Let Me Help

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the swinging extremes of sharing that happens on Twitter. I’m guilty of tweeting a lot of nonsense and a lot of images of baked goods, but what my feed has never been is overly emotional. Sometimes I tell those far away that I miss them, sometimes I admit to crying at a film, but blatant and consistent outpouring of feeling on a public forum just isn’t in my nature to do. 

Love and the experience of it has never been more in the public domain. Online dating, the infamous Facebook relationship status update, relationship blogs, reality matchmaking programmes. With the potential and expectation for lifelong happiness tantalisingly and continually shoved in our faces it’s a wonder we’re not stabbing Cupid with his own arrows to make it stop.

So it set me to thinking whether such online demonstrations were good or bad; this digital equivalent of the traditional PDA. One example immediately sprung to mind – Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. As I follow both these public figures (I think, perhaps, this is the fairest term, to use ‘celebrity’ feels to…cheap…) on Twitter, I’ve read the tweets that go back and forth and I doubt if there is a clearer example of unashamed public declarations of love in the digital sphere.

Trying to remove any bias, as I admit I am a fan of the work of both individuals, are their exchanges too much, too public, or too cringeworthy? Well, the one thing they absolutely are is searingly honest. Naked, if you will. In a culture where the issue of privacy is fiercely fought over and often settled in the hands of a judge, it’s actually somewhat refreshing. The sharing with Twitter strangers; thousands, or even millions of random humans sharing the joy of two people who love each other  in 140 characters, or a simple instagram photo.

On a wider level I wonder, too, if their messages of adoration to each other have helped the respective super-engaged, supportive fan-bases both Gaiman and Palmer evidently have. Love to get love, albeit predominantly love of the online kind. They are but one example and they happen to have got it very, very right. Is it enough to convince me of all out open love on the web? I’m not sure Twitter could cope with the unadulterated joy.

Let me Help – A Storify of Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman Love can be found here.

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Sew White – A Business Fairytale

Those that follow me on Twitter may have noticed that I enjoy a bit of baking – the Great British Bake Off having reignited a dormant fascination I’ve had since childhood. Recently, I’ve been buying a lot of my bakeware from Sew White, a one-woman enterprise run by Sisely White, which covers baking, crafts, gifts and homewares. I’ve been meaning to blog about her for a while and my recent purchase (more details on that below) was the nudge I needed to explain why her business is so moreish.

I first came across Sew White on Twitter and that first click through to her website led to a purchase of a couple of silicon moulds, the whole e-commerce process from purchase through to delivery was ideal. I knew after that, I would definitely be a returning customer. That was last year, and now my kitchen has numerous silicon moulds and cutters stashed here, there and everywhere.

My first moulds from Sew White

My first moulds from Sew White

The main reason for this loyalty is the personal service. Here’s an example. I was perusing (for the third or fourth time that week) Sew White and had decided to make a purchase. Simple enough. However my android smartphone decided not to play, so every time I attempted to complete the payment the site flipped back to the preceding page. Frustrated, I gave up, telling myself I’d sort it out when I got back to my laptop. I didn’t, life got in the way as it invariably does with such things. But a couple of days later I had an email from Sisley saying she’d seen I’d tried to make a purchase and checking whether something had gone wrong. A couple of emails back and forth later, I went back and completed my purchase. Sisley even threw in a free mould for the inconvenience.

As pretty and well-stocked as the likes of Lakeland and Steam Trader are, that is an offering they simply can’t compete with. Yes, her prices are also excellent, the quality fantastic, the range quirky, but those are all things that could potentially be found elsewhere. Sew White’s service, however, is hard to beat.

My latest bakeware additions from Sew White

My latest bakeware additions from Sew White

 

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Passivhaus Retrofit – The right move for UK homes?

The Passivhaus seminars at this year’s Ecobuild show were standing room only, lending credence to argument that the methodology continues to form a significant part of the building process.

I squeezed into a lecture on Passivhaus retrofit – perhaps the most significant area of Passivhaus thought considering the vast majority of future UK building stock already exists. Whilst cost versus results is the obvious and most common point to focus on, one of the more interesting audience reactions came from the presentation of a refurbished Victorian terraced house. External insulation had transformed the aesthetic to something more akin to a Nordic cabin, with wood panels and white walls. Gone was the period charm contained within the brick and stonework. Gone too, was its uniformity with neighbouring buildings. It stuck out, perhaps not quite like the proverbial sore thumb as the overall design wasn’t particularly offensive, but it did cause a startling break in an otherwise aesthetically matched row of houses.

Full house at Passivhaus Seminar

Full house at Passivhaus Seminar

What Marion Baeli pointed out, was that our affinity with period charm is impeding our ability to apply the best standards of Passivhaus retrofit.  Would the reaction have been the same if all the houses on the row had been upgraded in the same way, therefore retaining the consistent aesthetic? The balance of retaining cultural identity whilst implementing the right technologies for the building is, according to Marion, tipped towards the former argument and it’s an area that those working on Passivhaus retrofit are working hard to refine and reach happy compromise.

But, with so many different architectural styles decorating the landscape of the UK and our continuing attachment to ‘chocolate box’ cottages and art deco seafront villas, that compromise still seems a long way off. Plus, when you throw in a minimum retrofit price tag of £50k the question has to be asked: Is the Passivhaus methodology really the right option for UK retrofit?

 

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Facing Inspiration

As a writer I have long been inspired by imagery – particularly by portraits as they offer such potential for imagination and story-telling. You know nothing about the subject but what their face betrays – and even that is subjective depending on the viewer.

On Twitter this week, a company I follow linked to a photo of a 100 year-old man and asked their followers what they reckoned they’d look like after a century on this planet. The photo, subject included, is beautiful, and I think it demonstrates very simply the power of a good photograph and how it can act as inspiration for writers and indeed other creative types such as poets or musicians.

For me, it’s partly because I know that its highly unlikely I’ll ever find out the true story of the person, so the bubble of creation is never burst. Did that scar really come from an accident involving an escaped parrot and a jet ski? Or do they wear that lipstick because it reminds them of a time of love and wild abandon on a crazy weekend in Skegness? Who knows.

Faces are littered with prompts for writers; everything is potentially an idea, a story. You can re-write someone’s entire history based on the colour of their eyes or the ring on their finger. When it’s a struggle to find words – and we’ve all been there – it’s a good way to re-ignite those sparks of literary brilliance. Really, we’re just flipping the process on its head, back engineering someone who already exists rather than build someone up from a completely blank page or scraps of ideas.

Try it. Here’s the photo posted by The Print Space. You have a hundred years to play with.

 

 

 

 

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