Barclaycard Waterslide Competition Winner

As the title of this video suggests, Barclaycard ran a 'waterslide' competition where viewers were set the challenge to create their own version of the Barclaycard waterslide original advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOgqRUz_JL8

The video shown above is the winning advert! There were loads of entries, all really creative and some very funny, and what I like most about this video is that it just shows how a few people's creativity and crazy ideas can really put a smile on our faces. You can see more of the winning adverts here: http://www.youtube.com/barclaycardcreate

The People In My Home

Inspired by "You looking at me?" - the Faces in Places post on Glog, I decided to snap a few objects from in and around my home that I always see as 'people'.

The car face, with the headlights as the eyes and number plate for mouth, is something that I have noticed and enjoyed from a very young age; I always used to look out my window at all the different car faces on long journeys with my family, and loved comparing the expressions of all the different vehicles. I came to the conclusion that most look quite angry!

I often notice door handles in other peoples' homes and in public places, and I rarely don't see them as having faces now. But the corkscrew is one of my favourites, I always see it as a little man!

Sound of Music - Central Station Antwerp (Belgium)

This performance was done as a publicity stunt in Antwerp Station, Belgium, on March 23, 2009, for a Belgian tv programme that was looking for the leading role of 'Maria' for the musical "The Sound of Music". Apparently it only took 2 rehearsals to get the stunt looking like this! I think it's a fantastic form of guerilla advertising; as viewers we do not know who is going to join the dance next! Even most of the people who look like they don't know what's going turn out to be dancers, and get up and join in when it's time for them to participate. It's very musicalesque in style which does great justice to its purpose, much more so than would advertising posters or tv ads. I love that there's involvement from such a wide selection of people as well, gives a real sense of together-ness. And then when the dance is done everything just carries on exactly as if nothing had happened. The sort of thing that gives you goose-pimples really. Brilliant!

The Time Traveler's Wife

I read "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffeneger two summers ago; it is a book that I frequently think about, and wonder if I'll ever enjoy a book as much as I did this one. It tells the heart - capturing story of Henry and Claire, yet theirs is no ordinary relationship. Henry has a genetic disorder which causes him to time travel, a frequent experience that he has no control over. It is this idea that makes "The Time Traveler's Wife" such a unique book. Claire first meets Henry in 1977 when she is six and he is in his thirties, having travelled back in time. However, when Henry first meets Claire in the present, she is 20 and he 28. At this meeting, Claire has met Henry many times before, in her chilhood, but he has no awareness of who she is, as in his present, he has not yet met her. The man that visited her throughout her childhood is his future self. It takes a while to get one's head around the concept of Henry's time-travelling; it is the same sort of idea present in "Back to the Future", but it is what really makes me appreciate the book from a creative point of view - the fact that the book is so well thought out and so beautifully created; a literary work of art. One of my favourite things when reading a book is to appreciate and experience an author's imagination; discovering scenarios than could not physically exist - yet seem so real. This debut from Niffeneger expresses this wonderfully. A film based on this book is due to come out this August (2009), starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, directed by Robert Schwentke.