The Weekender – crash test dummies, otters and Vladimir Putin – a play

Date
7 September 2012

This weekend sees the official end of our Olympic summer here in London and we’re not going to lie, it’s been quality. London became an unrecognisable bastion of smiley, happy people and we all cavorted around the city in a newfound spirit of fraternity and respect. Will it last? Will it heck. But The Weekender is humbly putting itself forward to take up the baton (little athletics metaphor there) and become the focus of worldwide attention until Rio 2016. Not out of an inflated sense of self importance (perish the thought) but out of duty. Think about it world, yeah? Let’s delve…

Best of the site

This week we rubbed our eyes like disbelievers at the brilliance of Siggi Eggertsson’s new illustrations, we were muchos impressed by This is Real Art’s beautiful packaging-cum-publication and we immersed ourselves in the weird and wonderful mind of Eric Yahnker.

Best of Best of the Web

We love a list we do, and this nice piece on the Foam site helped explain why, we marvelled at the design nous behind the Paralympians
and we liked the look of a book that goes green when you touch it over on Dezeen.

Best of the Rest

Elsewhere Colossal had the story of ingenious pothole portraits as a means of shaking politicians into action, Rick Poynor wrote a paean to crash test dummies
on Design Observer and this, well, confused us..

Tweet of the Week

“When a recruiter asks for a ninja, arrange an interview and don’t go. When they ask where you were, say ‘Exactly!’”

Good advice from @flipzagger for any jobhunters out there (NB may be terrible advice)

Reverie-crashing of the week

It must be hard being Brian Sewell, the nation’s favourite melifluous-voiced art critic. There’s a constant pressure to keep your crown, to maintain your brand of irritable sideswiping and to see off young whippersnappers intent on toppling you. In fact so difficult is it that sometimes poor Brian drifts off into his own thoughts and kind of forgets where he is. This must be what happened during this introduction, which is, um, odd…

How to have a viral hit advice of the week (part 1)

Ok so we need otters. And they should be having a nap! And holding paws! Job done…

Playlist of the week

If you’re like me you might sometimes get a bit bored on Spotify and start searching out playlists with the most improbable names “Songs to Eat Cod To” and that sort of thing, help is at hand. Michael K Williams, aka Omar from The Wire has revealed the songs he used for the character. If you come at The Weekender, you better not miss…

Presidential gesture of the week

IT”S A COLD DAY IN THE KREMLIN AND THE WIND RATTLES THE ORNATE WINDOWS. VLADIMIR PUTIN SITS AT HIS DESK LOOKING MOROSE WHILE A LACKEY HOVERS AWKWARDLY AT HIS SHOULDER.

Putin: I am sad Mantorov. My heart is heavy. After The Pussy Riot fiasco my people have fallen out of love with me.
Mantorov the Lackey: Why are we speaking in English?
Putin: That’s not important right now. But what will we do about my ratings?
Mantorov the Lackey: We must do something bold and brave. Something nobody would expect, something that if an art and design editorial team in east London read about it they’d assume it was a joke.
Putin: What an odd thing to say Mantorov. You are strange. But what can we do? What?
Mantorov: Don’t you worry VP. I’ve got just the thing….

CUT TO PUTIN IN A HANGGLIDER FLYING WITH SIBERIAN CRANES WITH TEARS OF JOY ROLLING DOWN HIS USALLY DOUR FACE.

Putin (shouting): Mantorov! You’re a genius! This will look amazing!

How to have a viral hit advice of the week (part 2)

People like Fifty Shades of Grey! People like Morgan Freeman! You KNOW what I’m thinking…

Photographic breakthroughs of the week

In the red corner, a 360 degree interactive panorama of Neil Armstrong’s moon shots. In the blue corner, The Beatles’ Abbey Road cover recreated as a full English breakfast. You decide….

Does anyone know how we can get The Weekender logo suspended from Tower Bridge?

Share Article

Further Info

About the Author

Rob Alderson

Rob joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in July 2011 before becoming Editor-in-Chief and working across all editorial projects including itsnicethat.com, Printed Pages, Here and Nicer Tuesdays. Rob left It’s Nice That in June 2015.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.