overs and cool animation. This snazzy YouTube video is nicely produced, but it kind of undermines the very essence of the book. That it’s about a story to be magically enjoyed, on a page. Plain and simple, told with words and pictures. It doesn’t need to be charged up, and it doesn’t need shiny things or clever new fangled technology to make you like it. So there’s a palpable irony at play when you’re watching the trailer.

But that said, the book is still wonderful, and is worth buying for someone this World Book Day when it comes out (1st march).

Just don’t spoil it by watching the trailer – maybe just read it instead.

We stumbled across a fantastic recipe site this week whilst working on a brief, and what a happy stumble that was.

In case you need some inspiration for what to cook this weekend, or you love a bit of food porn, gojee is really worth a look.

It’s a food and drink recipe aggregator with absolutely luscious photography. But there’s a lot more to it.

As a site it’s very smart. You can filter your recipe searches by a variety of means. Tell them the types of food you hate and it won’t ever show you recipes with them in. Or, if you love something and have a glut of it in the fridge, it’ll show you ingredient-focused recipes.

It’s the same for the drink section of the site. Tell them what booze you have in the house or what you dislike and it’ll filter the restuls.

Or alternatively, go virgin and search for healthy juices and smoothies.

As well as the stunning images and intuitive way of searching the other thing that stands out is the tone of voice. For a foodie site, it’s really quirky.

When I was hovering over whether to join it said ‘we swear on our finest bottle of scotch that we won’t spam you.’ Brilliant. Then instead of ‘click here to join’ it just said ‘indulge’.

And when I was waiting for a page to load a silly little comment about not trusting men that eat skinny ice cream popped up.

You can also add in your supermarket loyalty card so it knows what you’ve got in stock. Very clever.

Here are some of the delectable pages…

That’s all. See you later aggregator.

A while ago, we had the pleasure of having Reuben Dangoor come and see us for a BMB Happy Monday presentation. He is one of the talented duo behind one of the most successful virals in recent times, ‘Bein’ a Dickhead’s Cool’

Achingly modest, cool and above all ludicrously YOUNG, Reuben showed us some of his other work he’s done. Understandably, he’s been inundated with requests for work ever since ‘Dickhead’ came out. So if you’re interested, here is his reel.

And here is his latest Gransta viral to continue BMB’s Find a property campaign which will be on TV this sunday.

Clever Reuben may have moved on, but fear not, the assault on Dickheadery continues with aplomb here.

I (Lol) went to Sunday School last sunday with some friends.

Well, a Sunday Sermon, to be exact; run by the School of Life. This one was being led by (Sir) Alain de Botton.

‘Of course God doesn’t exist,’ began Alain. ‘Let’s get that one out the way right now.’

But that wasn’t the point of his sermon. And nor is it the point of his new book ‘Religion for Atheists.’

His point was that religions of the world all have a lot going for them – lovely rituals, beautiful traditions, and overall, the enduring sense of community that they bring. All of which he argues that the secular world could benefit from. His point (cheeky though it was) was that we should stop mocking the world’s great religions, and learn to steal from them instead. We should pretend like we’re at a pic ‘n’ mix or a buffet, and just take out the best bits.

One of these best bits, he argues, is the sermon itself. An inspiring talk that is designed to persuade you of something, and to embue your life with more value. (The School of Life’s Sunday Sermons are certainly inspiring. They take place every month at Conway Hall. There’s even one coming up in a few weeks by Rory Sutherland.)

Above all, Alain sermoned, religion is a great host. It’s bloody great at bringing people together. (Almost as good as it is at tearing them asunder in war). Basically, argues Alain, why not have this togetherness but without the dogma?

It was hard to disagree with the man, captivating orator that he is. So much so that near the end, a Jew stood up in the audience and admitted to everyone that he goes to the synagogue once a week – not because he believes a jot of what the Torah has to say – but because he enjoys the sense of community.

But it wasn’t until the end, when we all stood up to belt out William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ – that great, rousing, secular hymn - that you really got the essence of it. So warm and uplifting it felt to be singing in unison with five hundred other hungover strangers, the effect was almost – well, biblical.

The upshot was that my friends and I, all of us staunch unbelievers, left Conway Hall in Holborn with the feeling that: here was a man who was bang on the nail about most everything, and properly inspiring. A man whose every word you want to hang on. And a man you’re more than a little bit in awe of.

In short, we might have accidentally found ourselves a new God.

Oops.

I know these days everyone’s into tablets and readers and ebooks. And that yes, they have their obvious advantages. But I’ve still not got one for various reasons (one, I like to scribble in the margins, two I like a book you can smell and three, I don’t trust myself not to end up starting 147 books at once, the temptation would be too much).

So as a devout old-skool book lover (OK luddite) I wanted to share these two wonderful examples of unabashed book porn, which prove that as heavy and un-eco-friendly they may be, books still are beautiful objects.

This lovely film from Toronto, the Joy of Books. And bookshelfporn (thanks Donnadoescopy for finding it).

Alternatively you can be like this pair who I spotted on the beach in Mexico, and travel 2 thousand miles to some of the world’s most beautiful coastland, to stare at a screen.

On a similarly bookish note, I’m delighted to see that Waterstones have come to their senses and snapped out of all that sans serif nonsense. You can read a friend’s interesting blog about this, brilliant new film The Artist, and the transition from old and new technology here.

No, not that kind. It’s far too chilly for that now. This kind.

We’ve caught wind of a quirky new brand that’s just launched called Skinny Dip, which manages to marry both technology and fashion. Two things that you don’t see together very often. SkinnyDip are like the multi-tasking of retail, in that they sell things like woolly hats that are also earphones; and headphones that are also ear muffs.

As a regular ear muff wearer, I’m (Lol) often being asked if they have music coming out of them, which sadly they do not. This always makes me think of this scene in Spaceballs the movie (has anyone seen this or am I showing my age?) where Princess Vespa has earmuff/hairpiece earphones. Anyway, I’m delighted to say that you too can now be like Princess Vespa, in some small way.

But what’s really interesting about SkinnyDip is their brand positioning. Their strategy when launching was to forget about targeting technology retailers like Dixons. Instead they went straight to fashion brands like River Island and Debenhams.

This is a similar strategy to when a few years ago, Penguin turned their attention from book shops (where they had no stand out) and offered them up to furniture stores like Habitat and Heals, thereby customers seeing the books placed stylishly in bookcases around the country – allowing people to associate Penguin with their home. We wondered if HMV ever considered doing something similar and selling their CDs in cd racks?

It’s great seeing brands step out of their normal environment. When you encounter a brand somewhere you don’t expect, it makes it much more memorable. What if Sure took their deodorant out of shops and sold them in vending machines on the underground? Or DFS took their sofas out of the showroom and into airport waiting rooms? Or, Lenor was sold in luxury clothes shops?

There’s definitely something in that: breaking up the monotony of the in-store display, and surprising people by pairing things together that you’ve not seen before. Certainly, incongruence is a vital element in comedy – the ‘two world’s colliding’ set-up is used so often to create an effect. Maybe the same is true of advertising.