Notes From Afar
I love this sketch from my friend Brendan Dawes – it conveys the creative process beautifully. I’ve seen Brendan use this in his talks, and as he says, it’s always met with a flurry of smartphone action, I may even have snapped it myself.
Brendan is now releasing it as a robot drawn print in a limited edition of just 100.
Treat yourself for Christmas or better still treat me :)
By far my most played and most loved new music of 2018 is Preservation by Keynvor.
Preservation is a wonderful EP, composed by Sebastian Plano, that combines modern classical almost soundtrack-like music with recorded soundscapes of the rugged Cornish coast to create a beautifully evocative suite of music.
Keynvor (pronounced Cain-Vor) is the Cornish word for ocean, and the recordings of the Cornish Atlantic coast are intertwined with the music to spine-tingling effect.
Preservation is supported by Cornish brewer Sharps, with royalties from streams and downloads being donated to Cornish based charity Surfers Against Sewage to help fund their campaign against plastics and pollution in our oceans.
Download and enjoy, maybe with a Cornish beer, and help support the campaign to keep our oceans clean.
Tis a busy world. To have great ideas, you need to find 20 minutes in the morning for thinking of nothing.
Just 1.2% of your day.
You have to create a space for those ideas to come to you.
I just try to live every day, as though I’ve deliberately come back to this day to enjoy it, as though it was the last full final day of my extraordinary ordinary life.
Gorgeous…
I came across Yallah Coffee the week before I was due to travel to Cornwall, where Yallah are based, and in a wonderful piece of synchronicity they are located just a few miles from where we were going to be staying. A couple of emails later and Rich had kindly agreed to meet me, and let me look around.
Yallah are a small speciality roaster that sell to the trade and via their website. My first question was to be “why Cornwall?” but when you see their location on a farm, in a lovely location, overlooking beautiful Cornish countryside why would you want to be anywhere else?
Yallah have direct trade agreements with farms in Rwanda and soon Latin America, which demonstrates a real commitment to high quality and ethically produced coffee.
I was fascinated to see green coffee beans or the first time – coffee beans are green before roasting. There were three varieties waiting to be roasted, I was surprised that even before roasting each type had its own unique smell.
Yallah roast in small batches on the premises, the smell was fabulous, and watching the transformation from washed green beans to dark roasted beans felt like watching magic.
I bought two coffees whilst there, one each from Peru and Rwanda.
Both are exceptional, but the Flor Del Norte from Peru has a wonderful balance and gorgeous depth of flavour.
Good people making great coffee – highly recommended.