Category: uk

192 Shoreham Street

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Wow. I love this conversion of an old warehouse near Sheffield city centre.

“The upward extension replaces a pitched roof, creating three duplex studio offices within a powder-coated steel volume that both overlaps and bites through the original brick structure. A new restaurant and bar occupies the double-height warehouse space below, where it benefits from light through the original two-storey-high arched windows.”

According to the architects: “192 Shoreham Street is a Victorian industrial brick building sited at the edge of the Cultural Industries Quarter Conservation Area of Sheffield. It is not listed but considered locally significant.
The completed development seeks to rehabilitate the once redundant building, celebrate its industrial heritage and make it relevant to its newly vibrant context.”

   

“The brief was to provide mixed use combining a desirable double height restaurant/bar within the original shell (capitalising on the raw industrial character of the existing building) with duplex studio office units above.”

Nicely done. Anything which preserves the industrial heritage of the city while dragging it kicking and screaming into the 21st century is absolutely fine by me.

RIP Gregg Jevin

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An interesting social media experiement or just a bit of fun? Both, I’d say.
It all started off with this tweet from Michael Legge:

Which resulted in a spectacular outpouring of faux sadness and (obviously) non-existent memories of Gregg by many thousands of individuals, pointedly mocking the grief athletes who regularly populate social media platforms with hysterical nonsense after the death of any given celebrity.

There were those angered by “sick” jokes about Gregg on radio and TV

It’s too soon. Way too soon. Where’s OFCOM now?

There were those defending Gregg’s past misdemeanors:

All of that horse business was totally unfounded! He was sleep walking, it could have happened to anyone.

There was, of course, speculation about how he died:

News still coming in about Gregg. Coroners report claims he sat on his keys to death. There but for the grace of God.

And those concerned about some sort of cover-up:

Don’t you all think it’s a bit suspicious he was buried at sea so quickly after he died?

In short, Gregg’s untimely passing was the much same as any other celebrity death is treated on twitter. And that’s not bad for a man who didn’t even exist earlier this morning.

RIP Gregg Jevin. Facebook will become aware of your death on Monday.

Cheetah seized

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I was browsing the rather bizarre UK Home Office flickr photostream this morning (as you do), when I came across a South African link – namely this cheetah:

He looks a little mournful as he was being transported illegally from SA to Russia, when he was detained at Heathrow earlier this year because he wasn’t microchipped.

The animal was one of four being transported from South Africa to Russia, however checks revealed it wasn’t micro-chipped, breaching strict regulations on the movement of endangered animals.

This detention led to two pieces of bad news for our feline friend: firstly, the promises of strippers and vodka were suddenly just history, and secondly, he will now spend the rest of his days at a UK wildlife park, on average about 20ºC colder than his usual habitat in South Africa. I hope this serves as a lesson to other cheetahs trying to make the move from Africa to Northern Europe illegally. You will be captured and punished.

You can see more photos of the cheetah seized at Heathrow in the imaginatively-named Cheetah Seized At Heathrow set. And while you’re at it, don’t miss the excellent Marriage Cheat Sheets Exposed set, in which some marriage cheat sheets are exposed, including some confusion over Maria’s siblings. Like whether or not they actually exist.

Re-wired

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The “new” Kasabian album is brilliant, as I commented when it really was “new” last year. And the “new” video for the “new” single Re-wired  – featuring an odd double middle 8 section with violins – is also pretty good.

I particularly enjoyed the Wayne’s World moment in the Fiat 126 at about 2:10. But remember kids, smoking and stealing cars are both naughty things which you shouldn’t do.

You can get full details of Kasabian’s World Tour on their YouTube channel. Please note that it comprehensively avoids South Africa.
Thanks for that.

Recursive self destruction

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I loved Charlie Brooker’s column in Guardian this past weekend, detailing what came to pass when that bast… ion of quality journalism and long-time favourite newspaper of this blog, the Daily Mail, published a story alleging that right-wingers are less intelligent than left-wingers. Despite their disclaimer, labelling the study as “controversial”, what followed – as Brooker points out – was a perfect storm of recursive self-destruction:

As you might expect, many Mail Online readers didn’t take kindly to a report that strived to paint them as simplistic, terrified dimwits. Many leapt from the tyres they were swinging in to furrow their brows and howl in anger. Others, tragically, began tapping rudimentary responses into the comments box. Which is where the tragi-fun really began.

I’m not going to reproduce the whole column here – that’s what that first link is there for – but suffice to say that while it’s funny, it stops disappointingly short of where it could have gone. There’s so much fodder there for your perusal and enjoyment. Please feel free to share your favourite moments from the comments section there in… er… the comments section here.

For the record, we have no evidence that the results of this “controversial” Canadian study are correct.
Well, apart from this, obviously.