B U R N

Urban planning in its most captivating form

Christian Toennesen — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 21:02:34 +0000

Loop City by BIG from ArchDaily on Vimeo.

The irresistible brand

Christian Toennesen — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:45:16 +0000

I can’t quite figure out what it is exactly, but there is something about Rapha that draws me in as if I’d never heard of the concepts of ‘marketing’ and ‘consumerism’ before:

A passion for road riding means Rapha is more than just a product company. In addition to its online emporium of performance roadwear, accessories and publications, Rapha also boasts an ever-expanding archive of news, features and events, all celebrating the glory and suffering of road riding.

Take a look at the website and see for yourself how beautiful it is, from the colours on the screen through to the products and services. Also, the short films are in a league of their own.

And then take a look at the price tags…

The future of high-end brands in this bracket no doubt belongs to small, highly specialised outfits that are what they sell. Perfection as such doesn’t exist, but like the Higgs boson it may be created temporarily if you know what you’re doing.

A(d)ctivism

Christian Toennesen — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:14:32 +0000

The Underground is full of posters featuring women with perfect lips, noses and breasts. A confidence-building start to a Monday morning, I imagine.

I secretly admire those a(d)ctivists using chewing gum and stickers to ‘customise’ these posters.

This one, featuring a maori inspired monster of a face, was spotted at Old Street.

Brilleabe 2.0/Dwarfed

Christian Toennesen — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:57:46 +0000

Buying a new pair of glasses after five years in my own private cocoon was probably a good idea. There are birds in London! The only problem now is that I feel like a dwarf because I can see the ground beneath me in some detail. As I said, it was probably about time I made that purchase.

What big cities do to you

Christian Toennesen — Sun, 23 May 2010 11:47:15 +0000

So, in my view, any kind of appreciation of the Shepherd’s Bush area must be an acquired taste. Like people actually taking a like to playing golf, ‘team building’ or getting pierced in places where the light never shines. Having established that Shepherd’s Bush and I are not exactly ‘buddies’, I found myself walking through that very part of town yesterday.

As is normal in this vicinity, a gentleman carrying lots of plastic bags and wearing a couple of dirty down jackets on a hot summer day attempted to grab a share of my attention. He was uttering something indecipherable in a foreign language and tapping my shoulder repeatedly. I increased my already brisk pace for this ménage à deux to come to an end, but his chasing of me continued for a good couple of minutes. Go away. Disappear now. Please!

Finally, giving in and turning around to confront him, he waved a £20-note that I had just dropped out of my pocket, placed it in my hand and walked away. With a big smile on his face.

Just as the 1000 flamingos flew over, they opened fire

Christian Toennesen — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:33:31 +0000

Now this is a beautiful piece of campaigning

Christian Toennesen — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:19:50 +0000

Geese and ash

Christian Toennesen — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:25:24 +0000

Learning from my travel-related cancellations and delays over the past couple of years, I reckon it is time to rewrite Murphy’s Law:

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong

to something slightly more appropriate, Toennesen’s Paradox:

Anything that cannot go wrong will go wrong.

I hardly even travel enough to fall under the wannabe jet-setter category, yet I have been disproportionately affected by the unlikeliest events when trying to go somewhere. These include a blizzard, a burst tire on a Sudan Airways plane, a goose in a jet engine, fog and now a friggin’ Icelandic volcano in combination with ‘ideal’ jet winds…

My travel life is turning into a Murakami novel. In retrospect, I should never have included “spewing” in the title line of the previous post…

On authorities spewing crap

Christian Toennesen — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:25:26 +0000

There may be bad things to say about ‘youngsters’ uttering rude/naive/silly remarks, but those bad things fade compared to established, respected authorities spewing crap.

Doris Lessing, in her otherwise beautiful Nobel Prize acceptance speech, famously remarked:

How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc?

Just stick to what you are good at, writing novels.

Today, James Lovelock, esteemed scientist and inventor of the Gaia theory, came out with a whole barrage of arrogant and potentially damaging ‘opinions‘. In summary: contemporary natural scientists are morally inferior to those back in the good old days, the world is screwed, we pulled the trigger and there is nothing to do about it but to sit back and “enjoy life while you can”. Oh, and also, renewable energy technology is not based on “good practical engineering”.

That is an awful lot of nonsense/sweeping generalisations to let out for a 90-year-old!

Ah, but it all depends on if he is right, does it not?

Not really… He may indeed be right about the fate of the planet.

But. Hopefully, many of us will have another +40 years or so to live in before we pass away. In that time, we would probably like to be able to enjoy nature, fresh air and many other things. Ideally, our children would be able to do that as well. Why should we not make every effort – and encourage others to do so – to make this possible? Lovelock is writing out a dangerous carte blanche (’keep on truckin’ y’all!’) with ramifications far beyond ‘climate change’.

Just because you are on board Titanic, you can still be considerate.

In addition to that, I believe hope and optimism are core to leading a happy, fulfilling life, even in the face of adversity and uncertainty. Of course, when you are 90 years old and already made quite a career for yourself that may not be the case…

A sad state of affairs

Christian Toennesen — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:13:24 +0000

It is sad, but I only have work updates to offer at the moment:

Most of my time is spent working on a project for the UNDP, developing new social and environmental performance indicators for the new EU Member States, both the countries themselves and the companies within them. In my field, tasks do not come much more interesting than that.

We are moving to nice new offices down by the Thames, at Embankment. As part of the new decor, everyone has been asked to commission a painting of their favourite spot(s) in London. Some of them have already started appearing on the artist’s blog. My choice? The South Bank Skate Park.

Yes, I will make the annoying text above go away at some point…