Books, lots of books

After another day of working in the Oxfam shop yesterday I must say that I am really starting to like it. I most like to work behind the till which I did all day yesterday. I like the interaction with the people buying books or music. Some are very talkative, some are very grumpy but most of them are friendly people. And I also figured out that I like this work much more than my paid day job work …

The shop is located on Marylebone Highstreet (a 5 minute walk from Baker Street station and not too far from Oxford Street either) and attracts both the very posh and the very down to earth (and everything in between), and both the very young (children) and the somwhat older.

Here are a couple of notes I made in some quiet moments (of which there were very few):

• I have sold everything from children’s books to old school Wagner LP’s.
• There are the regulars who are waiting for the shop to open to be the first to check if anything interesting has arrived. And there are people who just wander in without really wanting to buy anything but then come to the till with a huge stack of books. “I really didn’t want to buy anything today” they then say, “but there are so many good books in this shop”. It’s nice hearing that.
• Two lovely DJ’s sitting down on the floor going through the boxes with vinyl record for ages and buying a stack of them. Vinyl is stil hip I tell you. Not only for dj’s, also classical music LP’s are still sold. And I have even sold some prerecorded casette tapes!
• VHS videos are still sold. Yep. I admit that the DVDs (and they have Bill DVDs too – I saw Hot Fuzz coming in yesterday …) are more popular but there is a good offer on VHS tapes: 3 for £1. There, how cheap is that?
• And I sold The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan LP to a very friendly American. I had a talk with him about the fact that LP covers are so much cooler than cd covers. We talked how a carefully selected stack of albums carried under your arm could define just how cool you were.

  This American could not resist the temptation of owning The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan on vinyl again. And he didn’t even have a record player at home he said!

• It is quite amazing to think about the fact that every single book in this whole shop (and there are many many books!) has been donated by someone. It is heart warming when people come into the shop with bags of books they want to donate. And they can use everything, so please come in and bring the books (or music) you no longer need.
• Kids love to sit down on their knees on the floor in front of kids section reading a fairy tale or looking for Harry Potter.
• It is lovely to see all those people wander around in the shop, browsing for books. The shop does have quite a selection, and there is something for everybody. From easy to read chicklits to novels, literature, and books about science, gardening, films, London history, trains, planes or automobiles. There is a pretty good Travel section too, and when I saw this San Francisco guide come in (in mint condition and for only £2,50) I of course had to buy it.
• Have I spotted any celebs in the shop? Yes I sold a book to the singer of former UK band The Fine young Cannibals. Never a dull day in the book shop!

I will be back working in the shop next Sunday so come in and say hi if you happen to be in the neighbourhood.

US trip

It has been a while since I have been on a far (ok further) away trip, so this year I have decided to cross some items of my “would love to see” list.

(Here is a bigger version of the map on Google)

But I need your help dear readers.

But first, the plan. Here are the places I want to visit:

1. Boston
I want to go to Boston to do a Whale watching boat trip. I have long been wanting to see whales from up close and Boston seems to be a perfect place for it.

I also want to do this Lighthouse tour, this area is about an hour north of Boston.

But apart from that, is Boston worth a visit?

2. Niagara Falls
I want to do the Maid of the Mist tour and just see these impressive falls. (Am planning to stay here for one day and then move on)

3. Chicago

I don’t know anything about Chicago, but it is just one of these places that sound so familiar.
Question to you reader: is it worth visiting? And what to see there?

4. San Francisco
I know what I want to see here: the Golden Gate bridge. And it is on the coast, so I am sure there is a beach too. And light houses.
And there is some more whale watching to do here as well. Wait a minute, do I actually need to go to Boston at all?

Has any of you ever been in San Francisco? What area is good to stay? And what to see and do there? How much time would you spend here?

5. Los Angeles
This is a bit the same thing as Chicago. I have heard the name so many times before. I know they have the “HOLLYWOOD” letters on the hill there. But is Los Angeles worth a visit? What to see and do there? How much time would you spend here?

Any tips and hints and comments are highly appreciated!

(I am planning on spending about 2 weeks in the US)

I can hear you think – where is New York on the map! I know, I know, but Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman did not have time to see me before November, so New York is scheduled then. Honestly, I am not even sure I will survive watching both Craig and Jackman on one stage.

A room with a view

Taken while sitting on my bed yesterday. The moon looks huge, doesn’t it?

Other short notes:

• We loved G-Force. I mean what is not to like, it’s talking guinea pigs! And mice! And a mole! And it is Bill in 3D. Apart from the slightly over the top Transformers like scene it was very enjoyable. The guinea pigs look great and I am sure children will love it.
• And we really liked The Proposal too. Ryan Reynolds is perfect for rom-coms, and there is a really cute dog in it too! One of the best rom-coms this year, together with Last Chance Harvey.
• And we found the best ice cream shop in London. Look no more, here it is : Gelato Mio. They have 3 shops, one in Notting Hill, one near Trafalgar Square and one in Holland Park. They are worth a visit, really.
• Are any of my regular readers on Facebook? Please connect!

Lots of it

A Friday afternoon creative mind spring postcard.

Pass it on here.

I know I am a tragic romantic! Have a lovely weekend.

Maybe I am just way behind, but I had no idea I could listen to most of my music online for free on Last.fm. It means I no longer need my iPod at work.

And better – most of my iPod songs are free for you to listen to too: here is my personal radio station. And feel free to comment on my bad taste in music.

Nick Drake’s – Northern Sky just passed my ears and I got an immediate urge to see Serendipity again tonight. What a great song. And that scene from Serendipity makes me cry every time.

In other news – I am updating my CV. There, I am not sure this is a wise thing to write on one’s blog but now I said it and you can kick me if I not soon write that my CV has been updated. It is time.

And my quote of the day (as it is exactly what happened today):
“Best friends are people who switch on the light if you are stumbling around in the dark.”

I think that quote is postcard worthy.

Seagull

I went for a photography meetup on Sunday and the trip went to Hasting. Hasting is a about 2 hours from London by train and while it is an ok place with cliffs, fishing boats and of course the sea, I still prefer Eastbourne (Beachy Head) and Brighton.

The weather was perfect (my face is still red) but somehow I wasn’t 100% motivated to take photos so they are not all great. But I am very happy with the above young seagull photo. I love the colours.

I think in the end the theme for me became taking photos of typical things on a British beach.

So we have seagulls, women in bikini (and I will leave it up to you if that is a good thing or not …), men putting up windscreens, deck chairs, swan water bikes and families with fish and chips (and the man wearing a t-shirt saying – “If found – return to the pub” ).

Surprisingly enough Hastings also has two Funiculars.

See all photos here.

Weirdest photo of the day must be this bear:

The saddest bear in the world

It looks incredibly sad and depressed. Understandable if you have a hole in your belly and are attached to a red tractor.

Meet Leonard, the squirrel

Meet Leonard, the squirrel, my new neighbour. I know that most people don’t like the grey squirrels because they are making life for the red squirrels very difficult. But I must admit that I still find them cute. I spotted Leonard when I left my flat this morning, he was sitting on the wall eating his breakfast. He stopped shortly to pose for me.

It must have looked a bit weird, me in my business suit (external client meeting today) taking pictures of a squirrel. When I put my camera back in my bag I realised that that was what the house keeper was thinking, as he was looking at me with one hand on his side. He did not look happy. He probably hates Leonard.

I think he hates me too now. He is the grumpiest bugger I have met in my life. I waved to him though when I saw him looking at me. He didn’t bother to wave back, but nodded a tiny little nod. That was probably his Britishness kicking in. I hope he doesn’t take it out on Leonard.

Who owns this tea towel I wonder ...

As I swear this tea towel isn’t mine!

Piccadilly Circus

Today it was time for some neighborhood exploring and I took a walk passed through:

• Maida Vale which has beautiful lanes with big green trees. And if it has to be a Starbucks to get your cup of tea then the one in Maida Vale/Kilburn has to be one of my favourite ones in London. It is a 2 minute walk from here and they sell this great book: Inspired by Music is The Prince’s Trust new book featuring personal accounts from celebs of how one piece of music became their inspiration.

  Not only does this book contain contributions from your favourite celebrities (Bill Nighy (worth to buy the book for alone), Tony Blair, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Sheen, Richard E. Grant, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey – just to name a couple), it also contains fantastic portraits by award winning photographer Cambridge Jones.

  You might want to get your copy for the coffee table. (The above pic is the book being advertised on Piccadilly Circus spot the man with the funky specs! And yes it was nice weather today.)

• St. John’s Wood. This is a very posh area (and a celebrity hotspot) but very nice too. It feels like a small village with a cosy (but very expensive) High Street and some beautiful parks too and it is just around the corner of Regents Park.

  I had no idea it was the area of Lord’s Cricket ground until I suddenly stood right beside it. I think there was a game going on as they were selling tickets for it at the tube station.

• And then there was Marylebone which has the same village feel but is not far from Oxford Street. Again, the high street was realy nice and I tried to find this, ehrm, Oxfam shop and succeeded. (And no he wasn’t there anymore)

  This a rather large Oxfam shop specialised in books, film and music. And seeing as they were looking for volunteers to help in the shop in weekends I am going to be on a try out there next Sunday. I have long been wondering if I could use my weekends for something a little bit more useful than hanging about in the cinema, so this seems worth a try. Let’s see how it works out.

What way are you going?

That, my friend is the question I am trying to find an answer to.

In the meantime, enjoy this lovely song by Sandrine. You might recognize it from the film Last Chance Harvey.

Seeing as I still can’t seem to get myself picking up a pen and do some writing, I have at least picked up my electronic pen and designed some postcards.

That must count for something, right?

What do you think? (Click on them to send them as ecards)

How about a meal for two?

I love you

Thank you

We've moved

Play me I am yours

Thirty street pianos have been installed on streets, in public squares and parks, train stations, and markets in London, they are a part of the Play me, I’m yours project which is currently visiting London. “Like a creative blank canvas, the pianos are there for any member of the public to play and engage with. The pianos will be in place until July 13th, after which time they’ll be donated to local schools and community groups.”

I stumbled upon the first on on Leicester Square where girl was playing a classical piece, and when I visited Portobello Road last week there was an older man playing a beautiful piece of music. He had parked his glass of beer on the piano and went for it, impressing all bystanders. What a wonderful idea.

Sing us a song, you’re the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
And you’ve got us feelin’ alright

And so he does

More Living art

On another note, the Fourth Plinth on Trafalgar Square has been turned into a living Art work. In stead of having a statue or sculpture there, living people, one at a time, one hour at the time, are taking stand on the plinth and do whatever they want to do making a living portrait of the UK.

There is a live webstream here: One and Another website. Or if you are in London, go visit Trafalgar Square, the event will continue until September. You can also apply for a place on the Plinth, should you be interested!

The live webstream is kind of fascinating.

After my Adobe Premiere course last week I really needed to go and use it for something. I have long been wanting to experiment with time-lapse photography, so I took a couple of test shots around Trafalgar Square and glued them together into a time-lapse sequence.

Just a couple of notes:

1. It feels good to make something again, even if it is just a simple thing like this.

2. The photos

The camera I used for this is my small pocket camera (Panasonic Lumix TZ4). It was handheld so there is some shaking. It also doesn’t have a built in timer so I used the “burst” option in stead. Also – not all photos are sharp.

If you want to do this properly you will have to use a tripod, and to make things easier for yourself, a good camera with a timer.

I am going to try it again with my Nikon D80. This camera should take better pictures. It doesn’t have a timer either, but I bought an external timer which can be connected to the camera. This sort-of remote control will then take pictures every x seconds. (where x is the interval you have set it to).

But basically what you need to do it to take lots of pictures with very short intervals of the same subject. (And that subject should, obviously be moving/changing etc.)

3. Editing
It was really easy to turn this into a video clip in Premiere. It was a breeze to add a bit of music to it and adding some titles is very easy too.

I set the duration for each photograph at 0.2 seconds. (one fifth of a second, 5 photos per second)

(Note: you don’t need Premiere for this, you could probably do the same thing in Windows Movie maker.)

And I can hear you think – why did you not just shoot a video clip in stead?
Well I kind of like the quirky way in which people or things seem to move in time lapse videos, there is an odd look and feel to it. So I want to experiment with it a bit more.

To do some more practising with the editing – next weekend I am going to visit those two lovely dogs again and I will try to shoot some video clips of them to cut together some sort of “A day in the life of …” clip. Stay tuned.

Update: Uploaded a new version. It is slightly longer with some more footage of people on Trafalgar Square. And I put in transitions between the different sections. And it is slighly better quality.

Swim - anyone? (Fountains in Trafalgar Square)

A heatwave has arrived in London.

I wonder if this is typically British, a heatwave warning with different levels and all.

Sounds like the perfect weather for a move to me. Good thing I hired removal men for it.

I used my weekend to pack everything and I am ready to go. Tonight I will meet up with Angus and the first time with Paolo, my other flatmate and we will get the keys. I hope it is going to be a smooth move, and that I will be happy there.

How is the weather where you are?

Yes, these are my Kermit sneakers

I got tagged by Vanillasky for this questionaire, so here we go.

What is your current obsession?
Uhm. Going to the cinema and watching Last Chance Harvey. Have seen it 4 times now. Last Chance Harvey is the new Dan in Real Life for me. I love it.

What is your weirdest obsession?
Notebooks. Pens. Visiting light houses. And Bill Nighy. Or, wait a minute – is he a weird obsession?

What are you wearing today?
Jeans, very green Converse sneakers, a blue checkered shirt.

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Now I am not a major fan of Coldplay, but I do love some of their songs.

The friendly chaps of Coldplay have just released a FREE live album. Yes you read that right, FREE and LEGAL.

You can download it here (for as long as it lasts).

And even though you might not be their greatest fan, it is worth downloading for the live version of Viva La Vida. If that huge crowd singing along on this song doesn’t make you smile, I don’t know what does.

The album is in MP3 format.

All these stop motion short films make me:

1. Smile big time
2. Want to make one myself

Now there are quite a lot of them there, but I will point you to the ones I like best:

1. Her morning elegance
I love love love this film. And I also really love the song, it is called Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie, who also made the film. (More info about how they made the video here).

2. Firekites – I love how the birds fly from blackboard to blackboard.

3. Deadline which is made entirely with post-it notes!

In case you are wondering what stop-motion means: Stop motion (or frame-by-frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small amounts between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames are played as a continuous sequence. (from wikipedia) Basically it is a film made of photographs.

I have actually taken the photographs for a short first stop motion video, but I have been majorly struggling with all kinds of crappy editing programs to turn it into a film. I didn’t succeed and gave up. Maybe my editing course ext week will push me in the right direction to finish it.

I have also bought a timer for my camera, as I also really want to try to make a timelapse video.

There are some unbelievably cool examples of those here and a more basic one here. It must be possible to find some interesting London-by-night spots for my camera. It is basically just setting up a tripod and have the camera take a picture every 2-3 seconds.

Enjoy your weekend!

Moving house ...

Well that still is the case. I have packed more than half of my things in boxes, booked a removal company and sent out the first change-of-address notifications.

However I have now found out that my second flatmate is going to be of the male type too. That was not really something I considered could happen when I said yes to Angus, but somehow I will be sharing a very nice three bedroom flat with two men!

Does this worry me? Not really. The new guy (I am calling him Paolo, which isn’t his real name) is Italian, 34, working in an Art Gallery in the West End and very quiet, according to Angus. So I think we will all be fine. And to be honest, generally, I do get along better with men than with women. There just need to be some rules, you know, things like the toilet seat down and things like that. But it is going to be new and exiting, the flat and the area are great, and who knows Paolo might be a brilliant cook of Italian food!

So yes, two weeks from now we’ll have a coffee the three of us and me and Paolo will get the keys. And the next day I move in. I will keep you updated.

Besides moving, I am also going to be social, I will visit the following events:

• visiting the Qype summer party tomorrow
• doing a Ghost bus tour Thursday with the people from 3
• going to Tweetcamp next saturday (there are still free tickets available if you are interested)

For all those three things – I have no idea what it is going to be like, but I will give them all a try. I am not looking forward to the Ghost Bus Tour though – as I am not a fan of anything spooky, but I got invited so I will give it a go.

Tonight I will watch two delightfully talented actors in Waiting for Godot. Next week I will go on a two week video editing (Adobe Premiere) course in Leamington Spa where I hope to learn some new tricks regarding video editing. And when all that is done I will soon be closing the door behind me in my current flat, moving on to a new chapter in my life.

Did I tell you already that you really should go and see Last Chance Harvey? Utterly utterly charming film. Actually.

And what are you all up to?

Notebooks

It is quite amazing how much stuff I have collected during my 3 years in London. I arrived with two bags, but my possesions will now fill quite some boxes. One of those boxes will contain some notebooks …

I like notebooks. I buy them as souvenirs in places I visit: the two ones with hearts on it are both bought in New York for example. Or if they have really funky colours I will be tempted. Or when the paper has nice patterns on it.

My problem is that I have turned into a serious notebook addict and during packing I found …

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Bill, Bill and Priscill

I had planned to meet quite a lot of people tonight who wanted to have a look at the two rooms available in my current flat, but I fear that the planned tube strike from 7pm tonight might mess things up a bit. Just when I started to worry about that, my Italian landlord called, he is currently in the UK and said he was in no hurry at all to get the rooms filled. So I guess that means I will stop looking and he can sort it out himself. Which is good news – no more effort required from me then, me thinks.

My IKEA sofa bed has been sold and will be picked up on the 28th of June.

I sent 2 letters of recommendation to my new landlord for my approval (should not be a problem at all according to Angus)
I have ordered moving boxes and will start packing soon.
I need:
to find a reliable man with a van who can move the boxes to the new place on the 1st of July.
to sort out a Royal Mail auto mail redirection for my post
to quit all bills and send a change of address to a long list of companies

Moving date still set for the 1st of July which is 22 days from now. It can’t go fast enough for me.

This weekend I had my good friend over and we have been enjoying London. Here are some things that we can highly recommend:

• Last Chance Harvey with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. Decent chick flick rom (and a bit of com) and recommended. Out now.
• Yeah it is still on, so we couldn’t help ourselves.
• We visited the Camden Stables (market). I had been to Camden before but I never made it to the stables section and we liked it. They also have a very nice area where you can sit down with your coffee and get something to eat from one of the many food stalls around. We opted for a pancake with nutella/banana. Not bad we can tell you!
• We saw Priscilla Queen of the Desert – the musical And can be short about this: go see it! It was fantastic, great music, fantastic cast and an evening full of fun. An absolute joy to watch.
• On Sunday we went to see immensely mad, crazy, hilariously funny Bill Bailey in the Riverside Studios. He did two tryouts in London before going on tour in the rest of the UK and I laughed my socks off. He is so funny. Catch him if he comes to a place near you.
• We also enjoyed the view from Parliament Hill (Hampstead Heath), had a coffee in the cafe with the most incapable staff on Leicester Square (All Bar One – please don’t go there they are totally rubbish), had lunch while having a nice view over the Thames in Greenwich, and checked where Lord Sandwich hung out in the National Maritime Museum (free entry).

We had a great weekend! And you?