In 2009 I went to Morocco and the blue-walled city of Chefchaoen. This was probably one of the most unexpectedly photogenic and beautiful places I have ever seen. A beautiful and hot oasis that arises out of the African desert like an exotic flower. Unlike the bigger cities in Morocco, Chefchaouen had a quiet market…
Continue reading ➞ Every Picture Tells A Story: Chefchaoen, the blue-walled city
In case you have been living under a rock, Robohands is a UK jazz musician whose real name is Andy Baxter. His debut album Green which came out in mid-2018 is superb. With almost zero effort to promote the album, Robohands has grown in underground popularity getting over a million views on his album and…
One day while walking along the lovely Odra river in Głogow on a hot and sunny day, I came upon the Museum of Archaeology and History in Głogow. Teenagers were reenacting some kind of WWII scene. This was done in conjunction with a yearly festival they have in the town called Dni Głogowa or Days…
Shadow boxes are glass-front display cases that contain salvaged and created beautiful objects placed artfully at various heights to generate a depth of field. Some shadow boxes include mood lighting for added dramatic effect and can be used as a night light or as a piece of art in the lounge room. Others are contain nostalgic…
Continue reading ➞ Shadow Boxes: Beautiful Christmas Gift Ideas from Etsy Part 1
^ Contains no spoilers Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez is more known for his stunning works for fiction. However this short novella his first published peice of work is non-fiction. Garcia wrote this essay in a series of newspaper articles in Bogota over 30 years ago. He tells the dramatised story of a sailor Luis…
Continue reading ➞ Book Review: The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Recently, while working away on a project, I discovered that the only way to actually grow followers on Instagram in any sort of meaningful scale above 300 or so is to either buy these followers from China or Russia, or to enlist the help of an infamous Instagram Bot. These are regularly banned from Instagram for…
Continue reading ➞ Words of the Day: Shit-Ring & Bubble-Butt Bot-Net
The epic post-punk British road movie nobody has ever heard of Made in England in 1979 at the height of post-punk, this is a very unique film. It's like what Joy Division would have looked like if the band's music was made into a film. This is also a unique British film because it's a…
I came across Moon dog on one of those long and meandering trips through obscure music on YouTube. He was a true innovator and an avante-garde enigma. For one he looked like Gandalf or Hagrid. Aside from that he invented several new muscial instruments including a small triangular instrument he called the Ooo and another…
Continue reading ➞ Moondog: The enigmatic jazz wizard of post-war NYC
Another film that featured at the New Zealand International Film Festival was The Distant Barking of Dogs. It’s the story of a young boy and his family who live on the Ukrainian and Russian border, on a slice of disputed land that is being fought over tooth and nail, for years. The people in this…
I saw this film at the recent New Zealand International Film Festival. The festival has grown and developed over the years and has become quite a magical event. I thoroughly recommend it if you are in Auckland. Ancient Woods is a Lithuanian production and it’s a magical foray into the flora and fauna living in…
Paweł Pawlikowski directed and wrote this love story that’s set in the 1960’s. This film is unlike any other Polish film I’ve ever seen and I mean that as a compliment. That’s because it has more in common with one of these cool French New Wave films of the 1960’s – Bande A Parte or…
Full disclosure, I find all of my books second hand in a charity shop which is particularly full of a lot of good quality books that are at least decade old. Thus I came upon this little gem which was published in 2005. A NYT bestseller (a stamp of approval I think actually bears to…
Continue reading ➞ Book Review: The Tender Bar by JR Moehringer
Reave A long and low boundary wall or bank, found especially on Dartmoor and in Devon, mostly now sunk back into the landscape. Also, as a verb, to tear, split, divide or cleave. Rof/rifa An Icelandic word meaning to rip or tear something. Rof á landi refers to the rupture of the top soils of…
Cycling alongside calming bodies of water is one thing in life that I adore. In the past I've cycled along the Odra in Wroclaw, Poland, Tamaki Drive in Auckland and along the Water of Leith in Edinburgh, along with many other places. However the Kamo River in Kyoto tops them all. The Kamo river has a flat…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: Cycling adventures along the Kamo river, Kyoto
When I was younger I lived in Berlin for a while and it was a place of many shades and moods. Like most of mainland Europe there are four very distinct seasons which lend a lot of atmosphere and fervour to people's lives. In winter the place has menacing shades, it's dark for a long…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: Summertime Karaoke in Mauerpark, Berlin
Last week I came back from a three week holiday in Japan. And so here are four weird and off-the-wall unexpected surprises about Japan that you most likely don't know about yet. 1. Requiem for a washlet Washlets are one of the unexpected delights of going to Japan. The Japanese washlet is a technological marvel…
Continue reading ➞ Four weird unexpected things to love about Japan
With its rather dramatic title 'How Not To Die' is a timeless guide to a lifetime of good health. Although there's a lot of these dietary and nutrition books around, none are as stuffed full of scientific references and scientific evidence as this one. In fact a whole third of the book is dedicated to…
Continue reading ➞ Book Review: How Not to Die by Dr Michael Greger MD
Italian architect Luigi Prina has been interested in aircraft modelling since a very young age. However, it was only after he met Venetian painter and boat builder Eugenio Tomiolo that he started to create flying ship models from ultra-thin paper and balsa wood inspired after Roman, Greek and Viking designs. His collection (or fleet) of…
Continue reading ➞ Enchanting floating ships by Italian Architect Luigi Prina
Today, in the Pagan calendar, the north celebrate the coming of winter at Samhainn. And all the while the sun is peaking up from behind the lush vernal trees and dancing for us once more in the southern hemisphere, as we welcome Beltane on October 31st. Or as I like to refer to it Beltane…
Here's a short media consumption list, from the worst and least nutritious to the most nurturing. Rule of thumb don't eat anything that will give you cancer. Vice - The exhaust fan of a Chinese restaurant. Buzzfeed - A soggy bagel brandished by a drunk guy who wants to fight you. Instagram - A litre…
