Meta-televison

Ten of my favourite meta television shows....

Hustle
Family Guy
Seinfeld
Arrested Development
Simp sons
Parker Lewis Can’t Lose
Looney Tunes
X-Files
Frontline
Duckman

With the forthcoming release of JCVD my thoughts turn to metatelevision shows I have loved and the memories they have left me. The success of pomo and meta techniques rely on accomplished scriptwriters and actors, which all these shows share with aplomb. Curiously David Duchovny is the most common recurring link between most of these shows. This may mean that Fox Mulder is the most important character in my pop cultural universe or that David Duchovny has a really good agent.

Red Wing 320

I don't know why I wasn't onto Red Wings sooner. This is my first pair and they have been the best winter shoes EVER. They took very little time to break in and feel really comfortable, plus I think they look fantastic. I can't envisage not owning a pair from now on. Combined with my love for coats they are making the winter months all that more tolerable.

Chez Incredibles

Watching The Incredibles today I was enthralled by the design of their house. Dr Michael Hill of Sydney's University of Technology has written an essay on the subject, in which he notes "... The design of the house combines a past/future look having a 1950s Modernist style architecture incorporating a simpler and less decorative approach to form with some 1960s concepts of the future in the design of the appliances and the large screen television and a robot toy, 1950s style, modern and abstract art and images and furniture, pastel colours. There is an emphasis on home wares, an area of domestic design that emerged around this time. You can almost smell the Tupperware. It is clean and sanitised. There is what looks like a Jacobsen chair in the living room and Charles Eames style twisted plywood chairs in the dining room."

Download the full article: www.dab.uts.edu.au/research/conferences/imaginary-worlds/a_home_for_ heroes.pdf

Trenchard St multistory carpark Bristol

Faber

These promo postcards came with a book I bought from Faber. They are a nice addition to the ones I picked up at Glastonbury last summer and continue the theme of a romatic vision of a pop cultural landscape of kitsch.

Oi Polloi

It is a well accepted part of business that a dissatisfied customer will tell far more people about their dissatisfaction with a company than those who have received good service. In an effort to redress this balance I feel compelled to shout out to the world how wonderful the Manchester based store Oi Polloi are. I bought a lovely jacket via their website last week which arrived the next morning, packaged well with a hand written note of thanks and a cool badge. These might be little touches but they count; wow factors do exceed the customer's expectations and I will want to go back to them. Large retailers just can't connect with their customer like this. Its refreshing that store like this are out there, clearly thinking abut their customer, what their customer wants and providing it in not only a prompt fashion but with wit and flair, as evidenced by their website. Hands down the best men’s clothing store in the UK right now.

Running out of the past

Surrounded by my sons' toys, many of which have been whizzing and beeping fresh from their cardboards constraints for only a few days I wonder which of them they will look fondly back on. I would plump for the marble run which has been the hit of Christmas for all of us. On the games front, Ellefun is a hoot but over all too quickly. The above books are all fantastic reflections on classic toys, Tim Walsh's being the benchmark of the lot. The other three are more whimsical, with TV Cream Toys and Boys' Toys having a British bias. Just Can't Get Enough is from the American perspective reminiscent of the Ben is Dead's Retro Hell.