Saturnalia

Digging in the Dirt

It would be pretty damn difficult to capture what Dirt Quake was, but Dan and Hayley's hard work does... love it!
This is Dirt Quake! from SIDEBURN on Vimeo.

Rollerburn

And a good time was had by all.

Postcard from Vegas

Clive James has always been a big fan of F1, even narrating the 1986 season review.

Here he is from his imperial phase as broadcaster, equal parts 'aw shucks' hick from the sticks Australian and sharp-eyed commentator able to skewer a ridiculous situation with acerbic wit. He's reporting from the ill-starred Ceasar's Palace Grand Prix in Las Vegas. What a treat for F1 nerds he even manages to capture a disgruntled European F1 pack-member coining (or repeating at the very least) the damming, and it has to be admitted accurate assessment of the whole shamozzle "a go-cart race in a parking lot".

supermarket

Right up my street on a number of levels is this recreation of a period supermarket at the Goodwood Revival. One of the things I find most surprising is just how familiar it all looks. A lot to do with the very strong brand identities present I suppose, these are products we have grown up with. It also reflects just how ahead of their time these pioneers of consumerism were... contemporary films seem to be in a variety of shades of brown and grey, a landscape curiously bare of billboards, screens and information density. Entering this modest (to our eyes) supermarket shoppers must have felt transported to a vivid fantasy realm of colour and promise.






more pics at tasteologie

Rollerburn

See you there!

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Track notes

There are many stories with a gulf between the way they're reported and the actual truth but one that still continues to endure is the idea that console or computer gaming is a niche or for kids, the popular culture's geeky step-child. Jesus Christ! Gaming is so mainstream it really doesn't need saying does it? More popular, interesting and creative than Hollywood and the revenues are larger too.

I'm part of that loose first generation that can be described as growing up with gaming, through Spectrums and Acorns, Commodores to Playstation and beyond and I'm middle aged now. Judges, politicians, policemen, chefs they're all gamers. It's over. We won. One can only presume that it will take the current crop of newspaper editors and TV execs to die off before this ridiculous false image of gaming finally disappears, about two decades late.

Which is why I think the BBC F1 coverage is really missing a trick. There's several generations of Grand Prix fans now who enjoy driving the circuits in a virtual environment. An environment so accurate that the teams themselves use similar systems for testing. Why aren't the broadcasters using the unique opportunity every fortnight to talk in detail about driving these specific tracks and the settings that will make the difference to shaving tenths of a second here and there. In-game cars are almost as adjustable as the real thing but the average gamer hasn't risen through the motorsport ranks learning about the delicate interplay of suspension settings, tyre pressure and aero tweakage so it would be a really compelling portion of the coverage to get expert tips from the drivers on how to go fast. The time has long gone past when a serious piece to camera about console gaming should be something to be ashamed of.

The alternative is to keep hearing from Eddie Irvine as he makes another assault on the English language and the viewer's sanity, and that is something the BBC should be embarrassed about.

the friendly skies

Photo archive of Pacific Southwest Airlines.

What a wonderful feeling

It's no secret that I love the Photorealists, not least because of their tendency towards cars and car culture as a subject matter. So it's no surprise that I fell for these paintings by Gregory Thielker. A strong Proustian rush took me back to many hours as a child in the back of a car staring out through a rain drenched triplex window.

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lovely

Hell on wheels

I think I've mentioned Adam Curtis before. He's a television documentary maker whose work express a clear sometimes controversial opinion about their subject often at odds with the current received wisdom.

As a profile in the Observer noted:

The fun and surprise of his films is the footage that he uncovers to support his mesmerising essays... ...Curtis has a remarkable feel for the serendipity of such moments, and an obsessive skill in locating them. 'That kind of footage shows just how dull I can be,' he admits, a little glumly. 'The BBC has an archive of all these tapes where they have just dumped all the news items they have ever shown. One tape for every three months. So what you get is this odd collage, an accidental treasure trove. You sit in a darkened room, watch all these little news moments, and look for connections.'

His blog has many inspiring ideas and the footage he finds to illustrate them. Of particular interest at the moment is the glorious footage he's unearthed from 1973 of Britain's first official Hells Angels Chapter.

The film is another pharmaceutical strength shot of reality for anybody in danger of fondly remembering the Seventies as any kind of beacon of style. It's bleak, grubby and unsophisticated, just like the Angels themselves. It chimes very nicely with Hunter Thompson's experience with the Angels. An initial fascination with their lifestyle quickly led him to conclude that they were at best damaged goods, and these guys don't even have sun-drenched Californian backdrop to lend them an air of roguish glamour. Well worth a look.

Bosozoku

Another great paintjob from Death Spray Custom. If you don't know what film this bike's referencing then we need to talk.

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Hans off approach

I was dimly aware that an experiment in Holland had shown that by removing road furniture, signage and painted lines they'd drastically reduced the accident rate. This great article on Jalopnik gives more details of why and some background on the radical traffic engineer Hans Monderman behind the scheme. I heartily recommend it.

Soft and gentle

Volkswagen have always been a byword for sophistication with their advertising, particularly in print. But those Madison Avenue copywriters had their hands full when they started on the VW account, as somebody wrily observed 'how do you sell a nazi car in a jewish town?'.

Interesting to note then just how far we've come, can you see this flying today?

click for bigetty

tower of power

The distaff representative of driverchris towers finds it almost impossible to pass by a museum or gallery, they exert a pull on her which is almost primal. This is fine I like a bit of high culture myself although I can start to fade a wee bit after the third or fourth in a day.

The way to preserve amity is to leaven the modern art and ethnographic artefacts with visits to stuff like the excellent tekniskamuseet in Stockholm - an amazing collection of technical engineering in a great location.

So what could be more exciting after some old masters then than a visit to a car storage plant?

Until recently the 'CarTowers' a storage device for up to 800 freshly made Volkswagens was not open to the public. All that has changed.

A special glass, panorama lift takes six guests through the same procedure as one of the 800 cars stored in the CarTowers.

Visitors are taken up 48 metres to the 20th storey by the car shuttle as if they were a regular car – for extra effect the car shuttle swings slowly to the right and then back to the left before safely depositing the glass lift in a specially designed slot on the observation deck.

How cool is that? One for the itinerary of the next European road trip.