Matthew Henry John Bartlett

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Saturday 28 July, 02007

They call them fingers but I never see ’em fing

by Matthew Bartlett @ 11:28 am

sextet of dope Simpsons scenes [via Russell B]

So last night I was jaded having had one too many Gamay Noirs after work (it was a good day at work, I finally made a cover for a book I’ve been stalling on for eversolong, we had a class trip to Satay Kampong (recommended) and then to PARAMOVNT for Helvetica. Great film, could have been edited down a bit, was a fun way into thinking about modernism and reactions to it. Made me think about how the big temptation for design is to be about what it is always about: surfaces, surfaces, beautiful lies – but what we are all hanging out for is the truth. Helvetica caught a wave because it pretends to be neutral, an empty vessel, timeless, no history, no attachments; and we all want to forget our pasts.), so though I’d said I’d go to town with Kathy & co., I was very much not in the mood for that. But in this shifty-sand world every kept promise is a good brick, so we went out, found the French man at Hope Bros and it was all go, we were up for it clubbers, I bumped into old friends and we made some new ones, and it was all very good.

Best graph ever, from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey [2.5MB PDF, via D the Great]. It appears the Latinos are doing something right:

5 responses to “They call them fingers but I never see ’em fing”

  1. Tim says:

    Matt, please make that graph meaningful to me by telling me where NZ fits in.

  2. Matthew says:

    No idea. Though I’m in Western Europe, more or less.

  3. D says:

    We’re near Spain in per capita GDP. Who knows whether we think we’re happy.

    Based on http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10426910 if you can compare the disparate data, we indicated around 90% overall satisfaction which would indicate more happiness than our level of income might indicate (18th out of 178 countries in survey). So maybe shift Mexico over to about $26,000 per capita GDP, move it up a little and say it’s somewhere around there…

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