Run 4 Cover (Starring : Nigel Sylvester) from 13thWitness™ on Vimeo.

The latest offering from the multitalented 13th Witness, who I’ve been harping on about for a minute.

The guy definitely knows how to use his camera. Nigel Sylvester is pretty nice on a bike. Their talents combine to beautiful effect. Watch and learn.

We All Need Words is one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ companies that aims to help people articulate what they’re all about, both personally and professionally, ‘without the branding bluff.’

Here are five of their writing ‘Unrules’ via the The School of Life, and here’s the link to their site. Worth a look, even if words aren’t your thing. (After all, we all need them.)

Five Unrules:

5. Write short or ‘fragmented’ sentences. Ignore Microsoft Word’s green squiggly line. A sentence can have seven words. Or two. It’s up to you. Play with the length of your sentences to add pace and rhythm to your words.

4. Split infinitives. They can be clunky but they’re not grammatically incorrect.

3. Use contractions (eg that’s instead of that is). They’re a good way to make your writing sound more personal.

2. Don’t sign off letters with ‘Yours Sincerely if you know the person you’re writing to or ‘Yours Faithfully’ if you don’t. ‘Yours Sincerely?’ It’s 2010. You don’t need to use stuffy formality like this anymore (or start letters with ‘Dear Sir’ or ‘Dear Sir / Madam’ for that matter).

1. And you can start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’. We just did.

And a bonus rule from Kurt Vonnegut:

‘Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.’

Brilliant idea, beautifully executed. I’m a fan.

Simon Schama, Professor of Art History, Columbia University

“I first came to New York in 1964…The city was more garish, grungier, louder and crazier then I’d ever imagined. I remember being shocked by how raw and unappealing it was and then five minutes later thinking, ‘This is absolutely fucking wonderful’”

If I were to do a quick straw poll amongst my friends, asking them where they’d want to live other than (or instead of) London, I have no doubt about which place would come out on top. New York City is the desired living destination for millions of people from all over the world, for reasons both self-evident and intangible.

New York is vibrant, exciting, fast-paced. It is convenient, consumer-oriented, accessible. It can be both breathtakingly glamorous and archaically seedy. But perhaps most importantly, New York is a place with a special, physical kind of energy that consumes you whether you want it to or not. The times I’ve spent in New York, which have ranged from seven days to nine weeks, have been some of the most dynamic periods of my life. Things changed. Shit got done. I always came back a slightly different person.

I think British people love New York because it represents something thrillingly foreign in terms of its work culture – the mythology of opportunity, the encouragement of ambition – but also reassuringly familiar shared cultural and historical references, as well as, of course, a common language. A phenomenal new photoseries by Jason Bell, entitled ‘An Englishman In New York’ portrays the lives of expats living in the city, and offers up their thoughts on their lives in the Big Apple. Bell has photographed a fascinating range of Brits, from singer Estelle to historian Simon Schama to Vogue Editor-At-Large Hamish Bowles, and the results are not only really beautiful, but also revelatory.

See the full series here – or better yet, in person, at the National Portrait Gallery from August 24th to April 17th, 2011

Huntington Beach, CA.

Thanks to the good folk at Nike, I somehow ended up back in California less than three weeks after I left. This time, it was as part of a press group attending the US Open of Surfing in Huntingdon Beach, where Nike 6.0, Hurley and Converse were the official sponsors. I’m saving my proper write-up on the trip for a few, far more widely-read sites on the Innernetz, but I thought I’d share some random pics from my camera on the off chance that someone, somewhere, might be vaguely interested.

Massive thanks to Simon ‘Waka Flocka’ Wainright (credit due to Gary Warnett for coming up with that one) for many LOLs, a great event, and general good times all round.

Poolside business.

Bob Hurley.

Inside Hurley HQ.

Nike 6.0 sponsored athletes.

Matt Hambly from FHM (nickname unpublishable).

Some silly yat.

Gwar.

Paul Rodriquez doing what he does best.

In Nike’s ‘Motel No Tell’.

Some nice palm trees, innit.

Huntington Beach pier.

Homeward bound.

I told you lot about WAH Nails before. In fact, I told you twice.

In case you missed those posts, the moral of the story is: Best nail salon in London. I played it characteristically safe with the Shellac and nail art I had done today (see above), but these women can literally do anything. Yep. Anything.

Give them a try.

“Fur pillows are hard to actually sleep on” 4:55 PM Aug 1st via web

“I love me” 6:12 PM Jul 31st via web

“THAT MEANS TOAST IN SWEDISH!!!!” 6:26 AM Jul 31st via web

“I jog in Lanvin” 12:17 AM Jul 29th via web

Kanye West joined Twitter and made that shit fun again.

Follow him. Or, erm, me.

I know a little about a lot. That’s the psyche of a journalist. I look at people who know a lot about one thing with awe.

I’m definitely light years away from being  in the same journalistic league as David Remnick, but this statement couldn’t resonate more with me. I might be able to tell you the capital of Peru, the name of the man who assassinated Martin Luther King or the location of a good breakfast spot in New York’s Lower East Side, but I still spend most of my life feeling that, ultimately, I know fuck all about fuck all. I like this quote for making me feel like my lack of specialist knowledge is a sign of my ‘journalist’s psyche’, as opposed to the result of ‘too much time spent on Twitter and watching reruns of The Hills’. So thanks for that, David.

BTW – Lima. James Earl Ray. Clinton St. Baking Co. & Restaurant

The best thing about travelling – aside from the adventures, and the meeting new people, and the food and the fun and the laughter – is the perspective that you gain on your home life while you’re away. Before I went to L.A. I was stressed to the point of tears. Finishing my degree nearly finished me off, then I immediately started a very intense internship, and then I moved house three days before my flight. Needless to say that by the time I got on the plane, I was pretty much a mess.

Luckily, L.A. was exactly what I needed (previous posts here and here explain why), not least because it made me realise how fucking lucky I am to be 22 and living in London. It’s hard to articulate exactly why this city feels like such a good place to be right now, but it does. I think it’s to do with the fact that so many people are making money doing work that they love, or at least trying their absolute best to. Strong NY-LON connections and lots of shared cultural references mean that young Londoners have adopted the entrepreneurial mentality of our New York counterparts,  but have modified it to suit our naturally less manic pace of life.

The commercial explosion of the urban music scene has obviously been important too – suddenly, making a living out of music seems viable if you’re willing to work hard enough. Ironically, the same goes for the recession. When trying to get a ‘job’ seems like a generally futile mission, you have to think of more ingenious ways to make money. Like a lot of my friends, I decided a while back that freelancing seemed like the best, and most financially fruitful, option. Luckily, my theory seems to be working out quite well so far.

My inner history geek (just done a History degree and I’m still nerd mode, allow me please) is compelled to relate this to historical research which shows that economic depression often gives rise to periods of intensive creativity in urban environments. That seems to be exactly what has happened in London. And I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.

Some things I did last week:

- Watched (possibly ogled) skaters on Venice Beach.

- Spent hours roaming round the Rose Bowl flea market.

- Channeled Madonna for Moustache Mondays at La Cita.

- Sampled the delights of In N Out Burger for the first time.

- Checked out the streetwear stores on Fairfax.

- Ate some amazing vegan food, some amazing Mexican food, some amazing Japanese food, and some pretty shitty pizza.

- Bought Spizikes at Flight Club.

- Had a memorable dinner at Chateau Marmont.

- Watched Toy Story 3 at The Grove, an outdoor mall that feels like Disneyland.

- Revisited The Cha Cha in Silverlake.

- Was disappointed by the Farmer’s Market.

- Hit up Guys and Dolls Lounge, a hip hop club that was exactly like Aura on a Sunday c.2008, Premiership footballers and all.

- Binge drank throughout all of the above.

I feel like I’ve been in LA forever and I’ve fallen in love with the place hard. The post-holiday comedown is going to be brutal.

More photos after the jump.

DELS – Shapeshift from us (design studio) on Vimeo.

DELS makes hip hop that he describes as “raw and honest”, and which I’d also describe as thoughtful, refreshing, imaginative, well-executed and unexpected. He also conceptualises phenomenal music videos like this one, for his new single ‘ShapeShift’. Produced in collaboration with the sickeningly talented us design studio (the team behind this very website) this pretty much blows every other contemporary UK urban music video out of the water. DELS recently signed to Roots Manuva’s Big Dada label, so expect more high-calibre music and visuals from him in the near future.