Blog › July 2006 Archives

Renamed brands
I got to thinking today, if I still had an original, wrapped Marathon bar, from the days before the Snickers fiasco, would I buy be able to sell it on Ebay for millions of pounds? Well, okay, maybe not millions. But there's got to be somebody out there who collects such things.

While I'm on the topic, maybe I should have kept hold of some Opal Fruits and Mr Dog as well.

Work continues on the C2C video (still editing the footage from day 1 out of 12)...

30 July, 2006 at 22:49 1 Comment
Starting from scratch
As I was leaving my flat the other morning to go to work, I thought I smelt burning from the flat below mine. This got me thinking, what if the burning smell was, for example, coming from an iron that the owner of the flat had accidentally left on. And what if it started a fire, which burnt down both his flat and the flats above it. The question boils down to, what if my flat burnt down and I lost everything in it?

Assuming I got the money from contents insurance (and I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that my insurance company would pay up due to loss caused by another flat owner leaving his iron on), the question I asked myself was, what would I miss? And what would I buy again? And just how materialistic am I?

Things I own that I would definitely buy again: a laptop, (electronic) piano, camera, a limited selection of DVDs, a limited selection of books, walking equipment (rucksack, tent, etc.). Possibly some clothes.

Things I own that I would probably not buy again: most of my DVD and CD collection, desktop computer, printer, most of my books.

All in all I'd like to be a lot more minimalist than I am now. I love the idea of being able to pack all my worldly possessions in the boot of my car.

How about you? Would you buy all your belongings again, or would you, like me, take the opportunity to shift your view on material possessions?

On an unrelated note - this is a still, of the beach at St Bees, taken from my very-much-in-progress Coast to Coast documentary:

29 July, 2006 at 13:20 0 Comments
Primitive Professions
Seeing as we seem to be rapidly destroying our world through removing our ozone layer and causing global warming, it got me thinking - if a scenario such as the film "The Day After Tomorrow" envisages did in fact happen, what would be the most useful skills to have afterwards?

I'm pretty sure that software engineers would not be high on the list. Doctors would probably come top - then, for a society to last longer than a few days (after we'd looted everything from the local Asda), we'd need farmers. Eventually, there'd be traders, etc. In fact it may not be too different from the original rise of civilisation.

Or would it? Have we learnt anything in the last X thousand years that would help us become "civilised" more quickly the next time around? Could we use pure knowledge to rebuild, or are we now so dependent on our infrastructure that without it we'd be crippled?
28 July, 2006 at 10:12 0 Comments
Coast to Coast
A couple of weeks ago, I spent two weeks walking from the west coast of England to the east coast. This was the most exhilerating, most beautiful, most challenging walk I've yet done. The scenery was truly superlative and I met some of the friendliest people I've ever come into contact with.


I took 9 hours of video footage, which I'm now trying to edit down to a more reasonable 45 minutes, in a documentary style. Has anybody else tries this? I've spent a week so far, and I've got 3 minutes of edited video out of it - at this rate, expect to see the film in 2024.
27 July, 2006 at 21:57 0 Comments