Monday, March 26

Avoca: colouring the world since 1723

Just finished this short film for Avoca about the original mill in Avoca Village. It's a pretty amazing place full of Heath Robinson-looking machines, clicketing-clacking away. All the handweaving looms are held together with bits of twine and a prayer. Not surprising since it's been around since 1723. Even the power looms, which are needed to keep up with demand, involve continuous hands-on craft and care to thread up and set the warps and repair breaks. Anyway, enough chat, have a look.


Avoca Mill since 1723 from Avoca Ireland on Vimeo.

Camera: Joe Edwards  Post: Piranha Bar  Sound: Beacon Studios  Produced & Directed by Tom.

Chasing the Northern Lights, Norway March 2012

I spent a couple of amazing days chasing the Northern Lights up Norway's breathtaking Arctic coast. Went dog sledging with a team of huskies, visited Nordkapp - continental Europe's most northerly point (almost) and took off on snowmobiles across Lapland at night hoping for a sight of the elusive Aurora Borealis.


















Here's my piece about it in The Irish Times Magazine on Sat, March 24:  Chasing the lights

Saturday, March 24

The Politics of Style

The Mahon Tribunal hadn't come out when this was written for Brown Thomas Menswear Magazine. Neither the anorak nor the pin-striped suit seem to able to give us a sense of the substance underneath.


Go Gadgets, Irish Times, March 24


Polaroid's camera that thinks it might a smartphone, an ingeniously pocketable USB adapter and a stylus to use with your iPad and other tablets. Oh dear, think I hear Steve J turning....

All here.

Saturday, March 17

Gadgets, March 17 in Saturday Magazine





It's Paddy's Day and not a solar-powered shamrock nor an iLeprechaun in sight. I may have missed a trick here. Instead, it's a hi-viz biker vest with a difference - oh and it's Irish. The VW camper van lookalike caravan. And a solar-powered snake repellershaped like a crozier... nah, only a charger, but a neat one.


Gadgets be here.