Page 270 of 277

Recycle This!

How can I recycle this logoJohn and I have a new little project. It’s called “How can I recycle this?” – http://www.recyclethis.co.uk.

It’s a community-driven site, coming up with creative and fun ways to reuse and recycle various bits and bobs from around the home and garden. Each week, there will also be a green dilemma to discuss because we constantly find ourselves in a tangle about which out of two green or ethical options are best.

As it says on the site’s about page, we decided to set it up after eating a big pile of pistachio nuts. There we were, enjoying the sodium high but at a loss about what to do with the leftover shells. We thought there must be a million uses for them but we just couldn’t think what.

The design isn’t finally finalised yet but we thought we should get going on it since the content is the important bit.

Anyway, go over and leave some suggestions!

Clowning around

Me as a clown, in the rainI went back to Southport a couple of weeks ago and hauled a crapload of my old papers and photos back to Leeds. It’s been fun, if a little strange, going through everything.

If I ever needed proof that I’ve always been a hoarder, this is certainly it. I have every letter sent to me by friends over the years (and there is a LOT of them – from friends I saw every day as well as those living further away), photos, newspaper clippings – whole newspapers sometimes – diaries, notes, drawings and many, many half written stories, screenplays and poems. One night I read through all the letters from one particular friend, sent over the summer after our GCSEs before we started college (to be writer-ish about it, the summer where everything changed but not much happened), and it put me in a really weird mindset – particularly as I knew within three months, she would no longer be talking to me. Other letters and accounts were similar: I probably only read them when I first received or wrote them and didn’t look at them again until now – hindsight is throwing a helluva spin on things.

I might scan in a heap of photos at some point but for now, I’ve just scanned in one. I picked this one because I have a tendency to mention it to people in passing which always results in them saying “…what?”. It’s from when I was a clown in the International Clown Parade (which was held in Southport in 1997). About ten minutes after this photo was taken, Norman Wisdom looked at me with such pity and like I was some sort of half-wit that I’ve never been able to forgive him.

(Apologies that the picture is slightly out of focus. Not my fault. Mother was the photographer at the time.)

Stuff on My Cat

Sili in a bagI don’t usually just pimp random websites but this made me laugh a lot this morning: http://www.stuffonmycat.com/

Some on the front page are a bit hit and miss but the “Best of 2005” are pretty awesome: Loki is the best though. In fact, nearly all the food pictures rate highly on the amusement-o-meter. Eric wins the cute prize though.

And if all that wasn’t strange enough, the actual Stuff on My Cat ‘my cat’ is an absolutely clone of my mum and dad’s cat Holly in terms of markings. Awww.

(The picture here is Sili, by the way – probably the only of our cats that would let us get away with such tomfoolery)

Drawing John’s shoes

shoes #1On a related topic, I’m trying to learn to draw again at the moment.

I drew some pictures of John’s shoes back in December but have only just got around to scanning them in. They’re not perfect by any means but I like them.

Second picture (more detail of stitching but a wonky second foot included) after the “read more” thingy. Click on either picture to see larger versions.
Continue reading

Flyer weaving

Love Apple flyer weaving (flyer 2)We were sat in the Love Apple in Bradford on Saturday night – our usual destination after our regular curry at Omars – and the guys got into a goes-nowhere argument about Free Software. The cyclical and pretty much pointless nature of the discussion (since we all agree on the general principles, it’s just the minutae that’s discussed ad infinitum) led me to look for other avenues of entertainment.

And so I turned to weaving flyers together. There were two lots of flyers on the table – I started with the “steady rockin” one. I tore two copies of the flyer into strips, one torn horizontally, the other vertically then weaved them together to recreate the original flyer again. Because I had to tear the card by hand, the size of the strips varied and the edges were sometimes all over the place – not all the the flyer works but I’m quite impressed with the area around the woman’s face. (Click on the thumbnail picture for a bigger version).

There was a second flyer with a metro-style map on it and after the first one worked pretty well, I couldn’t resist giving that a go too. (Click the “read more” link to see it then, again, clicky clicky for a bigger version).
Continue reading

Leeds Reads really bad novels

booksMy current employer, Leeds University Library, is running an event called “Leeds Read at the moment, to culminate with World Book Day on Thursday 2nd March 2006.

Around the various buildings, there are displays and opportunities for people to vote for their favourite book, and there are special “meet the author” type events too. The staff room in my library has a bookswap event going on too, in a take-a-book-leave-a-book way.

Continue reading