on my coffee table this week...

a dvd, a book and a cd

as ever








dvd: source code

i rate this film... ( you know i like time travel right ? )
it's like groundhog day and momento mixed together.
it's directed by duncan jones ( david bowie's son ) who's previous film
and directing debut was 'moon'
yes... go buy this dvd if you haven't seen it already. it's a good 'un.








book: the leopard by tomasi di lampedusa

with books i usually just choose one with a good cover.
i think it's the best way to judge a book.
what ?







cd: preemptive strike by dj shadow

this is the limited edition 2 cd edition ( of course )
perfect background music to play while you're eating a thai take-away
or even if you're doing the dishes.
i also remember that when she was younger, la niña used to get a little bit spooked
by this album. so if you want to scare any young children, this is a must buy.


more next week.

kaws x incase x arkitip

did i ever show you my laptop and it's case ?

to be honest, my laptop is on the way out... it's in a bit of a bad way.

maybe father christmas will bring me a new one this year ? 

perhaps the best thing about it is the sticker with chinese characters 

and the english phrase "beware of your hands"

the case i have for my laptop though... the case is very very nice indeed.








it is a colab between kaws, incase and arkitip magazine

as you can see from the tags on the inside.
the inside is split into two sections by the way, one section as seen above is lined
with a padded soft furry material, which is the side i trust with my laptop.








the other side is lined in a silky / satin material which has signature kaws
figures worked into it

the same kaws figures are engraved into the rubberised exterior

kaws is one of those love him or hate him characters isn't he ?
is he a genius or a one trick pony and a chancer ?
of late i'm beginning to be of the opinion that he's pushing his luck a bit.








er, moving on... here's a shot which kind of shows how nicely padded this case is

and one of the two original fake / incase zip pulls








although my opinion of kaws and the whole original fake thing is on the slide
i have to say, this is a cracking item.

airline baggage security staff, you know, the people at airports who make you
take your laptop out of your carry-on bag... well i reckon that they see a
fair amount of laptop cases during their day, but i would say that 8 times out of 10
i get one of them commenting ( favourably ) when they see this laptop case.

oh, it came free with an issue of arkitip magazine too.
what a touch !


( occasionally you can find one on ebay but they are about £100 or so )

suit fashion question

as i mentioned recently, i haven't worn a whistle since november 2010.

( though i did buy two new suits in october 2010 and i do like them )

suits just aren't really needed in my day to day life.

you know i have two new ties all ready to wear:

http://markwhitfieldphotography.blogspot.com/2011/08/just-what-i-needed.html

http://markwhitfieldphotography.blogspot.com/2011/08/just-what-i-needed-part-two.html

 so if any of you would like

a moody looking person to attend your wedding / funeral and to eat all the scotch eggs

at your buffet, just drop me a line. i'm all ready with suits, ties and miserable expression.

er, anyway... my question is:

well i was walking down jermyn street the other day and i decided to take this photo

because it looks like the mannequin has a tweed face

( and you know i love tweed right ? )

then i noticed the little thing in his button-hole...

i checked out the next mannequin and he too had one of those little cuff-link

things in his button-hole

hmmm...

so did his mate

so my question is...

is this a fashion thing ? 

do you suit wearers actually put those cuff-link efforts in your button-holes ?

or is it just the way the shop has chosen to display the cuff-links ?

credit and sam... you work in the city... what's the story here ?

sneaky bape purchase

it's always the way when i park up at golden square.

i end up coming home with one of these bags...

ouch !

inside the bag is another bag... a ziplock bag

tidy.

in the ziplock bag... a polo shirt

perfect for the balmy summer evenings in n7

as ever with bape , the deets are very tasty.

is there a better logo out there ?

so there you have it. i park up to grab a coffee and i end up with a polo shirt.

standard whitfield procedure in w1.

hen party

walking down wardour street the other day i heard some outrageous cackling...

oh no !

it was a hen party...

textbook stuff... 

4 out of the five of them still had the price-tags on the soles of their shoes.

they met up with more girls around the corner and made adjustments

to their devil's horns

in fairness at least they weren't wearing l-plates or t-shirts with a photo of the 

bride-to-be on the front.

but seriously ladies... when you buy some shoes, take the price stickers off the soles

straight away.

what a turn up !

the scene: the nordic bakery w1 ( interior )

the crime: shocking turn-ups.

i nearly spilled my coffee,

like a bus

next time i get married i'm definitely departing from the ceremony by bus

what's not to like ?

tweeting

do you have any views on twitter ?

i gave it a try for a while, then deleted my account a few weeks ago.

this is my new friend james.

i was shooting some portraits for him the other day.

in the minute or so it took me to change the lighting around, he took the 

opportunity to tweet that he was having some portraits done.

james is top man and also a very generous man. 

maybe i'll tell you more about him in a while.

chef

here's a portrait of the chef at the prince of wales, putney.

as a thank-you for taking this photo of him he made me some chips...

triple-cooked chips.

it took the edge off me being south of the river.

lime marmalade

when it comes to preserves, only one thing satisfies me.

lime marmalade.

at melrose and morgan a few days ago i was pleasantly surprised to see

that they have started selling it.

magic darts !

i bought a jar back to whitfield towers

mucho limey.

a full report will follow soon, when the official toast season starts at the end of august.

what ?

x100 / q-flash shoot results

remember the new flash system i debuted with my x100 the other day ?

http://markwhitfieldphotography.blogspot.com/2011/07/get-grip.html

well here are a couple of frames from the shoot

1. star jump

2. running towards the camera

i'm learning to love the x100

it's still a tricky camera to use, not a user friendly camera either,

but i'm slowly getting the hang of it and achieving better results.

if anybody is interested, i'll do a proper review of the x100 next week.

if nobody is interested... i'll do a proper review of the x100 next week*

thanks again to emily for running, jumping, posing and smiling even though she

had been feeling pretty ill all day. nice one emily.

* my blog, my rules.

8 helpings of crunch

arsenal visit the theatre of dreams...

... and man utd treat them to 8 helpings of crunch

in arsene we trust ?

i'll do the jokes !

what the what ?!

i was not impressed when i saw gooner jeff's new car on friday

sort it out jeff

get yourself a nice fiat 500

nooooo !

i just found this gem

which la niña took when we were setting up the lights for the gary neville shoot.

as you can see from my palms, i'm going to live until i'm 131 years old

and i will marry 8 times, 6 of which will be to a miss world.

i will come into money on my 29th birthday and will write a best selling book

about chips which will be turned into a film starring tom jones ( or tom cruise )

at least i think that's what the lines on my palms say don't they  ?

on my coffee table this week...

once again, it's time for me to recommend some things to you.

on my coffee table this week...

hmmm...

book: one day by david nicholls

once again, i bought this as a holiday read.

i know nothing much about it, only that i read something in the observer the

other week where it said that this is one of those 'must read' books.

the lady journalist wrote that her husband borrowed the book and that he was 

sobbing like a girl while reading it !

( i bet he was made up that she mentioned that in her article )

it's also been made into a film with anne hathaway as the female lead,

which has supposedly caused a bit of an uproar with regard to her accent.

anyway, i'm intrigued. it's on my table and i'll read it soon and get back to you.

cd: 'do androids dream of electric beats ?' by unkle

this is like revisiting an old friend.

from back in the day when unkle were good. a 3 disc set, artwork by futura 2000

and some corking sounds. great for listening to while ironing your favourite

t-shirts, or perhaps while you're sitting on an eames lounger eating

chicken fried rice, chips and curry sauce ?

dvd: patagonia

directed by marc evans.

i've been waiting for this film to be released on dvd for over 2 years now.

i did some headshots for an actress back in 2009 and she told me she'd just been

making a film in wales with duffy. she also told me something extremely personal

which i could have done without her mentioning... but that's another story !

it's set half in wales and half in argentina. half in welsh, half in spanish.
i like that the dvd chapters are in welsh too...

i haven't watched it yet... i'm saving it for sunday night, but i'm really looking forward
to seeing some beautifully filmed exotic lanscapes ( wales, not argentina )
duffy acting ( but not singing ) and to seeing the actress i photographed at
whitfield towers who told me something i wish she hadn't told me !

cooking with marky one more time

you know the story by now.

mrs w leaves me home alone in the evening,

i get a chinese take-away.

those are the rules.

( and you've got to have rules, if we didn't have rules where would we be ? )

now... do i really need to take you through the steps of preparing this meal ?

as you probably know, the answers to the two questions above are

1. france

2. no thank-you... no, honestly... i'm fine

however, my blog my rules, here we go.

you beauty !

what can i say ? i see this plate and i smile ( inside )

step 1. throw the jockeys onto the plate

feel free to say "you beauty" "game on" or perhaps even "skill"

step 1.5

check in the bag after you've emptied the jockeys out.

sometimes one can get left behind, as was nearly the case on saturday night.

step 2

empty ( most of ) the carton of chicken fried rice onto the plate

be sure to spill a little rice over the side and also feel free to dance around a bit 

while mimicking the sounds of 'push it' by salt 'n' pepa !

step 2.5

hold back a small amount of chicken fried rice in the carton

this will be what i like to call 'dessert'

step 3

pour the curry sauce all over the gaff

boom !

step 3.5

save a little curry sauce to pour onto the 'dessert'

put a lid on this bad boy then go back to the main meal

step 4.

the accompanying beverage

there are a variety of available options here...

1. lager is acceptable if it has a dash of lime in it.

2. any st. peters ale seems to do the job

3. most welsh beers work well in tandem with this dish

4. as was the case on saturday night, opening up a bottle of perrier jouet belle epoque rose

and drinking it from the wrong type of glass is sometimes the only thing to do.

centrepoint

you know my favourite building in london right ?

my second favourite is whitfield towers.

third favourite is this one...

centrepoint.

more on this bombshell at a later date.

if only...

if only such a machine existed...

1. push button

2. receive bacon

genius !

great minds ?

this morning i was looking at who had commented on my burning house submission.

http://theburninghouse.com/post/9038731557/mark-whitfield

one person had a very interesting blog of his own going on...

it was full of his little sketches and observations

below are two that i cribbed off his pages. 

two that could very well have come from my mind.

firstly this one i like very much...

as family and friends will testify, i like to use the word 'bullshit' whenever i can.

secondly take a look at this sketch...

i believe my love of welshcakes ( and wales ) has been well documented,

 so you can only imagine how much i like this sketch.

good work american sketch blog bloke !

home alone

on saturday night i was left home alone.

as napoleon dynamite would say...

"what would you do in a situation like that ?"

the answer...

oh no !

oh yes !

oh yes indeed.

let's have a close look at the packaging involved in this operation

1. the carton

this is a weighty carton by the way... chicken fried rice is surprisingly heavy.

2. the tub

containing my old friend, curry sauce

3. the bag

the jockeys are in here, though there may be a couple missing that i ate on the 

short walk from holy to whitfield towers.

so there you have it. you know what the next post is about don't you ?