there's going to be a carnival!

There's a Carnival happening. Yes, we all know about that big noisy thing going off in West London next weekend. I don't mean that one. The Carnival I'm talking about is cooler, a little bit niche, select, shall we say. It's happening at the Viewfinder gallery in Greenwich on Friday 3 September. Yes, it's south of the river, but handily the tube station is right across the road.

There's going to be live music, a DJ, art (should I say fantastic art), a very cool photo booth, great wine and even greater company. If you want a ticket you could email me nigel.rumsey@gmail.com or you could just go to the web site.

As well as all those really good reasons to go, you'll also be supporting a great little gallery. Who can say fairer! See you there.

in his mouth!

Now here's the thing I have a bit of an irrational dislike of restaurants in shopping malls. Not the food court type, they're fine, they are what they are. It's never going to be fine dining, but well, you are in a mall. It's the sort of restaurant that tries to persuade you you're eating in sophisticated environs in London, Paris or New York, when you're plainly eating with buggies going past your shoulder.

Irrational maybe but taking it to a whole new level, this guy is, i kid you not, having his teeth whitened, in-a-mall!

He hasn't gone to his friendly dentist he's probably know for years, with a certificate on the wall, a dental nurse and the quietly playing music. He's sat down in the middle of the mall, visible to the world (and any joker with a camera) and someone he's never met before is sticking chemicals (strong enough to bleach his tooth enamel remember) in his mouth! I'm betting it won't be long before we see pop-in vasectomies behind the checkout in Tesco.

olympus xa2, kodak tri-x, rodinal 1+50

Did you know the fabulous Viewfinder Photography Gallery in Greenwich is holding a fundraising party on 3 September? Buy your tickets here.

new bike

I've ordered a new bike and I'm more excited than a small puppy, about to go out for a walk the day before Christmas! Well I was, until they told me it isn't coming until JULY! But that's ages. They did say early July. I'm just going to have to be patient, something I'm not terribly good at.

I've gone all old school, do you like it? It's made by Velorbis - they're from Denmark. More info here. (he doesn't some with it - or i might be a bit crowded.

Can I Please Have My Mobile Phone Back, Officer?

A quite astonishing tale of the treatment of a photographer in the City of London. On the NUJ site.

fingers crossed

in fact I've got everything crossed. It's not that I even really want Labour to get in (not this Labour anyway). But I just know in our constituency it's going to be a straight Labour / Tory fight, so what's a bloke to do? We just can't go back to the Tory years of hate, the years of looking after the wealthy and good luck to the rest of you.

As I write this I have the heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach because I think it's too late. Gordon's last minute rallying speeches, are too last minute. The earnest words from Alan Johnson on the radio this morning are falling on deaf ears. In five years time we'll look back on this moment and say to ourselves 'why did we let it happen, did we not learn from the last time?'. The answer is 'no we didn't'.

For all our sakes don't do it!

From a great series.

Climategate - well they would wouldn't they

This has rather been overshadowed by the election, but do you remember the recent fuss about leaked emails at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. The 'we don't believe in climate change' lobby said that this was undoubted proof that all the science was nonsense and 'we should all forget about climate change and carry on producing carbon as quickly as we could', thank you very much.

The authorities at the University commissioned Lord Oxbrugh to head an independent panel to investigate. They have reported saying that there was no scientific malpractice. They stated: "We found absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatsoever. That doesn't mean that we agreed with all of their conclusions, but these people were doing their jobs honestly."

Cut back to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (the previously mentioned 'it's all nonsense' lobby) who now say that the report is nonsense, in fact everything is nonsense  - so lets go off and make a load more carbon just for the hell of it! Well they would wouldn't they!

on being a photographer

I've heard many recommendations for 'on being a photographer' over the years but I've never read it. The book written by David Hurn and Bill Jay is basically a conversation on that subject. I've looked for it on Amazon a number of times but there are only second-hand copies which sell for about £25 upwards, which for what is a slim paperback edition, seemed a little expensive.

I assumed it must be out of print, well it isn't. Recently a link for something or other took me to the Lenswork site, who are the publishers. Lenswork are selling nice new copies for the cover price of $12.95 + shipping, which to the UK was $12.50. Still a lot better than £25.00.

It only arrived today so I haven't had a chance to read it, but I've a long train journey on Wednesday so I'll report back.

5 x 4 pinhole camera

Inspired by the guys over at Feeling Negative and all the recent talk on Filmwasters about large format photography I've decided to have a go at making a 5 x 4 pinhole camera.

I've got loads of lovely 6mm plywood left from my photobooth project so the only thing I need to buy is a 4" x 5" film holder. It amazes me that although film photography was supposed to have died at sometime around the millennium, and 5" x 4" was hardly at the common end of film photography, all the equipment on 'the bay' still gets snapped up. There are obviously a lot of people out there still shooting film and quite a number shooting large format.

I'm going to base my design loosely around that of the Leonardo pinhole cameras you can see above. I'll let you know how I get on. (if you want to buy yourself a Leonardo pinhole they're available from Pinhole Resource)

wake up : walk out

read more here

the election: a clarification

I'm not quite sure why but I feel I need to clarify the previous post. In that most mythical of things an ideal world I wouldn't be voting Labour, or not this Labour anyway. I'd probably voting for some mix of the Green Party and a proper socialist Labour party that had a mission to right wrongs.

However just as not many not many turkeys would vote for Christmas not many Brits would vote for a Government that needs to raise taxes and cut their carbon emissions. So being a realist who lives in a tory constituency where the only other near contender is Labour, I shall probably vote Labour. Enough said.

step outside posh boy

As the Guardian puts it. Fingers crossed!

i heart miranda sawyer

An eloquent explanation of why 6music is important beyond the obvious 'because i like it' posting. If you want more on the campaign to save 6music check here.

Greenwich LIP Exhibition

This is the picture I'm entering into the Second Greenwich Annuale. I'm a little nervous as this is only the second time I've ever exhibited one of my photographs publicly.

The Annuale is the exhibition of photographs taken by the Greenwich group members of London Independent Photography. The exhibition is going to be held at the fabulously bijou Viewfinder Gallery in Greenwich. It runs from 21st to 30th August. If you find yourself in Greenwich please pop in a have a look, I'm sure there will lots of excellent work on display from more than 60 London photographers.

Bicycle Trailer - post #6 (nearly there)

First I must apologise I did say earlier in the week that I'd post some pictures of my, nearly, completed trailer the next day. Well, you know how it is even with the best intentions. Anyway here they are and I'm very happy with it.

I'm pleased with the way the wood looks now it's varnished, sometimes you just can't beat a bit of yacht varnish. As you can see I still have to complete the hitch. I've thought about this hitch for so long its become something of my trailer nemesis!

This is the underside, the wheel brackets, made from some old radiator brackets seem to have worked very well. Of course I haven't put any load on there yet but they seem fairly solid.

Carry Freedom in their design suggest the use of a tensioning device using four rods or cables to keep the trailer square and level. I've tried to show what this would look like above. The red lines would be the cables and the black cylinder just something solid enough to form a pyramid shape.

I think because I've had the luxury of using box section aluminium, and ply, which keeps it fairly rigid I don't think I'll need these. Of course my trailer will also be used on the comparatively flat roads of Southern England instead of in an off-road area, so that should help. I'll keep an eye on it, I can always add them later if required.

So now all I need to do is knuckle down and make the hitch. Hopefully the next pictures you see is of the completed thing.

a quick trailer update

I have to admit I'm very excited, my bike trailer is near completion. I fitted the top this evening, all nicely varnished - there is something very satisfying about a bit of varnish. The wheels are on and I've fitted some brackets to the ceiling of my workshop, so it can be stored out-of-the-way. It was a bit too dark to take some pictures when I'd finished, but I'll post some tomorrow night.

All I need to do is make the hitch - which I've now thought about so long it's now become my trailer nemesis - and we're good to go.

Enjoying the summer? Wildberry

simple is best

How often do you see something that makes you say 'why didn't I think of that'? It's so true that the best ideas are often the simplest. One such idea are the very stylish belts made from old bicycle tyres by Velo-re. Cycling and re-cycling.

They have your standard black tyres or one-off belts made from coloured road tyres like the one above.

Thanks to Lauren on the Big Blog for pointing them out.

Bicycle Trailer - post #5

Things have been a bit slow developing on the bike trailer of late, with sitting around watching the Tour de France, among other things, taking a disproportionate amount of my time. But I have made some progress this weekend.

I'd already finished the brackets to hold the wheels, if you've read previous posts you might have seen I've made them out of some old radiator brackets, which was fine but they were galvanised and I stupidly had forgotten how difficult it is to paint over. They're fitted now and they don't look too bad (as long as you don't get too close).


I've made the deck from some 12mm ply. The two holes on the far edge are so I can hang it from the roof of my workshop, keeping it out of the way when not in use.

The next job is to varnish the ply to make it weatherproof. That then just leaves fitting the wheels and making the hitch (Mmm still not resolved).

I want to get a large plastic box with a clip-on lid that I can use to hold smaller items like groceries. It did occur to me, rather belatedly, that maybe I should have found the right size box and then made the trailer to suit! - something maybe worth bearing mind if you make one. I'd really like some easy method to clip the box into place. I'm thinking about that, any suggestions appreciated.

There are a few more pictures on my Flickr. Thanks as always to Carry Freedom who's bamboo trailer design this is based on.

The Importance of Fun

There are times when life not only doesn't seem fun but it can seem a bit of a downright chore. In this instance you're basically faced with two choices.

You can go for the 'get-away-from-it-all' option that you often read about where daring young things, or daring old things for that matter, up sticks and dash-off to canoe around the world or whatever the fancy takes them. Now this is all very well (and where I show myself as a bit too sensible and you realise I'm never going to canoe around the world), but most of us have some responsibility that makes that impractical or maybe just unappealing.

The second alternative is we look around for a moment and realise that actually where we are now is where other people somewhere else are dreaming of running off to, and that actually it's quite a good place to be.

This article by Dan Germain for Howies made me realise that this week.

Boil life right down to its constituent parts and what are you left with? Birth, death and that’s about it. They’re the certainties.

Of course, in between those two there’s a whole world of possibilities. Love. Swimming. Sex. Broken legs. A holiday in Corfu. Pretty much anything you can think of. It’s a blank canvas. You choose. Not your parents. Not your partner. You choose. It’s your birth and it’s your death, so you should get to choose the pieces in between.

Now then, this is all leading somewhere. And it’s leading to something called Fun. Fun is what should be happening in between. Pure, thrilling fun. Some days it might feel a bit more like got-to-get-up-and-catch-the-bus fun. But it should still be fun. Because you can decide what is and can be fun.

Bus rides? Massive f**king fun. Really. I mean, there you are, riding around at great speed in a big metal box. That is fun. Love. That’s fun. Swimming. That’s insane fun. Broken legs. Well, you get crutches and people writing dumb stuff on your cast. Fun.

The point is, the only person who can make things fun is you. Not your teachers. Not your friends. Not your boss. You.

You have a duty to make it fun. Even when times are hard and the light gets dark. If you don’t, you’ll just get born and then you’ll die.

And that is no fun.

Thanks Dan. Go have some fun this weekend. Wildberry

The Mayor of London's Skyride

What was known as the London Freewheel, the event where the roads of Central London are reserved for cyclists has been rebranded as 'The Mayor of London's Skyride. Yes, Rupert Murdock has got involved, but don't let that put you off.

This year the ride takes place on Sunday 20th September, but the very good news is there are a number of Skyrides planned in different cities. The dates differ so do look at their web site.

Trailer hitch suggestions

Following my latest bike trailer post I received an email from Tom detailing his experience in fitting a hitch to his modified trailer.

He wrote: "In your bike trailer thread you mention your next problem may be a Hitch?

For months on end I scoured the net for a Ball type hitch as used on the back of cars. I ended up having to settle for a Universal Joint for my hitch.

This was up until a couple of weeks ago when I bought a Ball Joint Type Hitch - GREAT.

Here's how the Ball Hitch looks.

How it attaches to my trailer...

There are various types of hitches employed by trailer builders. I think its all down to preference!

My preferred method is the trailer from directly behind the back wheel. I don't like the side pull arm not the under the seatpost arm. When have you ever seen a car towing a trailer/caravan with a long pole attached to the side of the back wheel? - or a pole through the

back window attached to the seat?

I bought this hitch for £12:50p from a bike forums friend - its worked out well for me."

Tom also sent some other pictures of this trailer and a single wheel trailer similar to the Bob Yak. I'm going to create a photo-page for these pictures, and others, that should be up in the next few days. Thanks Tom for all the suggestions.

Making things is great!

As someone who spends much of their working week sitting behind a computer it's easy to forget how great getting my hands dirty and actually making something is.

On Tuesday evening I got home from a long day in the office, it was hot and humid, but I'm really keen to get my bike trailer finished before the summer is over so I forced myself to get out and do something. It was way too hot in the shed, but the garden was lovely and fresh.

The brackets above are one of two pairs needed to fix the wheels to my trailer. If you read my earlier post you'll know I've made these out of a couple of old radiator brackets. Now they may not be as fancy as if they'd been professionally machined, they're certainly not as millimetre accurate as they would have been, but it really doesn't matter. They didn't cost me anything more than an hour or so of my time. Which was spent in my garden on a lovely June evening, and when they become part of the trailer I'll have the pleasure of knowing I made them.

'Great', you say, 'but so what?' Well the 'what' is that as we send more of our manufacturing overseas we gradually end up with fewer people who can make things. Now I'm sure just about anyone could make my brackets, but there are a great many things we use that we're increasingly loosing the skills to do ourselves. Now practically that may not be a big problem, but for a country with such a great engineering tradition it certainly is a shame.

Summer's made for cycling

We're having a great summer here in the UK, with lots of bike riding, and for some reason that always makes me think of this clip.



Ahh, Katharine Ross on your crossbar, does summer get any better? Make sure you enjoy it. Wildberry

Save FM

The UK Government recently announced the prospect of a digital radio switchover in the UK to start in 2015, which will lead to the eventual loss of FM radio (Guardian article). Apart from the current problems with DAB reception in large areas of the UK, this will also result in millions of much loved radios becoming electronic waste overnight.

A campaign 'Save Fm', has been launched, it's only early days but you can sign-up here.

There's also a petition on the Downing Street web site.

Bicycle Trailer - post #4

I've been getting a little frustrated by the lack of progress on my bike trailer so I've put in a bit of a concerted effort today. As you can see the basic frame is complete and I have the wheels and the tyres, they're just balanced there at the moment. The next job is to make some brackets to secure the wheels.

I was having some trouble finding some suitable steel for the job and then my eyes alighted on a couple of old radiator brackets in the shed that I'd kept just-in-case they came in handy and it looks like they're going to.

The next thing, and probably the trickiest, is the hitch for the connection to the bike. In the latest edition of Velovision I see that Carry Freedom have come out with a very clever looking rubber hitch. I did wonder if I could make something based on that, but it's probably going to be easier to stick to the original design based on the one detailed in the bamboo trailer plans.

a small service announcement

Apologies if things at the web site look a bit all-over-the-place. As it's Glastonbury this weekend, and I won't leave the house in case I miss any of it, it seemed a good idea to do a small update on the web site.

Actually that's not entirely true. Ever since Apple launched Safari 4 everything's been looking a bit wonky and nothing bugs me more than a wonky web site. All should all be back to usual by Monday.

Have a good one. Wildberry

New Bike Podcast

I fear that I'm in danger of sounding like a promoter for the Guardian but there are some things they do very well and one of those is podcasting. A new bike podcast is launched today with Chris Hoy talking about improving fitness.

I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet but the thing that appeals to me is they plan to focus on ordinary cyclists, not just the sport, and if there's one thing that sums me up is 'ordinary cyclist'. Now all we need is a podcast about bike trailers and I'll be a happy man. (I've got the tyres by the way.)

Take care out there. Wildberry

Bicycle Trailer - post #3

My wheels have arrived, hoorah! Still waiting for the tyres, boo! Now I can really get on with the business of building the frame. I was a bit nervous of starting without the wheels, just-in-case there had been a miscalculation, fortunately all is well.

It would be great to have it up and running in time for the Kingsnorth Summer Fete - but I think that's pushing it!

More news shortly. Wildberry

Kingsnorth Summer Fete

Are you coming to the Kingsnorth Summer Fete? Oh, go on you know you want to!

A number of campaigning organisations including Oxfam, Greenpeace, RSPB and Stop Climate Chaos are holding a summer fete near Kingsnorth power station, and the proposed site of a new coal-fired power station, on the North-Kent coast on Saturday 4 July.

There's going to be lots going on including forming a Mili-band (referring to Ed Miliband UK environment minister) around the site of the proposed new power station.

I'll see you there. Wildberry

Guardian Bike Blog

The Guardian (newspaper in the UK) have launched a new bike blog. It's only the first post today, but it might be interesting. You can find it here.