FIESA (Sand Festival - Faro, Portugal)

Its amazing what can inspire you sometimes. You wouldn't really add sand to the list but I've been proven wrong it seems. On my holiday to Portugal last week, I decided to visit the sand festival which was advertised just about everywhere. I wasn't expecting anything special, I generally find the photos on the adverts are always better than when you see it in person. Anyway, I was shocked at some of the sand sculptures created. It was breathtaking! Some of the work and skill gone into the display was amazing. Basically, in a nutshell, every year sand artists come from all over the world to create a sculpture based on the theme given. This year was 'the world'. They generally take place in Europe, mainly Spain or Portugal. Have a look at the website to find out more.

http://www.fiesa2007.com/

Here are some photos I managed to take on the day. The sand festival is also open late into the night when it is illuminated. If I had longer I would have stayed to see that, but I might have missed my plane back. Oh well, maybe next year.
(Click on any of the pictures if you want to see them in a larger format.)

Websites

I got a free cd with a design magazine a few months ago, but I'd never really looked at it. Sometimes you can get some crappy gimmicks with free cd's. After sorting out my desk though (I'm a cluttered person) I thought I better try it before I threw it away. Anyway I'm glad I did. It has a list of some amazing web sites which are well worth a look at. Anyway, heres some of my favorites below. Great for inspiration and also to sit in front of your screen and go "whooooaa.....cool...."

Triworks target="_blank">http://www.triworks.net

Aeon target="_blank">http://www.aeon.jp/biz/

FF000 target="_blank">http://www.ff0000.com/

WA007 target="_blank">http://wa007.com/

Gordon Ramsey's Lady Fingers

After Chris at work persuaded me to go out and buy Gordon Ramsey's new book, Fast Food, I decided to try my hand at making his tiramisu. It featured on the f word last week and looked yum. Anyway, my brother decided to film the end result.

On a more creative note though (as if making tiramisu isn't creative enough for me), the book is designed brilliantly and is so easy to follow even I managed it. It has some great photography in which features side by side before and after shots. Great to see if you're attempt has come out ok or turned out crap. Anyway, visually it's top, so you should all go out and buy it and cook cook cook!

Ramseys cook book, tiramisu, stuff yer face, DONE!

Radio 1's Big Weekend

I'm in way too much pain as I type this. I got slightly squashed and bumped around during the Kasabian set. But as tenderised as I am I will carry on like the hardcore festival goer I was pretending to be yesterday. That was until I fell asleep on the bus home.









It was an amazing day, and contrary to the weather forecast I managed to get a slight sun tan! Anyway, the show stealer's had to be Kasabian and the Scissor Sisters. Jake Shears has far too much camp energy for his own good. And I've decided that the guitarist Del is the coolest one in the band. I got some excellent photos, but on the basis of the Scissor Sisters stealing the show, I've added a compilation video of their performance. Cue lots of screaming from me and bad camera shake on the more up tempo songs. I've also included the one from BBC3 which features slightly better filming. Enjoy!






Also, a band which I would have liked to have seen is the Gossip, but they were on the same time as Kasabian. I dug this out from youtube only because it features the best ever burp mid vocal from Beth Ditto. That woman doesn't care! It's hilarious, shame I missed it!

Radio One's Big Weekend

I've managed to somehow bag myself two tickets for radio ones big weekend in Preston! Over the moon! I'm going to get to see The Scissor Sisters, Kasabian and loads of other bands. I registered for the competition about a week ago and to be honest wasn't expecting anything. I knew the odds of winning were a bit poor because so many people enter, who wouldn't, it's free! Anyway, it was a really nice surprise to find an email from radio one in my inbox. Heres the list of the acts who I'll be seeing on the Saturday.



For more details about the event, have a look at the site,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/bigweekend/about

And to top it off I got a shout out from good old Moylesy on radio one!




This is what Radio One had to say about where all the tickets went and which postcode areas got most.

We had almost 500,000 applications for tickets and we only have 8,875 pairs a day to give out which means that just 1.8% of people who applied were lucky.

As we've previously said, the majority of these tickets have been given to people in the North-West and the Preston area. We used people's postcodes to determine this. Here's the breakdown of where they went:

* 16,024 tickets to postcodes PR1 and PR2
* 7,100 tickets to postcodes PR3-PR9 and BB1-BB12
* 10,740 tickets to the North West of England area
* 1,636 tickets to the rest of the UK.


It will be televised on BBC3 and BBC1 (after you press the red button on BBC1) on both days (19th-20th May), so you might get a glimpse of me jumping around like a total nutter. Anyway, needless to say I'm pretty chuffed! Preston here I come!