Rock Bottom Riser

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Having been at the vanguard of Bristol’s graffiti scene for some time now, Sickboy has just released his first solo show, Stay Free, in London. The concept is a good one, although slightly reminiscent of his contemporary, Banksy. He’s transformed a Victorian Grade II listed building in East London into a ‘3D creative playground, a la a Charlie and The Chocolate Factory’. What’s more, there’s a golden ticket up for grabs. 1000 keys will be released to visitors, and the person whose key fits the lock will become the new owner of the Factory.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

Dutch designer Daniel Schipper, the man behind the awesome, oragami-like folding shelter, has just unveiled a frameless, foldable greenhouse that is aimed at the growing urban gardening and farming market.

WE'RE WEARING

What a wonderfully grown up ethos of punk is to be found in the latest effort by New Zealand’s Stolen Girlfriends Club. I saw sequin, lace, leather, denim, tulle, rhinestone and what appeared to be heshen, breaking all the rules of taste but nevertheless making me very, very happy. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

By some estimates, Google has over half a million servers that each month crunch the equivalent of all the data in the entire library of congress 240 times over. Well over half of web users go to Google for answers to their questions, asking the machine over 400 million queries per day. Slowly but surely, Google is becoming our collective brain. Consider this: Google can now predict flu outbreaks weeks in advance simply by monitoring searches for flu terms (’sore throat’), and aggregating this based on location. They’ve launched this service as Google Flu Trends. ‘From a technological perspective, it is the beginning’, says Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive. So where is this is all heading? Read more

WE'RE READING

Monique Easton runs a blog called Baby Got Framed where she cataloges barely remembered evenings and cute hipster zombies. Read more

I don’t care if Jimmy Hendrix was dragged kicking and screaming from where he lies, put through a torrid round of detox, and handed an invisible guitar – a Flying V carved out of the bones of Robert Johnson. It would still pale in comparison to this. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Man, I remember shaking my tail to Come on Eileen many moons ago — when rat-tails were a right of passage and Molly Ringwald held both the lock and the key to my tiny pitter pattering heart. Back then it was all ice-skating and fairy floss; skateboards and trading cards. It was bags of chips by the rusty school fence and sunburnt faces on crackling summer days. Read more