Archive for April, 2008
The weekly technology column from those good people at Plymouth’s Orange Crate
With the main network providers offering at least some PDA option with the majority of their pre-pay contracts, the opportunity to get your hands on one with minimum outlay has never been so realistic. But which one? A few years ago the market was heavily skewed towards the business and enterprise sector, but recent marketing campaigns have ensured the foray of the PDA phone into the world of the home consumer.
This week I’m going to take a closer look at three options available on regular phone provider contracts – The LG Viewty, HTC Touch, and the Apple iPhone. Although these represent a mere drop in the ocean in terms of models available, the likelihood is you’ve heard of at least two of them so it’s as good a place as any to start.
Available for free on contracts from all the major players, the LG Viewty fortunately has more to offer than a silly name. In its favour it is certainly easy to use as a phone, and has all the features you’d expect from a PDA – radio, calender, media player. Possibly the Viewty’s best feature is its 5 megapixel camera – impressive by any standards. However, there are some unfortunate drawbacks. Lack of speed is definitely an issue, as is the relatively poor quality of the operating system and included software. Potentially a great idea, but don’t expect to leave your laptop at home by any means – this is a very attractive phone with some nice features, little more.
HTC are relatively unknown as a phone manufacturer, but as one of the biggest platforms for the Windows Mobile operating system in the UK, they have built a series of improving phones over the last few years. Although aesthetically pleasing, the Touch also offers a host of well designed applications and features through Windows Mobile 6.0. For anyone familiar with previous Windows phones, you will know this combination is a rarity! Much more of a pocket pc, although its phone functions are pretty good, the HTC Touch’s major downfall is its reliance on the stylus pen. If you don’t like using it, give it a wide berth – finger pushing isn’t a realistic option here.
The Apple iPhone is currently recognized as the user-friendly pinnacle of high street PDA phones. Developed with the private consumer in mind, it combines a touchscreen phone, an iPod, and a PDA. And it does it well. Attractive and sleek, it successfully markets itself as today’s must-have ‘accessory’. However, it’s expensive. Very expensive. And it’s closed-platform operating system ensures that it really is just a designer gadget rather than a full blown technical aide.
In truth, I’ve only scratched the surface of these phones’ abilities. All have their own fortes, and I haven’t even mentioned some of the other powerful contenders such as Palm Treo, Blackberry, i-mate, or even Nokia. Next time you’re renewing your contract, skip over the pretty pink Sony and have a closer look at the PDA options. Because it’s cool to play games, check your email and talk on the phone at the same time – surely everybody knows that.
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April 25th, 2008
posted by Cptn
Devon real nappy week ends on Sunday (April 27), and we all know the environmental damage a smelly nappy can make, but it’s those disposable ones that create the real stink.
Bryan Carson, chair of the Devon Authorities Waste Reduction and Recycling Committee told the PRSD the impact that nappies have.
“With over 28 million disposable nappies being thrown away in Devon every year, using real nappies even part time can make a difference and will also save up to 5,600 tonnes of waste going to landfill.
“Most new parents are unaware of the wide variety of washable nappies now available. These modern real nappies are environmentally friendly, economical and easy to use. There is no need for folding, boiling or soaking anymore and pins have been replaced with Velcro and poppersâ€.
Check out some nappy factoids and how to sort out getting those non-disposables, just part of the Don’t Let Devon Go To Waste site.
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April 25th, 2008
posted by Cptn
Huzzah to Devon County Council’s Great Moor House offices, home to the Devon Record Office, whose recycling rates have reached nearly 90 per cent.
The 350 staff recycle all the usual gubbins, as well as old library books, fluorescent tubes and even desks – now there’s bureaux-cracy in action (tee hee).
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April 24th, 2008
posted by Cptn
A transport exhibition held in a lay-by has the flavour of many an artistic installation, but the Transport Infrastructure Proposals for the East of Exeter will indeed park up in a lay-by just west of the junction of the old A30 (Honiton Road) and B3184 in Clyst Honiton.
It will be open to the public from 9am to 8pm tomorrow (Friday, April 25), continuing on Saturday (26 April) from 9am to 4pm.
The exhibition will show the planned transport and housing for the outskirts of Exeter, adjacent to the M5 and A30 to Honiton.
This is what the press release says: “The infrastructure for the development of the Cranbrook new community, SkyPark, the airport expansion, inter-modal freight terminal, and Science Park, will be constructed in phases. Phase one includes a new rail station, a bypass at Clyst Honiton and improvements to Junction 30 of the M5, all to be delivered through developer funding.
“Phase two is a package of improvements containing major improvements to the A30 at Junction 29 of the M5, closure of the slip roads off the A30 at Blackhorse, and also provision of bus lanes at various locations.”
We don’t know if tea and burgers will be available.
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April 24th, 2008
- Vile Affections, Spacex, Exeter, until May 3
posted by Phil Ginsberg
Tony Blair turns his head and stares out at us, his trademark grin on his face. This time, it seems a little more manic than usual. A metal keying brutally pierces the cartilage between his nostrils. Dangling from it, just below his mouth, is a cute children’s toy: Barney, the purple dinosaur and superstar of American children’s television.
Nicole Kidman faces us directly in her portrait. Her hair is dishevelled and her face pockmarked by a vile disease. The look from her right eye is penetrating – her left eye is hidden from view by seven red laser beam-like lines that meet in its centre.
Karl Lagerfeld has been painted from his chest upward, his ponytail, sunglasses and suit immaculate. Let alone the two giant white cockroaches crawling across him spoil the impression. He hardly seems to notice them.
These are some of the subjects that people the world of the contemporary painter Dawn Mellor’s portraits. She concentrates on painting portraits of well-known public figures – with a twist. And now they have come to Devon. A new exhibition of her paintings and drawings called Vile Affections is on show at Spacex in Exeter until 3 May. Originally organised by Studio Voltaire, London, the exhibition at Spacex also includes works that have never been seen before.
Dawn Mellor was born in Manchester in 1970 and now lives and works in London. She studied at Manchester Polytechnic as well as Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. She then graduated from the Royal College of Art in London in 1996. For the last 10 years, she has been painting celebrities. She has said that the time she spent studying was the only period where this has not been the major focus in her work.
But Dawn Mellor is a rising star herself. She has had her own exhibitions throughout Europe and in the United States: in Exeter, you can now catch Vile Affections just before it transfers to Team Gallery in New York. Later this year, she has a major solo exhibition at the renowned Migros Museum for Contemporary Art in Zurich, Switzerland.
Apart from Hollywood stars, actors and musicians, she has painted political and religious leaders, as well as famous thinkers and writers. Occasionally, she has also chosen to turn her attention to her contemporaries in the art world and painted other artists and arts professionals. This is the case in Vile Affections, too. However, the show mainly features a vast amount of stars as well as some of the most powerful politicians and well-known intellectuals of our time.
Yet Dawn Mellor’s portraits are never just straightforward representations of their subjects. Instead, she puts celebrities in grotesque situations. While they are always recognisable, they are re-imagined by the artist to startling effect. They may wear strange clothes or costumes. They are sometimes accompanied by animals or objects, which may not necessarily seem to be related to them. And they are often painted in shocking poses. In fact, many of the paintings draw on disconcerting, violent or sexual imagery – Vile Affections is certainly not for the faint-hearted, and Dawn Mellor’s art can be very unsettling. But that same shock effect forms an important part of the profound artistic message of her works.
Dawn Mellor first began drawing pictures of celebrities at a young age. Today she is still inspired by the same material, albeit in a very different way. She has admitted to still having the same adolescent enthusiasm for celebrities, too, and it is clear that she is not out to attack individuals in her art. Instead, her paintings often seem to emphasize with the celebrities they portray and their situation in our society. Her works frequently show precisely those celebrities that have been especially criticised in the media. Dawn Mellor’s art can therefore also be seen as a comment on the society from which these famous people have emerged.
Provocative the portraits in Vile Affections may be. Nevertheless, it is clear that Dawn Mellor uses her paintings and drawings of celebrities to investigate a range of issues that go beyond a narrow concern with the subjects she portrays. Her art is political and engaged. Through the portraits of particular people she asks more general questions about topics such as racism and homophobia.
And there are many famous faces in Vile Affections. From Madonna to Michael Jackson, via Sigmund Freud, Martin Luther King and Alfred Hitchcock, Dawn Mellor has included scores of American and British as well as other international stars in her paintings. Vile Affections also features a new series of drawings of Britney Spears and an extended series of portraits of the actress Julianne Moore, both of which the artist unveiled exclusively for Spacex. There are over 60 paintings in total.
These have been hung close together in a way that is reminiscent of the famous Salon exhibitions held in Paris in the 18th and 19th centuries. This gives the paintings a hint of the atmosphere of competition and social approval that played a role in the Salon, where a jury decided which works would be shown and how prominently they would be positioned. The Salon of Vile Affections seems to ask whether there is a competition that celebrities have to take part in to become famous, and how they are approved. Yet the paintings explore not only how our celebrity culture is constructed, but our wider culture, too.
Vile Affections is an unconventional look at the world and a 21st century update of portraiture. And in the end, as serious as the exhibition’s artistic aims may be, it is not without humour either – as a certain purple dinosaur dangling from a very famous nose might testify. •
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April 24th, 2008
posted by Cptn
This year, the Plymouth Pride Event will expand upon the LGBT history theme with guest speakers, film shows and a wider input of local LGBT history. Plans are in place to have another Question Time event and to hold a Police Liaison Group public meeting on the day, which takes place on Saturday, June 7 and includes a programme of music and entertainment.
Find out more about the Plymouth Pride Event on the PRSD.
If you feel you would like to contribute on the day contact Mike Hookway (Deputy Chairman & Trustee) michaelhookway@hotmail.co.uk
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April 24th, 2008
- Northcott Theatre, Exeter, until April 26
posted by CptnÂ
Oh, what a tangled web is weaved when there’s deception in the air. Theatre Alibi run hither and thither, some in pursuit of the truth, others with a nose for deception. It’s enough to make you wonder how they don’t get tangled up themselves.
Set in the second world war, there’s an air of familiar ground to Spies, which is on at the Northcott until April 26 – British reserve; childhood delusion and coming of age.
The story is based on Michael Frayn’s Whitbread prize-winning novel of the same name, and has a fair dollop of nostalgia. But it’s the touches that stop this tale from being twee: the humour; the corrugated steel set with built-in hedges; the melancholy and claustrophobic live music from squeezebox and cello.
It’s easy to identify with the plight of young grubby-kneed Stephen (Benjamin Warren), helped by the narration of his older self Stefan. The story revolves around his relationship with best friend and sinisterly proper Keith (John-Paul Macleod). Suspected German Spy, Keith’s mum (Jordan White), subtley falls from distant, mysterious figure to confidante. Around these Christian Flint and Cerianne Roberts play multiple characters that don’t leave you counting their roles.
There’s loads going on, and it’s either richly layered or there are too many strands, but this is a grown up story, and there are no easy answers. Growing up isn’t a case of doing what’s right, it’s more like entering a dark tunnel, where the light at the end is the fabled on-coming train.
Live theatre has lashings of x-factor (something that the story touches on) which kept the largely young audience entranced.
To book tickets, go to the Exeter Northcott website.
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April 23rd, 2008
posted by Cptn
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It’s Earth Day today, and if you fancy something a little more stimulating than just lying on it you could pop along to the free screening of Escape from Suburbia tonight at the Jill Craigie Cinema in Plymouth University’s Roland Levinsky Building.
It is billed as a ’sobering yet vital and ultimately positive exploration of what the secnod half of the Oil Age has in store for us’.
Doors open at 6pm for the 6.30pm start (running time 95 minutes)
Get a taster of what the Escape from Suburbia people were up to in California, above.
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April 22nd, 2008
The news through from Devon County Council is that carsharedevon.com attracted a whole load of new members last month.
According to their press release: “The free car share service commissioned by Devon County Council in partnership with Plymouth City Council and Torbay Council attracted 179 new people last month; almost twice the monthly average of 90 new registrations.”
As new member Tim said: “I registered on the system because I travel 82 miles a day from Bridgwater to Exeter. It costs around £70 a week in fuel so I’m keen to car share to save some money and also to reduce my environmental impact. I appreciate that I may have to wait several weeks to find a suitable match but I’m happy that the carsharedevon.com system will keep searching.â€
Carsharedevon.com now has more than 5,000 members.
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April 21st, 2008
posted by Cptn
The South West TUC has got in touch to say that more than 100 delegates will attend their annual conference on Friday and Saturday April 25-26 at Croyde Bay, North Devon.
“The two-day event will see delegates from a variety of trade unions in the region discuss issues relevant to their work, such as the environment, organising, ID cards and pensions.
The wide range of motions submitted cover issues such as the current coastguard dispute, respect for shop workers, transport, residential homes in Bristol and job centre closures,” they say.
Regional secretary Nigel Costley told the PRSD: “This is the major trade union event of the year – when trade unionists meet to talk through ideas and share experiences. The variety of the agenda reflects the broad nature of the work of unions.â€
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April 20th, 2008
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