Category Archives: words

words

My week in pictures (with words)

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I can only eat eggs if they don’t look like eggs. So boiled, poached, fried don’t work for me – the sight of Eggs Benedict is enough to make me hurl. But I can stomach omelettes and scrambled eggs just fine. Especially if I’m making it myself with the perfect blend of mushrooms and bird’s eye chilis.

Morning!

This is what can happen if you leave your bike for too long in the wrong part of London. Once one bit goes, people feel more entitled to pinch another. This one was near a bus stop – I expect a few bits went missing to people who were just waiting to ride home. Except that pedal.

Stripped

I’ve never noticed this before, but it’s part of a wall next to Lambeth North Tube Station – a way to add some distinctive decoration when all you’ve got is these brown glazed brick tiles. It’s the sort of thing you’d get post-war when materials were scarce but we didn’t want everything to look boring.

When tilers get bored

Morning walking before the bin men come and clean up. Someone had a late-night chicken and chips that they couldn’t quite finish and a Daily Mirror that they couldn’t bring themselves to begin. I wonder how Angela Lansbury imagined her picture on the front page being seen in London when she did the deal?

Tomorrow's Chip Paper

This truck was too big to go round the corner at Fulham Broadway at any speed so I had time to think “oh take a picture” and get my phone out. There’s some sort of super-drain project going on at the river, on the Fulham side of Wandsworth Bridge. I expect that’s where these mega-poop-conduits were headed.

Big Pipes

The roof of Earl’s Court Station – I included the top of my head for scale and identification – anyone could take a picture of that roof, but only mine has my cropped dome peeking in at the bottom. I was waiting for a train to Paddington on the Edgware Road Branch. Once we got on, as usual, it was clear that one family had mistaken this for a City/Victoria train. I wonder whether any train leaves Earls Court eastbound without someone having made a mistake about which branch they were getting on.

Roof

events, words

Tuttle After Dark* #1

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Yep! Last Minute Event!

6pm-8pm (drop in anytime)
Friday 19th August 2016

The Concrete Basement
42-43 Lower Marsh (entrance in Tansell St)
London
SE1 7RG

The first of a series of regular (monthly) evening doo-dahs for you to meet other interesting people and maybe show off some creative work you’ve been doing or your favourite party-pieces – sing a song, read your poetry, tell us a story through interpretive dance. Or sit at the side and enjoy.

How to find us
We’re under the hardware shop next to Cafe del Marsh. Come to the Red Door in Tansell St and if the door ain’t open, press the bottom buzzer marked “Inside the Edit” – when you hear the door unlock, come down to the basement.

What you should think about bringing:
Yourself,
A friend
Two friends!
Your (acoustic) party piece(s)
Alcohol if you need/want it (there will be soft drinks too)
Food if you need something substantial between 6 and 8 or you just like sharing. (there will be nibbles too)
Cash for the pot (see below)

What will be there?
There will be ukulele!
There is a projector so if you want to show something media-ish (*short films, holiday snaps from Bognor) – let me know beforehand
No big boomy sound system but we’ll shush people if you need to be heard during a performance

Suggested donation £5 per person
To support the Tuttle vision, please pay what you can afford
If you can’t contribute financially today, please still come, remember I love you much more than I love your money
If you can’t come along, do think about throwing some money in the pot to keep the Tuttle flag flying.

OK, so the sun actually sets at 8.15pm in London that evening so it won’t be dark dark until after you leave, but we’re in a basement with only the smallest window and we’ll have low lighting so it will *feel dark – and this is just the first – until December, things can only get darker!

 

for hire, What I'm doing, words

Pale, Male and Stale

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Oh dear!

It’s hard isn’t it?

You’re stuck. Nothing seems to work any more. All the things you’ve been working for seem pointless. The successes you’ve achieved haven’t given you the security you craved. You’re worried that you put your ladder up against the wrong wall. Maybe it’s too late. What’s happening? Why can’t you get anything done any more? What really matters? Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe if you go somewhere else, get a new job, start fresh! But how?

I can help. I’ve thought all of these things. I’ve felt all of the feelings that go with them. I have recovered a sense of purpose and achievement.  I haven’t completely overcome all of it, but I’m a long way down the road – I get up in the morning and most days and get useful stuff done, most evenings I’m pleased with what I’ve got done. While the outsides might not look that different, I have inner peace. You can too.

I’m opening up some of my time to helping people on a one-to-one basis. Call it coaching or mentoring or guidance if you like (especially if it helps someone else pay for my time!) –  I prefer to avoid terms that might keep you from working on what’s wrong: you might not need a coach or a mentor or guidance but you might still need some help.

We can work face-to-face if you’re in London, but Skype and phonecalls do just as well (sometimes even better).

Let’s have a 30-minute chat to start (for the price of a coffee) and see whether there’s scope to work together.  You can message me in total confidence via any of the usual channels.

PS the title of this post is not meant to exclude anyone who doesn’t identify as pale or male. It’s the staleness that really needs to be dealt with.

video, words

Videoblog: 160624 “Independence” Day

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It felt important to put another link in the chain today even though I didn’t feel like talking much.  Processing… processing… processing.

Shock is a weird thing, it will be interesting to look back on this once it’s passed.  Thanks to all who came to Tuttle this morning to share their experience of shock, grief, acceptance, tolerance and love.  More will be revealed!

Also I need to experiment more with this new camera so that I’m not all out of focus 🙂

words, workplace

“Moved in”

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Today I moved into Lower Marsh – this consisted of me showing up and acquiring a set of keys and having an introduction to the various security measures.  Then there was lots of walking around the space, poking things, thinking, thinking about where stuff could go, thinking about what to keep and what we might need.

Then we (me, Rachel and Dan) wandered up and down the terrific array of street food stalls and settled on some Pad Thai which we ate at a little table outside the hardware shop while we got to know each other a little better.

I took a wander up and down after lunch and checked out which spaces in the street have free wifi.  An important point – there are lots of places that only take cash, but there are no cashpoints/ATMs – bring cash with you!

We need to get the phone line and wifi working in the basement but otherwise we’re in.

Come and see me.  I’m not keeping regular office hours yet but let me know if you’re going to be passing through Waterloo and if we can say hello, we should!

words

Distractions

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Resistance loves distraction – there are so  many other things to think about, read about, talk about rather than sit down at the page and write something useful.  But one anti-resistance trick is to write a little bit about resistance, at least that gets all my fingers on the keyboard at the same time and pulls me towards getting some thinking flowing in a unified direction.  So in case any of them haven’t occurred to you and you’d like to  pick them  up yourself, my current distractions are (in just any old order):

  • Donald Trump and the US Election;
  • The referendum – the manipulation of national discourse (because this is what the whole thing is really it seems to me – one big exercise in distraction and misdirection, and we’ve fallen for it.);
  • A political assassination in the UK;
  • Those people who are going to vote for D Trump and Brexit and how different they are from anyone I think I know;
  • Impending doom;
  • TheDAO and people’s reaction to it going tits up;
  • The weather, although today’s been quite nice most of the time;
  • My weight, health, baldness, beard-length;
  • Preacher and Halt & Catch Fire plus the dearth of anything good on Netflix;
  • Weariness over the effort it takes to get paid sometimes;
  • Not having done the washing up yet;
  • Wondering… about stuff…
  • Worrying about what this list reveals about me.

OK.  Let’s see if that helped.

 

 

tuttle, tuttle club, words, workplace

SE1 here I come #backtowork

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From Monday 20th, all being well, I’ll be starting to work from the Concrete Basement in Lower Marsh (home of Anthony Epes and some new friends) – I know I’ve been down in the basement there before sometime, perhaps one of you can own up to also being there, to help me with my failing memory…

Lower Marsh is a great little street that’s feels like it’s been on the edge of gentrification for as long as I’ve been hanging out in London.  That feeling might be accelerating a bit at the moment (key indicator: new, funky coffee shops) but isn’t that everywhere?  And it’s been remarkably resilient given that it’s slap bang next to Waterloo Station.  The other plus for me is that there are three major theatres and the Southbank Centre all in walking distance.

Anyway, that’s where I’m going to be hanging out for the time being.  I shall kick off with some self-appointed Social Artist in Residence stuff, for the space and for the street, but I shall also be focusing on getting Tuttle consulting going again and hoping to use local venues for Open Spaces looking at the human experience of work, technology, economy ‘n’that.  Other ideas for collaborative projects always welcome.

Please come and see me, bring exotic teas, stories of “one time, I was in Lower Marsh and…” and perhaps something small but inspiring to put on the wall or sit on my desk.

 

words

I need a place to work (and it’s more than a desk with power and wifi)

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Five years ago, when I decided to go nomadic (and ended up living and working with others around the country for the next twelve months) it was largely because I’d realised that while I needed somewhere to live, the place I was in wasn’t working for me and it seemed that nothing in the market was really for me either. I didn’t want to move out of London for good, but I also didn’t want to stay. I didn’t want to live on my own and I didn’t want to move in with someone else (yet). I didn’t want to get a job and I didn’t want to work on my own. I wanted something else but I found it really difficult to articulate what it was. But I did find it over time. I found stimulation in the variety of people that I worked and lived with. I found rest on the road, knowing each time that I was moving again that new possibilities were opening up.
So now I’m settled, I like where I live, I’m married again, but I’m restless around work. I’m mostly working from the dining room table and sitting in coffee shops (or theatres!) and I’m feeling the need for a workplace that goes beyond the basic needs of desk, power, wifi. I need people and I need space to host in. I think of new invitations for open spaces and unconferences practically every day and they include working through some of the ideas around co-operative knowledge work with #tuttle that I wrote about before I went to America last month. I don’t know whether anything among the current crop of co-working spaces might be close enough – I definitely want to be part of a community rather than just another desk-renter.

I don’t know much more, but I was reminded by a wise friend yesterday that my best work comes when I express as much as I know and let others fill in the last 20% rather than trying to hide away until I have something finished.

So help me fill the gaps in this. Or y’know, put your earbuds back in and get back to what you were doing.