But that is not to say that the week just gone has been uneventful. The news of my departure from Penguin after 13 top years has spread internally and externally and the list of stuff I have to take care of before I move is developing scarily. There will be a post about Penguin, publishing and 'the change' nearer the hour of departure. I'm still getting my head round the fact that in a few weeks I'll be doing a different job in a different office in a whole different industry.

I'm hoping to leave Penguin and publishing by delivering something audacious and have been working hard with some smart and nice folk to ensure that it will get done in time. Not sure that I will have succeeded in reinventing the book before I head off for Ad-land, but hopefully over the last few years I'll have left behind some work that in the words of a literary agent I pitched to this week, is remembered as being 'a bit mad and a bit clever'. That's good enough, no?

So it was great to discover Present & Correct - a delicious online stationery emporium. I could have bought everything but restricted myself to a modest first order of four notepads which arrived today. Lovely stuff.

Equally exciting was the arrival of Art Space Tokyo, the beautifully designed guide to the hidden galleries of Tokyo. I became aware of this book after reading Craig mod's provocations on books and reading in the digital age. Craig then used Kickstarter to fund a new print run of Art Space Tokyo and while I am delighted with the print edition I am really looking forward to getting hold of the ipad version and seeing Craig's ideas put into practice. Flicking through this book has done nothing to quash my desire to visit Tokyo. I need to make it so.

I haven't done one of these for a fortnight because there has been all sorts going on and I wasn't sure what I could or should say. Well now, progress has been made and big changes are in the offing and I'm still not sure what I can or should say. Something is ending and something new is starting and I'm excited and positive and welcome the newness.

Symbolically, there have been physical transformations as well;

8 July 13.428 July 14.15Apart from 'the stuff' there's been plenty of meetings, most of them pretty positive. There's been pizza and wine in the garden. There's been Hackney Highballs at Shoreditch House with @benterrett. There have been more bus rides, plenty of barbecue and lots and lots of sun.

In the past I have received @ replies or follows from places I have tweeted about - Hampstead Heath has, I believe an active account which monitors the tweetesphere as does 'Mallorca_hotels'. But I've never tweeted about Westfield - the closest I have been is driving past today - I got within about 100m of the place. I did use Foursquare when I got to Hurley, about 20 miles away from Westfield.

Now my phone does know where I am and I let Google latitude broadcast this, but can this have triggered Westfield's follow? I don't know, and I don't know whether to be scared or impressed or both, or neither

graphing idea

Some colleagues and I attended a workshop about digital reading with some smart people who asked us some smart questions. My colleagues and I argued about the smart questions and our (not so) smart answers for the cab ride back to the office and for 30minutes afterwards. We couldn't agree on the business we are in, which seems to be an interesting place to begin a new project from. As Frank Chimero says, quoted by Russell Davies, "We break stuff before we know what replaces it and we invent things before we know what they are for."

The idea-so-good-it-should-be-patented has been approved by everyone who matters apart from the one person who really matters which will or will not happen in the next couple of days and then, hopefully, it will have to be made, which is of course the good bit. After what feels like weeks of slog, immersed in the hard details of tough projects, it feels nice to have had a good, simple creative idea which has a good chance of actually happening.

Caledonian Road, before Ger 4 Eng 1

Other than that, it has been good and hot, the world cup has been on (but for you Fabio, the war is over), Adam and Joe are temporarily back on the radio and some running, swimming, barbecuing, drinking and playing has been done. A good week, with the hope of an even better one upcoming.

So far I have been quite unambitious with my graph paper stockpile - I drew a chart with some curved bits in it. But without graph paper, and without Toru Iwatani, the world might be a completely different place and from now on I'll be keeping a printable graph paper texture, or an actual pad of the stuff, close to hand.

(via Laughing Squid and Control Online)

Update - printable graph paper from Doane Paper can be downloaded here and a variety of printables for 'visual designers, interaction designers or information architects' can be found here. Happy graphing.

On the bus I get to sit and read, either on my iPad or a real, dead-tree paper book. I get to look out of the window and see the city from the second story. I get a few extra minutes of 'me time'. I feel like I am indulging myself and other than being tipsy in a taxi it has to be the best way to see a city.

Between 5.45 and 6.15 and between the Strand and Caledonian Road I took 100 or so photos and put them together in this fillum with a classic happy london track. If anyone knows of any good public transport related music, let me know.

Strangely though, this weekend three applications for early access that I had applied for a while back were finally approved and now I've got to remember why I wanted to test them in the first place. In the case of Glitch this is pretty easy - in this series of articles this game, from flickr founder Stewart Butterfield, looks like it might be exactly my kind of thing. Quirky and social works for me.

Gamestar Mechanic is for my son - if he is so keen on gaming, let him try and make one himself. I have no illusions about him becoming a soccer player and eventually buying me a mock-tudor mansion in Hertfordshire and a car with a vanity Dad1 number plate. Perhaps he could become a game designer and buy me an apartment in Brasilia instead. This beta should open up in the next few weeks, just in time for the summer holidays.

And lastly there is Empire Avenue, the most curious of the three sites. Describing itself as "a revolutionary online influence stock exchange combined with an advertising platform that allows individuals and organizations to convert their online influence and reach into revenue" it seems to be a stock market for social media mavens. 

As can be seen, Acme Ideas now has a presence on the avenue of dreams and gratifyingly people seem to be taking a chance on us. While Acme has never been and never will be a social media consultant we shall see whether Acme Ideas gains any traction in the market of influence.

The rides were fantastic ("Xtreme" according to a nearby seven-year-old), the 'cast' incredibly helpful, the attention to detail amazing. But I am not so sure about the presence of magic. Perhaps I am too old, perhaps my expectations were too high, but I think I expected things to be a little more, well, trippy. A little more like this perhaps...

(for a fuller view of the Disney experience Adrian Hon recently spent a week on a Disney Cruise - his thoughts are here and pictures here)

OK i guess if you have a blog and you have just bought an iPad you are remiss in your duties if you don't throw together a first impressions post.

At work I've been somewhat grandiosely (and prematurely considering that prior to yesterday I'd had about 8minutes experience with one) as a new class of computer, The *Family* Computer. I picked one up yesterday (32GB, wifi only) and I think *I* am going to like it - but hell, when don't I like shiny shiny new Apple products. 

So now I have one I am taking it, with my family, away for a week to put them both through their paces and to see whether I've spent the last three months talking nonsense in the office..

I've loaded it up with family entertainment - some films and tv programmes, lots of music and some games (my wife, who is not a gamer, is already hooked on Drop7).

We'll be back in a week or so and a full report will follow then.

Jeremy

PS this post was written using squarespace's iPhone app which is just about useful. Sorry about the big picture, and also links have been added on an old fashioned laptop computing device. Decidedly non-magically.