I spent two weeks in India in 2003. On my last day I travelled from Delhi to Agra with my travel buddy Ben to see the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri.

After leaving Delhi at dawn we had an eventful trip to Agra featuring security checkpoints, dancing bears and no less than three punctures. I’d never seen a car tyre with an inner tube, and I’d certainly never seen an inner tube with so many existing repair patches already in place.

The Taj Mahal was every bit as breath taking as legend suggests. It’s hard to comprehend just how majestic this building is without seeing it for yourself. I walked around for hours in quiet awe.

Getting a good tourist free photograph of such an iconic attraction is of course very difficult so we hatched a cunning plan. Ben would stand in front of the Taj as if having his photograph taken, then on the count of three he would duck out of the way allowing me an undisturbed photograph of the Taj Mahal.

Unfortunately Ben got a little carried away, and rather than merely duck he threw himself bodily to the floor. This is why the edges of the photo are lined with bemused looking Indian tourists, and why Ben spent the rest of the day limping.

Of course the irony is that because of this the tourists make it a much better photograph.

If you know the story behind it.

Like Simon and Cole I have exquisitely perfect taste in music – I mean truly excellent taste.

And like my friends I have those tracks lurking in my iTunes Library that I enjoy, and even love, but aren’t perhaps as ‘cool’ as the others.

So here for your listening pleasure, and musical delectation are my guilty pleasures:

Video Killed The Radio Star – The Buggles The first video played on MTV and the first track in my guilty pleasures playlist. This a childhood favourite that I enjoyed then for its novelty, but now appreciate for it’s pop artistry. I sit waiting for that kick drum to arrive around 30 seconds in, and smile each time.

Hasan Al Sabah – Hawkwind (video) This track is ridiculous and lightly rubbish, but I love it for that and for an associated memory. When my chum CJ first travelled the Indian sub-continent he sent me a series of very funny letters. My favourite was one that was simply the chorus from this song, which repeats the word hasheesh, followed by “Subtle Huh”. What could it have meant…

Under The Bridge – All Saints I love the original Chilli Peppers version of this but a true guilty pleasure must be a rock band covered by a girl band. I gotta say their version is flippin’ great. I remember seeing the video for it at the cinema as a short preceding the main film; which I think was Pulp Fiction of all things.

99 Problems – Jay Zed Yeah it’s a tad misogynistic, but I can’t help myself. Hard not to love that rocking backing track, and the verses where he deals with the racist cop.

Beautiful – Pharrel and Snoop Dogg A great groove combining the lyrical stylings of NERD and Neptunes superstar Pharrell and Snoop Dogg. Good video as well (ahem)

Too Old To Rock n Roll, Too Young To Die – Jethro Tull I saw Jethro Tull at the first ever ‘proper’ gig I went to, Marillion’s Garden Party at Milton Keynes Bowl, and they were frankly brilliant. I often find myself singing the “too old to rock n roll, too young to die” line in nasal Ian Anderson style. I can’t think why…

James Bond Theme – John Barry Come on… all boys love this piece of music… don’t they? Haven’t we all had a little Bond fantasy moment when its come on in the car? No? Just me? Well they are my guilty pleasures! For a piece of music 1′ 48″ seconds long it’s had a heck of impact I think. I also highly recommend the brilliant ska version by the Skatalites which they some how extend to 7 minutes.

Ghost Riders In The Sky – Johnny Cash This is an odd one. I hate country music, it makes me feel physically ill, but I can’t help but like this track.

Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties – Jona Lewie Another childhood memory and a sentiment I came to sympathise with in my teens. But like Mr Lewie I met a girl to dance with in a “new way” and I’ve done my time in the kitchen at parties.

Band On The Run – Paul McCartney and Wings The whole Band On The Run album is a guilty pleasure for me. I remember the cover as a kid and the album has been with me ever since. The original Wings track isn’t on Spotify so the link is to a Foo Fighters cover which is predictably brilliant.

Cocktails For Two – Spike Jones Yet another track I cam across as a child; my Dad had the most wide ranging record collection I’ve seen. This track is silly, funny but very clever. If you don’t smile once listening to this seek help.

My Friends – Johnny Depp David Hughes in show tune shock! I loathe musicals I really do, but I went to see Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd and really enjoyed it. Yes I was surprised too. The music and lyrics are in many places really clever, and the story is wonderfully dark – not a hint of Sound Of Music or Wizard Of Oz here. This track is a particular favourite with the two singers moving in and out of each other in a musical spiral; one light and positive the other dark and brooding. Johnny Depp sounds like a mix between David Bowie and Keith Richards; although if you really want to him channel Bowie listen to the opening track London.

The Futures So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades Another novelty record and another memory. Towards the end of my 6th form I was chatting to a friend I worked with in my evening job at Comet, who upon hearing my plans exclaimed that “my future was so bright I’d need to wear shades”. It would seem he was overly optimistic perhaps.

Summertime – Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince The ultimate summer pop song. I need say no more than that.

The Chain – Fleetwood Mac I’m not a Fleetwood Mac fan, but own and like the Rumours album. I love this track and freely admit I wait for the moment about 3 minutes in when the wonderful bass line kicks in, and I imagine I can hear Murray Walker and James Hunt in the background.

Bullet The Blue Sky – U2 Like Simon I’m far from a U2 fan, but I love this track. The drummer in full Bonzo mode and the Edge’s searing guitar over the top. I can hear those fighter planes…

Supersonic – Oasis (video) And like Cole I never really got Oasis, but again love Wonderwall. However I thought I’d include Supersonic as it sums up their simianly swaggering sound, and I love that intro.

Mr Blue Sky – ELO Last and by no means least Mr Blue Sky; a guilty pleasure shared by Simon and I. This is the perfect feel good song. It is wonderfully eccentric and English right down to the last “Mr Blue Sky”.

There you have my guilty pleasures laid bare for your perusal and enjoyment.

Have a listen over at Spotify.

Enjoy…

For months now I’ve been searching for a new theme for my blog. I wanted something simple yet stylish, with great typography, that used textures and colour well, and I quite fancied a retro Americana feel. Above all I really wanted it to be a responsive design.

I’d just about given up looking, and was moaning about it on Twitter, which prompted my friend Prisca Schmarsow to generously offer to work with me to create a bespoke theme for my blog. As we talked through some ideas I stumbled across the Liquorice WordPress theme; a theme which, whilst not perfect, seemed to tick many of the new theme boxes. I decided to see what I could do with Liquorice.

An evening hacking Liquorice around had it pretty much where I wanted it.

It’s a shame that Prisca and I won’t get to work together on a blog theme as we shared some nice ideas I feel, but I hope that when time allows maybe we will.

Within a few days my new theme had been commented on by a good friend who thought it was “more me”, and by my wife who, seeing it over my shoulder, spontaneously said how much she liked it without being asked by her needy husband.

But there was one vital ingredient missing: it wasn’t responsive.

Many of you are probably wondering what all this responsive malarkey is all about, and I can’t blame you as it represents the latest in web design thinking. In simple terms a responsive website is one that responds to the size of screen upon which it is being viewed; changing layout and dimensions to best suit that screen. Responsive design is supported by all modern desktop and smartphone browsers which makes it possible to easily create versions of a site tailored to the smaller screens of iPhones and iPads for example.

Responsive design is new to me, and I thought it was going to be a complicated exercise to retro-fit it to my new blog design. Luckily Liquorice is well coded, and even more luckily a good friend of mine Richard Wiggins of Pixel Creation offered to make my site responsive, and at the same time help me learn how a responsive design is created.

It was a fascinating, illuminating, and fun session; I was surprised by just how little code was required to transform this site. Richard did a superb job.

I’ve known and worked with Richard for over 10 years. He worked at the agency I employed to create the Psion Dacom website whilst I was New Media Manager there. He then left to create his own web design studio Pixel Creation. Richard is a very talented designer and one that is quickly able to transform what I’m thinking of into pixels. I’ve worked with some of the biggest agencies in the world and I choose to work with Richard whenever I can. I can’t recommend him highly enough.

See It In Action…

If you’re reading this on an iPad rotate it to see the site respond to the portrait and landscape views.

If you are on a desktop or laptop make the browser window smaller to see the site respond.

If you are reading this in IE8 or lower I’m sorry. I decided against the hacks required to make it work perfectly in your browsers although it works well in IE8. I highly recommend you move to a modern browser such as Google Chrome or Safari.

Lastly if you are reading this in a RSS reader get your arse over here now to see my new blog design.

When Future of Web Design took place a few weeks ago I must admit I started to doubt my choice; the buzz on Twitter was huge and very, very positive. It was oddly fun experiencing the conference vicariously via the Tweets, but it made me wish I was there all the more.

A request via Twitter to ‘crash’ the Future of Web Design party turned into an invitation to have dinner with Jon Hicks which, as is the way with web conferences, turned into dinner with Dan Cederholm, Mike Kus, Aral Balkan, Katie Atkinson and Ryan Carson of Carsonified - the organisers of Future of Web Design. I’d met Dan at @Media a couple of years back so it was good to see him again and it was a huge pleasure to meet Aral and Katie for the first time. This is the one of the many things I love about web conferences; the opportunity to meet your web design heroes who are all friendly, open, modest and very happy to chat.

I made it along to the conference party with Jon, and it was fascinating to watch the attendees with the slight detachment of not being one myself. They were literally buzzing with excitement at the day, the sessions and the chance to meet design greats in the Design Clinics, that were part of the conference, and at the party itself.

Over dinner Ryan talked about the Carsonified conferences, and it was clear that he is committed to creating great conferences that are as affordable as possible. Yes they are a business, but his top priorities are quality and affordability for the attendees. I love that Ryan always builds in great opportunities for socialising and ‘networking’; I feel this aspect of conferences is as valuable as the event itself.

If you can attend Future of Web Design I highly recommend it; I know I’ll be there next year.

Whilst this week is an experiment to see how I, a one time Twitter addict, get on; I don’t have any specific reasons for deciding to take a break and possibly turning my back on Twitter. It’s a combination of things that has led to a rising sense of “meh?”

I’ll report back in week about how it’s gone or is going.

Mike explains his need for a Twitter break:

I’ve sensed lately that I need to take a step back. I’ve caught myself constantly checking my Twitter mentions, working very hard to tweet something of value and scanning my live feed in Tweetie for something, anything interesting to read.

Mike goes on to say:

While that’s typical Twitter user behavior, I’ve felt this incessant attraction to scanning random tweets and replies at all times to be distracting my focus from more important things in my life right now.

I can identify with Mike’s feeling of compulsion to check Twitter often, perhaps too often, and for the desire for there to be something new and interesting to read. This reminds me of a talk about Technology and Psychology by Suw Charman-Anderson at FOWA two years ago. Suw described a series of common ‘symptoms’ connected with email which I think many of the audience could identify with; it transpired that there were the psychological symptoms of addiction.

Andrew’s reasons for leaving Twitter share a theme with Mike’s: that of ‘mental bandwidth’ and time. But Andrew also had issues with the content and perceived value of what he saw being Tweeted. In an email he explained:

For me, social media, and Twitter in particular, is becoming a billion banal internal monologues being broadcast to the world. I think there is a serious risk of us all becoming infantilised. We are not talking to others, just ourselves. With a few exceptions, there is no real “conversation” going on.

I was also not sure what I was contributing by talking about what I was “doing”. It started to feel childish and pointless.

I now see Twitter as a waste of valuable processing time in my already cluttered head . I’d rather spend time with real people – thinking, arguing, and just being with them and not worrying if I need more than 140 characters to make a point.

Interesting, and again there are some sentiments with which I can sympathise.

Why I find Mike and Andrew’s thoughts and actions so interesting is that I a phase of wondering about Twitter, and what it means for me. I’ve ditched all other social media sites and accounts. I took particular enjoyment in deleting my Facebook account; now that is a place devoid of conversation and full of banal, superficial rubbish. So that Just leaves Twitter.

I don’t have any problem with what people say on Twitter; if I don’t like it, don’t find it interesting or of value or if somebody tweets too much I’ll unfollow that person. I manage the signal to noise ratio with extreme prejudice.

I’ve just found that the Lists functionality on Twitter allows me to put people into lists without having to follow them. So I can keep my main Twitter feed clear of clutter, but still have easy, occassional access to people that are of interest. I’ve recently found a number of Formula 1 and motor sport journalists and teams that are highly interesting to a petrol head like me. I’ve been able to put them into a motor sport list so I can get my racing fix without having my main Twitter feed full of testing updates from Valencia for example. This facility is transforming how I use Twitter.

The compulsion to check Twitter and the associated time-suck is an issue I can completely identify with. I recently started a new job that is wonderfully busy, and now I really can’t afford the time during the day to check Twitter as much as I used to; my streamlined main Twitter feed and use of lists is going to help me quickly catch up at the beginning and end of the day.

I don’t see myself stopping using Twitter or even taking a break, but instead I’m controlling more carefully when and how I use it. Twitter should be a tool to use how you see fit: be it a news source, a place for conversation with friends, micro-publishing platform or a combination thereof and more.

Most of all I’ve been fortunate to meet and get to know some great people through Twitter. Some I’ve met in person, some our conversation has moved to email and IM, but for many it’s just a Twitterthang and I’d miss that too much to stop.

Stephanie and I worked together for a few years in London, then in 2007 Stephanie made the huge step of moving to New York to live and work.

Biting The Big Apple records that adventure and Stephanie’s thoughts and experiences of living in New York City.

It’s been really interesting re-reading a number of the posts with a new perspective following my first trip to New York.

Take a bite from the Big Apple.

Well worth reading or adding to your RSS reader.

Well, I was starting to become tired of London when I was working there; experiencing too much of the tedious, overcrowded public transport side of London and not enough of the fun, entertaining, historical side.

However, this Tuesday I’m heading into London for the first time since I stopped working there and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to London once again being a place to visit and place for fun and entertainment.

I’m spending the day at a user testing session; I can’t say what we are testing but it’s sure to be fascinating as user testing always is. Followed, if time allows, by a little light retail therapy at the Apple Store.

Then in the evening I’m meeting some of my friends from American Express; of course this is what I’m looking forward to most.

London is a funny place though, even though working there was hard at times I think once you have been part of London it remains part of you.

Guess I’m not as tired of London as I thought I was…