The top prize was given to a combination hair salon and laundry service that let patrons start their washing while having their hair cut, and this clever time-saver reminded me of la laverie automatique we spied in the parking lot of a supermarché in France not too long ago. For both schemes, I think it might take some test-runs to synchronise the chores.
Celebrated in Sweden and Finland on this day since first organised in 1999, Kanelbullens dag (Cinnamon Roll Day) is a way to increase awareness on traditional Scandinavian baking traditions (see also) and has proved to be a popular holiday domestically and for Swedish and Finnish communities abroad. Though we might be comfortably familiar with the above term for “coffee break,” the Kanelbullen that could go with it might also be infiltrating the language.
Via Nag on the Lake, we are directed towards an installation, Kirkby Design’s submission for the recently concluded London Design Festival, that rehabilitates and revamps the interior décor of a vintage subway carriage. The new palette is informed by the dreadful-excellence of traditional moquette (previously) that was meant to durable, aesthetic and invisible all at the same time. I think it would be fun to transform our foyer (or at least the entryway of my little apartment) into something like this and pass through each morning.
On this day in 1969 in East Berlin’s Marienviertel, just adjacent to Alexanderplatz, the Television Tower was declared complete, the occasion marked with an inaugural elevator ride by a delegation of high ranking government officials and the launch, the start signal of two stations to broadcast in colour. Opening to the public on Tag der Republik four days later, the tower was at the time, at over three hundred and sixty metres, the tallest freestanding structure in Europe and with its viewing platform and rotating restaurant remains one of the most frequented tourist attractions of the capital.
We appreciated this in depth re-acquaintance with the still in circulation trade magazine The Inland Printer (previously) from Public Domain Review and its dazzling, showcase advertising, meant to underscore the illustrators’ typographic skills and the colour range and technical abilities of the publisher, typified by the marketing campaign of Augustus Jansson (*1866 - †1931) for Queen City Printing Ink Company. Based originally in Cincinnati, the Queen of the West, the company’s reputation, in part bolstered by the popular Art Deco figures of Jansson, allowed it to expand to major cities across America. Peruse a whole gallery of images, a complete colourful menagerie, and Inland Printer’s back catalogue at the links above.
Provocative artist Banksy (previously here, here, here, here and here) has opened a boutique storefront in Croydon offering—via a parallel online store, a line of his signature works on capitalism, environmental exploitation, dystopian dragnet surveillance, immigration and foreign-relations.
While also a chance to put the artist’s greatest hits on display for members of the window-shopping public to inspect, Banksy’s admitted ulterior motive comes after consultation with his attorney to seek relief from a greeting card company’s appropriation of his art.
Because Banksy did not formerly produce his own merchandise (maybe this is where all the tote bags come from), another party willing to commercially champion his creations can legally claim a trademark. Hopefully, by actively asserting ownership, Banksy’s can reclaim his own work. Despite this goal, the artist’s invitation stands: “I still encourage anyone to copy, borrow, steal and amend my art for amusement, academic research or activism. I just don’t want them to get sole custody of my name.” More to explore at the links above.
Overshadowed by his magnificently telling tantrum, the Trump’s White House did manage to open up a second front in his ongoing trade wars with the US Trade Representative, a Trump appointee, announcing that the World Trade Organisation will grant the US the right to levy tariffs on around seven billion euro (one percent of US-EU trade) on European exports—wine and cheese, in retaliation for the EU’s privileging its domestic Airbus over international competition.
We can’t say that the US has been subsidising its native industries in the same way for the past decade and a half of this squabble or whether it’s quite a fair ruling—though it highlights the asymmetry of government support and interventions and how diverting subsidies from staid business models in transport and agriculture would help drive greener and cleaner innovations. Further implication might be the UK becoming even more willing to crash out of the Union with no deal and into an unequal partnership with the States. The EU is expected to respond in kind—though direct countermeasures are not allowed, WTO rules have no jurisdiction on boycotts.
