Rob Bevan

Just in time for the publication of The Confusion, I finally finished Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver. It’s probably taken me longer to read it than Stephenson took to write it, even in long hand (Colophon: “The manuscript of The Baroque Cycle was written by hand on 100% cotton paper using three different fountain pens: a Waterman Gentleman, a Rotring, and a Jorg Hysek.”). I feel like I’ve been reading it in long eye, although the experience was much enhanced by The Metaweb, a wiki set up by Stephenson and others for the book, especially the Quicksilver annotations page.

Too bad I just got a very fine 3-piece hand-forged Gyuto Hocho Knife Set from Dick Fine Tools, otherwise I’d be wanting one of these supposedly the “world’s sharpest knives” and used by some of the world’s greatest chefs. They may be sharp, but are they made the same way as Samurai swords? I think not. Next winter’s purchase from Dick: the Ki-Wari Ono, a Japanse splitting axe that “will make splitting firewood your favourite chore”.

Degustation Menu – £85.00 Designed to maximise the Fat Duck dining experience. This menu – consisting of a series of small courses (plus a few hidden extras) – is intended to be taken by the whole table NITRO-GREEN TEA AND LIME MOUSSE OYSTER AND PASSION FRUIT JELLY, LAVENDER POMMERY GRAIN MUSTARD ICE CREAM, RED CABBAGE GASPACHO QUAIL JELLY, PEA PUREE, CREAM OF LANGOUSTINE SNAIL PORRIDGE Jabugo ham ROAST FOIE GRAS

Dinner. Tonight. 8.30pm. Update: Here’s what we ate

I spent about two hours today trying to fix my PowerShot S10 so I can take a picture of my phone (don’t ask). I just kept getting the same E28 error in the viewfinder and then the lens would retract. So I reformatted the CF card and upgraded the firmware (a bit of a hair-raising experience: one false move and the camera’s toast) – still nothing. Finally, I found this thread.

If you’ve spent any time, as I have over the last year or so, working with Flash as the presentation layer for Java-based webapps, keeping as much of your ActionScript as possible in text files so that you can integrate these with your version control system along with your other source files, and wishing you didn’t have to use the Flash authoring tool to compile your movies, Flex (formerly Royale), a “standards-based programming methodology for building the presentation tier of Rich Internet Applications” from Macromedia (now in beta) might just be what you’re looking for.

It’s that time again: Copeland Borough Council presents The World’s Biggest Liar Competition, held annually at The Bridge Inn, Santon Bridge, Cumbria. This years contest will take place on Thursday, 20th November. In 2000, Tim and I took part in a Festival of Lying organised around the competition by artists Anna Best, Karen Guthrie, Nina Pope and Simon Poulter. Other speakers included crop circle maker Rob Irving, magician Peter Lamont, author Jon Ronson and Elvis.

These guys have been working together since 1979, and in 1987 made a film called Der Lauf der Dinge (The Way Things Go) the inspiration behind Honda’s recent Cog TV advert. Watch the trailer for The Way Things Go and be amazed. (I’m reminded of Mehdi Norowzian’s film Joy which was the starting point for Guinness’s Anticipation, a hugely popular advert we at NoHo Digital turned into a hugely popular screensaver.

Jason Salavon’s work is just sublime. Especially his visualizations of “statistical data tracking the US domestic production of shoes and slippers from 1960-1998 in 31 categories”. And the nudes (he should enter these for Miss Digital World). Update: Inspired by Jason’s work, Flickr member brevity (Neil Kandalgaonkar) has written an app “to blend Flickr images which share the same tags”.

Whilst doing some research on Food Science, and on Nicholas Kurti in particular, the so-called ‘father of Molecular Gastronomy’, I discovered that Oxford’s Science Area, where Kurti worked and not far from where I live, is renowned for once having been the ‘coldest spot on Earth’: “Using demagnetisation of nuclear alignment, Professor Kurti was able to create temperatures of a millionth of a degree above absolute zero.” Cool. Kurti’s interest in what he called ‘gastronomic physics’ also led him to invent an ‘Inverted Baked Alaska‘ which consisted of frozen meringue filled with piping hot apricot puree, described as ‘sticking a spoon into Iceland and getting an eyeful of magma’.

At the Damien Hirst show I was struck most by perhaps the smallest and least conspicuous piece in the exhibition, a small ‘pills and dead flies’ canvas in White Cube’s reception. I think this demonstrates what I like most about Damien’s work, the economy of some of his ideas – I mean what two small objects of more or less the same size could be more different than a perfectly-formed white pill and a dead fly?