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| | A story was released today suggesting that the UK Home Office is thinking about enforcing a law that would prevent pint glasses form being used in pubs, to try and prevent the 5,500 annual attacks using glasses and bottles in England and Wales (presumably they have no stats for Scotland and NI).
Although the new "glass" is still in its design phase, it is highly likely to be made entirely of, or coated in, plastic. This has attracted a response from the British Beer and Pub Association saying it didn't want any new 'glasses' to be made compulsory. Neil Williams from the association said:
 For the drinker, the pint glass feels better, it has a nice weight and the drink coats the glass nicely. That's why people go out for a drink, to have a nice experience.  © BBC [2009]
Would plastic fit a traditional pub scene?
The new 'glass' is being designed by Design Bridge, an international design agency. Their designer on the project, Nick Verebelyi, said the end result is likely to either be a plastic-coated glass or a "desirable, acceptable and cool" plastic alternative. I'm not sure about you, but this seems like a fair deal of unnecessary red tape, aiming to stop a very minor problem, of which surely alcohol is the ultimate cause. And let's be honest, if you can't find a glass, you can find a bottle, a chair, a fist etc..
Beer glasses already come in all shapes and sizes...
I've only even witnessed one 'glassing' and weirdly it was two girls involved, with one smashing a whisky glass over the other's head (she didn't even flinch!). However, I've heard of a few "bottlings", which don't seem to be addressed here - but these are not common events - and even if they are more common in certain places, these places can be avoided.
What really strikes me about this is why one design agency is being tasked to make the new 'glass' - if this is to be enforced or at least heavily encouraged, then surely this design agency is in line to make a fairly tidy profit? And now of course it's in the design agency's favour for the law to come in, leaving them as possibly not the best spokespeople for the story.
...it's unclear whether speciality glasses would still be allowed.
Why is the government so keen on homogeny? If it really thinks it necessary to ban glass in pubs, then why not let each pub use its own choice of alternative? Why not let design agencies across the country have a go and solving the problem? It's bad enough as it is with pubs looking and feeling the same across the country and I think any difference that is left should be celebrated, not condemned! Put it this way, if I found a pub with a few of the glasses above available for use, I'd be over the moon and far less likely to become violent.
Bring this law in, however, and I might just have to 'plastic' someone. :)
One last thing, someone responded to this story on the BBC Magazine Montor blog today whilst I was writing this post - I'll leave you with their nugget of wisdom:
126 million pints of beer are served a week in the UK. That's 6,552 million a year and only 5,500 pints are used as weapons (assuming each attack uses one pint glass). That's 0.000084% of all pints that are used as weapons. Sounds like a very serious problem. © Elle, London [2009]
BBC News: Pub warns over plastic pints plan
British Beer & Pub Association
Design Bridge
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| | I'm never sure what to make of Horizon - it's often over-dramatic, gives unnecessary weight to disrespected theories and sometimes seems to play on fear as it's main dramatic weapon (how many episodes end something like: "scientists believe this disaster happens every 100,000 years - and the last recorded occurrence was... 105,000 years ago"?).
However, amongst these programmes, there are still some high-quality science documentaries in there, and with the internet at your disposal, lots of older Horizon programmes can be watched as well. One such programme caught my attention not only for being of high quality (content, not video as you will see!) but by really showing how much things have changed.
I've always been a big fan of Richard Feynman, so a 50-minute interview with him seems like a great idea for a documentary. Yet, these days Science documentaries tend to be much more flashy and virtually always about space, medicine or climate change. The second video is much more recent, but I found the information fascinating also, but it's worth noting how different the style of these programmes are - and it'[s not all down to the technology at their disposal at the time - I'll keep my fingers crossed for a few simpler Horizon programmes in the near future, but alas, I don't see it happening.
Videos and information shown below - if they don't work, click the quote source to get to the Google Video page and it should work directly from there:
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out [1981]
This will delight and inspire anyone who would like to share something of the joys of scientific discovery. Feynman is a master storyteller, and his tales - about childhood, Los Alamos, or how he won a Nobel Prize - are a vivid and entertaining insight into the mind of a great scientist at work and play.. © BBC / Google [1981]
God on the Brain [2007]
Rudi Affolter and Gwen Tighe have both experienced strong religious visions. He is an atheist; she a Christian. He thought he had died; she thought she had given birth to Jesus. Both have temporal lobe epilepsy. Like other forms of epilepsy, the condition causes fitting but it is also associated with religious hallucinations.. © BBC / Google [2007]
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| | Last week, the results of the annual Ian Parry Scholarship were announced, with an outright winner, a 'highly commended' award and 3 'commended' awards. There's a bit about the award below, but this award has become one of the most prestigious in photojournalism and as you will see later, the quality of entrants is very high:
Ian Parry was a photojournalist who died whilst on assignment for The Sunday Times during the Romanian revolution in 1989. He was just 24 years old. The scholarship was set up by his friends and family in order to build something positive from such a tragic death. Each year we hold a competition for photographers who are either attending a full-time photography course or are under the age of 24. © IanParry.Org [2009]
I really wanted to post about this Award because some of the photos are really impressive and their creators' websites are also well worth visiting. Not only have I not got an eye for shots like this, but the context and story behind the images has been carefully considered also. This kind of photography takes time and effort and I'm sure this year's finalists will go far. Photography is very prevalent on the web and it's not all exactly world-class, so it's nice to look at some real quality for once :)
This year's winner was Maisie Crow from Ohio University with a series entitled "Love Me". Maisie explains the concept behind her work on her website:
Autumn, 17, lives in a small town in Southeast Ohio with her parents and two siblings. She is coming of age in an environment that lacks the emotional and financial resources to facilitate her growth into adulthood. At this vulnerable point in her life, she is seeking love and support but has a difficult time finding people who can provide her with emotional stability. © MaisieCrow.com [2009]
One photo from Maisie's award-winning series. © Maisie Crow [2009]
More information can be found at the official website (see links below) and from the photographer's websites, and most have other series on offer that weren't entered into this competition. There's something really nice about photojournalism as it has to help tell the story itself, rather than simply add a bit of context and I think the examples on this page have something to say.
I'll leave you with one of Ed Ou's pictures, as his work struck me as being very powerful as well - and second place in this award is still very impressive! And if you're on a photography course or are under 24 and this work has inspired you, why not think about entering next year's competition - details via the links below:
A photo from Ed Ou's "Under a Nuclear Cloud" series. © Ed Ou [2009]
One last thing, if you're in London in the next couple of days, photos from this year's competition are currently on show at the Getty Images Gallery, Eastcastle Street, London. They should be on show until 12 August 2009, so get your skates on!
Ian Parry Award - Official Website
Maisie Crow - Official Website
Maisie Crow - 'Love Me' Series
Ed Ou - Official Website
Getty Images Gallery
UPDATE [14/08/09]: I've just seen an article on the BBC website about the future of photojournalism and thought it would add to this post nicely: BBC Viewfinder: Photojournalism today
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| | Yes yes, we all know about Twitter. The media seem to like it even more than Facebook at the moment, I suppose it's because it allows journalists to be EVEN LAZIER than before. The fact that you can now open up an application, sit back with a coffee and watch numerous celebrities send YOU messages means that the old 'I'll go outside and see what's going on' style of reporting is dieing out.
It doesn't seem to matter that the 'celebrity' posts are incredibly uninteresting or meaningless, pretty much every paper gave a detailed article on how Stephen Fry got stuck in a lift. This isn't much of a story...but WAIT! He posted this information on Twitter! So now you can report the non-story by putting it in the context of Twitter, micro-blogging in general, social networking, new media and the internet. Woohoo! We're all great journalists, check us out - we're so hot right now!
Anyway, rant over. Twitter is useful and celebrity tweeters can be interesting, but only if they're interesting in the first place. The main reason I use twitter now is to post, share and receive links to things on the internet. It's perfect for posting quick links and descriptions and therefore I thought I'd incorporate some of my design-related posts into this blog.
Look out for my tweets amongst the blog posts
So from today, the blog homepage will be sprinkled with my 6 latest tweets, most likely offering links to interesting articles across the web. "Twitter: Because I can't be bothered with context". Look out for the newly-designed 'tweet-bar' in between posts and you're away - let's link it up to the max. Oh and journalists, get off your arse and do your job properly.
PS The Beats! Design hashtag is: #Beats!Design
UPDATE [11/08/09]: I've decided to expand this across the pages so you can move back in time to see older tweets. They probably won't extend any further than the 3rd page as the RSS feed has a length limit, but you can now see a few more tweets than the 6 on the first page. |
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