Week 222: collage
-
People stick stickers in the urban environment here. Itâs naughty of them, but I appreciate when theyâre creative designs and stuck somewhere sensible. I took a picture of a sticker â it was a photo of David Seaman, the moustachioed, beponytailed former goalkeeper, wearing a bib, overlaid with some blackletter script, maybe advertising a brand of clothing? â and stumbled across a recent iOS feature.
Press and hold on the subject until it ripples and a white glow flows around its outline.
Thereâs a knack to the pressing and holding, but once youâve got it, youâve an isolated copy of the subject â be it a magpie, a woman or a can of ginger beer â with the background removed, to do with as you please, e.g. make a subâCold War Steve collage.
(Itâs even easier on the Macintosh â thereâs a âCopy Subjectâ item in the context menu.)
Itâs a good feature, Iâm quite taken with it. Sorry I donât want to share the Seamo sticker, but hereâs a bag of bread who was cooling off by wild swimming in the river, someoneâs been reading the Guardian.
-
A few weeks ago, there was a much linked-to interview with the author Ted Chiang, an instalment in the Financial Timesâs long-running âLunch with the FTâ series (âa weekly interview with leading cultural and business figuresâ). Iâm sure it was great, but I really disliked like how theyâd italicised words like baba ganoush, it gave me the ick even more than when someone mispronounced tzatziki recently.
-
Cleaned the bicycle drivetrain â carpeted the bathtub with pages from the Sunday Times and lifted the bike in, better than making a mess somewhere else. Later, outside, realised Iâd forgotten to reattach the chain properly. There are dedicated tools to do this without soiling your fingers, but I usually use a twig, or in this case a discarded e-cigarette from the floor. Then a passing man came over to mansplain chains at me, and I didnât manage to explain that it hadnât slipped off by itself, but never mind, he was just trying to be friendly.
-
Itâs old news but Iâm still haunted by the clip of Nadine Dorries guestâco-presenting Piers Morgan Uncensored in October 2022. Has anyone considered that maybe itâs like Les Dawson playing the piano â they say you have to be really good at playing the piano to deliberately play the piano badly, and maybe itâs the same with reading autocues?
-
It hasnât rained yet. The weather app is such a tease â âthunderstorm warningâ, âlight rain in 26 minutesâ. Of course the problem with writing these before midnight is it might still rain this week â itâs not even really a problem but, you know.
(Update: itâs started to rain! But itâs more of a drizzle. I havenât bellowed ânow thatâs what I call rainâ yet.)