As I get older – which I gather many other people are also doing – I become ever more interested in popular and, even more so, unpopular folk traditions. Tomorrow is a belter of a day in the folk weirdness calendar: May Day. It’s like a clarion call for every nut job in the landContinue reading “Queer as false memory syndrome”
Category Archives: Semiotics
Signs of life: why qual and semiotics are natural partners
I came across this today by Czech semiotician Martina Olbertova, via Joanna Chrzanowska’s brilliant and generous resource, the Qualitative Mind website (www.qualitativemind.com; follow her on Twitter on @QualitativeMind; Joanna’s site is full of great information and resources for qual researchers and research buyers alike). Olbertova gives an introduction for the skeptical and/or uninitiated to theContinue reading “Signs of life: why qual and semiotics are natural partners”
No Cuts (on bagels): when you get it wrong, you “gotta” change
When customers tell you to change (back), do it with chutzpah. A bagel story …
A light buzz year: to infographics and beyond
I came across a link to this today while browsing the wonderful @brainpickings by Maria Popova. I know 2013 is so last year, but still – some brilliant visualisations of data on here. These examples are American, but no less interesting for that. I love the vote-weighted electoral map and the wind map in particular.Continue reading “A light buzz year: to infographics and beyond”
Scarfolk: beautiful (and very funny) images of a bewitched 70s Middle England dystopia
Occasionally something pops into my view on twitter that’s worth a read and very occasionally I make a real discovery – or rather various illustrious twitterati have. I came across Scarfolk last night via a recommendation from Caitlin Moran‘s twitter feed, started exploring it and, well, it is just a delight: Scarfolk website. The conceitContinue reading “Scarfolk: beautiful (and very funny) images of a bewitched 70s Middle England dystopia”
Mind the gap between the audience and the brand
As a massive London-phile (not sure it’s a word but I can’t stomach asking Boris Johnson what London would be in Ancient Greek), who no longer lives there, I’ve enjoyed on my recent trips into the Smoke the video advertising alongside the Tube escalators. The ads are on to celebrate the London Underground’s 150th birthdayContinue reading “Mind the gap between the audience and the brand”
Creative Qual Provides Fuel, Not The Chequered Flag
Start The Week: Creativity, with Jonah Lehrer and others A fascinating Start The Week this morning dealt with the subject of creativity, with that prolific interpreter of science for the masses, Jonah Lehrer discussing his new book. (OK, my bookshelf is now officially going to collapse with all these tomes I need to read). AboveContinue reading “Creative Qual Provides Fuel, Not The Chequered Flag”
Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film goes to … The Shore
Don’t worry, I’m not claiming credit for it. But great that a short film called The Shore, set and made in my native Northern Ireland, won an Oscar last night. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m of course heavily into shore metaphors and a sucker for anything Ulster-ish, so I expect at the veryContinue reading “Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film goes to … The Shore”
Public image limited – and metrosexuals’ kindly uncles
Stuffed like a museum coypu with fieldwork last month, January was a vintage period for methodological learnings for me: new experiences and new twists on familiar ones in front of the Great British Public. Unlike the coypu, I’ll be living off the experiences for a while. The first one to muse on is this: howContinue reading “Public image limited – and metrosexuals’ kindly uncles”
Britney Spears: harder to stalk than I had imagined
This might bring a whole new audience to Strangers On The Shore and (another) one that will be bitterly disappointed. I went into t’ Smoke yesterday for a meeting on AQR ambassadorial business and had a spare half hour afterwards before my schlepp back to Jericho (in Oxford, not the West Bank). So I poppedContinue reading “Britney Spears: harder to stalk than I had imagined”
Strangers on the Shore 