Month: April 2012

When Nokia was king.

I got that one on the left in April 1995. Ruinously heavy.

Terrible quality, and retro gaming nerdery required too. If you’ve no
idea or don’t care, you can feel good about yourself.

But I’d love it if anyone does get it.

In that brilliant talk on creativity by John Cleese, he mentions how creative people are almost defined by how long they’re prepared to suffer with an unsolved problem, as being stumped is a integral part of the process.

This article in the Guardian takes a related tack and is well worth a read. I loved this insight about left/right hemispheres:

The process began with an intense mental search as the left hemisphere started looking for answers in all the obvious places… This left-brain thought process, however, quickly got tiring – it took only a few seconds before the subject said he’d reached an impasse and couldn’t think of the right word. But these negative feelings are actually an essential part of the process because they signal that it’s time to try a new search strategy. Instead of relying on the literal associations of the left hemisphere, the brain needs to shift activity to the other side, to explore a more unexpected set of associations.

Everything you’d hope for from the Fall’s curmudgeonly genius. Funny,
unexpected and unreasonable. A genuinely great Briton.

Screenwriter Danny Rubin explains how what is now a comedy classic came to be.

Some interesting insights, and it enlightened a re-watch of the movie.

The biggest takeout for me was the lesson once again that success is
mainly about determination and collaboration. Even a corker of an idea
like this needed to be shoved through the system and accept ideas and
rewrites from many sides.

I always liked the Fast Show, and I had a fleeting conversation with
Simon when I’d rejected some copy he’d written for a Guardian ad and
he called to bundle me into running it.

Plenty of genuine lols in this book, but overall it was more
self-destructive and maudlin than I expected. A pretty quick holiday
read and I was glad to get it over with.