BBC iPlayer (UK only) has...Doctor Who - Series 4:8. Silence in the Library, the Doctor and Donna enter a world of terror inside an abandoned library. Doctor Who Confidential - Series 4:8. Shadow Play, the Doctor and Donna are on the set of the Library Planet to confront the Vashta Nerada. The Sarah Jane Adventures - Series 3 - The Gift - Part 2, when the gift runs riot, Sarah Jane faces the battle of her life to save Luke. The Sarah Jane Adventures - Series 2 - The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith - Part 1, Sarah Jane cannot resist going back in time to meet the parents she never knew. The Sarah Jane Adventures - Series 2 - The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith - Part 2, Sarah Jane has to make a devastating sacrifice in order to save Earth from the Trickster. Telegraph.co.uk has Doctor Who...

Yes It’s official. London has a new tartan ... and this is it. The winning design in a recent competition organised jointly by London arts venue Kings Place and the Scottish Tartans Authority, whose brief for the new design was that the colour scheme represent the character of the city. QUESTION. (posted on a comment board) “How do you represent grey, depressing and overcrowded ? “Err, well I sort of know where he or she’s coming from ! However, I’m choosing to ignore that particular naysayer, and instead provide a link to competition winner James Heafield’s explanation of how he arrived at his design ... (reds for buses, post boxes, greens for rivers, black for the iconic London taxi and so on.) Click HERE for more details. If you are a tartan lover like me though...

I have featured the work of James Plumb here on Designers Block before and now I am pleased to present to you - these new mind blowing pieces. Be steady my beating...

From a newly accessible ski area in Eastern Europe to a little-travelled corner of India, we have scoured the brochures for this year's most unusual and innovative ideasJanuarySki in Eastern EuropeEuropean ski resorts are seeing some fantastic powder, but those on a tight budget should consider heading east, taking advantage of new flights from Danube Wings launched last month. They link Luton, Manchester and Dublin to Poprad-Tatry in Slovakia, which is less than an hour's drive from Jasna, the country's largest resort and with a growing off-piste reputation.• Flights to Poprad-Tatry with Danube Wings (danubewings.com) cost from £150. For accommodation information see jasna.skGet Spiritual in IndiaKumbh Mela is the biggest religious gathering on the planet, held four times every 12...

Sherlock Holmes (12A) Cast: Bronagh Gallagher, Eddie Marsan, Geraldine James, Hans Matheson, James Fox, Jude Law, Kelly Reilly, Mark Strong, Rachel McAdams, Robert Downey Jr., William Hope Director: Guy Ritchie Runtime: 128 minutes Who’s to say whether Arthur Conan Doyle’s much loved, now revamped, super-sleuth would have been appreciated by the great man himself. What I can say, though, is that after watching the film you’ll easily feel a funny tingling sensation which you can’t really work out is good or bad. Guy Ritchie was handed several million dollars to toy with – and play with it he did. This production combines a whole heap of tomfoolery, bare-knuckle fighting and CGI that leaves you pondering. The story is as basic as you can get; there’s a threat against Parliament...

MySpace – ::The Other Woman’s Club “The Other Woman’s Club are a creative women’s collective of talented DJs, Photographers, Musicians, Jewelery Designers, Clothes Designers, Journalists, Promoters…and one man” FREESTYLE Exhibition | Hare and Hounds I missed this – a showcase of twelve different photographers and illustrators from around Birmingham. I’m going to do some short posts on them instead (if I can find em online, and I think I’ve found most) MAKE YOUR CITY: JANUARY 2010: GO TO THESE SHOWS January gig recommendations for those who like their music loud and slightly awkward D’log :: blogging since 2000 » Terry Grimley profiles Peter James As well as linking to the interview, D’log rounds up a collection of...

Everyone, even gadgety boys and girls, would describe Santa’s mode of transport as being wood-based and reindeer-powered. Even though he has to travel at 1,000 km per second to get to each and every home of every good boy and girl on this planet. You’d think that someone that can get all those gifts to all those people could afford to splash-out a little and get a leading car designer to create his next generation Cringle-mobile. Well, those at Car Magazine are running a week-long competition doing just that. Kicking off with a Jag and going through many a marque. I’ve selected my personal favourites but feel free to click the link and head over to see them all. Land Rover’s design includes height adjustable suspension and a particle accelerator. They say that......

Sally Shalam has stayed in hundreds of hotels, B&Bs; and cottages, witnessing a revolution in hospitality, but which are the best? She picks her top 10 of the decadeWhat a difference a decade makes. It's almost safe to say goodbye to Brit Grot. I'm talking about the kind typified at a Lake District B&B; I booked nearly three years ago (the only one within reach of a remote wedding). Carpet tiles (yuck) in a shared loo (yuck) which reeked of damp, and food worthy of a Bushtucker Trial. It was all the more shocking because in the last 10 years I have witnessed a new era dawning in which, finally, independent accommodation, food and service often exceed expectation, and sometimes even deliver levels we'd forgotten we deserved.These days, disappointment no longer lurks around every corner....

The second annual TechCrunch Europe ChristmasCrunch combines our annual TechCrunch Europe meetup and Festive Christmas party, in one handy gift-wrapped package. This year we’re basing it the hot theme of realtime streams and the event in London features some of the hottest realtime startups in the world today, many of which are based in London. Our ‘realtime’ live video stream is below as is information on our speaker and sponsors. Live Streaming by Ustream.TV SCHEDULE Christmas Crunch Programme 14.00 Registration 14.20 – Intro by Mike Butcher, Editor, TechCrunch Europe 14.30 – Keynote James Whittaker, Tweetdeck “Where the biggest realtime desktop application goes next” 14.50 – Presentation “The future of realtime sentiment tracking” Jennie Lees, Festbuzz...

I have an amateur interest in graphology, and I wanted to have a look at the signatures of the past five, and the current, American president.   The inspiration came when I saw that George W. Bush and his father had similar approaches to the capital B, and I began thinking back to the books I had read on the topic in the 1980s.   None of this post is to be taken as gospel or anything near a professional graphological analysis. We are talking about me struggling to remember what I read over 20 years ago.   James Earl Carter Jr’s signature has quite a large initial cap, and what we type designers would call a low x-height. It suggests some idea of self-importance. The cross-bar of the t is high, suggesting the 39th president had great...

Part 2 / Mods On The MoonThe Cybermen were arguably the pinnacle of costume design development in the mid-1960s period of Doctor Who and remain as an iconic representation of how their design changed in a period where fashion, particularly French and British design, reflected the optimism of the space-age, embraced the use and combination of new materials and set the look for the future that would reverberate into the present day. Doctor Who got into the groove and costume designers Daphne Dare, Martin Baugh, Barbara Lane, Sandra Reid, Bobi Bartlett and Nicholas Bullen all clearly grabbed the opportunity to bring signature 1960s futuristic designs to the series, reflecting the explosion of creativity that they found themselves in the middle of.The design team was clearly influenced, as...

Ok, so we’ve whittled down the applicants for the Pitch session of ChristmasCrunch next week. But as we’ve had a lot of entrants this time round we’ve decided to embrace the spirit of the season and give everyone a shot. Get your tickets for the event here. We’ve dividing the pitches into two sections. Seven three minute pitches (plus Q&A) from startups specifically in the ‘realtime’ space. The second section features 12 one minute pitches from a bunch of startups we’re calling the Free For All Pitch – some are related to realtime, some are not. Hey, it’ll keep things interesting. As is out policy, startups never pay to pitch at our events and get a free ticket for the person pitching. Here are the main 3 min. pitches: Yasmolive...

The second annual TechCrunch Europe ChristmasCrunch combines our annual TechCrunch Europe meetup and Festive Christmas party, in one handy package. This year we’re basing it the hot theme of realtime streams and the event in London will also feature some of the hottest realtime startups in the world today. The event will start with registration from 14.00 on December 15 for the seminar programme consisting of keynote presentation, panel discussions and startup pitches followed by TechCrunchPitch! Once the seminar programme has come to an end, it will turn into your very own startup Christmas party, with DJs and entertainment until late. Do you want to pitch your realtime startup at ChristmasCrunch? To be considered for the pitch competition you need to email TechCrunch Europe...

Following on from the first event back in June, last night James, Sophie (our intern) and I went along to the second Birmingham Chitterlings supper club – again held at The Vaults in the Jewellery Quarter and organised by the lovely folks at Type. Chitterlings is essentially a smallish (there were 16 of us) gathering of folks interested in design-related things, who get together to listen to a guest speaker, then have a chat over dinner. It’s all very civilised, don’t you know. Our guest speaker last night was John Berry, a designer, author, President of ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) and program manager at Microsoft Typography. John recounted how he found his way into typography (serendipitously) and told us a bit about his role at Microsoft, banging...

We seek them out so you don't have to. This is our weekly non-exhaustive round up of upcoming LGBT programmes on the radio and television. Inclusion of a programme is not a recommendation.Some of the programmes listed below will be available online on the respective network's websites.Enjoy!Owt on’t’telly?A round up of LGBT progs and personalities on British TV.With our apologies for the delay due to a technical problem.Warning: One film not to see is The Execution of Gary Glitter on C4. It examines what would happen to Paul Gadd (Glitter’s BC name) if capital punishment came back to the UK. Anne Widdecombe and Gary Bushell have cameo roles, as does Miranda Sawyer (what on earth did she think she was doing?) C4 Monday 9pmTVNewOn Saturday morning Nigel Slater cooks Simple Suppers on...

Another Birmingham institution makes it into double figures this month – Brilliantly Birmingham, the international contemporary jewellery festival, is celebrating its first decade from 21 November to 28 February. There’ll be two exhibitions at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery: FLUX, the annual selling show which attracts international entries from new and emerging designers, and A 10th Anniversary Retrospective featuring the work of seven designers whose work has headlined previous festivals (including Mikaela Lyons, a recent MA graduate from BCU’s School of Jewellery) The programme will also include: Paradigma, an international exchange between Birmingham School of Jewellery (BCU) and the Escola Massana, Barcelona A series of professional development seminars...

Readers: Take part for your chance to win free tickets to London Freeze 2009! Lego kitchen island made of 20,000 Lego bricks This is certainly one for the record, yes James May’s Lego house couldn’t be saved but its Lego, we can always build something else! Here, designers Philippe Simon and Pillard Rosetti customized their IKEA kitchen island by covering it with over 20,000 LEGO pieces. What a nice way to decorate around IKEA’s usually simple but elegant designs, great work guys! [via GearFuse] See all the Lego stuff we’ve featured in the past… Related posts Geeky tee: Lego baseplate contruction t-shirt Video: LG Viewty Smart GC900 Video: Lego built V8 engine really works! UK: Motorola Dext to be released from 7th October on Orange Toshiba...

There seems to be a lot of theatre to talk about at the moment. Must be the time of year or something. This looks like being a bit more than theatre though – “a performance that invites the audience to literally eat the story”. Kindle Theatre’s ‘Eat Your Heart Out’ will be at the AE Harris Building from 29 October to 8 November. I’m not quite sure how to explain this so I’m going to do the sensible thing – quote the promo blurb, post the flyer and suggest you grab a ticket. In the last remaining corner of the human world, three cooks are summoned to create a celebratory meal using only the carcass of their once great kitchen. …the set will be an apocalyptic junkyard made from Birmingham’s own rubbish and installed by designers...

Time again when you can browse through some other cool gadget sites and vote for your coolest gadget (leave a comment for a chance to win a cool $50 Think Geek voucher). Mini Freeview Digital TV and Media Player When we first heard about this “TV tablet”, we got extremely excited with ideas about what exactly a TV tablet could do, flew around the office. We were slightly embarrassed when we realized that this was infact a media player and not a pill but our interest was still peaked. Portable media players are getting pretty common so to shake up this tired genre these clever bods have decided to shoe-horn a Digital TV receiver into the tiny 10.5 x 7.5 x 1.8 cm unit. “Portable tellies have been around since the 90s so that is not to impressive either” we thought. But this...

James May’s Lego house didn’t last that long, here is something more permanent made from Lego, a custom Lego Kitchen Island made form over 20,000 Lego bricks. The Lego Kitchen Island was made by designers Phillippe Simon and Pillard Roessti, who customized their Ikea Kitchen island, by covering it in more that 20,000 Lego pieces. Very cool, it certainly would be a fun place to have your morning coffee with all those Lego bricks, I bet it took the designers quite some time to put it together. Ignant Blog via Gear Fuse This is a post from Geeky Gadgets, who bring you the latest cool Gadgets.The Lego Kitchen Island Related posts:Totally Geeky – The Aluminium Lego Key ChainFull size two storey Lego HouseLego iMac...

At the last place I worked, one of the TV programmes bound to set tongues wagging the next day was Grand Designs. It's perfect viewing - and discussion - fodder: hosted by an intelligent, thoughtful presenter with jaw dropping projects (self-build homes or major refurbishments) and lots of high drama along the way. Each episode follows a project over a number months - sometimes years - from inception through (usually) to completion with Kevin McLeod's concluding analysis of the result.So when James mentioned he was to feature at the show version of the programme at the NEC (aka National Exhibition Centre - you can also read about our first ever meeting there), I needed no further incentive to go and see for myself.However, I was Mrs Grumpy by the time I arrived at the above view of the...

The designer talks about the advantages of having a Beatle for a dad, and why she wishes the clothing industry cared enough to stop using fur and leatherLunchtime in a fashionable cafe in west London, and a sleek young woman in an expensive ivory silk blouse and deftly cut black jacket smiles and asks the waitress what the soup of the day is. "Pea and ham," comes the reply. The customer's smile fades. Stella McCartney leans her head to one side and narrows her wide, grey-green eyes. "Why do you have to put the ham in it?" she demands, her voice cool and low but fractionally louder than it was a moment ago. The waitress, landed with the thankless task of defending pea and ham soup to one of Britain's most outspoken vegetarians, can only shrug and look mortified. McCartney sighs. "Oh, it's...

Apologies for a few weeks of downtime. This piece is getting some linkage, 'The City is a Battlesuit for Surviving the Future', on the legacy of Archigram, the media image of architectural innovation and the ongoing evaporation of urban interaction into non-physical form - a form that paradoxically is enhancing how we interact with physical spaces and one another. The one issue that is integral but always somehow unspoken with these treatises is contemporary information density, the ongoing aestheticisation of data that was very much a characteristic of Archigram's work and has steadily increased in day to day life. The modern city is the data city. Architectural renderings and monographs present case studies in the context of information, with statistics and graphs supplementing the...

Luc Bondy's version of Puccini's masterpiece at the Metropolitan Opera of New York is strikingly safeNobody tampers with the traditions of the Metropolitan Opera of New York and emerges unscathed. When they do they risk the kind of audience backlash witnessed last night at the opening gala performance of the opera house's 2009-10 season.Even before the performance of a new production of Puccini's Tosca started, there was plenty of audible grumbling from the well-heeled crowd, with elderly women in ball gowns muttering that they didn't understand why on Earth the Met had changed anything. Then, at the final curtain call, after the soloists had received a standing ovation, things took a turn for the worse. The director of the new production, Luc Bondy, and his supporting team of set,...

BBC Press Red has "This weekend digital viewers will be able to press the Red Button on their remotes for an extra special Sarah Jane Adventures quiz."Would-be quizzers can help Sarah Jane and test their skill by completing the tasks set by her extraterrestrial computer, Mr Smith. They will then discover if they have super human intelligence as they race through the questions. Viewers can also catch the second series of the Sarah Jane Adventures, which is being shown throughout September. (Saturday 19th & Sunday 20th September, 7am - 7pmSky, Virgin & Freeview).BBC iPlayer (UK only) has...The Sarah Jane Adventures - Series 2: The Mark of the Berserker - Part 2, Luke and Rani track Clyde and his father to a waterside confrontation with The Berserker.Doctor Who - Series 3: 5....

This month the seminal Warp Records label is celebrating its 20th anniversary. There is a heap of festivities planned, and I am expectantly waiting for the very awesome looking Warp20 box set to arrive in the next week or so. They have a lot to celebrate. The label has personified the cutting-edge of electronic music for most of its existence. Few labels can claim to have been so seminal, and remain so strong for so long. I discovered Warp at the beginning of this decade. I had already been developing a taste for experimental and electronic music, but before getting internet access I had no way to explore it. I had heard bits and bobs about Warp, but my first real exposure was when I saw the band Broadcast on one of those late-night music programmes on Channel 4. I remember very little...

I’ll take a chance on betting that I’m not the only one who secretly wonders what will happen when the robots take over (I Robot anyone?), but I’m certainly hoping it has nothing to do with these guys. These bloodthirsty, gut-wrenching robots, designed by UK-based designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau thrive on killing and liquidizing flies and mice, whilst serving the purpose of… well, not much at all really. See, these scientists believe that rather than glancing down at our watch, we’d prefer to have a clock run by giant machine that literally squeezes the life out of unsuspecting insects. Apparently, the flies “fall into the microbial fuel cell beneath, where bacteria digest the fly and cause chemical changes that the cell can extract power...

The Fly Catching LED Clock is the work of British designers Jimmy Loizeau and James Auger, the clock collects insects on a sticky roller which is covered in fly paper, the dead flies are then dropped into a microbial fuel cell. The dead flies are then digested by bacteria, and the chemical changes are used by the microbial fuel cell to power the LED clock, it certainly sounds very interesting, who knew flies could be so useful. Dvice via Slippery Brick, TecChee This is a post from Geeky Gadgets, who bring you the latest cool Gadgets. Fly Catching LED Clock Related posts:Green Gadgets – The PolyFuel Lenovo T40 Laptop PrototypeSony’s Fuel Cell Prototype GadgetsDesign – The Clock...

UK-based designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau have created a robotic clock that feeds on flies which then powers the clock. They've also created one that feast upon mice. The New Scientist has a gallery as well as a video of the robots....

Because it takes two people to replace Eric Meyer, Kristina Halvorson has stepped into the breach at An Event Apart in Boston. At last week’s UX London, Dan described her as the patron saint of content strategy. Her talk is called Content First. She begins by listing a bunch of Twitter hashtags and pointing out the excellent A Feed Apart. Kristina started out as a Copy Writer and morphed into being a Web Writer. For a long time, there was no such role as Content Strategist. That meant that the Web Writer was divorced from the rest of the team. Everyone was talking about user experience but nobody was talking about the content. We’ve got user flows, mental models, eventually the site map. At this point, everyone’s happy. Then someone looks at the schedule. Copy writing...