It could be a seminal moment in Burma’s history if the current protests result in the installation of the democratically elected government and the overthrow of the 45 year old military junta. The concern primarily though it at what cost it will come at.

As events look like they will be coming to a head over the coming days, I’m hopeful that the Burmese people’s campaign will triumph, but can’t help but think that it’s going to come at a cost.

I received a new memory card and two new batteries for the 350D this morning, so am getting ready to be trigger happy for the weekend. There is a chance I’ll be doing a paid shoot tomorrow which will be good warm-up time, as I’m going to be gone from Thursday first thing until Monday.

I am actually coming back from the Lakes on Sunday, but some tickets came up for a web/business talk in London, so I’m heading straight down there from Ambleside. I’m also really pleased that I’ve now got tickets to see Russell Howard next week and with the new Foo Fighters album firmly in my clutches, I am a very, very happy man.

This’ll teach the Conservatives to leech bandwidth.

I don’t usually do these, but as I have been tagged directly, you’re now going to learn something new.

The Rules

• You have to post these rules before giving you the facts.
• Players state eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• At the end of the blog post, you tag eight people and list their names. (Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.)
• People who are tagged need to write about their eight things on their own blog and also post these rules.

(I think my omission of this bit earlier might have made this a fairly disastrous first attempt at a meme)

The Facts

1. I’m the first male in the Higgs family going back at least four generations who didn’t join the family business, which is a large solicitors practice in the Black Country.
2. I have appeared topless on page three of a national newspaper.
3. I have never smoked anything
4. My great aunt was responsible for designing a council-built sliproad off Icknield St (in the Jewellery Qtr., Birmingham) which turned so tightly that lorries would jackknife on the bend. It was revenge for the fact they had knocked down my great grandfather’s workshops to build the road.
5. I’m a mix of English, Irish and Scottish and according to family folklore, we’re meant to be related to Robert the Bruce.
6. I hate theme parks. The rides and the atmosphere even more so.
7. The first work I did on commission was to for luxury ladies’ shoe shop in Solihull, when I sold my GCSE IT coursework to them.
8. A 92 year old friend of my aforementioned great aunt, presented me with a Victorian knuckle duster when I was about 16 years old. It apparently belonged to her father, who was a vicar. I think it smells of blood.

Right, so the next people who will be cajoled into this meme extravaganza are:

• Stuart Maynard-Keene
• Ellie Hyde
• Kate Bolin
• Ben Ward
• Ross Riley
• Sam Hardacre
• Matt Machell
• Owen Gregory – Probably not suitable for your work blog, but hey!

So Sister Two is at university as of this week… how did that happen? Only ten minutes ago she was 4 or something. How quickly time flies.

I spent a good portion of this week in pubs (although not necesserily drinking). Jon and I went for a steak on Thursday to talk over a bit of business (and the steak really was a ridiculous size – mine nearly killed me; and you think I’m joking). Then on the Friday, Gwyz, Henry and I headed to Will’s new flat in Pedmore for his housewarming. I ended up cycling home on Will’s bike at 3am, but have no idea why.

Yesterday was Multipack September. A good little gathering at a place called The Old Joint Stock (where I will most certainly be visiting again) and another pub called The Old Contemptibles. It’s funny I’d not been to either before, but they’re one hell of an lot nicer than the Broad St boozers.

Attendance comprised of myself, Matt, Owen, Gareth, Ross and eventually Charles, and for the first time the subject of US politics raised it’s head during food – not a usual topic of conversation over the Multipack table, although then again, usually Gareth doesn’t compile a fully illustrated set of minutes in pink felttip.

Did I mention they were a good couple of pubs?

Well, not for a number of other people. For me it’s been fine.

Sad surprises all round at the tragic deaths of Anita Roddick and Colin McRae – two people who will be missed great deal in their respective spheres. Also not a great time for Gerry and Kate McCann either.

On the other hand, and less depressingly (for me) – I’ve been working on some new projects – Sister One is back from the USA and I met up with Ross, then another Ross and Gareth in Birmingham today – all of which has made it felt like my weekend extended a little longer than usual.

I’m getting frustrated by the Aquaspa 3000 that is the driver’s footwell in my Polo. Yesterday I was wearing sandals and on every corner and at every brake-stop my right foot was experiencing a dousing. On the other hand the highly anticipated announcement of the UK iPhone is due tomorrow morning, so there’s a silver lining to every car related puddle.

OK, so you’ll have to work out whether this list is chicken-and-egg; based only on my biased opinion of brands because they are the ones I have come to trust most out of those I use on a day-to-day basis, or whether I am attracted them on a day to day basis because they are great brands.

Transport For London

The quintessential transport brand. I love the level of detail exercised by the designers at TfL as they constantly keep the bar as high if not higher than similar organisation. It always amazes me how much money and time is injected into making you feel like you are being looked after. Even the temporary signage is finished immaculately.

Living in an area where public transport has suffered tremendously from a lack of cohesion until recently, London’s beautifully simple signage, typography, subtle individuality (the slight differences in the application of the logo at each Underground station) and seamless link between all forms of travel just oozes the best of what can be achieved with great design.

I’ve travelled on some pretty impressive, heavily funded public transport in a number of countries in recent years, and nowhere have I found anything that rivals this London classic.

BBC

In my mind the BBC still manages to maintain a record of getting it right. It’s not even down to the individual details in their design output – as recently I wrote – but in the overall feeling that the brand exudes in total.

The BBC has managed to remain without external advertising for over 80 years now, and the auxilliary benefit of this (especially in this market/advertising led world) is that it remains solely responsible for it’s own image. It’s level of self-checking is higher than probably any other media organisation in the world, and so the brand is bolstered by a feeling of superiority over the competition, worldwide.

It’s not that other broadcasters haven’t achieved something spectacular with their identity. Channel 4 has generated an outstanding brand – but the BBC remains like solid granite and consistently successfully manages to stay up-to-date without damaging it’s overall image of credibility.

Virgin

Virgin’s proliferation of business interests doesn’t seem to dilute it’s highly individual style (what other company is bold enough to choose a sexually-related phrase as it’s identity, and write only in white on red?).

Admittedly, some of the enterprises listed on the Virgin Website seem a little bit like the usual resources were not allocated, but on the whole this has got to be one of the most instantly recognisable cross-branding exercises known.

Virgin’s strongest coups are made in media advertisments both print and screen. They were one of the first to start using ‘speak to me’ style language and have continued to provide laterally-generated solutions that aren’t always the most successful, and aren’t always the most obvious, but generally are eye catching.

Even though Virgin Trains is a by-word for inefficiency, and Virgin Mobile always looked like the runt of the pack, overall they manage to maintain a very strong identity across the field.

Current.tv

The youngest of my choices, Current is a magazine channel bringing the best of what YouTube style journalism could bring to the screen and pushing the envelope in creative broadcasting.

Although most people don’t necesserily know what Current is, or recognise the brand, I still think it’s amorphous nature (apart from the logo, very little remains similar from one ident to the next) makes it one of the most interesting and devious ones about – especially in traditional screen media.

I’m not entirely sure the channel has got it quite right throughout. The young and often clumsy presenting sometimes look like the pioneering style of Channel 4’s T4 gone wrong, but it’s the combination of new approaches of mixing media with technology, and showcasing raw, highly creative talent that give it a feel good factor.

The Guardian

I’m not a regular newspaper junkie anymore, and never have been a devoted Guardian reader (though I rarely read any other). The thing is though, out of all the newspapers, The Guardian seems to have made the transition from traditional-to-modern broadsheet without sacrificing integrity or layout.

The introduction of the miniature Times and Independent were great moves, but I don’t think it had anywhere near the level of impact that refreshed Guardian had on making a broadsheet digestible.

Firstly, the new typography is stunning, and the use of colour, space and layout makes this still supersized paper a joy to open up. Until the design refresh, I couldn’t have really told the difference between many of these papers. The Times maybe slipped a couple of extra columns to every page, and The Independent had some very large percentages in a serif font splashed across the front, but it was the bold strap of colour and highly readable type that really made me sit up and notice that one paper was now leading the eye-catchability war.

Politically of course the Guardian represents a certain route, but with or without a political motive, this paper delivers the news in the most affable way of all the heavy-texters.

Overview

There are of course many other brands I put up as contenders for the five spaces I have filled here, but I think I’ll revisit this sometime in the future and add some more then. If you have suggestions for brands that really impress, I’d like to hear about them.

Maybe it’s just me, but I really love discovering old things that just don’t make sense, are plain wrong, or just have been forgotten.

I’ve been working my way through a box of The Children’s Encyclopedia which we think were my grandparents – the earliest was published in 1908, and to put that in perspective, that was eight years before the Great War and five years before my 94 year old grandmother was born. They will be 100 next year.

So it’s brilliant to flip through this century-old youth magazine. The encyclopedia was originally distributed as periodicals and is not alphabetically organised. It simply covers topics and answers questions that that the readers might ask – including cartoons, but also including serious observations on the world. It’s more of a magazine than a true reference book.

The first article I came across (from 1911) explained that a friend of the editor (Arthur Mee) had recently written a book explaining why it is no longer possible for wars to occur. Apparently the complex nature of credit arrangements between countries would mean that it would become financially impossible. I think it’s fair to say that being optimistic isn’t necessarily the same as being correct.

An offshoot of the encyclopedia was the establishment (with regular head count) of the League of The Helping Hand. This organisation was setup and promoted by Mee, and it boasted a scout-like structure open to both boys and girls. In 1911, there were ‘Bands’ of this League in the UK, Italy and the USA amongst others, and the members of each band would appoint Captains and award Knighthoods to each other for particularly good work. Very imperial. I’ve just discovered it’s still in existence, but now as a registered charity.

There is a lot of other interesting stuff that is fascinatingly well past it’s sell by date, and sheds light on a world that still didn’t yet have wall sockets, women had no vote, where ‘Titanic’ was just a collection of drawings and where most of the readers were born during the reign of Queen Victoria. Probably the most poignant observations are the regularly appearing collages and montages of readers’ photos which record the faces of hundreds of kids who would sadly never live to see the start of the 1920s.

I’ve been scanning in some of the pages to see if I can make any future use of it before the books are disposed of. The image above demonstrates the future of train travel as imagined in 1911 – on a single track using gyroscopic mounts which “will keep the train so steady that we shall be able to write while travelling, or even to play billiards”. I’m still waiting to play snooker on a Virgin Pendalino.

With rumblings in the pipework of Ford parting with the British based firm Jaguar, the designers appear to have finally upped their game and are showing their newest and far more aggressive looking car, the XF, at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

My view on Jaguar over the past few years has been mixed. I initially loved the shape of the XK8/R/RR, but after a few years came to realise that it seems to be firmly stuck in the 1990’s – along with their other offerings of the S- and X-types which both seemed to become more and more ‘weak-nosed’ (a thing that I really dislike – the effect that the car is dipping into the road – a common feature in Mercedes styling also).

But finally I think we’re seeing a change, and it is a most definite departure from the traditional Jaguar line.

The reason that Jaguar appears to have stayed with smoother curves on it’s previous models is down to pedigree. The Mk2, the E-Type, the Sovereign – each was made from a number of sweeping surfaces. But by the time we got to the early 00s, demand for this styling had dwindled.

Jaguar’s tightened curved styling is often tagged as effeminate and lacklustre – with such plain uninteresting panels (present on such cars at the MGF, Jag XK8, Mazda MX5) all looking tired and uninspiring.

I’ve believed that we needed something more aggressive injected back into car design for a number of years now. Until the launch of the BMW Z4, I hadn’t seen any ‘new’ car that really impressed me.

What arrived with the Z4 was ‘slash styling’ – broken surfaces which have been carried through the BMW range and I think really add interest to the new models. Ford, Renault and Vauxhall have all adopted sharper and edgier details over the past ten years, as have the premium manufacturers (Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Bentley), but I still think BMW is leading the way.

Finally, a decade after everyone else started doing it, Jaguar have stepped into line. The new XF looks like it carries something from the Aston Martin gene-pool (especially from the rear) – I wouldn’t be surprised if the design team shared designers. It looks slightly like it’s slightly stockier though – borrowing the Bentley’s chunky and solid midriff. Is it simply a hybrid of existing ideas?

Well yes, at least partly. There are some more original elements (the chrome flashing on the windows and the sculpted hub caps), though I’m not entirely convinced by the pursed grill on the front, but it is an improvement on the previously tame front end of it’s predecessors.

It’s not just the outside that is impressive. The console looks beautifully executed, using interesting veneers and subtly textured metals to create a very clean space, though I’m not sure about the way a number of the controls have been resolved. That said, the air vents, the radio, fan and rotary gear change dials are sublime.

The aggression of modern car styling is present throughout, and I think they will have widened their appeal with this model. From the photos, the Jaguar XF really looks like it carries some of the pedigree of £110,000 car. I think it will be a success, but I do think there has been some significant compromise here – it leans heavily on styling of existing luxury models and I don’t think it sets itself as a brand apart.

It certainly will appeal to anyone who would love to own a more expensive car, but hasn’t quite got the means to buy one. Cynical pandering to the markets to make sales and salvage the company, or a genuine to attempt to reinstate Jaguar as a world leader in cutting edge design? I think I know where I’d put my money.