It’s lunch time, and we are about to go out from our classroom into the corridor to eat what has been brought up by the catering lady. Jollof Rice and Chicken. But then somebody mentions the Magpie. It is a warm but cloudy day in the capital. We have been training for two days on Continue Reading »
Our client wanted some more interesting handles for her posh bi-fold doors in West London. From a scrapyard in Wales, I brought an old Singer Sewing Machine and an Old School Bunsen Burner stand. Here’s the result. It was touch and go with the corroded threads, but with the help of London Hackspace lathes and Continue Reading »
Ethics: Open Platform. Open Society. It was in 2003 that I was first introduced to the Open-Source philosophy by my friend , a political information activist, ex-politician and now life-peer. OpenSource seemed like an antidote to the corporate dominance of the information world and to the invention of spurious or ‘fake’ ideas like this notorious Continue Reading »
I recently returned from a mission to Epworth slum, Harare, as a Field Mapping Co-ordinator with the Manson Unit’s Missing Maps project. Here’s a bit of my blog: No wonder Rhodesia used to be known as ‘The Garden of Africa’. Epworth, a suburb of what is now called Harare (‘Salisbury’ in Rhodesian times), is a Continue Reading »
I’ve got a headache. It’s 3pm in a darkened room in Harare. The sun is beating down. A cool breeze blows outside the windows, but the curtains are closed. Children are playing in the street, but we are inside, staring at computer screens. Tomorrow, we will try to describe Missing Maps, and in fact the Continue Reading »