It’s been a long time since my last post and a long time since visiting Hever Castle; but I feel that it is something worth sharing none the less.

A few months ago I visited a friend down in Tunbridge Wells, a place that I had previously visited the Christmas before he moved there; this time the castle was open on the days in which me and Kirsty had decided to go down, meaning that the trip was worth the traveling. A bit of personal history to start this off; My Girlfriend and I are keen travelers, mainly around the UK and mainly to places where the arts are, Galleries, shows and Architecture primarily, where we both have a love for the reign of the Tudors, and who doesn’t know of Henry the 8th, the most well-known and prolific of all the countries rulers, whether it be for the 6 wives, the constant betrayal of trust between himself and all of the alliances he set up or for the way in which he conducted his business, it’s fair to say that he is one of the greatest Monarchs of the England, and I for one love this.

The day as it unfolded, the overcast morning seemed to impact our expectations of what it would be like to visit the castle, as there is nothing worse than a horrible rainy day walking round a giant garden, especially if it could be so much better during a nice day; the weather in fact got better, a cloudy morning turned into a sunny afternoon, and upon arrival we headed straight for the lake and Italian gardens.

On the last day we decided to visit 3 places that we hadn’t been to, the first being Frome (no post needed to sum up a small town that seemed half closed due to weather, except the fact that down one of the main streets there was a one foot gap running all the way down the middle which turned out to be the main guttering, how quaint.) and the second being the American Museum in Britain, a place that was mainly for Kirsty as she wanted to see the Quilt Exhibition that was running, but seeing as i had to be there also we explored the whole house and despite the rain again we went through the gardens, but not on the trail.

The house itself was located at the bottom of the hill originally but during its conversion it was taken down and re-built on the top of the hill as it had a much better view; with the house relocated the interior was being sourced, yes Sourced as all of the rooms in the place have been taken out of real American homes in places like Massachusetts(yes I Google-d that name) and New York. When I say rooms were taken I mean Rooms were taken, skirting an all event he wallpapers and floor boards; which is a strange idea but one done for a good reason, why try to replicate an American house when you can have the parts of the house you want to show made from actual materials from the period and location you want.

It has just occurred to me that I have found a very good piece of software for blog updating and editing, the controls are very easy to use, the layout is minimal but functional and the options are phenomenal. The easy to understand part is over, and now comes the part that might just stop you in your tracks, makes your eyes widen and your mind explode, because I am talking about a piece of free, almost default software that comes straight from the headquarters of a company famed for being bad with software(from my point of view and that of all Mac users) that being Microsoft, yes you heard me right, Microsoft have made a great big leap in the last year, firstly with Windows 7, a fantastic upgrade from the abomination of Vista and now with a piece of software that makes blogging so god damn easy that even more people could start a blog and do it well.

The Software comes in the Windows Live Essentials pack which you can download from there website, or if I recall correctly it is an optional download within the windows update control panel within Windows 7, Windows Live Writer is its name and blogging is the game that it plays very well.

I have tried Contribute, and it failed, so I use the web to update blogs straight from the WordPress Control Panel, which I find to be very good at its job but Live Writer is so much easier; setting up default actions is a click or 2 away, these being images sizes from a drop down menu, inserting images is as simple as clicking on the file, the adjustments are fluent and the advanced features are intuitive. And I am fully aware that a lot of people will disagree or being a Mac user, not able to test out the software, so I am so glad that I decided to dual-boot a while ago, mainly for cheap games, but now it seems, Blogging.

{Windows 7 plays very nicely on a 2010 MacBook, with a small partition of just 45GB, mainly games as I have mentioned, drivers work straight away, the navigation is simple and I’d highly recommend it to everyone, even the Mac-Fan-Boys, of which I am an avid supporter of the Macintosh Computer Line up, excluding the MacBook Air, and the Portable Devices excluding iPhone, iPad and iPod Shuffle, the Apple TV is in limbo.}

If you are able to test out Live Writer, do so, the setting up took me 5minutes in total, that’s including the customisations to images and posting.

The only thing that still annoys me about all of the different blogging software is that none of them to date, will correct the lowercase ‘i’ as I type, which is a simple feature that I use in all the time within the Creative Suite and Office and cannot find a solution to the problem within Plug-ins or extensions.

So if anyone knows how to solve this, comment below.

http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials?os=win7

It’s so simple, so easy to use, so good at what it does and yet it feels so wrong, a product this good should be developed by third-party developers in response to Microsoft’s appalling software department,  and yet it isn’t, could MS being getting better? is it right?

That is to say that you have to love comic books, I mean really love comic books, which I don’t normally, but when you see this collection I promise you that you’ll want the computer screen to suck you into the screen and teleport you here. Literally!

I’m not talking about a small collection of comics, or even a medium-sized collection, I’m talking about a huge, collection of Super Hero/ Villain comics from the trusted DC Universe coupled with Marvel, 2 of the most prolific writers and illustrators ever. Opinion of course, but the opinion of several million people worldwide, and if you are not one of them, shame on you!

You see what I mean? the biggest collection of comic book that I have ever seen, there are so many to count, too many to read within a year and far too many to even begin to upload shots for your pleasure.

Sorry, silly me I have used the wrong shot, let me have a look for the right one?! Here it is:

And before you say “that’s not a lot” I have to point out that there are 2 more rows below the picture, there are 10 boxes like the one shown at the bottom, the one with “OBI” on it that are packed full, there is a half-size shelf to the left and a filing cabinet to the right also filled up. That’s approximately 10,500 of the standard paper sized comics, 2,300 paperback book sized comics, 800 comic annuals, and a further 4,000 a4(ish) comics in hardback form; so correct me if I’m wrong in saying: ‘you, the reader are now trying to get the teleporting screen trick, mentioned earlier, to work’ which might seem a little odd to some people to perfectly plausible to me.

And just for those who are reading I have a few pictures that you might like, they all come from the same series, that being ‘Final Crisis’ dating 2009 German publishing.

And a few individual copies that I particularly like.

To top it off I found this very nice, yet horrifying image within one of the comics, and seeing as I don’t have time to look through them all this is the best image found as a first page turn.

And finally, a ‘Marvel Monster Edition Comic of Captain America’

Hopefully I will be able to see a lot more of the comics while here, in Hamburg and even get some nice examples of these classics.

Happy Drooooooling.

Now, to begin with I’d like to declare the fact that I am a big fan of this style of design but I have not been able to mimic the style to give it the justice it deserves. Secondly I did not grow up with this show and have fairly recently stumbled upon this gem of design, and I love the show almost as much as I love the title that precedes the show itself.

The show in question is “Jeeves and Wooser“(imdb article) which stars the infamous Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) and Hugh Laurie.

{My Synopsis: Laurie’s character Bertie Wooster is a dim aristocrat who has the very intelligent man-servant Reginald Jeeves, the man who sorts out most problems that present themselves. It’s a funny, witty sitcom that is enhanced by the cast, that can also seem a bit outdated to the youth of today.}

Title

Credits

The Design

This design has become popular by the phrase ‘Vintage‘ or ‘retro‘ despite them also describing a lot of the design from the 50′s and 80′s respectively, where the show is actually set during early 30′s, pre-second world war.

I love the simplistic block colours and graphics, they are however, much more elegant during the title sequence than they are as flat graphics, I do however love the idea of having a series of postcards, posters featuring some of the graphics on show, especially the car, the title of the show, the 3 musicians above the actors names and the chairs, also with the actors names below.

The scenes blend together beautifully, a man playing the clarinet pops up behind the drum player within a spiral, and as the music continues, a car drives past the stage taking you towards the next scene. these little transition last a few seconds but look amazing within the context of the design.