Boris Johnson is the new Mayor for London. Are you kidding me Londoners, you indeed voted for this guy to be Mayor of one of the best cities in the World. Forgive me, American cousins, I don’t mean to pry into your business, but I feel like we Londoners had done this week what you did when you elected George W. Bush as President. Say what you want about Ken Livingston, but he has pedigree when it comes to doing things for London and Londoners. ...

The US party nominations race is fascinating. It’s been years since we’ve been captivated by the presidential nominations on this side of the pond. Usually we wait until US voters have decided who’s actually running for the job of president before throwing a gaze across from time to time, ruminating on which nominee is going to be best for us (the rest of the world), but this time, the USA has two brilliant competitive races that are captivating our attention. ...

As a creative writing strategy, I took a look at NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. It is a Creative Writing project, started way back in 1999 with 21 participants. Held in November every year, participants in NaNoWriMo aim to write 50,000 words in 30 days. According to the NaNoWriMo website, last years event had over 100,000 participants with over 15,000 people reaching the finish line. If you want to stay true to your dreams and write a book, then the strategy of writing with all abandon for 30 days may be one way of achieving it especially if you’re a procrastinating type. ...

These caramelized pears were a treat. Testing a recipe I found somewhere online (perhaps BBC food), the Stones Ginger Wine was the differentiator

Monday mornings are sometimes painful, coming off the weekend, back to the daily grind. Although I have no boss, as Neil Shearing quotes, without a boss it’s up to me to self motivate and get that writing habit started for another week. So how do I get motivated to write? Well some things I try are: Read news feeds and see what’s going on in the blogosphere Check out the national and regional news sites to see if anything interesting sparks a creative thought Get some early morning exercise (this helps to boost the energy levels) Check some social networks to see what’s cooking with my pals Read the newspaper Read over some old journals to see if a topic I’ve written on in the past could do with updating I find photographs a good prompt for writing juice. ...

I recently curated a photography show about a UK gospel choir who this year celebrate 13 years in the music industry. Using the images taken over the years, we were able to build a visual history of the life of the group from 1994 to 2007. Although most of the images were taken, not as ‘documentary’, but as a combination of promotional, live event and portrait photographs, along with my co-curator, we found enough in the images that could tell the story of the group over the time. ...

I have just realised that my blog is 2 years old and like a very errant parent, I forgot the anniversary. Doh! The first post is dated 3rd Nov 2005 and is here. I remember, now that I have glanced at that post, the blog started as a way to keep a daily journal of my thoughts and research for my studies. What’s happened since then ? Well, I have posted a total of 93 posts in 25 categories over the period. ...

Once again the early morning was bracing and dark. Leaving home at 5am is not pleasant, least of all because I never usually sleep the night before flying, for fear of oversleeping and missing my flight. I made the exception this time and caught two hours kip before loading up my Jeep and setting off to pick up my two comrades. The prime reason for this trip was to celebrate the 40th birthday of my friend who lives in the USA and who have not had the opportunity to visit many European cities before. ...

Last night I took a work friend of mine from India to the Student final show at Byam Shore, which is a college of the University of the Arts London. This image was taken there and shows some of the highly creative work that was on display by this year’s graduating class. This particular body of work was by an artist that based his work around the homeless. The images are in black and white save the eyes of the subject which are vivid, bright and clear. ...

I looked at my last post on this blog and it was dated June 1st. Thats two weeks ago. It’s not that I haven’t been writing anything, I have a couple of posts in draft state at the moment waiting to get finished, it’s just that I have been feeling a little reflective over the past two weeks. You see, I’ve been re-evaluating some of the goals that I set for myself for this year, and it would seem a major one is going to be relegated to a secondary one, you know what I mean. ...