Badaude

Five-Minute Academy - How to Take a Coffee Break

A coffee break is enshrined in UK law, which states that employers must provide a minimum 20 minute break for every 6 hours’ consecutive work. If you work at it, you might be able to get a little more...

If taking your break in the afternoon, you may substitute tea.

 

Fig 1: What sort of company do you work for?  If you see any of the items in column A around your workplace, you can safely take a coffee break. If you see items from column B, think carefully before trying.

Fig 2: Does your workplace have a break room? If it does, watch out for the break room etiquette. 

Fig 3: But if you’re going out for coffee, you have a choice: either a) announce it to the office so they won’t think you’ve just sloped off irresponsibly or b) slope off irresponsibly and hope no one will notice. The best technique for this is illustrated.

Fig 4: How long to take? To arrive at a reasonable time period, use this calculation.

Fig 5: Is a coffee break an opportunity for social networking or silent reflection? Read your co-worker’s signs and make a decision.

Fig 6: Caught out by the boss? Don’t feel bad. Research at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm shows long periods of sitting are strongly associated with obesity heart disease, cancer and diabetes.Remember the words of Stanley Green (1915-1993) who paraded Oxford Street for 25 years with a sandwich board encouraging ‘less... sitting’.

 

Five-Minute Academy - How to Remove a Stain

OK I’m only going to deal with stains on fabric here, generally removable fabric like clothes – ‘cause that’s where you drop most of your food, isn’t it? Apparently there are places you can get advice on how to remove stains from concrete. Though you’d have to be really clean to want to bother.

Fig 1: Identify your stain (see Fig 3) Be careful: see, fig 2.

Fig 2: Remember: if you haven't identified the stain correctly, or if you use an improper stain-removing agent or technique, you may make the stain permanent and cause additional damage to the stained object.

Fig 3: The Three types of stains

3a: Greasy Stains: bike oil, peanut butter, vanilla-scented body lotion. Treat by rubbing with washing-up liquid (if it’s chunky peanut butter, don’t forget to scrape the lumps off first) or by using an absorbent substance: cornstarch, that talc you got for Christmas, French chalk, fuller's earth.

3b: Non-greasy stains: These are real stains - pure pigment – fruit juice, ink, coffee, blood. Treat quickly with water. If that doesn’t work, try washing-up liquid, then ‘rubbing alcohol’ (whatever that is).

3c: Combination Stains: combine the worst elements of 3a and 3b: chocolate, thousand island dressing, cherry flavour lip balm. Use the instructions in Figs 3a & b alternately while panicking about Fig 2.

Fig 4: If you’re really desperate you could buy dry cleaning fluid but this stuff can be dangerous and ecologically unsound. If you’re the sort of person who spills ketchup all over yourself in the first place, ask yourself whether you should really be using this.

Fig 5: Remember, time is of the essence: the longer you leave a stain, the more difficult it will be to remove.

Fig 6a: If it is too late, try disguising the stain.

Fig 6b: Alternatively make a feature of it.

Sestina

This may not look like my usual stuff but, during December, I was working on a collaboration with poet, Kelley Swain.

As she was temporarily in France, I somewhat gleefully imposed a structure based on the French Republican Calendar (don't ask why: oh go on then - it's because the calendar was revived for 18 days during the period of the Paris Commune which saw its 140th anniversary last year). Anyway...

...after trying to work out all kinds of complicated, Oulipo-influenced grid structures I realised December had already overwhelmed me with a deadly combination of deadlines and partying, and I ended up just providing reactions, every other day, to Kelley's superb words...

which was probably the best thing in the end. I'm using monoprint: printer's ink rolled onto perspex then slap a piece of paper down and trace through the back. Even if you don't have an oil-based ink you can try it yourself with oil, acrylic or poster paint.

And you can see - and read - the whole thing here at the excellent Junket magazine.

 

Five-Minute Academy - How to Get Old

Life used to begin at 40 but if 40 is the new 20 do you have to wait an extra 20 years before claiming the youthful pleasures now enjoyed by the old? And how do you know when you're old nowadays? This guide may help.

(first published in Metro, UK)

Fig 1: check your person for the first signs of ageing: wrinkles, reading specs, The Radio Times.

Fig 2: Counter-symbols. Once thought of as old, if you own any of these, you are actually young: Roberts radio, wellies, tweed jacket, pipe, slippers. Extra youth points for leather elbow patches. Remember, 20 is the new 40.

Fig 3: Warning: if you own any of these you might think you're young but in fact you're old: leather jacket, motorbike*, new technology**. 60 is the new 30.

Fig 4: The final test: do policemen look younger? How about that David Cameron?

Fig 5a: You're old. Grow old gracefully. Stop combing over. Get an lay-z-boy. 35 is the new 70.

Fig 5b: You're old. Decide to do something about it.  You can start by not shouting at the telly. 50 is the new 50 (sorry).

*The current average age for UK bikers is 47 (this is some kind of govt statistic but I can't track down the source so it will have to remain an unreliable assertion).

** esp. Kindle

 

Guardian Dickens Walk 4 - Heart of the City

I don't know whether anyone else is beginning to feel that

"Every idiot who goes about with 'Dickens bicentenary' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!"

But if you've not yet arrived at that stage, here's my fourth and final Dickens walk for The Guardian: Dickens' City of London.

Should you like to take this, or any of the other walks I've illustrated, you can download and print hi-res versions here and be guided by The Guardian's accompanying free audio-tour. 

Guardian Dickens Walk 3 - David Copperfield

I've been working for The Guardian drawing walks to celebrate the Dickens centenary. 

This is the third, based on David Copperfield's journey through the West End.

The versions you can see here are low-res but for downloadable and printable versions, plus a free audio tour, go here. 

 

Five Minute Academy - How to Detox

Detox: vb – to rid the body of toxins through changes in diet; n – period of detoxing.

Fig 1: Identify foods you want to cut from your diet (clue: these will be all the ones you like). Replace them with foods you like a lot less.

Fig 2: Many detox plans are based around a liquid diet. NB this is not the same liquid diet you have been following over the holidays.

Fig 3: Make sure you have a clear mental and physical space to detox: this is a good excuse for getting rid of any house guests still hanging around after New Year.

Fig 4: Get into the the right frame of mind. Recordings of pan pipes or whale music will help with this – and will also help with Fig 3. Postpone normal activities: relax.

Fig 5: Brush skin with a dry brush. Apparently this helps the circulation and also gives you something to do when relaxing gets too boring. Invest in a special brush to do this. Do not use a hairbrush, toothbrush or floorbrush.

Fig 6: optional extras: removal of mercury fillings, hydrotherapy (aka showers), colonic irrigation...