Warning, this site contains images. I just wish I’d thought of it.
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Archive for the 'Shopping' Category
Comic publisher Drawn & Quarterly are republishing a book by one of my favourite comic artists, Julie Doucet. Unfortunately their printer has thrown away some of the film of the book and the original artwork was sold, a while ago, to ME! So they emailed me and asked me if they could have a scan of it. Do you think I could get away with scanning it and then changing it a bit, maybe put my face on one of the characters? Would that be a bad thing to do?
This idiotic story is so ironic it makes me laugh. American scientists criticising Vegan parents as unethical. Scientists have consistently used science on behalf of their big-business employers to persuade and coerce parents all over the world into feeding their children with poisonous chemicals. The examples are so numerous that one only has to look at this week’s crop of stories to see a representative sample.
“War Of Words On Cancer Food Scare” This UK story is about a cancer causing food colouring that found its way into lots of supermarkets. Nobody is quite sure how much the recall of the poisoned products will cost the supermarkets. Nobody is discussing the costs to the people who ate the contaminated food. I had a look to see if Sudan Red 1 is banned in the USA, I couldn’t work out its status from the US Food and Drug administration site.
I also saw a story in the Observer magazine which mentioned Triclosan, an antibacterial agent used in many products. “The subject of an Environment Agency investigation, Triclosan is an anti-bacterial or antimicrobial agent which kills all bacteria instantly, even the beneficial ones. Cropping up not only in chopping boards, but in dishcloths and even toothpaste, it is part of the armoury now used by consumers to tackle those dangerous germs we see on adverts for cleaning products. However, alarmingly, it has also been detected in breast milk, and there are concerns that widespread use fosters antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.”
And then of course there’s childhood obesity. A group of scientists at the Social Issues Research Centre have been sending out press releases to the media about a new report which claims that the Obesity Epidemic is not as bad as it seems. I’ve already seen several news stories that appear to be inspired by these press releases. However, if you take a closer look at the SIRC you’ll find they are a gang of scientists for hire and they are working on behalf of several multinational food companies. According to an article on lobbywatch.org SIRC are nothing more than a thinly-disguised Public Relations company who frequently work on behalf of the food, drink and drugs industries.
Of course not all scientists are as cynically immoral as the ones who work directly for big business, but I am certain that far more children have suffered and continue to suffer from the work of scientists than have suffered from the dangers of veganism.
I’m just copying some DVDs that my friend Giles lent me. I can’t believe I just sat and watched the “out-takes” at the end of Toy Story 2. Really.
This is a such a great idea, I’m appalled that this is the first time I’ve ever read about it.
You know how if you try a print a photo in black and white on your inket it always looks terrible? And that’s because the printer’s trying to create all the shades of black in your picture by making different sized dots of black ink. No matter how clever the software is you can always see this ‘dithering’, especially in mid tones.
So if you’re feeling keen you might make your picture into a duotone or even a quadtone in Photoshop. That uses the other coloured inks in the printer to make shades of not-quite-black which improves matters a bit if you don’t mind the picture being a bit brown or blue looking.
What Piezography does is take that quadtone idea a step further. You replace the coloured inks in your printer with three shades of grey ink. So now your printer can’t print in colour but it can produce stunning black and white prints. The pigment based inks are also long lasting; the manufacturers claim they will fade by a maximum of 5% in 100 years.
Unfortunately my printer is slightly too old to use this system but it’s got me thinking - why not mix up my own inks and do the same thing?
Speaking of hydrogenated vegetable oil, here’s a list of the bad things it does, from tfX, the UK campaign against trans fats in food:
- raise LDL (Low-Density Lipo-proteins, known as “bad” cholesterol) and lower HDL (High-Density Lipo-proteins, known as “good” cholesterol) levels
- clog up arteries, leading to circulation problems, high blood pressure and heart disease
- predispose to cancer, multiple scelerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and diverticulisis
- decrease the response of human cells to insulin, a factor in both adult-onset (type 2) diabetes and obesity See here for more information.
- disrupt human milk formation, reducing cream levels and introducing themselves into mothers milk
- assimilate into cell membranes to levels as high 20 percent, weakening their structure and protective function
- weaken the immune system, making us more susceptible to infections
- inhibit the action of enzymes that destroy toxic and carcinogenic chemicals
- block the beneficial action of the essential Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids
- reduce the elasticity of blood vessels.
I was helping put out the food at the daughter’s school Christmas party yesterday. I found it a bit disturbing for several reasons.
The first thing that worried me was that I seemed to be the only person helping who washed his hands before handling the food. I’m no cleanliness fanatic, far from it in fact, but this did seem to be a rather obvious case for a bit of rudimentary hygiene. Parenting is a mucky business and the food we were putting out was going to be sitting at room temperature for at least an hour.
The next alarming thing was the pork. There are loads of Muslims at that school, as well as a few vegetarians and yet there was no plate on any table that didn’t contain sausages and sausage rolls, often heaped up against cakes, sandwiches and other foods. I mentioned it to one of the other helpers, a former teacher, and she didn’t think it was an issue at all. I think that religious food laws are simply insane but some people feel very strongly about them. Surely we should at least make an attempt to respect their views.
The worst thing though was the terrible quality of the food. There were a few token carrot sticks and chunks of cucumber but everything else was a series of variations on salt, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil and flour. Not to mention the supporting cast of nasty additives. I saw virtually nothing that I would feed my children at home; most of it I wouldn’t eat myself. I got the impression that the people who contributed food had just bought the cheapest possible snacks they could find, maybe it was stuff that they wouldn’t normally give their children either. But surely a party should be an opportunity for fantastic, beautiful, exciting food, maybe delicacies that one normally wouldn’t indulge in. There’s simply no point in serving up a load of revolting junk, not really food at all, and in such quantities that most of it ends up in the bin anyway, which is where it belongs. What are we trying to teach our children - Eat well when you must but eat crap when you’re having fun?
Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself an internationalist and I have a deep interest in and enthusiasm for China. Even so, I got really depressed while Christmas shopping in the toy department of John Lewis because almost everything they sell is made in China. I bet there are loads of kids who won’t get a single present this year that is made in the EU.
That is just one reason why I’m feeling so enthusiastic about the Playmobil web store. It’s a really well designed site and the range of beautifully made, imaginative, entertaining and cheap toys is just stunning. I love the attention to detail.
For instance, the Playmobil Santa and sleigh has several toys included for Santa to deliver and if you open the little boxes there are tiny books, a racing car, a miniature teddy and a little football inside them. How often were you disappointed as a child by empty pretend presents? I also love the way in which the themed ranges are so extensive and carefully thought out. The police range has all the things you’d expect but also a safe cracker’s set complete with dodgy looking criminals, a working safe, money and gold bars. There’s also a flash looking getaway car for the crooks or a speed cop complete with radar gun. The building range includes a portacabin for the architect to sit around in as well as the more obvious diggers and cranes and the fairy tale range has a hollow oak for the princess to hide in as well as a waterfall and a frog in a fountain. I’m not sure what range the small and large rock formations belong to but I like the look of them as well.
Unfortunately I had already sent in my order when I discovered the Playmobil collector’s catalogue which features “pictures of over 2000 objects from the 30 years old history of Playmobil… categorized by rareness.” It’s only a tenner, come on mum.
I was listening to an interview with the boss of the brewery conglomerate SABMiller, Graham Mackay. His multinational company is one of the world’s largest producers of alcoholic drinks. He was talking about their expansion into China. Currently they are the second biggest operator in China with 37 breweries. He says that their production there is increasing faster than in anywhere else in the world but that it’s not making much money for him at the moment because the profit margins are so small.
It amazes me that reporters never seem to consider that alcohol is a drug and that in some ways Mackay is rather like a ‘Drugs Baron’. The only way that breweries can increase their profits is by taking business from other breweries or by getting people to drink more alcohol. We’d all be hearing a lot of consternation and condemnation in the media if these expansion plans were aimed at increasing and profiting from the number of heroin or cocaine addicts in the west.
There are almost no social benefits from more people drinking or from the same people drinking more. There are obviously plenty of disadvantages; domestic violence, child abuse, car accidents, addiction, illness, anti-social behaviour, decreased productivity… the list could go on for a while. Western societies spend a lot of time trying to deal with the problems that people like Mackay profit from. I don’t think we should be so uncritical of his plans for expansion.
I want a print Gocco kit. I read about this machine on Mark Pawson’s site and it sounds brilliant. It lets you do screen printing onto all sorts of things and it’s really simple and cheap. The PG-11 kit is less than £150. Apart from anything else I’d finally get to use the colour separation features in Illustrator. Who doesn’t, in their heart of hearts, really aspire to being a print-maker?