Archive
Was that the quickest 12 months ever? (Lets hope 2013 lasts a bit longer…)
Regular visitors to my site will have noticed a distinct paucity of posts over the last 3 weeks or so, in fact I managed only 5 throughout the whole of December for which I can only apologise. This was caused in equal measure by a very busy end of work year, excessive socialising over a pretty excellent Christmas and New Year and a very well earned holiday in Denmark with my Little And.
Still that only means I am now fully refreshed and chock full of ideas for things to write about… So I hope you’ll visit again to find out what’s occupying my scattergun mind over the coming months…
It’s always a cliché to talk about how quickly time flies, but 2012 did seem to go by extraordinarily quickly. It feels like we only had about 9 months worth, so I for one am hoping for a rather more sedate 2013.
Those lovely people at WordPress.com have prepared a rather fetching annual report of my Blog Stats for 2012, which is very nice of them. Feel free to click the link at the end and take a look if you fancy it, but the key points (for me) are that nearly 300,000 people viewed my musings over the year including a mind boggling 15,852 views in a single day…
I have to admit that I’m not overly confident that I’ll be able to increase on these numbers in 2013, but unless I write it, I’ll never know…
Here’s an excerpt:
About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 290,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 5 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!
I’ve been Freshly Pressed…
I’m still amazed at how many people have now read my Underground Guerrilla Signage post from a couple of weeks back. After an initial surge of more than 15,500 in one day, the post has generated more than 130,000 views in the last four weeks…
When I wrote in early July of my excitement at reaching 100,000 hits since starting the blog (a period of about 26 months), little did I realise that by the end of September (i.e. 3 months later) I would be at over 275,000…
And to cap it all off, possibly the most exciting bit of news (for me anyway) is that my post was chosen as one of WordPress’s “Freshly Pressed” blogs, a feature where each day a “handful” of the best and most interesting posts are chosen and added to the site…
I had no idea that I had made this select group until one of the over 120 people who have kindly taken the time to comment on the post congratulated me…
How cool is that…
And before you all start to tut, I’m fully aware how narcissistic all this self congratulation can appear.. but trust me, I’m a well rounded human being and I promise I wont let it go to my head…
(Much)
A Crazy Day in Joe’s Blog World…
Nor sure what’s happening on my blog the last couple of days, but a post I wrote about Guerilla Signage on the Underground, has gone bonkers on Facebooks and Twatter, to such an extent that I had over 9000 hits yesterday afternoon and by lunchtime today I’d had over 5700… I guess that’s what you call trending (although I suspect that’s more in the hundreds of thousands…)
Still, I’m very happy with over 14000 hits in 24 hours and thanks to everyone who has visited, shared and retweeted… and especially to those who took the time to say they enjoyed it, and chose to become “Followers of the Blog”. Membership of that august group quadrupled to nearly 130 people yesterday, so I shall really have to watch what I write now…
The only downside to all this is a purely visual one. On the assumption that this number of visitors is an aberration and I return to the more usual 300 to 350 a day, my stats graph will look rather sad over the next month, as those huge bars moves slowly and inexorably to the left…
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UPDATE: @ 9.30am, Saturday 8th September… Friday’s total number of visitors hit a whopping 15,885 and today’s total is already over 2400… now I just need to work out how to keep you all visiting regularly…
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One Hundred Thousand… That’s a big number.
I can hardly believe it, I’ve just had the 100,000th visitor to my site…. how amazing is that?
I have to admit that recently, what with work and holidays and other writing commitments, my target of at least 2 posts a week has slipped slightly. I think this Blogging lark (at least for me) is probably more of a winter thing, when the temptations of meeting friends and going out are less (although with the summer we’ve had so far here in London, that excuse is obviously rather weak..)
Visitors however seem unaffected by the seasons, as my busiest day was just a week or so ago when 681 dropped in. And although this was something of an aberration (caused for some unknown reason by the post I wrote on Peter Saville and his New Order Colour Wheel getting nearly 400 visitors all of its own) my daily average is around the 350 mark, which I’m pretty happy with.
So onwards and upwards… I shall take encouragement from this huge total and will let you all know when I reach 250,000 (which should be in 2 to 3 years time…)
My thanks again to everyone who stops to look and takes the time to comment, this Blog really has been one of the best things I’ve ever decided to do..
Joe
Mudchute Park and Farm to close forever. “It’s H&S gone mad… again” (says Daily Mail reader Joe Blogs, 15)
After my post last week about the wonders at the heart of the Isle of Dogs, I was very saddened to read this article in last Tuesday’s edition of The Evening Standard…
Its a well argued piece by Simon Jenkins and is about the distinct possibility that Mudchute Park and Farm will no longer be allowed to let its animals loose in the meadow due to the possibility of e-coli in their poo. This is of course as decreed by that favourite scourge of common sense, The Man from The Health and Safety Executive…
I must say after taking the photos week before last, I was definitely wondering where all the sheep had gone this week, and this was not the answer I was expecting.
It will be very sad indeed if the sheeps will no longer be allowed to roam about. I liked having them about.
And at the risk of over doing the whole Daily Mail parody thing, it would be nice if, as grown ups, we could be allowed to take some responsibility for our own lives. I mean it’s not a difficult concept to grasp; you eat poo, you get sick… how hard can it be….
I will be following this story and fingers crossed that common sense and cheap grass cutting triumphs over petty bureaucracy and small mindedness…
The Smell of Success ?
This rather tempting and appropriate aftershave was sent to me this morning by my friend Juanita
Vintage indeed…
Sir Basil & the Unknown Print… Part II
I wrote recently about my very good fortune in acquiring this fantastic print of a watercolour and chalk drawing of Coventry Cathedral by Sir Basil Spence. Well I’ve been busy finding out more about it, and have the following to report…
When Spence died in 1976, his archive was bequeathed to the Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) and when I spoke to them they advised that this drawing did not form part of their collection. They had an original copy of the London Midland Train poster, but suggested that I should contact the RIBA Collection at the V&A, as they had the original drawing.
So we duly made an appointment, and last week little A & I went to see the collections Curator and his assistant, who were both very helpful and told us the following:
Spence presented the original drawing to the RIBA after his two year term as President sometime in 1963. The RIBA have a record of the drawing being exhibited at the Royal Academy but no record of any prints being made since it has been in their ownership.
The Curator also thought, that from the photo on my blog page, the frame looked contemporary with the print and suggested that in light of my story about the organist being the previous owner, it was possible that Spence had privately had a limited number of presentation prints produced to give to key people in the project and as neither the RCAHMS nor the RIBA had any prior knowledge of such prints, the number of them was probably quite small.
All very intriguing, but the icing on the cake was when the Curator said that the RIBA might be interested in buying our print as they didn’t have one (weren’t aware of any in fact) and it would be useful to have for exhibitions etc…. I said it wasn’t for sale, but that’s a nice thing to know.. maybe I’ll bequeath it to them when I’m in my dotage…
It goes without saying of course that it was a real treat to see the original work: the colours are still incredibly vibrant and the textures of the chalk, watercolour and oil on the paper give the whole piece an amazing depth especially as it is over 60 years old…
The bust above of the great man himself that was in the reading room at the V&A is by none other than Jacob Epstein (no surprise maybe when you consider the St Michael & the Devil connection at Coventry Cathedral). The Curator told us that there were two of these cast in honour of Spence’s Presidency of the RIBA from 1958 to 1960. This one was at the RIBA for many years before finding it’s new home at the V&A. The second one was presented to Spence, and I’m told he placed it in an alcove in the entrance hall to his Cannonbury offices… adorned with a laurel leaf crown. Apparently Spence was something of a vain and difficult man (as geniuses often are) and the Caesar allusions were not thought to be ironic… I’ll have to ask Bill Mitchell about this, I’m sure he’ll know if there’s any truth in it…
So an excellent hour or so at the V&A, and thanks very much to Charles and Katherine for taking the time to talk to us.
One final aspect to this story is that BBC Radio Coventry have been in touch after seeing my original post. 2012 sees the 60th anniversary of the consecration of Sir Basil’s Masterpiece, Coventry Cathedral and the BBC are looking for stories relating to its construction. Vanessa, the journalist who contacted me, was keen to speak to Bill Mitchell about his dealings with the Cathedral’s architect, and she was also interested in the story about my print and the possible connection to the organist. Vanessa and I haven’t managed to meet up as yet, but I know she has recently met Bill and Joy Mitchell and recorded Bill’s stories for possible transmission in the not too distant, which I for one can’t wait to hear… as I’ve said before, Bill is a man who is very good at telling a story….
So all in all our decision to buy the picture has created a string of events that have been both rewarding and interesting, and it’s very likely that we are not yet at the end of the tale…
Fabric Fliers from 2001
I was inspired by finding the Lemon Jelly Lucky bag the other day, so I thought I’d delve through the rest of my collected stuff, to see what else I could find, (and belive me, there’s loads…)
First up are some beautiful Fabric fliers from 10 years ago, a very scary thought. They are by the artist Tommy Penton whose work I haven’t seen much of recently, but whose distinctive and immediately recognisable style seemed to be everywhere a decade or so ago, adorning album sleeves, magazine covers and book jackets. Check out his site, see what you recognise…
I particularly enjoyed this set of images when they came out. I liked the story of a morning they told over the six months: In January we see our man at breakfast, February he leaves the house, March and April see him travelling on the underground (I like his reflection in the carriage window), whilst in May and June he walks out to sit in the park.. And much like Tommi Ungerer or Maurice Sendak before him, Penton uses the device of a little repeated motif in every image (in this case a cat) linking them all together. Very nice…
Little A tells me that we went to at least three or four of these nights, and it’s interesting to read some of the names, still relevant (in my opinion) and still banging it out on a regular basis: Tom Middleton, Terry Francis, John Digweed (natch), Ralph Lawson, Bill Brewster and Lee Burridge to name just a few… Whilst my “what are they doing now/ greatly missed” list would have to include Circulation, Dave Angel, Doc Martin and our favourite deep house don, Jon Marsh.
I’ve written about Fabric’s excellently varied and democratic approach to design before, and these fliers are another example of the club giving young illustrators free reign, without dictating a house style, an approach which is very much to be commended.
If you’ve got this far, I’ll finish with the footnote that this is actually my 200th post… and I’m no where near bored yet… So thanks for tuning in and hopefully the next 200 will be just as good…
2nd choice… (out of 194 million)
Little A said she had trouble finding my blog the other day, which worried me slightly…
So I typed Joe Blogs into Google this morning and this is what came up…..
Which is truly unbelievable, my little site came up 2nd choice out of 194 million results.. I was (and still am) quite literally, speechless
No idea if this is a freak occurrence or if it will be a regular thing, but it’s totally made my day…
Nonsense Spam…
One of the most annoying aspects of the web is of course spam.. This blog attracts it’s fair share, but luckily most of it blocked by a widget called Akismet (whatever that is)
Spammers are persistent buggers, and some rubbish inevitably gets through. Their trick apparently is to create nonsense text, which fools the spam filter and so ends up in your inbox… My understanding is that spammers get paid for the number of emails delivered, irrespective of whether the message is read, or how obscure the advertising/ message aspect is.
Even though the message is gobbledygook, some of it can be quite poetic in it’s randomness… These typical examples have all arrived over the last few days…
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