Design Inspiration

Coffin Beds and Penny Sleeps: An Exhibition on Victorian Homelessness

Coffin Beds and Penny Sleeps: An Exhibition on Victorian Homelessness Allison Meier, May 5, 2015 Taken from: http://hyperallergic.com/200035/coffin-beds-and-penny-sleeps-an-exhibition-on-victorian-homelessness/ In 1897, a journalist visiting an East London homeless shelter described a restless night: “Ranged in banks along the floor, narrow passages between each row, and in the gallery were 300 men asleep or half asleep, a few talking. The bunks not unlike coffins and in the dim light the men in them looked like corpses arranged for identification after some great disaster.” Over a century later, the voices of those taking refuge in the tomb-like beds are difficult to resuscitate, their experiences only echoed in the recordings of outsiders. Homes of the Homeless: Seeking Shelter in Victorian London , opened in March at the Geffrye Museum of the Home in London, draws on paintings, photographs, newspaper reports, diaries, and the scarce personal objects left behind to recover th...

The Chinese in Britain: personal tales of a journey to a new land

http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1622895/chinese-britain-charting-diasporas-journey-new-land The Chinese in Britain: personal tales of a journey to a new land Today, 400,000 ethnic Chinese call Britain home. But their 325-year history of labour contributions to the UK, from being 17th-century seamen to establishing London's now-famous Soho Chinatown, have often gone undocumented and unnoticed. Some of… BY ANNA CHEN 25 OCT 2014 Comments Gerrard Street, in London’s Chinatown, on July 14, 1969. In 1685, Jesuit priest Michael Alphonsius Shen Fu-tsung became the first Chinese person on record to visit Britain. While he was in the country, he went to work cataloguing Chinese-language books for the Bodleian Library, in Oxford. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Chinese sailors, chefs, students, doctors, laundrymen (and women), artisans and others have contributed much to British society, although this has gone largely undocumented...

Kids and iPads

So I have not long come back from a meeting with my daughter's teachers. She has not been happy and has had problems on-and-off with one girl in particular; a troubled girl who has been projecting her own unhappiness onto Cady. A recent spout in school had continued on iMessage as soon as the girls returned home. Texts in angry CAPS, back and forth. It got so heated and personal that Cady came to me in tears and I was made aware of the situation. I eventually rang the girl's mother; a warm, lovely and hardworking professional. She in turn rang the school to inform them of some concerning issues with the use of social media and text messaging. I hasten to add that our daughters are 9 years old. Yes I am responsible for giving my daughter access to the iPad. I tried to delay it for as long as possible but the majority of peers in her class had their own and I was repeatedly hounded. Initially she used it for games as I refused her an Instagram account until again, peer pressu...

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