WE POKE FUN AT GRAPHIC DESIGNERS FOR BEING SO OVER SENTIMENTAL THAT THEY MAKE US WANT TO VOMIT
places are limited for this one folks, sorry about that...
I've been gifted an opportunity. I say gifted, because that's what it feels like.
In the new year Jayne and I will pack up our life here in London and move to San Francisco, California. I've accepted the role of Principal Designer in the Nokia Advanced Design team... and I'm excited. Over the past year and a half I've been working with the exceptionally talented Advanced Design team in LA, and this new role will see the birth of a new studio in silicon valley. There's a long, long list of things to do before this happens, and I'll be honest there have already been some 'wide awake at 4am' moments. The opportunity to sample a new way of life, whilst maintaining a rewarding and engaging work life is just too good to pass, but the decision to leave friends and family here in the UK is not one we've taken lightly, but we needn't have worried.
I told my parents a week or so ago and I'll always remember my dad's response. I told him the plan, and there was a short silence, followed by a very happy voice telling me how excited and proud he was. Then followed a longer pause, as if the information was truly sinking in, then he quietly asked "have you still got my jet washer?"....
So, once I return the jet washer I'll be off. I'll keep updating the blog as irregularly as before, so do stay tuned, but in the meantime, if anyone is good at packing boxes, could they let me know.
I've been remiss about posting this, because it hurts a little to think about it. I've decided to post about it now, as I think we're now over the rawness of the experience and can see the value in the project. This story involves four players: The designer Sandy Suffield who led the project, Paul Wolfson, Simon Lamason and myself.
Around three months ago Sandy apporached us with an idea for an art installation at the End of the Road Festival at the end of August. This is the very definition of a civilised music festival, held in beautiful settings with artists such as Gruff Rhys, Joanna Newsom and Beirut, hell there are even peacocks roaming the grounds. Sandy's been going for years and noticed how nearly every man there wore a plaid shirt. Her idea was to produce a rotary washing line, laden with such shirts, which rotated prettily as a cyclist pedalled below. She pitched the idea to the organisers and they accepted, so the game was on.
We met a couple of times to sketch how exactly it could/should work and immediately encountered a few problems. Firstly was the drive train. Taking power from a bicycle is harder than you might think, especially the gearing. The rim of a bicycle wheel is designed to go very fast, with it's axle parallel to the ground. We needed slow rotation with plenty of torque perpendicular to the ground, so we decided to pull power from the rear tyre via a small rubber wheel which drove a flexible shaft to a 30:1 elbow gearbox. The first rig was built in Sandy's garden, and it worked pretty well... up to a point.
The next problem was inertia. Once the washing line began to spin, it built up quite a force of it's own. If the rider stopped pedalling, the washing line wanted to keep spinning. Now the first thing we all learn about worm drive gearboxes is that they only work in one direction, so we needed to add a freewheel mechanism to prevent the system blowing itself apart. This involved taking a freewheel hub from another bike and attaching it to the drive shaft of the gearbox with a rapid prototyped component (thankyou nokia).
Aside from this and a host of other mini construction challenges, the biggest problem we had was scale. Sandy wanted five. Five rigs in total, to look like a copse of plaid shirt trees spinning in the wind. Five bicycles. Five gearboxes. Five drivetrains. Five washing lines. Five stands. We had a production line on our hands.
With not insignificant effort from all concerned we were finally ready the day before the festival. A Luton van was filled with all the pieces like awkward mechanical tetris and we headed down to Dorset. The rigs took the entire day to construct, arranged in a small circle in the main field. This was due to the usual mix of little design niggles, the individual nature of each of the vintage bikes, and the overall differences in each rig. Finally at around six pm they were all up and running. We left the site happy but tired, as the first fesival goers arrived at the campsite.
Next morning we arrived early at the site to do some quick checks. As Paul walked over to the rigs we saw a small child pedalling furiously, but the washing line wasn't spinning. We knew something was up. Upon checking, every single rig had a problem. They had been thrashed overnight by what we can only assume were fesitval goers hopped up on cider, not helped by the structural integrity of the vintage bicycles. Tyres were burst, the drive wheels where worn down with big plumes of rubber sprayed up the wooden framework, and the freewheel components were cracked. Sandy wasn't best pleased (which is an understatement for delicate readers). Most disturbing of all was that one bike had had it's front wheel kicked and bent, and sat there with it's mudgard forlornly hanging off. The other faults were the result of over-zelous use, but this issue was deliberate vandalism. At least it sure looked that way.
Some of the rigs were beyond repair, that was clear. Paul and I managed to pull a Dr. Frankenstein and make two of the rigs work from spare parts and combined assets, but they didn't last long. By lunchtime, we returned to find that these too had broken. Sandy mustered some expletive restraint and wrote a forlorn note on a chalkboard "Sorry - these have all been broken".
It felt a bit depressing to say the least. Everyone had put in a great deal of time, effort, thought and in Sandy's case, money to bring the project to life. Maybe we were naiive, but we thought that people would see the vintage bicycles, the handmade rickety rigs and the cute spinny washing lines and ride them gently. Perhaps though, there's something in all of us that wants to test a system, to race, to see how fast we can go.
We left the festival early on Sunday morning before everyone was up. The rigs were all bundled into the van, the shirts were donated to Oxfam and we headed back to London up the motorway. We all felt the same I think, a little disappointed but resigned to the fact that trust in the human spirit needs to be tempered with the reality of human nature.
Sloe Gin has been something of a tradition in our family, dating back as far as I can remember, but most of the people I have introduced it to here in London have never heard of it let alone tasted it, so I thought I'd share the recipe. Actually 'recipe' is probably a little too strong a word, it's pretty basic.
Firstly a little about sloes. If you're really interested, the wikipedia page is quite comprehensive, but suffice it to say that they're small black berries which appear in hedgerows around September or early October, usually coinciding with a late summer holiday. They're easy to spot, sitting like black pearls on a spiky bush with leaves like sage, and often have a nice blue bloom covering their surfice, like grapes.
This year we picked ours in the lanes around St. David's in Wales. After getting them home we laid them out on absorbent paper for a day or so to breathe, ripen and dry out.
When you're ready to make the Sloe Gin, you'll need kilner jars or similar. Most recipes say they need to be sterilised, but in my experience the Gin is powerful enough to kill off anything which may be lurking within. You'll also need granulated sugar and Gin. It's best not to go overboard with the Gin here, but don't scrimp either. Remember you'll be drinking it neat come Christmas so if you go for cheap gin, it'll be pretty grim. We went for good ol' fashioned Gordon's this year, middle of the road in flavour, not too much juniper, probably about right.
Then you take each sloe and prick it all over with a pin, a minimum of ten times per berry. This allows the juice out and the gin in. If you don't do this, the berries will just sit like marbles at the bottom of the jar.
Fill each jar about a third of the way up with sloes, then add the sugar. Again, some recipes will be accurate, but it's all about personal taste. In my opinion it's best to start with too little then add more when you taste it in November if necessary. For reference, we added about four tablespoons to each of this year's jars. Then pour in the gin to just over halfway up the jar. The sloes must be covered, with enough room to swill about.
Once that's done, that's it. Close up your jars and wait. For the first week, simply turn the bottles once a day to help the juices start flowing and to ensure the sugar dissolves. Do not shake them, this could break the berries and make a mulchy mess, treat them gently. After a week the liquid will turn a beautiful ruby red colour like this:
Around mid November, it's tasting time. It'll be a little tart, but should already be tasting deliciously fruity. If it's too much for you, add a little more sugar, but remember that it's hard to go backwards. If you do accidentally go too sweet then add more gin, but remember this will take the mixture closer to the stiff Gin taste and away from that delicious blackcurrant taste that you're going for.
Come Christmas it should be ready. Filter the mixture through muslin or kitchen towel into bottles and enjoy short and neat. We've tried it with tonic and over ice, but in my opinion it's best treated like port, late in the evening with a good movie in front of the fire. Delicious.
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