Heartbeats by The Knife

Irresistable.

Zen Habits

I have to admit, GTD (Getting Things Done) is very compulsive. For once, an addiction that has its pluses.

There is one site which I use over and over again. Zenhabits puts up a new post everyday. Mondays are for Productivity and Organisational tips, Tuesdays for Financial tips, Wednesday for Simplicity tips, Thursdays for Happiness tips, and Fridays for Health tips. You're bound to find at least one tip useful.

The guy who runs it, Leo Babauta, has six children, holds down a full-time job and blogs regularly. Quite a feat to pull off. He makes the rest of us look all sloth and laziness.

Teardrop

Listening to Massive Attack's 'Teardrop' never fails to take me back to my teenage years in the '90s. Along with a few other tunes (which is another story altogether). I initially thought the video's by Chris Cunningham, but the director is actually Walter Stern.


The reason for bringing up 'Teardrop' at this point in time is that it's been given the acoustic make-over by Newton Faulkner. Very moving.

Lost At E Minor

My piece on Elizabeth McGrath (previously blogged about right here at magpiestyle) is published on Lost At E Minor. It's a proper piece - an interview with Liz - as opposed to my on-a-whim posting.

There will be more from me at Lost At E Minor. It's a fantastic source of art, music, illustrations etc by the way, for those of you who don't already know.

Web Addiction

The past few days were spent coming to terms with my Internet addiction. Normal behaviour is leaving it to run in the background while actual work is going on in Microsoft Word, then clicking over to check on emails or catch up on news and blog updates. Every task gets done in twice the time it should take. Multi-tasking, the buzz word in '90s, is now a sickness that everyone should do get rid of. Single tasking is a lot more efficient.

To help overcome my addiction, pageaddict.com was installed. Lo and behold, my Internet usage was not as bad as I'd imagined. The habit of keeping the browser open in the background is gone, gone, gone.

The sites chalking up the stats on pageaddict.com are:

• Facebook
• WWD
• The Guardian
• The Financial Times
• BBC News
• Yahoo mail
• Google

Gothic Liz

Elizabeth McGrath's toys are not for children. Grown-ups who still have a penchant for Barbie dolls also need not bother.

Her gothic illustrations, complete with dripping blood, is influenced by her Roman Catholic upbringing. Like Edward Gorey on speed - incidentally, she also cites Gorey as inspiration for her work. She expresses her dark art through various mediums and materials like dolls and paintings.

See: www.elizabethmcgrath.com

Emap Breakdown

Emap is falling to pieces. Both metaphorically and literally. In the last two weeks, their Republic of Ireland radio station was sold off and 50% of their music TV business to Channel 4. Brands like Heat, Grazia and Pop are what makes Emap famous but Emaps' cash cow is their B2B division, which includes WGSN and Retail Week. Private equity firm Apax is in talks with the company, pricing the B2B business at £1.3billion. A demerger of Emap is certain (or according to Emap, a "strategic review"). It's a question of who will be snapping up the constituent parts.

My interest is in the consumer titles. At a time when magazines are still trying to define themselves in an environment of online magazines, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook and to retain readers' interest within a magazine's glossy pages, I wonder who will be the new owner of Grazia.

See: www.emap.com