The latest blue sky thinking from local government. But if they seriously think this will help the regional economy then why stop at shops? Why not commission designers to come up with a flat-packed shipyard and a cardboard Waldorf? How about projecting videos of steelworkers disappearing into derelict factories and Hollywood starlets walking up red carpets in the Eldon Square? All they’d need then was someone really creative to print some extra money and business would be booming again! What? They have? Oh…

for not burning more fossil fuels. Damn them all to hell.

(Johnnygreatdays tweets here)

(Mr. MacFarlane’s colourful music blog resides here)

And speaking of the arts scene, the climate-themed weekend started innocently and fun enough: David Thompson’s piece read over friday morning coffee on Cape Farewell, a peer-reviewed, Arts Council-funded expedition of mainly art blowhards to the Arctic to expel various gasses on the subject of you-know-what for a few days. Notable gasses included Jarvis Cocker’s learned observation that an iceberg “basically pisses on” all of art; Marcus Brigstocke, on the trip simply because he is the closest a live human has ever been to being a greenhouse gas, and a man who bravely dedicates his music—human-beatboxing, the CO2 emissions of which are measurable in PPMPMC (parts per million per MC)—to the cause of global warming. Less notable and more predictable (than Marcus Brigstocke, an achievement worth an arts council grant alone) was Francesca Galeazzi, with her “performance/action/intervention” of opening an actual canister of carbon dioxide gas. Reports from the site suggest Galeazzi countered initial hostility to her action among the small audience by making everyone a sodastream. At least she didn’t waste more of our atmosphere by talking, you say. We should be so lucky. 

The fun continues.

via the City | The Mad Men of Sesame St. | Labskaus (above) | Graphic designer versus client | Reason magazine covers | Hoping this is true | Pictures of Newcastle | Revisionista

Gateshead Council’s artist-laureate Antony Gormley’s latest brainwave: lose the shoes. Not only will you be in solidarity with those who aren’t fortunate enough to have shoes—most of whom would likely punch you for not appreciating your shoes—but you’ll be able to feel the rising temperature of our warming earth.

The North Briton can assure readers that the feeling gained from leaving the house without ones shoes today in Gateshead will not be one of increasing warmth.

Via. David Thompson, with thanks