10:10 Everybody's at it

In London tomorrow Tuesday 1 September? Head down to the Tate Modern, 4-7pm, for the latest Age of Stupid initiative.

Summer in the Cinema/Cinema in the Summer

What better way to celebrate the dregs of a summer that never quite made it than a lingering hymn to outdoor cinema, I thought. There's no pleasure quite like it - though my experiences are almost exclusively bound up with being abroad and in holiday mode. It's something to do with being caught up with what's up there on the screen while remaining aware of your surroundings at the same time, light fading, cricket noises, smells, pulses of hot air. And like Flicks in the Sticks there's always an interval for refreshments. Just love it, I'll go see anything, anything at all.

So here's Cine-Paris, a rooftop summer cinema in the centre of Athens (ramparts of the Acropolis just over the wall). More pics on our Flickr stream.



Nearer to home, Garway Flicks promoter, Magaret Oke recalls one memorable August screening of Shrek on Garway Common at the close of the village fete. The film was projected on the side of a lorry with seating on straw bales. "Wonderful atmosphere" unlikely to be repeated because of health and safety and the vagaries of the weather.

Regular outdoor screenings in this country include the Film4 Summer Screen events July/August at Somerset House. Plus this very Bank Holiday weekend, the Sunset Screenings on Grantchester Meadows in Cambridge, a prelude to the Cambridge Film Festival towards the end of September, Mamma Mia! on Saturday 30th and on Sunday 31, intriguingly, Big River Man starring endurance swimmer, Martin Strel, who'll be present (swimming?).

A long way to go, though my obsession has led me to the far reaches of the Open Air Cinema Blog where the possibilities are seemingly limitless...

Catch up with the Climate Camp!

You can keep up with what's happening via tweets and pictures at the Climate Camp in London at twitter.com/ClimateCamp

The police demanded to know the location of the Camp for Climate Action 2009 - this is their response. Images by kind permission of: Amy Scaife, Amelia Gregory, Mike Russell and Mike Langridge at visionon.tv

Festival Feedback courtesy of Wordle

Using the slowest of summer months to embrace all that new technology has to offer, here is the audience feedback 'cloud' that I generated using Wordle and good fun it was too. Just fed in the text from our audience questionnaires, most frequently occurring words come out BIG and so on down. So if you click on the thumbnail to access a larger image and scrutinise carefully you'll find the more critical bits...

image by http://www.wordle.net/

Apologies in advance if the larger image doesn't display for you. It will be because your browser is not set to cope with the Java applet that generates the image. My own computer was too old to handle it so had to borrow another!

Man on Wire plus extras on BBC iPlayer this week

Following its screening on BBC2 on Sunday 2 August this fantastic documentary is available to view this week on BBC iPlayer here. Also available via this link: Mark Kermode/Culture Show interview of the charismatic Philippe Petit, Petit's Desert Island Discs and an R4 Today: Life on the Line - feature about Man on Wire. All highly recommended - especially if August torpor has got to you.